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Yes. It was hard; really hard. It took me until 40 something to truly own my sexism.
I was one of those guys who “respected” women and treated them for the most part like I’d treat men. After all, we’re all just human right? Around 40, I was able to take in that women are truly different creatures. It took me into my late 40’s, and marriage to a professional Social Justice Warrior wife, to fully own that I was sexist.
Even though I wanted to believe I wasn’t one of “those” men, I still habitually assumed my normalized masculine point of view was a neutral point of view. Aging and marriage made it more apparent to me how women and men are truly different. It finally hit me, even though I did treat women much the same as men, doing so did not make sense. It sunk in that assuming my masculine culturally normalized perspective was neutral was actually false. I recognized our culture is unquestionably sexist and misogynistic and assumes a masculine perspective. I had to admit that I too participated in this sexism and misogyny without noticing it.
Recognizing my normalized perspective was unquestionably biased from a masculine point of view, and that alone was sexist and had a real impact on how I treated women. I could no longer justify my expectation that women should act, more or less, like me. Like men.
If we acknowledged and respected the real differences in masculine and feminine culture, then we could possibly not be sexist as men. However, this is not the case. We learn one is sensible. We discount the other as less valuable and judge it as irrational.
These implicit biases were built into the entire way I was taught to think about and experience the world through my education since childhood. It was an inescapable fact. It is how culture taught me to look at the world and at women.
I could no longer see myself as one of the “good” guys who treated women fairly, “just like I’d treat a man.” If women aren’t men, treating them like men is not fair. Assuming my “rational” male point of view is the one that makes sense because what I learned is simply misogynistic. It devalues feminine culture and simply tries to control the feminine instead of appreciating it. I felt shame in really owning this.
I also recognized I was simply living from what I unconsciously learned. I am not a bad person. However, I needed to be more sensitive with respect to assuming that my perspective, a masculine one, was right even though society normalizes it as such. As uncomfortable as getting that I am a sexist man was, it was almost nothing compared to owning my participation in Rape Culture. After all, I’d never forced a kiss on anyone, much less forced sex on anyone. I AM NOT A RAPIST!
Had I ever crossed a consent line?
While taking in Robert Hartman’s statement, “Because I don’t know a single man who has never crossed a line,” I had to take a deep breath and pause. Had I ever crossed a consent line in a sexual context?
I had to admit to crossing that line. Technically, I had not done so as a full-grown adult man.
I had crossed it as a teenager, not yet 18, in junior high school and high school. My shame grew quickly as I took in this truth. It had seemed funny to smack a girl’s in the butt in junior high school. It was a masculine challenge to have the “balls” to actually do so. By high school, I remember apologizing to one of the women who got too much abusive attention.
Then, there was the inappropriate groping at a high school dance while still underage. Hormones and Rape Culture make it hard to act like a courteous human being especially with the mixed messages women have learned they need to give. As a “Black” man, I was also questioned for not acting when some women thought they’d given clear enough signals of interest. Some people authentically wondered if I was gay. The intersection of “race” and sex made it relatively easy for me to choose to not explicitly sexualize behavior in a relationship. I had to feel clear about the signals I received, and what I wanted from a woman in a relationship before taking action.
[H]ow often had I let the misogynistic speech of my brothers occur without comment, even though it made me uncomfortable?
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I can say that as an adult, since 18, I have never crossed the consent line. I think it is impossible for anyone to ever do so when they are not on a “mission,” and instead relating with their empathy and mirror neurons still functioning. At the same time, I know as men, we are often unconsciously on a “mission.” With that, we lose our empathy because we have focused on getting what we imagine we want. In my 30’s I received feedback from some women for not bringing my man out more. Growing up in “White” US of America, with all the racialized projections on me, I imagine it was easier for me to not go over the line. The potential repercussions were too huge.
I began to wonder how many men, even as adults, have crossed consent lines? For the mostly “White” men I grew up with, the repercussions of their actions would be much less. It was overwhelming for me to fully take this in. At the same time, it was scary for me to think that all men are rapists. That is, we are participating in Rape Culture even if only as enablers. I didn’t want to believe it. I know I hadn’t actively participated in it since I was an adult, but how often had I let the misogynistic speech of my brothers occur without comment even though it made me uncomfortable?
Are there any men who have never let misogynistic speech or behavior slide?
In the period of our early teens, when our bodies start becoming an adult, and our minds are still that of children, most men learn that expressing emotions beside anger and elation make you a “pussy”. Instead of learning the power of owning and vulnerably expressing feelings, we learn to feel shame for having them. As young men, we often engage in misogynistic speech, othering women, and the feminine, to prove our (toxic) masculinity.
At that age, even though some of the conversations made me uncomfortable, I knew that rather than to call my friends out on their misogyny, I said nothing. Worse, at times I even looked for ways in which I could participate. Being an accepted part of the herd is such a strong motivation at that age. It is the habits learned during this period that keeps men from expressing their true feelings upon hearing misogynistic speech, even as they age into their 30’s and 40’s. I can believe there are a few men who have “never crossed the line” of consent. I don’t believe there are any who have never let misogynistic speech or behavior slide.
“If you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem.”
I don’t remotely think all men are rapists. I do see how easily I crossed consent boundaries in junior high school and in high school. Even with how sensitive I’d always been to this issue, especially with race as an overlay, it eventually occurred to me how often the boundary must have been, and surly still is, overstepped. Even without personally overstepping consent boundaries, our reluctance as “good” men to speak clearly to our own discomfort with other men’s misogynistic speech and behavior makes us willing participants in Rape Culture. Even though we are “nice guys,” or sensitive men, we don’t get a free pass for not supporting Rape Culture just because we ourselves never rape. Our inaction in the current cultural conditions makes us complicit as enablers. If we are not consciously creating a culture of discomfort with male misogyny, then we are passive misogynists. Our behavior enables the active misogynists to get away with their abhorrent behavior.
Even though we are “nice guys,” or sensitive men, we don’t get a free pass for not supporting Rape Culture just because we ourselves never rape.
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I’m also concerned about how many men have really crossed the consent line. I found out from women, when I was in my 20’s, how many of them had their own #MeToo experiences. This was during the late 80’s to early 90’s, long before the contemporary #MeToo phenomenon. At the time, I did not connect this to how much I was not only sexist, but how I was also a willing participant in Rape Culture. If you’ve thought you were not one of “those” men, like I used to, have you—as a man—stood firmly in your power to express your discomfort with the explicit misogyny of other men? Even when they were just “joking”? If not, it is time to recognize we really are complicit as passive, misogynist enablers. I know really getting this fact, albeit with discomfort, is what will motivate men to actually change their behavior. The words of Eldridge Cleaver are very true with respect to Rape Culture. “If you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem.”
The shame and threat to identity are great
If the emotional reality of the shame in complicity is not deeply felt, it will be all too easy to ignore the very real problem. Doing so simply allows the old patterns to continue and reoccur in their extremes. The potential for this cyclicity is explicitly mentioned by Robert Hartman in his article. As men, we must recognize our sexism is not our identity. It is something we learned from the culture we’ve grown up in. If we accept its reality, and recognize it is not who we are but something we learned, we have the power to change it. If we make it all about us, and refuse to acknowledge it as a part of how we’ve learned to behave, we make it more of a challenge for those actively creating change. Then, only our death will remove our inertia supporting the misogynistic Rape Culture of our contemporary milieu.
My experience is the shame and threat to identity are so great the reality of being a willing participant is often denied. This leaves us with a society that doesn’t want to rectify the very real wrongs it continues to live. I am old enough to get how slow change happens. At the same time, I recognize change only happens when each of us is willing to take in the whole truth about ourselves, who we’ve been, and who we choose to be. Our default habit is to the stay the same unless we make consistent, conscious effort to the contrary. Staying the same is not an option if we are men of conscience.
Step 0: Owning your own misogyny
I know the level of shame I have experienced in owning my participation in Rape Culture was immense. As much as I love Mr. Hartman’s article, he missed an essential step. I loved the article for putting me through the process of owning how I have crossed consent lines and have actively participated in allowing Rape Culture to be acceptable. However, he missed Step 0. All American men, probably all non-indigenous men—which is not to say all indigenous cultures respected the feminine—must start by owning their misogyny, and do their own personal recapitulation of how they are active and /or passive participants in Rape Culture. Then, they must ask themselves what they will do to prevent its continuation, and act on their answers. Anything less is to escape into male privilege and—at best—be a passive misogynist.
Acknowledgments
Wanting to give credit where credit is due, this piece of writing started as a stream of consciousness reply in social media. Inspiration and editorial suggestion to make it more was wholly due to a woman and friend, Paget Norton. I want to acknowledge all the women in my life that I love, too, for making its message really matter to me That list starts with my partner, mom, & sister, and includes too many friends to enumerate. God/dess Bless us all!
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