ded10c

[ded10c]

The Day After International Women's Day

As you may have seen already, yesterday was International Women's Day.

Throughout most of my adult life, the best, closest, kindest, and most loyal and compassionate friends I've had have almost all been women. Every single one has been through something truly awful: abusive relationships, assaults – a horrifying majority have survived one of the worst crimes a person can visit upon another. Some of them more than once. Yesterday was also International When is International Men's Day Day (it's November 19th, to save you turning yourself into a statistic). Alright then, lads - if we're gonna make it all about us, have a seat. It's the next day now, so we won't be speaking over anyone: let's talk. Why is it we can't talk about how often women are subjected to the shit they are without one of you getting on the defensive and saying it's not all of us? Everybody knows that already - and women are even more aware of it then we are, frankly. It's not all, but it's damn sure enough of us - and if you've ever wolf-whistled or catcalled someone, made a move on someone just a little too drunk to think clearly, or commented about someone being "dressed like a slut" or "asking for it", then all the good intentions in the world don't make a blind bit of difference. In that moment you raised a red flag, proudly declared yourself a threat to anyone who'd listen, and told every woman in earshot loud and clear that it’s not all men - but for all they know, if they give you half a chance, it might be you. We live in a world that belittles friendships between men and women. We tease children about it, we have "gay best friend" stereotypes that harm everyone involved, and we've got centuries of society telling men to expect one thing and women another - and what all that adds up to is men who don't know how to be friends with women. Now I agree wholeheartedly that everyone is the sum of their parts, and a lot of those parts are things we can't control. We've all had experiences that shaped us in ways we don't really like. We feel things we're ashamed of and do things we feel guilty about, and somewhere along the line someone decided being a man meant pretending that didn't happen. That may be bullshit - and it is - but it still means generations of men don't talk to their friends about things like that, and we've been passing that down for so long that we might as well call it an heirloom. Just knowing it’s bullshit isn’t enough if you’ve lived with it so long that it’s cost you the ability to imagine anything else. Women are more likely to talk to their friends about those things - men included, if they're close enough. But because we don't, we don't learn how to in quite the same way no matter whether we're talking about our own feelings or someone else's. When we do get to make that connection, it's more likely to be with a woman - and because that tends not to be normal in our friendships, we tend to mistake it for something else. And society tells us not to talk about that either – a huge part of building a relationship with someone is pretending you’re not trying to do that. If you don’t believe me, you just try flirting with someone without either of you being even a little bit coy. See how far that gets you. When we don't talk about or process our feelings, they fester and turn into something unpleasant. We might start to feel entitled and possessive over a woman whose only mistake was trying to be our friend. We might start to feel manipulated and used. We might even start to resent her. (This is what being “friendzoned” is, by the way: misreading her intentions, and blaming her instead of talking to her about it.)

Once those things start happening, we're already on an unpleasant and dangerous path. If you spot any of them, you need to step back and re-evaluate your position. Why do you feel like that? Why do you see her the way you do? Have you listened to how she feels about the situation, or did you assume you already know? Are you blaming her for your feelings, or are you taking responsibility for your emotions and processing them properly? Have you been in this position before and blamed the woman for hurting you when perhaps you said or did something thoughtless that hurt her enough to have to pull away? Has that happened enough, and have you heard enough stories from your mates, that you protect yourself by being distrustful of women in general? I don't think it's manly to pretend to be strong when you're not. I think that's cowardice. I think bravery is about acknowledging your feelings, admitting your mistakes, and trying to do better. I'm willing to bet every man reading this has made at least one of those mistakes before - I know I have. Feeling like that isn't our fault - society demands we behave like this, and these are the consequences. It becomes our fault when we don't listen to the signs that we're hurting someone and don't do something about it. Going forwards, there are a couple of things I'd like you try doing. First, when someone tells you you’ve hurt them, listen, understand, and think about how you could avoid hurting them in future. Second, if you've never been in therapy or counselling, you should consider it. Some of us carry it better than others, but nobody gets through life without something fucking them up a little bit inside. If you don’t know where your scars are and how they affect you, there’s a very good chance they’ll cause you to hurt someone else – usually your romantic partners and your kids. Those women I mentioned aren't just the kind, compassionate people they are today because that’s who they are. Part of it is because they went through something terrible and don't want to see that happen to anyone else. They're like that despite the things some of the men in their lives have done to them - things some of those men are still doing. Some of those men have no idea they're even doing it - and lads, if any of you has read this far and still thinks this doesn’t apply to you, let me be clear: it especially applies to you. It's very easy to hurt someone by accident and never have any idea - and if you can't think of anything, odds are you've done a lot more than someone who can. Right, that was a lot - here's the skinny version. Society shames men for feeling, which means we never learn how to deal with it. That causes us to hurt people – sometimes because we’ve deluded ourselves into thinking they deserve it, but often by accident. We don't know how to talk about feelings, so when people tell us we hurt them we feel accused and get defensive instead of apologising and trying to understand, and that makes the problem worse. Round and around we go.

I see a lot of posts on social media saying things like “men need to do better”. It’s not as simple as that – there’s not a whole lot you can do if you can’t see where we’re going wrong or why. But once you’ve got those two pieces, you can make a start. It won’t be easy: you’re trying to break the habit of a lifetime here and you’ve got an entire society to rebel against to do it. You’ll slip up sometimes. There are going to be moments of realisation where the guilt and shame feel overwhelming – I’m not in touch with all those best friends today, and I owe some of them a bigger apology than I honestly know how to give. But even though it won’t be easy, the important part is that you try. That’s what it means to be a man.

Good talk, lads. Now let's get out there and do better.

[ded10c]

Hi.

I'm a writer. Of fiction, ostensibly, but even when I’m not trying to write something I keep ending up with pages of words on random subjects that I still feel like I want to put somewhere. This is now that somewhere. It probably won’t be the most coherent experience - I’m anticipating just posting whatever happens to have been the result of my latest hyperfocus, maybe linking it somewhere else, and moving on until next time.