Posted on 07/17/2017 11:21:13 AM PDT by nickcarraway
Jody Allard July 6, 2017
Share285 men If the feminist men—the men who proudly declare their progressive politics and their fight for quality—aren’t safe, then what man is? No man, I fear.
I have two sons. They are strong and compassionate—the kind of boys other parents are glad to meet when their daughters bring them home for dinner. They are good boys, in the ways good boys are, but they are not safe boys. I’m starting to believe there’s no such thing.
I wrote an essay in The Washington Post last year, during the height of the Brock Turner case, about my sons and rape culture. I didn’t think it would be controversial when I wrote it; I was sure most parents grappled with raising sons in the midst of rape culture. The struggle I wrote about was universal, I thought, but I was wrong. My essay went semi-viral, and for the first time my sons encountered my words about them on their friends’ phones, their teachers’ computers, and even overheard them discussed by strangers on a crowded metro bus. It was one thing to agree to be written about in relative obscurity, and quite another thing to have my words intrude on their daily lives.
One of my sons was hurt by my words, although he’s never told me so. He doesn’t understand why I lumped him and his brother together in my essay. He sees himself as the “good” one, the one who is sensitive and thoughtful, and who listens instead of reacts. He doesn’t understand that even quiet misogyny is misogyny, and that not all sexists sound like Twitter trolls. He is angry at me now, although he won’t admit that either, and his anger led him to conservative websites and YouTube channels; places where he can surround himself with righteous indignation against feminists, and tell himself it’s ungrateful women like me who are the problem.
I teeter frequently between supporting my son and educating him. Is it my job as his mother to ensure he feels safe emotionally, no matter what violence he spews? Is it my job as his mother to steer and educate, no matter how much that education challenges his view of himself? I think it’s both, but the balance between the two has proven impossible to pinpoint. When I hear his voice become defensive, I back off but question whether I’m doing him any favors by allowing his perception of himself to go unchallenged. When I confront him with his own sexism, I question whether I’m pushing too hard and leaving him without an emotional safe space in his home.
As a single mother, I sometimes wonder whether the real problem is that my sons have no role models for the type of men I hope they become. But when I look around at the men I know, I’m not sure a male partner would fill that hole. Where are these men who are enlightened but not arrogant? Who are feminists without self-congratulation? If my sons need role models, they may have to become their own.
I joined Bumble recently, after a six-plus year break from dating. I’m not overly interested in dating in the first place, but I’m starved for adult conversation so dating feels like a necessary evil. Bumble, as I explained to my married friends, is like the feminist Tinder. Women have to initiate contact with men, so at least there’s no inbox full of dick picks every day. But, feminist or not, the men are no different from the men anywhere else and I quickly felt deflated. If the feminist men — the men who proudly declare their progressive politics and their fight for quality — aren’t safe, then what man is? No man, I fear.
I know I’m not supposed to cast an entire sex with a single paint brush — not all men, I’m sure some readers are thinking and preparing to type or tweet. But if it’s impossible for a white person to grow up without adopting racist ideas, simply because of the environment in which they live, how can I expect men not to subconsciously absorb at least some degree of sexism? White people aren’t safe, and men aren’t safe, no matter how much I’d like to assure myself that these things aren’t true.
My sons won’t rape unconscious women behind a dumpster, and neither will most of the progressive men I know. But what all of these men share in common, even my sons, is a relentless questioning and disbelief of the female experience. I do not want to prove my pain, or provide enough evidence to convince anyone that my trauma is merited. I’m through wasting my time on people who are more interested in ideas than feelings, and I’m through pretending these people, these men, are safe.
I love my sons, and I love some individual men. It pains me to say that I don’t feel emotionally safe with them, and perhaps never have with a man, but it needs to be said because far too often we are afraid to say it. This is not a reflection of something broken or damaged in me; it is a reflection of the systems we build and our boys absorb. Those little boys grow into men who know the value of women, the value that’s been ascribed to us by a broken system, and it seeps out from them in a million tiny, toxic ways.
I don’t know what the balance is between supporting these men and educating them, but I know the toll it takes on me to try. I am too valuable and too worthy to waste my time on men who are not my flesh and blood. But as my boys grow into men, I wonder whether I’ve done enough to combat the messages they hear from everyone but me. They are good boys, and maybe that’s the best they can be in the system we’ve created for them.
Jody Allard is a former techie-turned-freelance-writer living in Seattle. She can be reached through her website, on Twitter or via her Facebook page.
I’m not particularly bandwagon prone. I’m what I am, for better or worse.
Hate to break it to her, but... those aren't men.
Okay, ladies. Take it outside.
/s
I’m sorry, only God has the right to parade around as “I am what I am.”
You have essence of Satan yet in your soul.
Cite some specifics. And get ready to hear them examined.
ONE of her sons? Only one? The lady's not giving herself enough credit.
However, she's done them a favor. They now know they can never ever please their mother, no matter what they do, and it's a waste of time to keep trying.
Granted, that was very right for her to be honest.
These people just cannot accept that God made men a certain way and woman a certain way. This terrible woman, like many un-godly leftists, is trying to play god, thinking she can make her sons into something they were never meant to be, more woman-like.
I feel sorry for her kids as I’ve known someone that was brought up in a family culture like that. He is still very messed up to this day. Hopefully her sons will be able to find a way to escape that and be how God intended them to be.
CGato
There you go again, speaking for God. You really should stop. I know I’m going to stop giving you a pretext vis a vis this weird exchange.
Excellent suggestion, ma’am. /s
By the way, have you seen the Dr. Jordan Peterson lecture on post-modernism and how he intends to fight it? You might find it interesting. On my links page.
The most devastating wounds in life are usually self-inflicted. The author is very much the author of her own situation and seems to only be about half done.
And, for what it may be worth.... men should be seen as potentially dangerous. That is how we are supposed to be.
Potential best friend.
Potential worst enemy.
The little rainbow in a thunderstorm of crazy.
And it also is crystal clear that you are playing rope a dope with God, as so many Christianesque people do.
my, how you do prattle on...
Yeah but, what kind of man would abandon his sons to this? Sad.
“rape culture” is a myth within academia and from academia sold to the media and reported as an epidemic of rape.
It used and depended on the media’s ability to take any number of anecdotal case, some of which proved to be false accusations and magnify them, for political purposes into an epidemic of rape. Having sold that media successfully to a critical mass of the sheeple, in it was then further sold and magnified as a an embedded systemic aspect of the entire “culture” requiring mass “re-education” of every woman, that they are “victims” and every male that they are gentle because their entire gender is guilty.
Meanwhile, the actual incidences of sexual abuse that is growing in the number of actual occurrences annually is older women, often teachers, having sexual relations with under age boys. THAT should have been what the “concerned mother” was writing about.
She’s confessing that she’s crazy.She may not even realize this.
My parents were the greatest parents anyone could hope for in so many ways. Looking back one of the best things they ever did for me was correct me when I got dramatic about something. I was not told my feelings did not matter, in fact I was comforted by them when it was needed. What they did impress upon me though was that “very few people in this world care about your feelings” meaning keep all that to yourself unless you are with someone that cares enough about you to care about your feelings.
In general I was taught feelings were private matters. All this sharing feelings is inappropriate to me and some have allowed their feelings to take over their lives, basing everything else on their feelings or some other person’s feelings. We were not raised to hurt the feelings of other people, no- we were to be aware of not doing that. We were just not raised to believe our feelings would or should matter to everyone or above other things in our lives even to us. Also we were warned not to take action based on feelings, but to carefully consider many things before taking meaningful action.
“I can’t understand what this person is writing about. What is she saying?”
This woman is upset that no matter how hard she looks she cannot find a man who doesnt hate women. Her standards are simply so high that no man in the world can meet them. I think this indicates a paranoid mentality.
What she is also saying is that she has tried to raise her sons so that THEY could meet her standards but has failed. By saying her sons are not “safe” she means that given the opportunity they would take sexual advantage of a helpless woman. In other words they would be rapists. IMO her standard for a “safe” man is one who has had his male organ removed or preferably never had one to begin with.
I have not seen Peterson’s work. Thanks for the link. I will read up on him.
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