As we celebrated International Women’s Day yesterday, I was struck by two things:
- The countless ways women are demonstrating leadership, courage and moral vision today.
- How much resistance women are still getting from men in power.
And I couldn’t help but think: someone really owes you an apology.
Hell, might as well start with me.
So to the women and girls of all ages out there, I can’t say I’m sorry enough.
For men.
For our utter, collective bullshit.
For the unfortunately large number of us who are making our entire gender look like plutonium-grade assholes lately.
For the way we’re acting in the highest levels of government.
I’m sorry that the women’s protest march days after the inauguration was ridiculed for only being about “wearing pink pussy hats,” when your message was so much larger, so much more all-encompassing, and so much more philosophical and conscientious.
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For the fact that somehow, in 2017, we’re still behaving like we’re in 1917.
I’m sorry that we have a “president” who brags about groping women because he’s a “star.”
That this same president has made a lifelong habit out of treating women like second class citizens, including his own daughter and wife.
That it’s still a question in 2017 whether or not you should have the right to choose.
I’m sorry that the women’s protest march days after the inauguration was ridiculed for only being about “wearing pink pussy hats,” when your message was so much larger, so much more all-encompassing, and so much more philosophical and conscientious.
I’m sorry that Mitch McConnell has the audacity and Male Entitlement Disorder™ (let’s just call it MSD for short, shall we?) to order Senator Warren to take a seat when she’s courageously voicing her conscience to congress.
I’m sorry that we live in an era where attorney general Sally Yates is fired for not only acting from moral principle, but for upholding the constitution (and at the request of Jeff Sessions a year earlier) simply because we have a “president” who doesn’t respect checks and balances, nor a woman’s point of view.
I’m sorry that we have a “president” who only comes to the rescue of a woman when it’s his daughter’s clothing line’s success that’s at stake. (A clothing line produced in China, Indonesia, and Vietnam, not America, let’s be clear.)
And for the staggering lack of leadership in government from men to come to the side of women fighting for integrity and human rights. (Bernie Sanders & a few others excepted, thankfully.)
And I’m sorry that there will probably be a handful of Male Rights Activists (MRA’s, they call themselves) who will protest this article in the comments below and say they’re the ones being discriminated against these days. Let me add 20 more apologies just for them alone.
I’m sorry we don’t have more men of conscience and compassion in positions of power.
I’m sorry we don’t have our own Justin Trudeau here in the US.
But I believe it is slowly changing.
You have inspired me, and so many more millions of men, with your actions since this apocryphal election has taken place, but sadly we still have the fearful millions of men who mocked you, resented you and tried to shame you to contest with.
Yet as awful as many of the most powerful among us men are right now, know that we, too, have a resistance. We are standing with you, even if we can’t always be right beside you. We are trying to slowly reason with the men amongst us, urging them to consider the radical notion that women are people too, and should be entitled to the same rights, respect, choices and freedoms they themselves expect to be given.
We’re working on it.
The good news is, most of these guys–including our “president”–are well over 70 years old. They won’t be around a whole lot longer. And when they pass, so will their dying, decaying, antiquated beliefs.
Because most of the men you’re actually surrounded by these days are of much higher caliber. Know that countless numbers of us voted for Hillary, and were voting for Bernie before that.
Know that this is temporary. It might not be over as soon as we all want, but the good men are out here. We just don’t have the reigns to the kingdom.
Yet.
But we’re gaining steam every day.
Here’s to a day when this relapse in values has been rectified, and you finally have the support from us you deserve.
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Photo: Getty Images
How dare you presume to speak for me without my expressed consent. An extremely pompous choice.
Did any one else notice that one of the organizer’s, Rasmea Yousef Odeh, of the women’s strike, one of the events to mark international women’s day. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4261654/Illegal-immigrant-terrorist-organize-women-s-strike.html “Rasmea Yousef Odeh is one of 8 calling for a US-wide female strike on March 8 Odeh was convicted in 1970 of planting four bombs in Israel; two detonated One killed two men, 21 and 22, in a shop; another damaged the British Consulate” http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4261654/Illegal-immigrant-terrorist-organize-women-s-strike.html This on the heels of Donna Hylton, one of the women’s march organizers. “Convicted felon Donna Hylton, who once was a member of a group that kidnapped, raped… Read more »
To strike for what? What right or freedom is it that women do not have in this country, or do not have above men? I’m still trying to figure that out. I’m guessing there are a myriad of women out there scratching their heads also.
Either way, women’s day is a day to celebrate the accomplishments of women, the nobility of good women, not a day to be stolen for either political ranting, or to attack and further besmirch men.
Seems those types care not who they step on.
And I’m sorry that there will probably be a handful of Male Rights Activists (MRA’s, they call themselves) who will protest this article in the comments below and say they’re the ones being discriminated against these days. Let me add 20 more apologies just for them alone.
So are there any actual MRAs here or are you just calling them that because they don’t agree with you?
No reasoning, Danny…and if you critique, as I did, you will be censored. Ats how this sort of hate manifests itself in our culture.
I remember reading about this.
http://www.chicksontheright.com/men-in-australia-protest-for-mens-rights-on-international-womens-day/
I hope the timing was an accident. Women should have their day. I think it’s necessary. I think it’s a bit humorous that it happened on international women’s day because that’s the disdain much of the “progressive” main stream gives international men’s day. Still two wrongs don’t make a right and hopefully next year they pick the day after or before.
Not signing on to the idea of collective guilt.
Sorry, not sorry.
Second that.
You don’t speak for me. It’s creepy that you think you do.
I’ve read that reply three times, Alan, and laughed my arse off every time.
Well put.
I wrote once before that guilt is a very personal, and a very intimate emotion. Its relevance is rooted in personal conscience, personal action, (or inaction) and personal culpability & responsibility. And all of this is built on a foundation of personal autonomy; not a vague collective one, not an external, extended one. Saying ‘you personally didn’t do this or that, but you are part of the group that did’ conflates the real limitations in personal efficacy -limitations in personal power, ability, persuasion, and authority- with tacit approval (or just dismisses the notion of moral, personal objection as contradictory or… Read more »
Those who act abhorrently (whatever the scale) need to apologize and account for it very specifically & individually, not in an aggregate or diffused way (regardless of, not simply because of their gender or their collective gendered affiliation). Gender is the broadest, the most diffuse, the least uniform of all demographic categorizations. One is at liberty to apologize for whatever transgressions they deem themselves responsible or culpable for. But a person is not entitled to endorsement, validation, or exemption from contradiction when they essnetialize: Reductionism, and absolutizing what is not absolute is not to be lauded or overlooked or easily… Read more »
The OP seems to be under the impression that because one shares a gender (rather than, say, a nationality, a class, a race, an ethnicity, a religion, an ideology or an age group) with someone, that thus there one can speak collectively and definitively for them; judiciously condemning that which is to be condemned, assigning culpability where it is to be assigned. It is the errant notion that one can reproach wholesale, with the unchallengeable weight of collective authority and zeal; or that one can definitively, objectively, and immutably understand all the different constituent parts of a collective, simply by… Read more »
There is something that rings quite hollow and self serving and unseemly by stiltedly apologizing for someone else (or using someone else as a proxy) on a collective scale: When one encroaches on another person’s individual transgressions and tries to attribute or appropriate them collectively, then they are committing an act of blatant misrepresentation. That’s not empathy, it’s not altruism, it’s not justice or equanimity; it’s vanity and condescension in a slightly more saintly garb. It is not just our individual accomplishments, but also our individual shortcomings and transgressions that define us. All those things which do merit apology may… Read more »
I would beg to point out that any reasonable person is right to balk when someone is saying that they (individually or collectively) have (overtly or tacitly) endorsed something they didn’t endorse, fomented something they didn’t foment, or transgressed where they did not transgress.
Collective guilt and collective apologies commit a cardinal sin, which, I believe, is inaccuracy, obfuscation, and imprecision. They omit or obscure nuance, they obliterate meaning, and, fundamentally, they’re not judicious or equitable- which is the entire bar that they need to clear; the entire purpose of justice & redress. To quote Cicero: Nothing is generous, if it is not also, just.
We’re so sorry!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI6C7L66zq8
I won’t deny it- I’m confused by that.
Ah. Helps if you get the video images AND the lyrics.
Well that was pretty pathetic.
You don’t represent me, the way I think, what I believe, accordingly, you have no right to speak for me much less apologize on my behalf.
Great apology. Here’s another.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AsP0SLc_1I
You are a white male, and I will assume a cis white male at that, and an American too. If you’re gonna play identity politics, there is a LONG list of people you need to apologize to, buddy. So why just single out women? You need get busy, and stay busy. There is a LOT of history for you to repent of. There’s really no time to be drinking bourbon and chasing “girls” (It’s not “International Girls Day”) based on all the evil done by people with your particular identity over 2 millennia or more. And please, don’t worry about… Read more »
You need to study history, there Ivan.
Mark, I would dissuade you from this course if I could, but if you’re bound and determined to issue apologies (or indictments) on a collective scale I would submit the following thought exercise: ‘We, the ‘non-Americans’ (otherwise known as the rest of the world) would graciously appreciate your forthcoming apology for the elections of Donald Trump and Lindsey Graham. Keep in mind, we don’t make the distinction that you live in New York and New York (as a state) voted overwhelming for Clinton and against Trump. We don’t make the distinction that Lindsey Graham doesn’t even directly represent New York… Read more »
“I’m sorry that we have a “president” who only comes to the rescue of a woman when it’s his daughter’s clothing line’s success that’s at stake. (A clothing line produced in China, Indonesia, and Vietnam, not America, let’s be clear.)” A clothing line that is made for women and bought by women, but the women’s march were always about white, middle or upper class, women anyway not the women who make the clothes. “And for the staggering lack of leadership in government from men to come to the side of women fighting for integrity and human rights. (Bernie Sanders &… Read more »
I’d like to get a comment in too, but it seems like everything that’s not inflammatory or dismissible enough now is getting moderated out too.
Mark, I think it is disconcerting (and, I believe, somewhat incredulous or disingenuous) that you seem to consider Trudeau (a ‘positive’ representation of ‘masculinity’) as being somehow therefore being less representative of ‘typical’ masculinity (which, apparently seems to be in need of ‘apologizing’ to women) than, say, Donald Trump or Lindsay Graham, or even Chesley Sullenberger. You seem to be apologizing collectively (but not uniformly, and not impartially). You’re apologizing collectively for someone (like Trudeau) who doesn’t need to offer or rally under the banner of your extended apology; not individually, not collectively. When you encroach on a person’s individual… Read more »
Well we found out where feminists get this who;e concept of male entitlement, they’re the most entitled people in the world (next to white women of course). Imagine apologizing on behalf of the entire male gender. Wow, how entitled is that? “I’m sorry that Mitch McConnell has the audacity and Male Entitlement Disorder™ (let’s just call it MSD for short, shall we?) to order Senator Warren to take a seat when she’s courageously voicing her conscience to congress.” I’m sorry the OP doesn’t think that women are equal enough to men to have to follow the rules or smart enough… Read more »
There are a lot of chumpskis who share this sort of “let me apologize on behalf of my gender, race, religion etc.
I’m not buying it.
If and when I do something wrong, in accord with my own conscience, I am more than happy to apologize.
But that’s it.
I would tend to agree with that general trajectory: In so many words, I think the OP is off base here: The right to apologize for someone (and/or to chastise someone) on a collective scale ends abruptly where their autonomy begins. By extension, I think the OP is infringing on and invalidating that autonomy; by implying that gender is the preeminent, overarching metric or divisor in this, for which people either act, or are acted upon. I would have said more, but it’s still stuck In moderation.
@ Mostly_123
I think you could definitely feel sorry for a person or group. Apologizing for an entire group especially one as large as half the population of the world is both presumptive and hollow. You don’t have the standing to represent half the population of the world and if many of these men aren’t actually sorry then the apology is hollow.
I will never apologize to women. I’ve been abused by too many. They have no compassion to me so they do not deserve my compassion.