Elisto Dragonwings

It’s irrefutable that men’s present anger is lacking in sufficient specificity and articulation. As a feminist movement, this should not be alien to us. There was a time, more than half a century ago, when women’s anger and frustration were equally inarticulate. In 1963, Betty Friedan wrote The Feminine Mystique in search of illuminating what she deemed to be “the problem that has no name,” the problem that “lay buried, unspoken for many years in the minds of American women … a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning.” Her words from the ’60s still ring true today: "It is no longer possible to ignore that voice, to dismiss the desperation of so many American women. This is not what being a woman means, no matter what the experts say. For human suffering there is a reason; perhaps the reason has not been found because the right questions have not been asked, or pressed far enough." Might we now, 60 years later, say the same thing of men? Without a movement to teach them or an analysis to guide them, their present anger lacks the sort of precision that could help us feel comfortable with it. It’s anger that stems from abstract knowledge, a gut feeling that injustice is being done: words on the tip of the tongue, but never quite spoken. Men don’t know exactly what the injustice is, but they perceive it nonetheless. Something is off. A stench without cause. An odor emanating from somewhere. Here’s the thing: paucity of specificity and inadequate articulation do not render men’s current frustration illegitimate; if anything, they bolster the case for further investigation and lay bare the urgency of this historical moment. It’s time we entertain the idea that men might be picking up on something real. There has been hypocrisy, and it is worth being angry about. Men look at the feminist movement and—subconsciously, I think—ask themselves: What is feminism doing to protect me? I need protection, too, you know. In general, we dismiss this feeling. Protect you? After what you’ve spent centuries doing to us? Protect yourself, asshole.  Though I understand where it comes from, I’m afraid this sort of terse reaction stops us from asking the important questions. Namely: If we say we abhor the violence of men and want it to cease, what are we doing to stop boys from being recruited into it? 

We have not embodied gender equality sufficiently. As a feminist movement, we have worked tirelessly to protect women and girls from the violence that is all too prevalent in their lives but have said next to nothing about the violence facing men and boys. We have fought tooth and nail against institutions that predominantly brutalize women but have done little to combat the institutions—institutions like military bases, prisons, and police training facilities—that so often brutalize men, too. I think that’s in part because men operate (and benefit from) these institutions, but that’s no reason to ignore them. Just because a man is in charge, that doesn’t mean the institution is safe for other men. Men and boys need protection from the violence of powerful men every bit as much as women and girls do. Powerful men—men who are used to enacting violence with impunity—are a threat to us all. What’s worse, we seem to have decried men’s anger wholesale. We have labeled angry men as bad men and, in so doing, have lost vital nuance. Because they cannot articulate it to us in sufficient language—because they have yet to locate the precise source of the stench—we have denied any possibility that the anger men feel might be righteous. Here’s the thing: men should be angry, and their anger is righteous, albeit misplaced. If the culture that raised you sees you as little more than a future agent of military, police, or corporate violence, it would be strange for you not to be angry. Men have been ignored. They have been brutalized. They have been told that it is their job to do the policing and soldiering and brutalizing on behalf of us all. They have endured grave gender-based violence, and rather than help them locate it, we’ve mostly told them they’re making the whole thing up. [...]

What if we encouraged men to trust their noses instead of instructing them to relinquish their frustration? What if, instead of spending energy denying that something is amiss, we dedicate our energy to affirming that something is off and join men as they search for the source of the stench? What if we say to men, “We agree. Something isn’t right. Your body and psyche are being exploited to nefarious ends. You were groomed unfairly,” and then rage and scream and investigate alongside them? This is where I am flummoxed and exhausted by contemporary popular feminism, if only because it is so obvious. We will volunteer for hours outside an abortion clinic, helping to protect women who are entering from being harassed. We do so because it is both vital and necessary. We do so because we believe in a world where people have agency over their own bodies. But we do next to nothing about military recruitment centers or police academies, institutions whose primary job is to instill violence in men—to take their bodies and their minds and exploit them for the violent ends of the ruling class. Can we stop scratching our heads and pretending we do not know how America became a nation of such violence? Can we stop acting surprised when, after raising our boys as child soldiers, their violence turns back against us? Can we own up to the truth: that we cannot ask boys to conceptualize ruthlessly killing faraway brown people, then reasonably expect them to turn it off when they come home? That we cannot raise boys to fantasize about guns and war throughout their childhood, then act surprised when they shoot up a school? That we cannot raise our boys to be fine with abusing Afghani prisoners, then expect them not to abuse us, too? As a feminist movement, it’s high time we pick a lane. It’s time we take a stand with veterans and against the military. It’s time we declare that we’re no longer OK living in a violent world. We must decide that the dignity and bodily autonomy of men and boys matter to us enough to fight for them. We must rage against the myriad institutions that insist on making murderers out of our little boys. As a feminist movement, we must categorically decry war, in all its forms.

This article is by Jacob Tobia (they/them), a genderqueer person, and is an excerpt from their book Before They Were Men.

I feel very similarly to Jacob. While people will bring up "feminism helps men too!" as a comeback when relevant, on a large scare (especially with regards to pop feminism, which is a loose and largely useless combination of cultural radical feminism and liberal capitalist feminism), feminism has failed to actually, materially prove this. We have a massive messaging issue, and the failures of feminism for men, all trans people, and women are all interconnected, as are the failures of feminism to be critical of white supremacy, capitalism, and imperialism. It's not that people haven't been talking about these issues - we have for decades - but that hasn't solved anything.

We need to make men's issues feminist issues in the minds of every person who knows about feminism. Feminists need to be the loudest and most passionate on framing war as gendered-based violence for those classed as men, on the lack of awareness for perceived-male victims of sexual violence, particularly forced-to-penetrate rape, on how the patriarchal weaponizes stereotypes of men as having an innate inclination towards physical and sexual violence to dehumanize men of color and all trans and gender non-conforming people.

Abusers and creeps are not some species of especially heinous animal or alien or monster wearing the face of a human. They're people. And you NEED to drill it into your head that they are people because you NEED to remember that people are capable of doingn heinous shit. And you are a person. And your loved ones are people.

So, this brings up a few things I think people have been misunderstanding about non-violent philosophies, and I hope this is an ok opportunity to talk about it.

It's just that, a set of values and morals and philosophical views about what rights and responsibilities we have towards others and society. It's not about individual feelings and comforts or "not getting your hands dirty" because that would mean you're fine with other people doing the "bad" thing for you. It's not about avoiding feeling icky about hurting someone else. If anything, it means being able to see your own rage or the emotional satisfaction you might find and putting your own emotional wants aside and find another solution. Different people will define it a little differently, but ultimately, it's about not having the right to commit violence, particularly dehumanizing violence, against another.

It doesn't mean people shouldn't face consequences and accountability. It just means consequences and accountability shouldn't be violent and dehumanizing. So for example, some level of force may be needed to prevent someone from hurting others, and they may need to be kept away from others to prevent further harm. But they shouldn't face abuse in that situation. They should still be treated like a person.

Yes that means they might not learn. Give them opportunities to change and learn and do better. But recognize they are an independent human, free to refuse to change. Which might mean continuing to be kept away from people they would hurt. (Some might say this use of force is also a form of violence. I'm open to hearing a different set of actions).

Because what right do any of us have to force someone to change? We have a right to leave. But to treat them violently to get them to act in ways we think would be better? We'll always decide that in our own favor. That's probably what they're doing to justify themselves too. And that's not to say "oh, you're just as bad," obviously not if you're trying to stop abuse. But it is to say that legitimizing that sort of reasoning easily backfires. Lots of people abuse others "for their own good" and just can't see the difference.

I realize this is all idealistic. We don't have good social structures in place to make any of this possible on a meaningful scale. We're often stuck trying to figure out individually how to deal with abusive people in our lives. Mirroring their violence back may "work" sometimes, but at least in the US, which is all I can really talk about, what systems do we have to compare that outcome to? Most people only seem to know appeasement or force.