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Often, I debate men who hold sexist/racist/homophobic views, and they expect me to prove them wrong and have a “rational discussion” about their opinions. But I’m frankly tired of their expectation that I should be the one to put in the hard work to “enlighten” them about why their behaviour is problematic instead of them educating themselves on basic human decency.
It’s not my job to make you aware of how your behaviour is harming others. I’m not your parent who is supposed to teach you that saying things like, “What is wrong with people from that country?” is wrong. It’s not my responsibility to teach you that not calling out your friend when he proudly admits that he only views women as sex objects is tantamount to enabling misogynistic behaviour.
They expect me to not get emotional when they say things that are “offensive”. Something is “offensive” not because it has the potential to make some people feel bad, but because they betray a lack of understanding about the power dynamics that are at play and of the historical oppression that is being invalidated by framing the discussion as if it is “neutral”.
The status quo is not “neutral”. Norms and frameworks are accepted in the status quo as “normal” just because that was how things were before the discussion took place, but that does not mean that how things were are just or fair. The right proclaims “facts over feelings” conveniently when the discussion is not about their fundamental human rights being debated upon.
Men who adhere strongly to masculinity proclaim their arguments as “rational” most strongly during times when they arise out of anxiety or an ego-defence mechanism. A man told me he hated vegans because according to him, they shouldn’t be telling everyone why eating meat is wrong, they should’ve just kept their dietary preferences to themselves.
I told him that while I am not a vegan, I acknowledge it’s because of my lack of discipline and that I agree with the ethical and environmental considerations that motivate a lot of people to adopt a vegan diet. It was clear to me that his strong feelings of anger towards vegans were less that he disagreed with their arguments, but that he agreed with them too much and that he felt guilt and shame over that agreement.
He, like many other men who adhere strongly to masculinity, cannot deal with the cognitive dissonance of knowing what you are doing is wrong yet acknowledging that you are still doing it anyway.
It is less about being an ethically perfect person — I still don’t adopt a vegan diet — and more about acknowledging how you are imperfect and acknowledging it instead of attempting to defend your ego by being a dick towards people who remind you of your imperfection.
It reminds me of when in 2012, atheist YouTuber Rebecca Watson was being strongly harassed by the atheist community in the form of sexist Tweets, comments, and response videos, simply because she revealed that she was sexually harassed during an atheist conference: A few hours after she gave a speech about sexual harassment in that same conference, a man propositioned her in an elevator where she was alone, and it was 4 AM.
I think the reason many men were so offended by her completely innocuous video discussing her experience was that they saw themselves in the shoe of the man who sexually harassed her. They were not able to deal with the reality that they had done something wrong in the past and that it legitimately harmed someone.
There was nothing rational about legitimizing sexual harassment, even as they compared her experience to the experience of women under extreme religious circumstances, who have experienced genital mutilation and forced marriage.
Their arguments were based on true events, but they are not rational responses to the issue, because they are essentially denying that one issue is problematic by comparing it to a more severe example, which fails to disprove the main thesis — that sexual harassment was an issue within the community.
I find it amusing how men who consider themselves the paragons of rationality act in completely irrational ways when it comes to issues that harm minority groups, especially those they are not a part of, most prominently women.
They justify their harmful behaviour because they are stating these justifications in a “calm and rational” manner, conveniently when it’s not their fundamental human rights that are put into question.
Moreover, the contents of their arguments — or often even their presentation — are not even rational when their egos are under attack.
The angry tone and emotional outbursts are not caused by violations of their human rights, but the discomfort with the idea that they are morally imperfect. It’s the anxiety over having their privileges put into question, the fear of realizing that they’ve been doing things that make them a bad person all along.
These emotions are not things that I, as an average woman aware of women’s issues, can resolve. No amount of “rational discussions” with these men can amount to anything. Because these issues aren’t rational.
They’re emotional, biological, and trauma-driven: the desire for antlers clashing, to assert their dominance over someone or a group of people to resolve their existential anxiety over not having power in the modern world, of not being able to pay rent or get a date because they’re broke — so they blame it on brown people and women.
And I get it. Life is hard. But if you’re not willing to put in the time and energy to educate yourself, how can you expect me to be willing to do the same for you?
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Previously Published on Medium
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Most everybody empathizes with somebody. Most people understand the emotion of empathy, and why it affects us and motivates us so strongly. Fred Rogers once said: “When {the} things that we care about so deeply become endangered, we become enraged. And what a healthy thing that is. Without it, we would never stand up and speak out for what we believe.” So, when we can demonstrate (demonstrate; not dictate) to others that our empathy is empathetic, and that (like our logic) our emotion has full integrity, that it is reasoned, understandable, principled, duly impartial, and grounded in something real- then… Read more »
“…the anxiety over having their privileges put into question…They’re emotional, biological, and trauma-driven: the desire for antlers clashing, to assert their dominance over someone or a group of people to resolve their existential anxiety over not having power in the modern world…” Then wouldn’t such people be thankfully easy to manipulate as a group into a much more positive outlook? I would be wary about pathologizing or characterizing other peoples’ individual anxieties too broadly or too collectively, or reading too much into them. And I would assert that it’s ultimately unhelpful insinuating that certain things are “privileges” when they are… Read more »
“It’s not my responsibility to teach you that not calling out your friend when he proudly admits that he only views women as sex objects is tantamount to enabling misogynistic behaviour.” So then it’s somebody’s responsibility to modify the friend’s behaviour for them? Is it ours to ‘oversee’ the job that they do? If it isn’t, where is the basis for our authority to critique the job that they are doing? “It’s not my job to make you aware of how your behaviour is harming others” But then why are you writing this? To educate the people whom you’ve elected… Read more »
“Often, I debate men who hold sexist/racist/homophobic views, and they expect me to prove them wrong and have a ‘rational discussion’ about their opinions. But I’m frankly tired of their expectation that I should be the one to put in the hard work to ‘enlighten’ them about why their behaviour is problematic instead of them educating themselves on basic human decency… And I get it. Life is hard. But if you’re not willing to put in the time and energy to educate yourself, how can you expect me to be willing to do the same for you?” When you’re dissatisfied… Read more »
These monsters already have like a bloodlust for men and they go in positions which allows them to hate openly hate under a false sense of fighting for justice. It’s a biological. Lesbians will always seek to eliminate men and there’s nothing you can do about it.