This is something I wrote a few years back, and it feels
appropriate to share it again.
When feminists talk about the patriarchy they are talking
about a social, political, institutional, legal structure that condones
violence against women by men. When men
beat up or rape women they are not doing it because they are mixed-up, or
wounded, or they were pushed too far and couldn’t control themselves. They are doing it because they believe they
are entitled to do it purely and solely because they are men, and men are
entitled to treat women like that. They
are acting on behalf of all men – saying, to the world of men – ‘I’m doing it
the way it’s meant to be done.’
Yes - I get that not all men are like that. I know and
respect that there are men out there who like and respect women and see their
partners as that - not as punch-bags. I get that. I also know and understand
that men are abused by women too, emotionally, physically, possibly even
sexually. I get that. That’s not the point.
The minute you get into that ‘Yeh, well, what about men?’ thing, or ‘Don’t tar us all with the same
brush,’ you have made sure that there can be no further discussion of these
issues. It just becomes competitive
victim-playing. I get that if you are one of those men who respects women,
understands that his woman life-partner is a companion, not just a
commodity, and wants his daughters to
grow up strong and believing in their rights to exist as an equal, then it must
feel like shit to hear women talking about ‘All men.’ I get that your hackles rise up defensively
when women publish statistics about the numbers of women killed by their male
partners, or raped.
I also do know that men are abused by their female
partners, and even though they are rarely in fear of their lives, the damage
caused by emotional abuse is still horrendous. There is an appropriate forum
and manner to discuss these issues and I’m glad that men are finding
these. But not in the context of
comparing it to the violence done to women by men throughout the world.
The best way to make that point is to compare it to
racism. We live in a world that
culturally, politically, financially, legally, institutionally gives whites a
privileged position in relation to people of colour. That’s just a fact. I didn’t make it like that, I haven’t done
anything to reinforce or justify white supremacy. I know I’m not a racist and I
treat everyone with respect and never make assumptions about them because of
their race or culture. But I am white. I
live in a white world. And when I see on the news that some black guy has been
shot by a white guy, just for being black, when I read the statistics of the
rates of imprisonment of blacks compared to whites, when I see the results of
social deprivation caused by unequal treatment – it’s not the time for me to
start saying ‘Yeh, well, I’ve had my problems too, you know. I didn’t get to
where I am in life because of privilege and I had to work for it,’ etc etc. It’s
not the time to start whining about how blacks just assume I’m a racist because
I did something that upset one individual – all that crap.
Competitive victim-playing does not change anything. That’s
the purpose of it – to stop change from happening.
When you, as a man, say ‘Yer, but what about…’ when you are
confronted by those statistics, then you are condoning the status quo. You are allowing the only important issue to
be side-tracked, and that issue is ‘How can we change this?’
There is only one response when I as a white woman see a
black person being arrested and harassed by white police, being beaten, killed
in custody, any of that, just because they are black – and that is to stand up
and shout ‘NOT IN MY NAME!!’
There is only one response by a man when he see the
statistics about rape and violence by men against women. Stand up and shout ‘NOT IN MY NAME.’
When you do that you are saying ‘I, as a man, do not condone
this.’
That is the only way things will change.
