I saw an article yesterday that said #notallmen is not relevant because all women are at risk of sexual harassment or assault or worse. And it bugged me. But I wasn’t sure why for a while. But as I thought about it, here’s what I came up with.
1. All women are at risk. It’s really unlikely that a woman has never been catcalled or touched inappropriately or had a conversation with a guy that suddenly turned all weird. Maybe she hasn’t experienced all of those, but at least one. I’m willing to bet money on it. BUT this fact, that every woman–including me and my daughters–has to deal with this issue, doesn’t negate the importance of #notallmen.
The truth is, not all men do these things. They don’t let themselves get swept up in desiring or mentally undressing a woman. They don’t say the sexual thing that pops into their heads. They don’t touch or manipulate or overpower a woman (conscious or not). Some do. But most men don’t.
And we have to recognize and give appropriate respect to these men. We can.not sweep them under the rug or, worse, into a group of “all men are rapists…some just haven’t acted it out yet.” Here’s why…
2. We need these men. We need them. We cannot fight this battle entirely on our own. We need the men who will stand with us. We may even need them to come to our rescue. We need their help and their support.
Of course, there are parts of the battle that women must fight. We have to report the instances when they happen. We have to talk about it with our sons and make sure the issue remains part of the cultural conversation. We have to do the hard work of shame recovery. We have to fight for ourselves.
But we also have to invite these #notallmen to join with us. We have to humble ourselves and ask for their help. And then, we have to do the hard work to empower them and equip them to respond correctly and helpfully. They need us to invite them in. They need us to give them clear directions: how to speak up, what to do, who to call, how to comfort or help someone who’s been assaulted. They won’t know this on their own; we have to tell them.
And I get it. No one really wants to do this. It’s hard. It’s easier to dismiss all men out of hand. It’s easier to say they should just know all this stuff and we shouldn’t have to teach them. It’s so obvious to us, after all.
But if we do that, we’ll be wrong. First of all, it isn’t obvious to us. A woman who’s been degraded, physically or verbally, doesn’t always know how to respond or who to tell. When the online chat suddenly turns sexual, we don’t immediately know what went wrong or how best to handle it. We don’t know, and the shock of it (and the shame that follows it) keeps us from doing anything at all sometimes. So we can’t blame the #notallmen if they don’t know right away either.
Second, dismissing all men out of hand, grouping all men with Weinstein and others like him, will result in a gender version of what’s been called the Ferguson effect. Because police risk being called racist, they are less likely to check on suspicious behavior which means more crime is being done and more people are being killed. Whether you agree with this concept in racial terms or not, it’s entirely plausible that a similar effect will happen in the #metoo conversation. Men would might have fought with us will be disempowered and discouraged, and they will simply walk away, leaving us more at risk than we were before.
Third, demanding that they “figure out” what we need from them puts them in an incredibly frustrated position. “Help,” they’ll hear. “But not too much. And not in the wrong way. And never in the wrong place or time. And you should just know what all of that means and apply it correctly all the time.”
It’s too much. We have to educate. We have to have hard conversations with the men in our lives, especially our sons. It feels humiliating, but we have to keep saying it until they understand. Until they really get it. And when they get it, they’ll be empowered to act. They’ll know they can ask if they are unsure. And they’ll have the basic skills and information they need to work with us.
The ultimate goal of #metoo cannot be just to air our dirty laundry. The ultimate goal can’t be just the destruction of lives and reputation. The ultimate goal has to be redemption, healing, and restoration. To unify and empower all of us, men and women, so that we can protect the weak, give boundaries to the powerful, and heal those who have been damaged by the selfishness of others.
But to make that a reality, we need #notallmen. And we need them on our side.
