Reframing "Not all men"

[blimix]

Apologies if it's old news, but here's my take on the "not all men" phenomenon.

We live in a culture in which women have learned, quite rightly, to mistrust men. Men kill women. Men rape women. Men abuse women.

A man who is not abusive or violent may well feel defensive about this mistrust, feeling that he hasn't personally earned it. He might say, "But not all men are like that. I'm a nice guy. I would never do that. I'm not part of the problem."

But if that's your response, then you're part of the problem. The problem isn't you in particular. The problem is that women have good reason to fear men. When you focus the dialogue on yourself, not only are you failing to help, you are actively ignoring that the problem exists at all. By claiming that women have no cause to mistrust you, you're denying the validity of the lifetimes of experience by which they have learned that men are dangerous. And you know what? Their experience in this matter is much greater, and more relevant, than yours is.

If your solution is to quiet women who complain that there's a problem, then you are a huge part of the fucking problem.

You know what you can say next time a woman you've never met before mistrusts you? "I understand and accept your mistrust." Then just think this part silently: "Your experience with assholes has taught you caution. I'm sure it was a dearly bought lesson, and I would not ask you to disregard it."

If you are male, and want to be part of the solution, do a web search, or start here or here. (Comments for other good places to start are welcome.)

Comments

[blimix.livejournal.com]

I agree that it is a natural response that is tricky to work around. It would be unreasonable of me to expect people to suppress their defensive reactions in general. However, I hope that this post can go a long way toward helping one set of people avoid one particular spoken reaction (regardless of how their feelings react). When someone is tempted to say, "Hey, not all men are like that," they can catch themselves and think, "Wait, that's one of those things I'm not supposed to say, because it's disrespectful and derailing. What can I say instead?" I've learned similar filters by reading essays about things not to say (and by watching "My Gimpy Life"). I expect other people can, too.

I inflated nothing. One abusive ex-friend counted for an awful lot of those situations on his own, but almost everybody does it occasionally. (I used to consistently react defensively to criticism (though without the lashing out that sometimes accompanies such behavior). Luckily, I got better when I discarded that aspect of my pride.)