Talking in the wrong conversation.
The following picture came up in my feed a while ago, it’s about a topic that is close to my heart, so I’ve decided to take her up on what it asked us to do.
While I agree there are sadly plenty of men who try to sweep female issues under the rug and undermine the conversation about women's rights, I think there a plenty of other men who don't have that intention, but are unintentionally swept in that category in a way that is damaging to the conversation about gender issues as a whole. It's complex to explain so here comes a rant...
I think part of the problem here is that one of the toxic gender stereotypes men deal with is 'stoicism.' We are trained specifically NOT to bring up this issues, NOT to talk about anything that might be perceived as weakness. For the most part there simply ISN'T an independent conservation about men's issues happening. (I can't even use the term 'Men's rights' because that's been twisted and polluted into something damaging to both men and women). At a certainly level I think that's because we all feel like it's not okay for us to start the conversation, there is a lot of fear associated with speaking up about these issues.
But the Feminist space has breached these issues, they have opening up the conversation and started to dig in and talk publicly about them. For most men, the Feminist conversation is the only space in which they will see others open up and start to talk about things like rape, abuse, damaging gender stereotypes and expectations, etc. In the Feminist conversation Women are encouraged to speak up, to share stories, talk about their issues, to seek support... I don't know what I would even call an equivalent masculine space without sounding like a chauvinist. Frankly speaking, outside of the umbrella of Feminism, unless you really hunt for it there ISN'T a equivalent space to speak about these issues as a male. (That said such spaces DO exist, and I encourage men to take the effort to seek them out.)
Just try googling abuse, all of the top help websites are geared heavy towards women (which isn't a bad thing). But the majority of the articles could have been written in gender neutral terms and the content would be exactly the same except for the pronouns used. 'Help for abused men' literally just tells you to read the 'help for abused women' article. That's right, the official help documents we are most likely to find about abuse and rape literally instruct men to go to feminine spaces because that's the only place you might find support. Reading every bit of support literature you can find is like a miniature form of gas-lighting, reminding you over and over again: you can't be the victim, you can only be the offender. Doesn't that just reinforce a toxic message about the gender roles of men and women: Women are abused, men are abusers. Rapist is a masculine gender role... I don't think I want that the be the message society tells men about who they are.
We know when one rape or abuse survivor speaks up, it encourages others to do likewise, it opens and creates a feeling of a safe space to speak out, because the topic has been breached you are adding your voice to one of many, it's somehow safer, easier... but no one is starting that conversation for men... So where is a man's outlet, where is his safe space to speak up... there isn't one.
When a Man feels a particular Feminist issues applies to him, he may make the mistake that, because the conversation has been started about something which he has personally experienced, like being the victim of rape or abuse, the Feminist space is a safe space for him to speak about it, in the same way it is (supposedly) for a woman to do so. But he has to test the water first, so instead of sharing his story (which is a neigh impossible thing to admit to) he generalizes, he says it happens to men, he means 'it happened to me and I want to join the conversation as a fellow victim in need of support which I can't find anywhere else' but he can't just come out and say that. So without thinking, because he's being driven by his own tragedy, his own hurt, he says precisely the wrong thing in the Feminist context. The result of course is predictable and his ill-conceived attempt to reach out for support has earned him chastisement and the ire of the people he wants to connect with and desired to show solidarity for.
This is bad on so many levels, he feels vulnerable, instead of the desired comradely feels rejected, he feels unjustly attacked because his intent has been misread (very understandably so given the context, but still...emotions). So now he's learned it's not okay for him to open up and share his feelings, he let himself be vulnerable and the result was bad. He's bitter and hurting and maybe he lashes out as a result...
The end result is counterproductive and only add to the gender divide which the whole point of the conversation had been to try to break down. I don't know the solution. Try to keep an open mind? Try to be more understanding from both sides? Find a way around our personal hurts to check if maybe the other persons meaning wasn't quite as divisive as we assume at first glance?
Some of you will not believe that men do what I've just described, but... I know it happens, because I've seen other men make a bumbling attempt to join the conversation, struggling to get out what they mean while digging themselves a deeper and deeper hole, only to get fed up and disheartened leaving feeling like they have no place they can voice their own struggles with these 'Feminist' issues. But Mostly I know this happens because that's been me. I have been guilty of what I have just described here. Because I felt I had no where else to talk about it I've co-opted feminist conversations with the plea of it 'it happens to men too' because it happened to me and I wanted to be part of the conversation that I didn't think I could have anywhere else.
Since no one else seems to opening the conversation for men, allow me this one small instance to do so.
I am a male victim of rape, and because I have quite literally never heard another man admit to that, and never expect to hear another man admit to that I've tried to insert myself and my masculinity into the into the feminist conversation about rape. To make that conversation about me as much as any other female victim, and by extension make it about men. But that's wrong... It isn't the same for me as it is for women, I mean in ways it is, but in so many more it isn't. I shouldn't have to force my way into their space, my issues aren't quite the same as theirs... to be quite honest, even though I'm a fellow 'survivor' I don't know what it's like for them. The issues and stigma's they face aren't the same as the ones I do, I can't really understand what it is they go through, and they don't really understand what it's like for me either.
For me, It happened over 10 years and several therapists ago, no I don't want pity and I'm not going to talk about details further. I don't want this to be about me, in a way, it's easier that way, to say it for the men who can't speak rather than for myself. There is a sense of voicelessness, of isolation... a nagging fear to admit what happened to any other person is to drive them away and condemn myself, that the act of admission somehow makes me lesser... a whiner, a lair, pitiful, damaged... that to say it aloud makes it true, when otherwise I could hide in denial and self-blame. Somehow that's easier taking the blame on myself, that I should have been stronger, more firm more... manly I guess.
What makes it even worse is that sometimes the people who seem like they should be our greatest allies, who have shared a similar pain or who are champions against what we've suffered (when it comes to women) are the same people who end up using the very same type of attacks and undermining tactics that chauvinist use against feminism to silence our voices when we try to speak out on those issues occurring to men. In a way I don't blame them, it hurts, it's emotionally charged, it breaks the status quo... and they have been attacked so horribly, so fiercely, so wickedly themselves. They have been marginalized by being told what happened to them is no big deal... because others have used ME as THE excuse why what happens to women is okay, or something we shouldn't care about... how else could they react but with anger to the very thing that is used to justify silencing them and doing nothing to stop whats happening.
That was a very interesting and painful thing to learn... to really understand what it's like to be told, "you getting raped doesn't matter, because it happens to people of my gender." Oh the anger... the rage, the red hot fury... I don't know how feminists are able to stand hearing that over and over and over again, I would snap, I'd go crazy. I hope I never make the mistake of stealing your voice again... Because you deserve that voice... that conversation. It's time we started the difficult work of starting a different conversation about our own issues.
We do get Sexually assaulted, we are abused, and men do have toxic gender stereotypes we are expected to live up to. It's time we pit one of those stereotypes against another and have the courage to get over the whole 'men don't talk about our problems/that doesn't happen to real men' thing to start our own separate discussions about these things happening to men, and what we can do to combat them.
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