i don’t want to achieve equality by sinking to men’s level, i want them to get on ours! why should i have to unlearn the conversational art of waiting my turn, unlearn sexual self-restraint, unlearn trust in others’ good intentions, unlearn the impulse to cater to others’ needs, just to have a chance at success among savages? why can’t the men learn some fucking manners so we can all conduct our affairs in a civilized manner? i shouldn’t have to stop saying sorry, you say sorry!
In the 80s when I was in my freshman year in college, they still had entirely separate mens and women’s dorms. I was in class waiting for a final to start and one of the guys was telling someone about how he had had to go into a women’s dorm to drop something off, and he was startled to see posters on the walls, flowers, curtains, etc. He said his men’s dorm had holes in the walls, things on fire, fights, guys walking around with open wounds and he just didn’t understand why they had to live like this. He said, “I want to live with the women, in civilization.”
Am reading Sisterhood of Spies, about women working for the OSS during WWII. One of the stories mentions that the women in London had a male visitor who would eat in their mess hall once a month. He was married and wasn’t interested in hitting on any of the women; he just wanted to eat in an atmosphere where people said “Please pass the butter,” instead of “PASS THE GODDAMNED GREASE”
I dated a guy who brought me along on group activities (movies, video game night, etc.) with four or five other male friends. Once I mentioned to one of the other guys that I hoped I wasn’t intruding on their “guy time” or some such. He got this sort of rueful look and said, “The truth is, I really like it when you’re here because it gives us a reason to act better. When it’s just guys, we all have to try to outdo each other with how vile we are.”
So the moral of these stories are men don’t even treat each other like human beings.
Many years ago I joined a D&D group that had been going for several years and, until I arrived, was all men. The first session was awkward but I was very shy at the time and so assumed it was just because I was being oversensitive, but many months later, one of them took me asied and asked if I was happy in the group. I said yes, and asked why he wanted to know particularly.
“I don’t want you to leave,” he said. “Having you around means we have better conversations, in and out of character, because we’re not just trying to gross each other out or one up each other. I didn’t know Ryan could even speak in full sentences until you showed up and asked everyone how they are at the start of each session. I didn’t even know he had kids!”
They’d just been showing up, arguing, killing some kobolds or whatever, and going home, and at least two of them hadn’t really been enjoying it until they actually started socialising with it.
Society enables Toxic Masculinity so much that for too many men, the elements of toxic masculinity are the only form of masculinity they know.
I’m a 41 year old guy. I’ve NEVER had a substantive conversation with a man in my life. Being friends with women, however, has been life changing and soul cleansing. Men need therapy. All of them. You NEED to see what you’re missing.
lifeofbriacomix