On Women’s Rights: Yeah, Yeah, Blah, Blah, Blah. Whatever.

[seabeyond]

ast week, I was having a conversation with friend, when she made mention of a mutual friend, who has been generally very supportive of my writing about women. She shared with me that he saw my writing and advocacy on behalf of women as an “overreaction,” that I was overly emotional about it and that my views on what women really face in our culture is overblown. As much as I may be frustrated by my friend’s opinion and angered that he is so dismissive of what women face, as a man, I don’t deal with the same kind of dismissal that women are subject to. In their case it’s personal.

Women who attempt to address or discuss concerns they have with the men who claim to love them too often get a wave of the hand, and hear “Yeah yeah, women’s rights, it’s important, I know, whatever.” The men who dismiss these women treat their desire for equality as if it were a hobby or a pet project. But in these moments, men are fundamentally dismissing the women they are speaking with. While I wish my friend had the chutzpah to actually tell me his opinions himself, I understand, but don’t accept why he thinks my work is an overreaction. For men to really understand the obstacles women face on an everyday basis, they are going to have to come out of their comfort zone in order to break the seemingly equitable surface between the genders. I’ve written about men and their understanding of what it’s really like to be a woman in our culture before, in a piece entitled “Men Will Never Truly Understand A Day In the Life Of Women. But Shouldn’t We Try?” In the piece, I write about how men will never truly understand what it’s like to be a woman moving about in her day, but that we must make an effort to learn what it’s like in order to better understand what they face, in order to properly combat gender discrimination. But, I have never really examined why it is that men don’t dig deeper into the gender inequality question.

*

I am not discounting the efforts of men who do advocate for women who are facing, or have faced, sexual and physical abuse, but if we think that we’ve done our part to balance the gender scales and can go home after fighting for women on these critical matters, we’re fooling ourselves. The same progressive male friends who accuse me of overreacting when it comes to advocating for women’s rights or who say things like (in jest…but not really in jest), “Oh god, here we go again” when I try to address an issue related to gender inequality, would not dare accuse me of overreaction if I were writing and talking about issues related to race or sexual orientation.

Why?

*

I see one central problem as connected with the men who are fundamentally good, but who pretend as if there is no major gender imbalance. These men, like my friend, when asked if women deserve equality, resoundingly respond “yes.” But when they are put in a position to support the women in their lives or when they are put in a place where they can directly react to discrimination, they lack any sort of action or assertion, or worst yet, they only offer dismissal. These men may see this dismissal as a matter of opinion–almost as if a political issue is being discussed. But in reality, in that moment, they are committing wholesale dismissal of these women. They are failing to show empathy for the unique experience of all women and for the women in their lives, in particular. They are deciding what is valid based on the lens that feels most comfortable to them: one of male comfort and privilege.

http://thecurrentconscience.com/blog/2012/03/19/on-womens-rights-blah-blah-whatever/

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a lot more in the article. not eye catching profound, but allows to all wrap together.