I Am Not Responsible for the Anger of Men
There’s a difference between healthy venting and dumping your emotions on somebody else and this difference matters immensely when it comes to the health and well being of the people involved.
I’ve noticed something since we started talking more about sexual harassment, sexual assault, and problematic power dynamics. Some men respond to these changing times with anger, confusion, and helplessness. While these are normal human reactions to vulnerability and change, it doesn’t mean we need to accept these reactions or indulge them even.
I write this for myself and for anybody else that needs to hear this.
I want you to repeat after me: I am not responsible for the anger and confusion of men.
Repeat it again. Say it out loud. I’ll do it too.
I am not responsible for the anger and confusion of men.
Let’s dig into this, shall we? I’m writing this because I had a couple of conversations recently with a male friend of mine where he dumped his anger on me. He had a traumatic thing happen to him that involved a woman and while I can empathize with his suffering, I cannot allow him to take his suffering, package it up with ribbons of anger, and leave it on my doorstep.
There’s an important distinction to be made between personal experiences and systemic issues. The devaluing of women and their bodies is a systemic issue. Men can and do experience trauma on a personal level. It doesn’t mean their trauma doesn’t matter. It does. But if men use their personal trauma to minimize the importance of a systemic issue that has impacted many of us directly, then they are losing sight of what’s important.
I’ve made the mistake of trying to make statements to men about how I hear them and that their suffering does matter (because it does), but I had a realization recently: some men are not hearing a word I say. They want to be heard, but not to hear me.
I’ve heard from multiple men in positions of power that they and their cohorts don’t know how to act around women anymore. One recently sent me an article about how men in the financial sector in New York are taking this important conversation and basically being petulant children and refusing to be in a room alone with female coworkers.
Okay.
The men that choose to approach change with fear instead of accountability take extreme actions that only serve to further dehumanize women. We aren’t asking to never be alone with you in a room and we all know that is pretty unrealistic. We are asking that if we are:
- You don’t touch us without our consent.
- Make sexual comments about our bodies.
- Abuse your position of power.
Here’s the thing: women are not making some outrageous request from you. They are asking to be treated with consideration and respect and to have their bodily autonomy respected. They are asking you to speak up and out about injustice. They are asking you to put in the work to make sure we can all exist in environments that help us thrive because it hasn’t always been this way for us.
We are telling our stories.
We want understanding and empathy for our discomfort.
We don’t want to be discounted because our reality is a hard pill for you to swallow.
We want you to take responsibility for creating a better society.
I believe men are capable of a lot more than they give themselves credit for. I believe they can be insightful and participatory instead of reactive and reductive. What is this, “I don’t trust myself to behave appropriately in a room with a woman” garbage? Believe you’re capable of more. Do better.
I’ve been fortunate to not experience a ton of workplace harassment, but even I’ve had it happen before. I had a physician stop me in the hallway as I was running between patient rooms trying to get medications in on time to tell me if he wasn’t married he would be interested in me.
Guy.
I’m running around sweating in my scrubs wondering if I’ll ever have time to empty my bladder. Your sexual feelings towards me have no place in my work life.
What happened to me was wrong and is why people are trying to have these conversations. It distracted me from patient care and was grossly unprofessional. This man felt entitled to share his feelings with me with no regard for my work environment or the wellbeing of the patients I cared for that day and this is why these conversations need to happen. To bring light to injustice so it can be better.
This conversation is a challenge to the status quo and people don’t like that.
It’s asking men to be accountable for their actions and I think this is where some men (not all, so don’t come at me with your defensiveness) struggle to be on board. If you ask somebody to consider how their behavior and their privilege has negatively impacted the lives of others, defensiveness is the natural reaction. You are pointing out an uncomfortable truth about the shortcomings of their humanity, their position in society, which is something they didn’t choose.
You may not have chosen your position in society, but you are responsible for being aware of it and acting in opposition to it if it’s for the betterment of society.
Asking men to think about how they contribute to making environments unsafe and traumatizing to women is asking men to consider their own flaws, the pain they may have inflicted on others, and fundamentally is asking them to practice self-awareness. It puts them in a vulnerable position to consider their contribution to a flawed system and men are conditioned to avoid vulnerability at all costs.
We all need to be a little vulnerable to make progress and improve the lives of people around us.
It’s easy when confronted with the reality of a broken system to shut down because it feels big. It’s another set of responsibilities on top of our already busy lives and that can feel overwhelming. But, when women ask men to address systemic issues we are asking them to take care of their own emotions and do the hard work to help create change because it’s the ethical, compassionate thing to do.
What this means is women will not be responsible for your confusion as you try to sort through these situations. It means, if you are struggling with your accountability, don’t come to a woman you know and dump your emotions on her. She’s had enough to deal with existing in a system where people disrespect her bodily autonomy and treat her as less than. She’s already carried a significant emotional burden and doesn’t need to carry yours on top of it.
As we explore these difficult topics as a society, we all need to be responsible for our own emotions.
It’s okay to feel angry and it’s normal to blame people outside of yourself because to see the nuance in the situation would mean feeling deep pain. Not everybody is ready to face pain within themselves and that’s ultimately a decision they have to make, but it’s not okay to make women bear witness to your anger while you sort that out.
The anger is often a facade anyway. Anger is a much more acceptable, visceral emotion in our society and one I find men express readily, especially if they are unwilling to acknowledge the emotions that tend to reside underneath — pain, shame, sadness, helplessness, disappointment, guilt, vulnerability.
I experience anger myself sometimes. It’s sometimes justified but is often a mask for deep shame. It’s easier to be reactive and place blame on others than to look inside and we all do it from time to time. I understand how this emotion can function on an intimate level and I’ve certainly been in a place where what was more accessible was to blame the other parties rather than look inside myself.
However, I believe in order for us to move on and be better as a society, men need to face these dark parts of themselves, own them, and put in the effort to change.
The ability for men to see the importance and value in creating a society that allows women to thrive and contribute meaningful work lies within their ability to see nuance, take care of their own emotions, embrace vulnerability, and do the work to create change. It requires some level of emotional maturity.
When men react with defensiveness, throwing their hands up and saying it’s too hard to change and by expressing anger at the women who say they’ve been hurt, they are showing their emotional immaturity. They are broadcasting their fear of vulnerability to whoever will listen.
Here’s your reminder: we are not responsible for the anger of men.
We are responsible for speaking our truth and exercising boundaries when appropriate.
I hope the men who haven’t been able to or don’t want to get on board can look inside and be vulnerable in this process because we need their participation and efforts to create change, to create truly collaborative workplaces.
I know not everybody is willing to go there within themselves and that women are conditioned to be more emotive and comfortable with vulnerability than men. I know that ultimately it is every individual’s choice how much they work on their emotional maturity and how much they contribute to societal change.
However, it’s not my responsibility or any woman’s to bear witness to and carry your emotional burden as you confront painful truths within yourself and the society we exist in together. We reserve the right to practice firm boundaries to protect ourselves.
That’s exactly what I will do if anybody feels the need to dump anger on me again. Any expression of anger without accountability or problem solving will be a non-sequitur to further conversation.
I’ll be here and ready for any man that decides he wants to do the work to create change and you will have my utmost respect because I know it isn’t easy, but it is important.
We are the sum of our parts as a society and every man that can get on board can help us create a better system so we can divert our attention less to struggle and more to our meaningful contributions to society.
This is an invitation: join us here in our vulnerability. It’s scary at first, but there’s progress on the other side.
