War Journal Entry number 977
If someone comes to you and says that you’ve hurt their feelings in some ways there are a number of responses possible.
1) Deny any personal wrongdoing. You may find yourself using the phrase “I’m sorry you feel that way” as an apology that doesn’t admit culpability.
2) Get hurt. Say that you are now being attacked and refuse to further the conversation until your feelings have been assuaged. This is classic passive aggressive manipulation.
3) Get defensive. This is the blatantly aggressive version of option 2. Use anger and even personal attacks to get them to withdraw their complaint and most importantly to dissuade them from ever bringing things up again.
4) Listen to the concerns and consider them from the other person’s point of view.
If you’rea guy reading a Feminist piece and your reactions are 1 through 3 then you really are the exact problem that they are facing. Also, if you react that way in your personal life then you are doing this whole "human" thing very poorly.
This was all kicked off by a piece where a blogger said that she was tired of talking about feminism to men and it got me thinking. In brief, it's not the feminists that make it a "men versus women" issue, it's the men that don't make the effort to care that cause it to be framed that way. We need to be better.