Calling All Males (Part I) | Samantha Kutner on Patreon
There are multiple movements converging in 2019. On one side, women are asking society to reconsider the conditions that enable sexual assault, abuse, and coersion to continue. On the other are men who view #metoo as a personal attack on their character, and by extension, all men. And in between are men in online communities who have taken the #redpill, or adopted the narrow worldview that men are being subjugated by women. I will have much more to say on this in later posts, but for now, I’d like to talk about how narratives are shaped and disseminated.
The narratives on the conservative side support the idea that #MeToo is a feminist lynch mob for women to falsely accuse men of rape. This narrative was furiously pushed during the Kavanaugh was being considered for his nomination to Supreme Court Justice. The side that is often neglected is the woman’s. While Kavanaugh sought out “himpathy” for something that could ruin his career, Dr. Blasey Ford was moving from her home to escape death threats by what you could objectively describe as on and offline lynch mobs.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/
When you look closely at each event, you begin to see the following pattern: a sense of male victimization that undercuts every attempt at discourse between issues effecting men and women. In the worst cases, this sense of victimhood combines with a desire for control and actively tries to suppress discussion through intimidation and harrassment.
The backlash towards the recent Gillette commerical highlights this theme.Here is a link with the original video.
https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-46874617
In the Gillette commerical are scenes of men behaving badly e.g. bullying, grabbing women, talking over them, all followed by a chorus of male voices saying, “Boys will be boys.” Gilette wants to move the discourse further. And also, (let’s be real), because we live in a neoliberalist society, use that emotional appeal to sell their products. Despite monetary incentives, it is a brave first attempt at invitational rhetoric. More on invitational rhetoric here.
As a Countering Violent Extremism researcher, here is what I see in Gilette backlash: a resistance to a new kind of discourse men have historically not had access too. It reminds me of my readings on a different period in our nation’s history, when feminists called for the freedom from restrictive corsets. There was a certain percentage of women who vehemently attacked the idea.
Men right now are not attacking Gillette so much as they are vehemently attacking an idea. And for some men, I understand their frustration. If society conditioned me to suppress my emotions and pressured me to be strong all of the time, regardless of how I was feeling on the inside, I might vehemently attack the idea too, because it conflicts with society’s expectations of me.
There is no clear blueprint for how to move forward, but men can “uncorset” themselves too, and leave behind the idea that suffocating their emotions somehow aesthetically pleasing and helpful.
In my research, being harrassed and intimidated by men who I never spoke with was not hard. It was a research risk I was willing to take. The hardest thing to process was how much pain some of the men who did speak with me were in, and how much they lacked the tools to articulate it. They often placed their pain on an external source, e.g. feminism, women who may have rejected them, women who left, women who were cruel. Women as a whole.But it is not women who are the root cause of their suffering.
Like #metoo, the lonliness, isolation, and anger men are dealing with are societal, and not attributable to any one gender, religion, or ethnicity.
This is one of the first websites I’ve found that seems to speak to men directly. It’s something for men, by men. These men do not ask you to buy a book or ticket to a show. They do not ask you to buy their tee shirt or attend their conference. They simply ask that you don’t “bullshit them.” That’s a message I can get with and have actually told several Proud Boys on several occasions. Some of them listen. lol
So, I, (as a female academic who interviews males and females who have joined what most would consider “fringe movements”), would like any interested males to check out this website and provide any feedback you have through Twitter, Facebook, Email, DM, PM or phone. No need to self censor. No need to buy a Gillette razor. Any and all critique/praise/suggestions are welcome.
(This will be a bimonthly effort that provides resources for men and encourages discussion between men and women).
Originally published at www.patreon.com.
