NOT ALL MEN
Wow, look at that.
There it is.
The rallying cry of the courageous and the forgotten, now permanently established as the very first point of discussion in this newsletter.
Stunning. Brave. Remarkable.
Now a moment of silence please for all the men who have ever been viciously slandered by a generalization. I pray their much affected privilege finds the path to healing.
So now that I’ve gotten that out of the way and said it before all of you brave souls who jump to defend the rights and reputations of men have the chance to, you can go ahead save us both some critical time down the road by resisting the need to subject me to this useless exchange. Whether you are the everyman who thinks he’s about to tell me something I’ve never heard, or you’re a woman lost in the sauce of internalized misogyny and pick-meism, you can be rest assured that I will not be lending ear nor eye to your monotonous whining. If you want to talk ‘not all men’ with me, everything I have to say about the subject can be found in the following paragraphs of this essay and any further elaboration will be entirely unnecessary.
Shall we begin by pointing out the obvious double standard behind the privilege of even fixing your mouth to make any sort of generalization in the first place? Men are given gratuitous leeway to group all women together every single day - in fact it’s a regular part of our dialogue in the English language to say “you ____ like a girl” when we want to express that someone does something poorly. “Women are not logical”, “women are emotional”, “women are fragile”, etc. - how much of this type of logic do we hear perpetuated every single day in order to avoid bestowing societal privilege, power, and responsibilities onto women (ie; women not being able to have certain jobs, hold political office, earn fair pay, etc)? These (false) generalizations of women invite the subjugation by men as the “natural order”, and men hide behind this ‘logic’ to avoid being questioned about why they say the things they say and do the things they do. Society as we know it is less about “that’s just the way things are” and more about “that’s just the way men are comfortable with things being.”
Though oddly enough, when I say that men stink like shit, I am expected to seek out all the men wearing Bleu de Chanel and delicately caress them closely to my bosom while I tenderly apologize to them for the misunderstanding. “No baby, I didn’t mean that you personally stink like shit, I was talking to all of them. You are a delightfully fragrant Adonis and I know that you are better than that.” - and if you’ve ever had the intense displeasure of engaging with any of these knuckle dragging mouth breathing not all men pushers, then you most definitely know that this isn’t even hyperbole. The derailment of the discussion is just as much a part of the problem, because we end up spending more time assuaging the egos of men than we do discussing the changes we actually need to make in order to allow women to exist freely and safely.
On the contrary, men are often quite eager to be counted alongside other men when it comes to the standard recognition of all the admirable traits we bestow upon men for simply not being women (men are rational, men are strong, men are natural leaders, men are great thinkers, etc). Though when it comes to any sort of critique about how men use or exploit their position and power within society, they can hardly wait to start splitting off from the group - and there is something to be said about a man who chooses to point the finger at other men while assuming that he isn’t also turning it on himself.
On an individual basis, for a man to point out some men as ‘good’ and other men as ‘bad’ serves only to further prove the point that all men are cognizant about existing within a violent system, but are all too complicit in it to actively want to change it. Seeing the problem in other men and doing nothing to mediate it is worse than ignoring it all together. Shifting the blame from ‘you’ to ‘them’ is hardly a feat to be hailed as heroic, and women will continue to die while men putter around pointing fingers at one another in a two way mirror. At the end of the day, the only thing that separates the so called ‘good guys’ from the so called ‘bad guys’ is words.
Within the patriarchy, then men who actually want to set themselves apart from the rest have a responsibility to listen to people on the outside who are seeing all the things that they can’t. Yet, how often do we see the men who whine about “not all men”, enacting that responsibility and actually listening to criticism from gender minorities long enough to learn from it? My brother in Christ, your performance of the good guy is not actually impacting the position of your privilege, therefore rendering it nothing but a fanciful delusion of grandeur. And if men can be trusted to contribute anything to the big wide world, it’s self serving grandiosity that lends no real purpose.
Because here’s the truth, conscious or unconscious, male entitlement is a choice. A choice to be uncritical, a choice to continue to passively benefit from all the heinous and horrible “standard” behaviors in which men have been raised on. Attempting to fight that entitlement is also a choice – one that has to be both conscious and ongoing.
And day after day as I move through the world, I watch men make the wrong choice every single time.
Men are so deeply disillusioned that they continue to thoughtlessly enact the harmful behaviors they were socialized into while at the same time demanding to be recognized and rewarded as if they were making the choice to either deny or examine those behaviors. Fighting learned male entitlement means assuming the burden of vigilance on not just yourself, but on the homies too. It means being open to having motives questioned (even when they’re pure) and being open to the criticism that they maybe aren’t as pure as you think. Unlearning violent patriarchal socialization is a choice that has to be made in every day and in every instance by every man in order for the damage to be undone. Yet, as a group and as well as on an individual basis, men objectively fail in every instance every time.
The proof is in the very fabric of our society:
1 in 16 (6.5%) men are rapists. 2002 Lisak study, although other studies show as high as nearly 15%, or 1 in 7 men. (Source)
1 in 3 (30-35%) of men would rape if they knew they’d get away with it. (Source. Plus, second source 11 years later showing the same percentage: Kilpatrick)
Between 60% and 99% of rapes and sexual assault are perpetrated by men.(Source)
A 2004 Department of Justice study found that only 8 percent of rape education and prevention programs are designed specifically for men.
Only 310 out of every 1,000 sexual assaults are reported to police. That means more than 2 out of 3 sexual assaults go unreported. (Source)
Factoring in unreported rapes, only about 6% of rapists ever serve a day in jail. (Source)
No matter how many of these harrowing statistics we plaster across our screens, not a single one of these spineless shitkickers could or would ever call one of their friends out on their abuse, let alone name themselves as an abuser. If men don’t even bother amongst themselves to distinguish who is who, then how the fuck are we as women supposed to know? If it isn’t you or a single one of your homies then who the fuck is it?
It has always been and will always be easier for men to call women liars than it will be to acknowledge that a large majority of them are actually responsible for the perpetration of gendered violence. The ‘not all men’ stance being tossed out in the same breath as the ‘women are liars’ stance is too deliciously and obviously ironic that I could almost laugh if I wasn’t so disgusted. Have you ever gone to the comment section of a woman’s Instagram when she is involved in a high profile court case against a man? Read the comment section of a news article or YouTube video after a woman has come forward and accused a man of something heinous? Logistics be god damned, she is both a slut and a liar! That man is innocent, free him! Men spit out this redundant bullshit and still really expect to be treated exceptionally because maybe they themselves are not responsible (yet) for any sort of directly violent assault on women. This ‘women are liars’ dialogue is tired and unoriginal. Boring. Predictable. I’m yawning. If you as a man regurgitate the same lines of thinking as the rest (and the rest is filled with a lot of rapists/abusers as the statistics show) then why, for any reason, should you be set apart from the rest?
This privilege of being so incredibly ignorant is invisible to all men because they are the ones living inside of and reaping the benefits of that privilege. Though to those of us on the outside, the hypocrisy of it all is almost too painfully straightforward. Within the patriarchy, the men who actually want to set themselves apart from the rest have a responsibility to listen to those of us on the outside who are seeing the things that they can’t. Yet how often do we see the men who whine about “not all men” actually stepping up and enacting that responsibility? I’ll wait. Just kidding, I won’t. Because at every chance they get, men show us that their priorities lie only in their privilege.
Isn’t it wild how we refer to things like rape and domestic abuse as “women’s issues” despite the fact that women are not the ones with the issues? It’s not my or any woman’s job to be vigilant against harmful behaviors that we are not responsible for perpetrating. These are entirely men’s issues. Men have done a complete 180 with the accountability on this one, audaciously skirting the blame so much so that they actually took their name off of their own issues and replaced it with ours. Not only that, but women have to take preventative measures to avoid provoking these issues inside men, and if they fail to do so they are punished and blamed. It’s incumbent upon men to make themselves safer as a group, and that in itself is disappointing as fuck. Men can’t tell their nuts from their navel and we are expecting them to reach any sort of level of self awareness? I’m not holding my breath.
I know that there are good men scattered around this Earth. I have had more than one positive and nurturing male role model in my life. My father has always been and will continue to be a close source of unconditional love and support no matter what I choose to pursue. He probably read this article before you did (Hi Dad!). I have had uncles and grandfathers who have filled my life with art and music and wonderful shining examples of selfless love and care. If anything, the men I hold dear in my life are the reason why I stay ready to point out the shortcomings in others. I have seen how easy it is for men to be good and fair, and the positive effect it has on not only their lives but on the lives of those around them. Believe me, I know it’s not all men. I also know that my positive experiences with a few wonderful men do not negate the generations of trauma women have already and will endure at the hands of men. I know this, because I (unlike a man) can step outside of myself and see the bigger picture without tripping over my own nuts on the way out.
If you’re still with me, dear reader, then I feel obligated to indulge you in what might be a little known fact to some and a glaringly obvious statement to others; there is no man individually exceptional enough to disrupt the status quo - and trust me pal, you are NOT that guy! All men are not equally part of the problem, but all men are equally part of the solution. Yes, all men. The resolution lies in the group, not the individual. So until we see the day where the same unspoken male camaraderie that is shown when it comes to disempowering and discrediting women can be shown when it comes to the betterment of women, we will continue to be presented with alarming statistics. When men cease avoiding accountability for those same statistics, when more men choose to step up than to step down, then and only then will generalizing the group become inaccurate.
And would you look at that? Today is not that day.
Ate and left no crumbs, per usual!! You are so eloquent, and these articles genuinely heal parts of my heart and brain when I read them. ❤️❤️
This was so needed today. You’re my favourite writer of all time and I absorbed and devoured every single word with delight. Thank you for being such a staunch and solid voice of absolute truth. I applaud and respect you endlessly. So much love for you and the healing you bring to us with these rapid fire bullets you spit so eloquently ❤️🔥🌹