Men: You Do Not Need to Apologize to Me For Things You Haven’t Done

I recently wrote an article that dealt with Princess Leia’s infamous metal bikini, sexual objectification, and the intrinsic, irreversible value of all human beings.

I tried to do all I could, as I was writing, not to downplay the damage and wrongness of sexual objectification, but also not to make it a hit-piece against men as a group. I am married to a man — a wonderful, flawed man who has treated me, as well as every other woman I have seen him interact with, as a person of value from day one. If all men really were the kind of man I was describing, I would be a nun (and I’m not even Catholic).

TiOluwa Olarewaju, another writer here on Medium (whose work, by the way, is definitely worth a read), responded. His comment made some good points about the types of objectification that men experience, but the bit I want to talk about was the apology. He apologized to me, as a woman, on behalf of men.

Whether it is because I still have a long way to go as a writer, or because we live in a society where men feel like they must either bear the burden of guilt for the sins of the lowest common denominator of their sex, or else risk being associated with them, at some level my article made TiOluwa feel like he owed me an apology.

But he does not.

I did not write the piece, nor do I write any piece, in hopes of creating guilt feelings in men for behaviors that they, as individuals, do not engage in, and views about women which they do not hold. Is it human sin nature for people (men and women) to look at another person and momentarily only see what they can get from them? Yes. Is that wrong? Absolutely. But that’s not the kind of person I was describing in my article. I was talking about the kind of person whose accepted worldview is that women exist for his personal gratification. He not only has felt the urge to look at another person as a thing, he has accepted the idea as truth. When this is your worldview, you will act on it when you have the power to do so. This is what leads to everything from “locker room talk” and catcalling, to sexual assault and rape.

While I’m not here to pat anybody on the back and tell them that they don’t need to examine their own life, I’m also not here to ask men who fall into category one to answer for the sins of men who fall into category two. We all have sins enough of our own without arbitrarily taking on the burden of sins we have not committed, simply because we were born a into a certain group.

Our laws operate on a concept that goes back to ancient times, called “the presumption of innocence”. This is where we get the phrase “innocent until proven guilty”. I think it is a good rule to apply in one’s personal life as well. If I’ve known 100 men and 99 of them have been scalawags, I still owe it to the 100th man to presume that he is not a scalawag until he shows me otherwise (these numbers are in no way meant to represent reality- it’s a purposely extreme example). I cannot justify condemning anyone based on something that is so completely out of their control as what sex they were born, and how others of the same sex behave.

So guys: if sexual objectification bothers you, that’s good. It should bother you, because it is wrong and it is a lie. While it is unfair to expect you to apologize for the behavior of someone else, here are some practical things you can do instead:

1. Affirm the wrongness of sexual objectification when women talk about it. Don’t make excuses for men who do/say inexcusable things. There is nothing more demoralizing than a woman seeing a man behave in an overtly misogynistic way, then see his behavior defended or minimized by men who she thought were “nice guys”. Trust me, after this year, I know.
2. Affirm a woman’s intrinsic value, NOT based on her looks, her smarts, or her behavior, but based on her humanity. This means not just listening to the pretty girl pour out her woes to you, but also treating the elderly woman in the check-out lane with patience and dignity. Not only is it the right thing to do, but eventually the pretty girls get wise if they see that they are the only women that you treat with respect.
3. When you’re in the locker room and your friends are talking about women in demeaning ways, call them out. Make them hear what they’re saying, and ask if that’s really how they think of their fellow humans. Make them embarrassed — they should be. Maybe if more men who don’t think of women that way would put social pressure on men who do, we wouldn’t have so many of the latter.
4. If a woman is making you her punching bag for all the wrongs that have been done to her and other women in the history of the whole world, DO NOT pull this article out of your back pocket to prove your innocence to her. It won’t work. Instead, take a deep breath, and remember items 1 and 2. I realize this takes a ton of self-control. If you do this successfully you are entitled to a gold star in my book.
5. Most importantly: be a nice man. This is the single most powerful thing you can do. Be the guy that girls remember as the exception to what seems to be the rule when she’s given reason after reason to think that it really is “all men”.

I promise you that being a nice man will do more good for women than all the apologizing and self-flagellation that you could do from now on until you’re dead.