A noisy man on the silence of men
Mute support just won’t cut it any more, never did.
Dear Fellow Men,
More specifically,
I’m writing to men who empathize/sympathize/agree with your women friends and family in their rage and grief and intense frustration for the past two years, but especially in this past week of the Kavanaugh debacle.
MORE specifically,
this is for men who agree with the above but have stayed silent.
If you’re not someone who falls into the category defined by that last sentence, please don’t take offense, this isn’t for you.
So many of us were raised to be strong and/but silent. Suddenly, women are asking us to, even demanding of us, that we stand with them as protesters, that we not only speak up if we support them and share their values/beliefs/disgust/rage, but speak LOUDLY. And yes, this can sometimes feel confusing, that it’s a no-win situation in that it’s coming from the same women who’ve also told us starting in the past decade to shut up and stop explaining stuff to them. But both are true. Our job, as I see it, is to struggle long and hard with that dilemma, how to speak up, actively support without explaining, without taking over, and without being immediately silent again and sullen/grumpy/pouty about it when a woman tells us that nope, you didn’t get it right that time, try again.
The fact that it’s hard for men to know how to be supportive in the Trump/#metoo era give us an excuse to shrug our shoulders and say fuck it, I can’t win, I’m just going to stay silent and be as strong and supportive as I can … while saying nothing.
That said, I do not completely agree with my women friends/colleagues/allies who are posting this week insisting that all men start shouting from the rooftops, any more than I agree with the people who insist that if I don’t constantly call or write my elected representatives (one form of protest among many) I’m a horrible human being. People can’t change overnight, and one takes political social action in the way that works for them.
****What I am saying is that, if you are with them, if you support the women, it’s your job to find SOME way to show that support.*****
- If you NEVER click like on a righteously furious woman’s post even though you agree with it, CLICK THE DAMN BUTTON.
- If you’ve clicked the button but have never commented even though you’ve wanted to because you just didn’t want to get into it, GET INTO IT. (You can turn off notifications for a post any time you want to after that.)
- If you want to change your profile pic. to black (or fire, as I have done because Anja did wanting to show more anger than absence) in solidarity with women, but haven’t done so for whatever reason, CHANGE THAT DAMN PIC.
- If you’ve said to yourself AMEN SISTER after reading a post from a powerful, eloquent woman who’s eyeballs deep in the fight like Rebecca Solnit and have wanted to repost but haven’t done so for all those reasons above about how taking action makes life more complicated, forces you to communicate more than you’d like perhaps, maybe alienates you or from or gets you into tough conversations with some friends or family, tough shit, REPOST THAT ARTICLE!
It has made me sad for us men over the past couple years that nearly every post I see about #metoo or about Trump or his cronies’ hatred of women or about threats to abortion rights has been posted by a woman (I haven’t posted about much political stuff since November 2016, myself, I’ve also run away, I admit), and nearly all the “like”s and pretty much all the comment on those posts are from other women when I know that so many men have seen them and silently nodded their heads. Women can’t see us sitting at our computers or phones nodding our heads, guys. It’s just not enough any more, it never was, but now more than ever.
Point is, each man is capable of doing what he’s capable of, what he’s been trained to do/be for his entire life, but if you’re with the women I’ve mentioned in spirit but not showing you’re with them in some public form, especially if you participate in social media regularly, but even at work, at the cafe, the bar, the dinner table, ***you’re just not supporting them****, and you’re not showing the men (and women) who still support Trump’s hateful shit show where you stand.
If you know you shouldn’t and don’t want to be that silent “good” guy any more, do SOMETHING, however small — click the angry-face emoji, repost an article, change a picture, or even, yes, speak or write actual words of your own.
Something is way way better than nothing. Saying/doing nothing is a large part of why we’re here today. If we’re not part of undoing it, then we’re part of keeping it going.
P.S. As I’m about to post this, I know I have probably gotten things wrong, am opening myself up to hard conversations and comments and threads I’m really not in the mood for, that some people will see me in ways I don’t want to be seen. And, being me, I’ll be just as embarrassed as any good feeling I’ll have from even the people who click “like” in that I don’t want credit or a pat on the back for pointing out something that might be obvious or inarticulately put, for ranting the rant I need to rant, written hastily, posted before I can change my mind. BUT I’M POSTING IT ANYWAY.
#metoo #believewomen #ibelieveher #vote #whyididntreport #kavanaugh … you get the idea.
