So tonight...
...I went to see a famous author (Jackson Katz) with Rachael at TWU, in a lecture hall that normally seats around 80 students. I knew to expect more than 100, and possibly close to 150. I am an introvert. I was nervous. I was antsy and fidgety. I was very far from my comfort zone.
What would this be like? I know my own feminism. I know my own beliefs about equality, but I know hardly anyone else's. Feminism is as diverse a social movement as any political movement. Would I be part of a quasi-hostile crowd? Would I get strange stares?
We arrived early, around 6:20, to a room of professors whose departments (bringing Jackson Katz was a joint effort) were responsible for the evening. A handful of students had seats, most of them either GAs or assisting the setup. Earlier, Rachael's professor had quite solidly crossed the line of professionalism (against a student in her class), and Rachael needed to speak with the head of her department. Which left me to find three seats and save them while they spoke in the hall.
Have I mentioned before that I am an introvert? Of course, I sat in the seats that would become faculty reserved seating. We moved once she returned, and students filed in by the dozens. All seats filled before 6:40. Dozens more students sat in the walkways, on the speaking platform, and out into the hall. Katz joked that everyone should attend a lecture once in their lives where people filled the aisles, if only so they could relate a story that included the phrase "and people filled the aisles!"
Katz started out discussing male roles in feminist movements. When he gives lectures or speaks to crowds, the numbers are usually 90/10 in favor of women. Men receive congratulations from the women for showing up and caring about these issues. He went on to say that we do not want thanks because we do not think we do anything extraordinary, and he's right. As good as positive reinforcement is, our world would be a much better place if these lectures split 50/50, and attending men were unremarkable.
He moved on to discuss abuse, and how abuse disproportionately affects women. He spoke specifically of rape, and how rape prevention is a joke. By this, he meant that rape prevention is actually just risk reduction in the form of advice given to women on how to avoid rape. Rather than dealing with rapists and potential rapists as men, we leave it up to women to fend for themselves in these situations. Men should help women in this fight by identifying questionable acts or statements and challenging their peers. I doubt many of us hang out with men who are barflies and who might look for a drunk woman to take advantage of, but the principle still applies (at least in my opinion). He spoke about the slippery slope to abuse, and how men who control women can become abusers (not that it always does, just that this is an important pattern of behavior to watch out for).
He continued, talking about societal mysoginy and media images of men and women throughout the decades, asserting popular media images of women are the rail-thin, borderline anorexic-looking women who, in addition to communicating a disturbing message of what women "should" look like, also convey the sentiment that women take up less space than men, and are therefore less important than men (often portrayed as gigantic muscle-bound meatheads). To back this up, he showed a video on the size of action figures throughout the years, from GI Joe in the 70s on up to today, and did the Barbie-style body proportions, showing that a modern-day GI Joe has biceps which, on an adult male, would be over 26" (!!) around.
This segued into something I had never considered: professional wrestling. He showed us a sickening video made up of clips recorded from cable wrestling broadcasts, which depicted male wrestlers performing the following acts on female wrestlers:
Can good parenting solve this dilemma? Absolutely! Should we as a society take a stand and say that this is unacceptable especially in light of the fact that abuse disproportionately affects women?
(pardon my language)
FUCK YES!!
Simply because good parenting solves our individual problems does not recuse us from dealing with overall societal issues and the messages conveyed by these outlets.
It really hit me like a ton of bricks when Katz said, about halfway through, that simply not being an abuser wasn't good enough (and that this is an absurdly low bar to set for ourselves as a society), and (more importantly) that not speaking out against abuse makes us complicit in its occurrences.
Coming to this realization sucked.
It took a few moments for it to hit home for me. It's really hard to be a man, believe the things I do, hear a co-worker say something sexist or infer an abusive act (even in jest), and think about this. It scares me to think about being confrontational with the immense number of good ole boys who work in my office. I am certain that this will alienate me.
But I think about how these issues affect women, and what it must mean to have to worry for your physical safety in so many instances when men take it for granted. I wonder what it must mean to have to think "is it worth it?" every time someone treats you like a piece of meat.
And suddenly, it isn't so hard to be a man.
Now I know that I have to find ways to get through to my co-workers. I have to talk to my family about this. Not because I'm a liberal. Not because I'm sensitive. Not because I never played sports in high school. Not because I'm an intellectual. Not because my Grandmother helped my single Mom raise me. Not because I'm Jason. Because I'm a human.
And so is everyone else who reads this.
What would this be like? I know my own feminism. I know my own beliefs about equality, but I know hardly anyone else's. Feminism is as diverse a social movement as any political movement. Would I be part of a quasi-hostile crowd? Would I get strange stares?
We arrived early, around 6:20, to a room of professors whose departments (bringing Jackson Katz was a joint effort) were responsible for the evening. A handful of students had seats, most of them either GAs or assisting the setup. Earlier, Rachael's professor had quite solidly crossed the line of professionalism (against a student in her class), and Rachael needed to speak with the head of her department. Which left me to find three seats and save them while they spoke in the hall.
Have I mentioned before that I am an introvert? Of course, I sat in the seats that would become faculty reserved seating. We moved once she returned, and students filed in by the dozens. All seats filled before 6:40. Dozens more students sat in the walkways, on the speaking platform, and out into the hall. Katz joked that everyone should attend a lecture once in their lives where people filled the aisles, if only so they could relate a story that included the phrase "and people filled the aisles!"
Katz started out discussing male roles in feminist movements. When he gives lectures or speaks to crowds, the numbers are usually 90/10 in favor of women. Men receive congratulations from the women for showing up and caring about these issues. He went on to say that we do not want thanks because we do not think we do anything extraordinary, and he's right. As good as positive reinforcement is, our world would be a much better place if these lectures split 50/50, and attending men were unremarkable.
He moved on to discuss abuse, and how abuse disproportionately affects women. He spoke specifically of rape, and how rape prevention is a joke. By this, he meant that rape prevention is actually just risk reduction in the form of advice given to women on how to avoid rape. Rather than dealing with rapists and potential rapists as men, we leave it up to women to fend for themselves in these situations. Men should help women in this fight by identifying questionable acts or statements and challenging their peers. I doubt many of us hang out with men who are barflies and who might look for a drunk woman to take advantage of, but the principle still applies (at least in my opinion). He spoke about the slippery slope to abuse, and how men who control women can become abusers (not that it always does, just that this is an important pattern of behavior to watch out for).
He continued, talking about societal mysoginy and media images of men and women throughout the decades, asserting popular media images of women are the rail-thin, borderline anorexic-looking women who, in addition to communicating a disturbing message of what women "should" look like, also convey the sentiment that women take up less space than men, and are therefore less important than men (often portrayed as gigantic muscle-bound meatheads). To back this up, he showed a video on the size of action figures throughout the years, from GI Joe in the 70s on up to today, and did the Barbie-style body proportions, showing that a modern-day GI Joe has biceps which, on an adult male, would be over 26" (!!) around.
This segued into something I had never considered: professional wrestling. He showed us a sickening video made up of clips recorded from cable wrestling broadcasts, which depicted male wrestlers performing the following acts on female wrestlers:
- Forcibly kissing women.
- Bending women over and spanking them.
- Removing women's clothing.
- Performing a "wrestling move" that was essentially a depicted sex position, while the commentators encouraged the wrestler.
- Ramming a woman's head into a turnbuckle.
- Kicking a woman in the head, lying on the ground.
- Repeatedly beating a woman lying on the ground with a chair (struck at least six times).
Can good parenting solve this dilemma? Absolutely! Should we as a society take a stand and say that this is unacceptable especially in light of the fact that abuse disproportionately affects women?
(pardon my language)
FUCK YES!!
Simply because good parenting solves our individual problems does not recuse us from dealing with overall societal issues and the messages conveyed by these outlets.
It really hit me like a ton of bricks when Katz said, about halfway through, that simply not being an abuser wasn't good enough (and that this is an absurdly low bar to set for ourselves as a society), and (more importantly) that not speaking out against abuse makes us complicit in its occurrences.
Coming to this realization sucked.
It took a few moments for it to hit home for me. It's really hard to be a man, believe the things I do, hear a co-worker say something sexist or infer an abusive act (even in jest), and think about this. It scares me to think about being confrontational with the immense number of good ole boys who work in my office. I am certain that this will alienate me.
But I think about how these issues affect women, and what it must mean to have to worry for your physical safety in so many instances when men take it for granted. I wonder what it must mean to have to think "is it worth it?" every time someone treats you like a piece of meat.
And suddenly, it isn't so hard to be a man.
Now I know that I have to find ways to get through to my co-workers. I have to talk to my family about this. Not because I'm a liberal. Not because I'm sensitive. Not because I never played sports in high school. Not because I'm an intellectual. Not because my Grandmother helped my single Mom raise me. Not because I'm Jason. Because I'm a human.
And so is everyone else who reads this.