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Why NotAllMen is not women's problem
June 1st, 2014 12:20 am:::Edited to clarify at the asterisk:::
In conversation with someone I respect today about the #YesAllWomen, I mentioned the “M&M” analogy (imagine a bowl of M&Ms. Only 10% are poisoned. Grab a big handful. No? What’s your problem? Not all M&Ms are poisoned….) as a counter to the “NotAllMen” response to YesAllWomen. I was informed that viewing every male I encounter as a possible threat, as potentially hostile, and as a potential rapist/attacker/abuser/harasser was “not a productive way to establish relationships.”
No kidding, ya think? Tell me something I don’t know!
While this person is someone I respect tremendously both in terms of intellect, reasoning, ethics, and all around decency, to get this response from him was painful and disappointing.
It is true he (yes, he) was not in my life when any number of relationships went bad, and I feared for my safety, feared getting hit, was hit, was stalked, was verbally abused either in the relationship or for ending it; but he has heard all these stories. He also was not in my life when the tow truck driver who had my car on his truck and was driving me 135 miles through the middle of nowhere spent most of that time telling me in graphic detail what he wanted to do to me with the hand from which he’d lost the outer two fingers, but he was with me three years later when I next needed a tow in Chicago and the same man showed up, easily recognized by that hand. Although, come to think of it, he told me then he’d never really believed me until he saw the man himself.
He was, however, in my life when I was almost driven out of my Master’s degree following rumors of impropriety between myself and a male professor with whom I had dared be friends. He was in my life when I woke up in the middle of the night to find a stranger with a knife and a flashlight standing over my bed trying to pull the covers off of me.* (I never knew who he was; and I never felt comfortable in that neighborhood again.) He was in my life when my elderly disabled mother was traded by her roommate to a drug dealer to rape in order to pay off a $50 debt.
So it was a shock to me that he could still protest, almost 20 years into our friendship, that approaching every male I meet as potential threat was a problem *I* had, a flawed approach on MY part, failure of MY reasoning skills, and yes, unfair to men. As enlightened as I otherwise find this person, he pounced on my approach to men as a problem; because Not All Men. *sigh*
Yes, of course I know that this dynamic is a poor way to begin relationships, be they personal, professional, of transitory. EVERY woman knows this. But, as #YesAllWomen has so poignantly shown, we also know the price for rejecting this approach. We are told as young girls to be careful of every man we meet. We are told not to do a thousand things that will put us at risk. And I’m not talking about sex without a condom or skydiving, here. I’m talking about all the things large and small that woman calculate all the time. It’s late; should I find someone to walk me to my car? I need to be sure to let my friend or family know I have arrived safe and didn’t get raped going home a few blocks at night. I pay attention to how I walk if I’m alone at night; remember, don’t walk like a victim. Keep your keys between your fingers so you have a weapon. Yell ‘fire’ if you are attacked, because you have a better chance of actually getting help than if you yell ‘rape.’ We all know the drill.
And let’s not even start talking about the professional world. I have never, in any of the jobs or careers I have had, been assured of fair treatment as a woman. I have been harassed, marginalized, underpaid, “gal-Friday’ed,” propositioned, threatened; the usual litany. All women have experienced some kind of misogyny or discrimination. That’s what #YEsAllWomen means!
That is the reality that men cannot ever truly grasp; no more than I, however much I may care and want to make it better, can ever really grasp what it is to be a person of color. It’s just not my reality, and the best I can do is accept that it is a reality in which I will never participate, and accept that I do not deserve to be above suspicion in terms of my behavior on race until and unless I demonstrate that I’m not racist. I don’t have the right to co-opt the discussion of race by defending my not-racism. And I sure as HELL don’t have the right to tell a person of color that viewing all white people with caution is a “poor way to move in the world.”
Not that I haven’t done just that. I have “but not all white people’d” with the worst of them, with the best intentions. I have been guilty of this as surely as I have been guilty of racism, in ways I could have understood had I been paying attention, and in ways I probably could never understand because I live inside white privilege. But that’s just it. If you live inside a privilege, you don’t get to tell those who don’t share that privilege that their fear, caution, or misgivings are a “poor approach.” Very few people wear signs identifying them as racists. No one wears a sign identifying them as a rapist, an abuser, or a misogynist. And like racism, sadly for both, misogyny can be dangerous, even fatal. So yes, women do, and at present, have to assume that because 10% of the M&Ms are poison, this M&M could, in fact, be poison.
And no, that doesn’t mean I hate men, or view them all badly. Is it unfair to men? Hell yes, it is. Misogyny hurts men, too. But I’m not going to bet my life and safety to assuage the butthurt of some man that’s offended because I regard any male I don’t know as a possible threat. Don’t like it, my male interlocutor? Be the change. There was a kerfluffle a few years back about a police department that had lost the trust of the community because they had not acted to remove corrupt officers. I think this is much the same situation. Nobody WANTS to live in a world where they can’t trust the police, and of course, no one thinks every police officer is corrupt. But as long as some are, you just can’t know. As long as some are, this one *might* be. As long as people who report corruption are ignored or disbelieved, do you really feel comfortable trusting any random officer with your life?
But remember, only 10% of the M&Ms are poisoned. Eat up!
* Just to be clear, while this was a terrifying incident that stayed with me for years, I was not assaulted. I woke up, and with all the good temper I usually show when woken in the middle of the night, began cussing the guy out and demanding the get the &*^% #$@! our of my house right the hell &*^%$ now. Not the response we are taught to have, I know, but in this case, it clearly derailed his power fantasy, and after backhanding me across the face, he fled into the night, letting out my four cats in the bargain. And it does not escape me that had I followed the advice we are given for how to handle such circumstances, which is "don't fight back, survive." I would have been raped....
In conversation with someone I respect today about the #YesAllWomen, I mentioned the “M&M” analogy (imagine a bowl of M&Ms. Only 10% are poisoned. Grab a big handful. No? What’s your problem? Not all M&Ms are poisoned….) as a counter to the “NotAllMen” response to YesAllWomen. I was informed that viewing every male I encounter as a possible threat, as potentially hostile, and as a potential rapist/attacker/abuser/harasser was “not a productive way to establish relationships.”
No kidding, ya think? Tell me something I don’t know!
While this person is someone I respect tremendously both in terms of intellect, reasoning, ethics, and all around decency, to get this response from him was painful and disappointing.
It is true he (yes, he) was not in my life when any number of relationships went bad, and I feared for my safety, feared getting hit, was hit, was stalked, was verbally abused either in the relationship or for ending it; but he has heard all these stories. He also was not in my life when the tow truck driver who had my car on his truck and was driving me 135 miles through the middle of nowhere spent most of that time telling me in graphic detail what he wanted to do to me with the hand from which he’d lost the outer two fingers, but he was with me three years later when I next needed a tow in Chicago and the same man showed up, easily recognized by that hand. Although, come to think of it, he told me then he’d never really believed me until he saw the man himself.
He was, however, in my life when I was almost driven out of my Master’s degree following rumors of impropriety between myself and a male professor with whom I had dared be friends. He was in my life when I woke up in the middle of the night to find a stranger with a knife and a flashlight standing over my bed trying to pull the covers off of me.* (I never knew who he was; and I never felt comfortable in that neighborhood again.) He was in my life when my elderly disabled mother was traded by her roommate to a drug dealer to rape in order to pay off a $50 debt.
So it was a shock to me that he could still protest, almost 20 years into our friendship, that approaching every male I meet as potential threat was a problem *I* had, a flawed approach on MY part, failure of MY reasoning skills, and yes, unfair to men. As enlightened as I otherwise find this person, he pounced on my approach to men as a problem; because Not All Men. *sigh*
Yes, of course I know that this dynamic is a poor way to begin relationships, be they personal, professional, of transitory. EVERY woman knows this. But, as #YesAllWomen has so poignantly shown, we also know the price for rejecting this approach. We are told as young girls to be careful of every man we meet. We are told not to do a thousand things that will put us at risk. And I’m not talking about sex without a condom or skydiving, here. I’m talking about all the things large and small that woman calculate all the time. It’s late; should I find someone to walk me to my car? I need to be sure to let my friend or family know I have arrived safe and didn’t get raped going home a few blocks at night. I pay attention to how I walk if I’m alone at night; remember, don’t walk like a victim. Keep your keys between your fingers so you have a weapon. Yell ‘fire’ if you are attacked, because you have a better chance of actually getting help than if you yell ‘rape.’ We all know the drill.
And let’s not even start talking about the professional world. I have never, in any of the jobs or careers I have had, been assured of fair treatment as a woman. I have been harassed, marginalized, underpaid, “gal-Friday’ed,” propositioned, threatened; the usual litany. All women have experienced some kind of misogyny or discrimination. That’s what #YEsAllWomen means!
That is the reality that men cannot ever truly grasp; no more than I, however much I may care and want to make it better, can ever really grasp what it is to be a person of color. It’s just not my reality, and the best I can do is accept that it is a reality in which I will never participate, and accept that I do not deserve to be above suspicion in terms of my behavior on race until and unless I demonstrate that I’m not racist. I don’t have the right to co-opt the discussion of race by defending my not-racism. And I sure as HELL don’t have the right to tell a person of color that viewing all white people with caution is a “poor way to move in the world.”
Not that I haven’t done just that. I have “but not all white people’d” with the worst of them, with the best intentions. I have been guilty of this as surely as I have been guilty of racism, in ways I could have understood had I been paying attention, and in ways I probably could never understand because I live inside white privilege. But that’s just it. If you live inside a privilege, you don’t get to tell those who don’t share that privilege that their fear, caution, or misgivings are a “poor approach.” Very few people wear signs identifying them as racists. No one wears a sign identifying them as a rapist, an abuser, or a misogynist. And like racism, sadly for both, misogyny can be dangerous, even fatal. So yes, women do, and at present, have to assume that because 10% of the M&Ms are poison, this M&M could, in fact, be poison.
And no, that doesn’t mean I hate men, or view them all badly. Is it unfair to men? Hell yes, it is. Misogyny hurts men, too. But I’m not going to bet my life and safety to assuage the butthurt of some man that’s offended because I regard any male I don’t know as a possible threat. Don’t like it, my male interlocutor? Be the change. There was a kerfluffle a few years back about a police department that had lost the trust of the community because they had not acted to remove corrupt officers. I think this is much the same situation. Nobody WANTS to live in a world where they can’t trust the police, and of course, no one thinks every police officer is corrupt. But as long as some are, you just can’t know. As long as some are, this one *might* be. As long as people who report corruption are ignored or disbelieved, do you really feel comfortable trusting any random officer with your life?
But remember, only 10% of the M&Ms are poisoned. Eat up!
* Just to be clear, while this was a terrifying incident that stayed with me for years, I was not assaulted. I woke up, and with all the good temper I usually show when woken in the middle of the night, began cussing the guy out and demanding the get the &*^% #$@! our of my house right the hell &*^%$ now. Not the response we are taught to have, I know, but in this case, it clearly derailed his power fantasy, and after backhanding me across the face, he fled into the night, letting out my four cats in the bargain. And it does not escape me that had I followed the advice we are given for how to handle such circumstances, which is "don't fight back, survive." I would have been raped....
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