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I'm having mixed feelings about these videos where men have to read actual tweets, comments, emails, etc. that women get.
First, too many men still don't believe us that it happens, or that it happens as often, or that the solution is to "just block / ignore it". It's really easy to say that when you aren't forced to sit there and read them all, out loud, in front of other people who can hear you. It's easy to say that when the quality of the criticisms that one gets differs significantly in scope and tone. It's easy to tell people to grow a thicker skin when you aren't living in the other person's skin.
Second, even when men acknowledge that there's a problem, and even when they acknowledge the scope of it, they are *still not the targets* and they can turn off their caring about it whenever they want to. Most men I know who care about this stuff *don't* generally, deliberately ignore the problem when it suits them. The point is that they don't *have* to care about the problem. They can go about their day not thinking about it, maybe even not being reminded about it for several days in a row.
I have that same problem as a white-passing person regarding racism. I can immerse myself in issues of race, but if I ever get overwhelmed by it, I can shut off Facebook and not read my activist friends' posts for a while because *I don't live in that reality 24/7*. There isn't a solution to this, as far as I know. It's just one of several feelings I have on the subject.
Third, I'm grateful for all the attempts to make men understand the breadth of the problem, but most of these attempts re-centers the issue around the feelings of men. Like, when they read tweets directed at a particular woman and she's sitting right there, they get really uncomfortable (as they should). They understand just how horrific those tweets are because they struggle to read them aloud, many even trying to get out of reading them further. I get that often this is the only first step available to people. I get that many men simply cannot conceptualize what's wrong with rape jokes, for instance, until they imagine someone making a rape joke about or to their daughter or until they remove the safety of anonymity.
But one of the points of those videos is for other men to see them and to empathize with the shame of having that woman watching them say those words - words that aren't even their own words. It's related to that saying that women are afraid of being murdered but men are afraid of being rejected - the shame and embarrassment of saying such terrible things is part of their pain.
Many of these men end up apologizing on behalf of other men, and we get the #NotAllMen because generally decent people don't want to be associated with those assholes. It *hurts* them to think that the woman who they are insulting to her face might possibly lump him in with Them. And sometimes, that feeling, that fear of being lumped in overwhelms them and interferes with their ability to actually empathize with the victims or do something actively to combat the problem because they get sidetracked in defending the idea that some of them are not like the rest of them. This is not helpful. Simply the act of admitting there is a systemic, endemic problem automatically sets a man apart from the rest. Their virtue does not need to be defended when they align themselves with the victim. That. Is. What. Makes. Them. The. Good. Guys.
I get that empathy is not usually gained in large leaps but by small steps. So, for that I'm grateful that there are campaigns out there trying to humanize women by associating the entire demographic with an individual whom a man knows. But I'm still upset that a woman's worth is ignored as a default by some unless that man can associate her with an individual first and she isn't granted human status until he builds some kind of connection with her (this goes for pretty much all bigotry - people tend to hold bigoted ideas that they were taught and can only break them down if they know an individual in that class and they can't just afford them human status simply because they exist). Again, I don't have a solution to this problem, it's just one of my feelings about the problem.
Fourth, the comments that the men are forced to read out loud are just *eh*. Like, some are not nearly as bad as stuff I've gotten, but all of them including the really bad ones are just so ... common. I'm upset that I'm so blasé about graphic depictions of torture simply because I've already heard it all before and I'm upset that these men are shocked and horrified hearing them for the first time. I'm bothered that they have the luxury of feeling ashamed and appalled because so many women online already *have* developed that "thicker skin" and have seen that shit so often that most of it really does roll off our backs. So, by the time a woman finally loses her shit over something, she's not some delicate little flower who "can't take a joke" or "can't play with the big boys", it's because her threshold is so low for this that most men (i.e. actual decent people) can't even handle reading the crap that she has learned to ignore and it's reasonable for her to have finally flipped her lid by the time she does.
It's like that video of simulating labor pains on people without uteruses - (and I'm going to use "guys", "men", and "women" here to simplify the language because I don't know how to otherwise do it without making it cumbersome) some of these guys think they have a high pain tolerance, until they are forced to experience something equating labor pains. And even then, they get to stop whenever they want. They aren't forced to go through it for 27 hours straight, or 6 times in 7 years. And their labor pains have virtually no chance of killing them or disfiguring them or taking over the rest of their lives after the physical labor pain ends. And yet, countless TV shows and movies show women going through childbirth and write her as this hysterical demon who breathes fire and whose head spins around and shoots lasers out of her eyes like, whoa lady, just have an epidural already and calm down! Because her delicate lady parts just can't handle pain like a man can, amirite?
Anyway, I'm digressing a bit and that's always an invitation for the Missing The Point Pedants to jump in. Point four is that I'm not even surprised or bothered when *I* hear those blog comments read by men because I've seen them all before and that's *a problem*, whereas men get to feel bad for themselves for feeling so awful having been exposed to those comments for possibly the first time. Yes, sweetie, you feel icky having read them *pats head*. Wish I still did. I know that's condescending, that's one of the feelings I'm having with these videos.
So ... mixed feelings. I'm pleased to see progress, pleased to see more attempts made to fix society, pleased to see this conversation happening more often and in bigger venues. I'm also saddened and upset and angry that we still need this conversation, and that we still have to be delicate about it, and that we still have to cater to people contributing to the harm in order to make any progress at all.
First, too many men still don't believe us that it happens, or that it happens as often, or that the solution is to "just block / ignore it". It's really easy to say that when you aren't forced to sit there and read them all, out loud, in front of other people who can hear you. It's easy to say that when the quality of the criticisms that one gets differs significantly in scope and tone. It's easy to tell people to grow a thicker skin when you aren't living in the other person's skin.
Second, even when men acknowledge that there's a problem, and even when they acknowledge the scope of it, they are *still not the targets* and they can turn off their caring about it whenever they want to. Most men I know who care about this stuff *don't* generally, deliberately ignore the problem when it suits them. The point is that they don't *have* to care about the problem. They can go about their day not thinking about it, maybe even not being reminded about it for several days in a row.
I have that same problem as a white-passing person regarding racism. I can immerse myself in issues of race, but if I ever get overwhelmed by it, I can shut off Facebook and not read my activist friends' posts for a while because *I don't live in that reality 24/7*. There isn't a solution to this, as far as I know. It's just one of several feelings I have on the subject.
Third, I'm grateful for all the attempts to make men understand the breadth of the problem, but most of these attempts re-centers the issue around the feelings of men. Like, when they read tweets directed at a particular woman and she's sitting right there, they get really uncomfortable (as they should). They understand just how horrific those tweets are because they struggle to read them aloud, many even trying to get out of reading them further. I get that often this is the only first step available to people. I get that many men simply cannot conceptualize what's wrong with rape jokes, for instance, until they imagine someone making a rape joke about or to their daughter or until they remove the safety of anonymity.
But one of the points of those videos is for other men to see them and to empathize with the shame of having that woman watching them say those words - words that aren't even their own words. It's related to that saying that women are afraid of being murdered but men are afraid of being rejected - the shame and embarrassment of saying such terrible things is part of their pain.
Many of these men end up apologizing on behalf of other men, and we get the #NotAllMen because generally decent people don't want to be associated with those assholes. It *hurts* them to think that the woman who they are insulting to her face might possibly lump him in with Them. And sometimes, that feeling, that fear of being lumped in overwhelms them and interferes with their ability to actually empathize with the victims or do something actively to combat the problem because they get sidetracked in defending the idea that some of them are not like the rest of them. This is not helpful. Simply the act of admitting there is a systemic, endemic problem automatically sets a man apart from the rest. Their virtue does not need to be defended when they align themselves with the victim. That. Is. What. Makes. Them. The. Good. Guys.
I get that empathy is not usually gained in large leaps but by small steps. So, for that I'm grateful that there are campaigns out there trying to humanize women by associating the entire demographic with an individual whom a man knows. But I'm still upset that a woman's worth is ignored as a default by some unless that man can associate her with an individual first and she isn't granted human status until he builds some kind of connection with her (this goes for pretty much all bigotry - people tend to hold bigoted ideas that they were taught and can only break them down if they know an individual in that class and they can't just afford them human status simply because they exist). Again, I don't have a solution to this problem, it's just one of my feelings about the problem.
Fourth, the comments that the men are forced to read out loud are just *eh*. Like, some are not nearly as bad as stuff I've gotten, but all of them including the really bad ones are just so ... common. I'm upset that I'm so blasé about graphic depictions of torture simply because I've already heard it all before and I'm upset that these men are shocked and horrified hearing them for the first time. I'm bothered that they have the luxury of feeling ashamed and appalled because so many women online already *have* developed that "thicker skin" and have seen that shit so often that most of it really does roll off our backs. So, by the time a woman finally loses her shit over something, she's not some delicate little flower who "can't take a joke" or "can't play with the big boys", it's because her threshold is so low for this that most men (i.e. actual decent people) can't even handle reading the crap that she has learned to ignore and it's reasonable for her to have finally flipped her lid by the time she does.
It's like that video of simulating labor pains on people without uteruses - (and I'm going to use "guys", "men", and "women" here to simplify the language because I don't know how to otherwise do it without making it cumbersome) some of these guys think they have a high pain tolerance, until they are forced to experience something equating labor pains. And even then, they get to stop whenever they want. They aren't forced to go through it for 27 hours straight, or 6 times in 7 years. And their labor pains have virtually no chance of killing them or disfiguring them or taking over the rest of their lives after the physical labor pain ends. And yet, countless TV shows and movies show women going through childbirth and write her as this hysterical demon who breathes fire and whose head spins around and shoots lasers out of her eyes like, whoa lady, just have an epidural already and calm down! Because her delicate lady parts just can't handle pain like a man can, amirite?
Anyway, I'm digressing a bit and that's always an invitation for the Missing The Point Pedants to jump in. Point four is that I'm not even surprised or bothered when *I* hear those blog comments read by men because I've seen them all before and that's *a problem*, whereas men get to feel bad for themselves for feeling so awful having been exposed to those comments for possibly the first time. Yes, sweetie, you feel icky having read them *pats head*. Wish I still did. I know that's condescending, that's one of the feelings I'm having with these videos.
So ... mixed feelings. I'm pleased to see progress, pleased to see more attempts made to fix society, pleased to see this conversation happening more often and in bigger venues. I'm also saddened and upset and angry that we still need this conversation, and that we still have to be delicate about it, and that we still have to cater to people contributing to the harm in order to make any progress at all.
