Noah Brand unpacks some of the truths, and the misapprehensions, behind a popular Twitter meme about gender stereotypes.
—
Yesterday, half of Twitter lit up with a hashtag called #thingspeopledontsayaboutmen. It was about inverting all the weird, creepy, or inappropriate things that people too often say to or about women, and point out how strange they’d sound if the genders were reversed.
The results were illuminating, in a few different ways.
Obviously, this meme is about microaggressions, those little bits of dehumanization, of mockery, the tiny little stereotypes and assumptions that add up over a day, whose damage isn’t measured in dramatic breakdowns but in a kind of endless emotional erosion. And it unpacks a lot of them that women deal with, but men fortunately avoid.
The simplest and the best. Being female is still, in most circles, a specific marker of being not-normal. People will ask what it’s like for a company to have a woman as CEO; nobody will ever ask what it’s like to have a man as CEO, because that’s just normal, right?
Nice one here from Britain; one of those casual characterizations about someone that people too easily take for granted, without thinking about it.
This is another one us guys usually get to escape: the idea that our sexuality is our defining characteristic, and we can’t be taken seriously because of that. Yeah, I’m okay with missing out on that one.
I have seen this puff piece or reference more times than I can count, and never once has it been about men. Despite the fact that honestly, it really should be.
Men do juggle these things… they just don’t get asked about them as though it’s supposed to be the centerpiece of their existence.
♦◊♦
However, there’s some of these that betray a blinkered or confused idea of what men’s lives are like. Some of these are things people say about men, and it’s dismaying that too many women don’t know that.
This one… yeah, men get that sometimes. It’s more common that we’ll have our masculinity questioned if we DO order a salad, but sometimes when a guy’s fat, he’ll get the same concern-trolling bullshit that fat women know all too well.
I don’t even know what to say to this one. I’d suggest that the author Google the word “bandom” but I think it would actually be simpler to Google the words “Elvis Presley”. Among many others.
I’ve actually heard this one personally. Indeed, there’s too many situations where sexual aggression by women is ignored or laughed off, even when it’s egregious and inappropriate, because hey, that couldn’t possibly be what it looks like, everyone knows women just don’t do that kind of thing, right?
I’d also suggest, and have suggested before, that there’s a wealth of microaggressions men experience that women get to miss out on. Nobody says “Turn in your woman card” or “Woman up” or “”You don’t make enough money to be dating right now” or too many other lousy little things. I’ve got no interest in trying to keep score or argue over whose microaggressions are biggest or worst; that’s unproductive and misses the point. Nobody should have to be ground down by all these little things, and arguing about how many or how little doesn’t move us toward that goal.
The one that got me, though, was this one:
Yeah. People don’t say that a lot. And I think a lot of us wish they would, because it’d be nice to hear once in a while.
“Man writer… Man doctor… Man lawyer… Man prime minister…..Man president….”
This one really makes me blow steam through my ears….
With my young-looking, petite Asian appearance, many people are shocked when they find out what I do for a living….I find it is less enervating to just let the ignorant people have their stupid words flow and then later calmly and quietly point out the contradictions or abuse contained in their words….somehow it is socially and professionally smoother to play the serene, smiling Buddha- like Asian flower (it’s more acceptable) and later assert myself later when they least expect it…
How about being mentioned in death reports during major disasters OR when talking about parents or if a man wants to quit his job to “find himself” he is thought of as a deadbeat.
Sorry, are we talking about Twitter here? It strikes me as so much heaviness over a hashtag.
I was looking at some of the entired in that tag yesterday and honestly about the first 4 I saw were things I have been told (queue the, “But we aren’t saying those things are said about men” excuses). It seems like these tags, tumblrs, twitters, and memes are now getting to the point of blurring the situations and issues for the sake of trying to make a point (or at worst for the sake of pissing someone off). Just as long as we acknowledge that men can be part of the microaggressions problem women face and women can be… Read more »
I just get angry when I want to be part of a further conversation on equality (or some degree of outlying territory) and I’m discounted as “the majority” or “the oppressor” or “the patriarchy.”
If I can’t be part of the solution, I have to then, by definition, continue to be part of the problem, and if given enough push-back when I try to be part of the solution, I’m actually INCLINED to be part of the problem.
I just get angry when I want to be part of a further conversation on equality (or some degree of outlying territory) and I’m discounted as “the majority” or “the oppressor” or “the patriarchy.” Yes and after being pushed away like that it becomes SOOOOOOOO easy to give in to the temptation to give in to the anger, thus becoming part of the problem. If I can’t be part of the solution, I have to then, by definition, continue to be part of the problem, and if given enough push-back when I try to be part of the solution, I’m… Read more »
Who said you can’t be a part of the solution, Zach?
Well, it’s been better more recently, especially, surprisingly enough, on places like Twitter. But I remember in college (UC Santa Cruz), a straight, white male was made to feel like he had blood on his hands constantly. And unless you were 100% on the side of whatever rally was that week, you could expect a fight. There was no thoughtful discussion on issues. There were protests. I remember one particular class where we were asked to basically define our culture. And being at the multicultural college, the answer was, of course, never “American”. The first few white kids actually APOLOGIZED… Read more »
Well said, Zach. I think enough of us here have encountered the people who think being part of an oppressed group, or arguing for an oppressed group, absolves them of basic decency and respect for others.
Just as long as we acknowledge that men can be part of the microaggressions problem women face and women can be part of the one men face. Too often, these collective Twitter hashtag trends bring up a lot of the problems, but then simply leave one gender angry that they’ve been slighted, and the other on the defense for being suddenly called-out. And have I been told that maybe I should just have a salad? Yes. Have I been groped by someone (okay, not a stranger) just because a woman explicitly said that it’s a known fact that all men… Read more »