[We join mid-conversation, as Roboseyo discusses the implications of the Bear In The Woods meme with a Fictional Person Who Argues With Mr. Roboseyo.]
FPWAWM: “Okay. I get it. [See explanation in previous blog post] But I’d just like to point out that any persuadable person would have already been persuaded 400 words ago, Rob.”
So you admit you don’t want to be persuaded?
FPWAWM: “I admit no such thing. I just want to know why you are really still going on about this?”
I’m glad you asked.
FPWAWM: “Oh, no. That’s your ‘pontification’ face.”
It is.
FPWAWM: “What have I done?”
Let's travel back in time a bit, to look at the bigger picture:
When #MeToo went super-viral in 2017, part of the conversation went underplayed. We got distracted by gleefully watching a few horrible men like Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein finally get their long-delayed desserts (both now walk free, but that’s a different rant). However, one thread of the conversation kind of fell to the wayside: the threads discussing what part ordinary, non-rapist, well-meaning men could play.
The lone facebook post I saw on the topic had some choice words:
“Now that it has been successfully impressed upon us how common and far-reaching harassment and assault are, the next step is to reflect on the ways our society has … failed to notice or correct the attitudes and actions that led to [metoo].
But real talk: using "as a society" and collective language is dangerous too. It is yet another way of absconding personal responsibility, of distancing myself from what is happening. No mincing words: I individually have participated in excusing, ignoring, tolerating, enabling, and otherwise failing to notice or correct attitudes and actions of sexual harassment and assault.
I want you to know that I don't just believe you, I'm acknowledging that I've exhibited some pretty unsavory behavior in my past. I've been looking at this for a long time now, and I've definitely been the guy who…
Here the poster lists some ways that he’s added to the environment where so much bad stuff is ignored, brushed off, or tolerated, that worse stuff happens too, and he finishes with this line, which I want to pull out of 2017 and bring it back to 2024.
“It does us no good if all the men think that every "me too" was somebody else's fault.”
In class, when I teach the “self serving bias,” by which we torture the logic of a situation in order to let ourselves off the hook, making up special exceptions for ourselves, I use #Notallmen as an example. Also bad driving. I’ve met two people in my life who acknowledged they were bad drivers.
But one more time with emphasis: “It does us no good if all the men think that every "me too" was somebody else's fault.” ...and what are the protestations against the bear in the woods thought experiment, except men continuing to point fingers, and say that #MeToo was #NotMeThough, and seeing that it was #DefinitelySomeoneElse, #WhatDoYouThinkICanDoAboutItAnyway? Well, lots.
And now, years later, The Bear Discourse is as good a time as any to circle back to that, and talk about the way even well-meaning men who Hold the Right Opinions can still contribute to the background radiation of sexist pain-in-the-assery that makes women feel a tiny bit unsafe all the time. Sure, there’s no-brainer bad stuff going on: there'll always be somewhere to point fingers if that's my game, but beyond the "call the cops or alert HR" stuff, there’s the “death by a thousand paper cuts” stuff. Discussions about racism invented the term “micro-aggressions” for these.
You know what I'm talking about. Mechanic shops assuming a woman knows nothing about cars. Asking only the female coworkers if they’ve thought about marrying, or starting a family. Paying extra attention to the most attractive woman in a group, while ignoring older or unattractive women. That kind of stuff can be corrected with a little work. There’s even smaller stuff (call them "nano-aggressions"?) that could be a micro-aggression, but might not even be noticed — either by the woman it targeted, or by the man who might have done it unconsciously. Stuff like giving women the up-and-down with the eyes as she walks by. Not catcalling, not whistling... but still eyeballing. Stuff that the culture just does, that we take for granted, might fit here -- like movie trailers and ads putting women's bodies on display. Movies pairing up a man over fifty with a woman under thirty. Maybe a particular woman doesn't consciously notice it all, but if she does, such tiny things all send the same message: “being a woman is the most important thing about you,” “being young and attractive is more important than any other thing about being a woman,” and, ultimately, “This is a man’s world.”
But that still doesn’t cover it, because it’s not even just the tiny things we do, the micro-aggressions. There are also what I’m calling micro-elisions -- the tiny things we don't do -- that make women unsure if a guy, even that guy who loudly announces he's a feminist and wears the t-shirt and writes multi-part blog posts, would believe her if she told him something.
Here’s a little text image meme that made the rounds a while ago that encapsulates the idea of micro-elisions better than pages of explanation, in a simple story:
Micro-elisions aren’t the crime itself, but because of them, the crime becomes less improbable. Less unthinkable. Think about shark attacks. Shark attacks happen. They happen under certain conditions, but all those other conditions depend on this: there needs to be salt-water, because sharks can’t survive in fresh water. Imagine these micro-aggressions and micro-elisions are the salt that turns fresh water into salt water. After there’s salt water instead of fresh, those other conditions for shark attacks start to appear, and from there it’s a game of odds. That is the effect micro-aggressions and micro-elisions have. They aren’t the crimes, they don’t directly cause the crimes, they're so pervasive it's hard to measure them, and on its own, each one is far too insignificant to report, but added up together, well, now we’re swimming in water where shark attacks are possible, instead of water where they’re impossible. It’s the same color, but the water is no longer safe to drink. A little whisper says, "I bet you could get away with it." The unthinkable becomes thinkable.
This is another way of explaining a phrase that always gets people’s backs up… the way fresh water becomes water that can sustain the creatures responsible for shark attacks? That’s what people are trying to describe when they talk about “rape culture.” The R word is pretty shocking (which is the point for some people who use it), and that leads to a lot of defensive responses, but when someone starts talking about rape culture, fellas... try to cool it, and just think about Shark Week, ok? People who use that phrase want to talk about that process that takes something unthinkable, and makes it thinkable, that’s all.
I’m not a rapist. Far from it, but the whole point of having this conversation is to reckon with the fact all of us (even women) are tossing salt in the water, contributing to that atmosphere that makes the unthinkable thinkable.
So… rape attempts? Nah. I’m not responsible for that one in six. But I’ve done my share of micro-aggressions - staring when I thought she didn't notice (maybe she didn't notice, but maybe she did), trying to make eye contact with someone who clearly wanted to be left alone, trying to turn a conversation into a flirtation, or a flirtation into whatever comes after a flirtation… that time at the club when we were dancing and I accidentally brushed a body part, and she might not have even noticed, or she might have taken it as flirting, so I tried to accidentally brush that body part again.
I’ve certainly done my share of micro-elisions, too. I should have said, “That’s disrespectful, dude,” but instead I laughed at the joke. Didn’t want to be a stick in the mud. But my laugh might have sent a message to someone else who was also uncomfortable, “don’t be a stick in the mud; nobody else minds.” That micro-elision turned us both into bystanders. The time the couple was arguing, and the boyfriend — taller and much heavier — started looming. You know the way big boys sometimes loom, put their hand on their girlfriend’s neck with that faux-tenderness that is part threat. I moved down the subway platform, instead of staying close enough that the girlfriend knew there were witnesses nearby. “Don’t get involved.” Micro-elision.
For my micro-aggressions and regular aggressions, for my micro-elisions and regular elisions, I have my excuses lined up: “I was young, I was in a bad place at the time, I thought I was being funny, we were both drunk, or tired, or both. We started out just being playful! I thought she was into it!” The excuses come to mind effortlessly, even years later. I’ve pushed a few lines when I knew better, or said nothing as someone around me pushed lines. I’ve gotten into situations I shouldn’t have, or stood by while someone engineered an unsafe situation, and instead of getting someone out of an unsafe situation, I lined up my excuses, putting my own conscience above someone’s safety. By ignoring, or never teaching myself to notice certain things, I could maintain my self-image as a good guy, while still getting away with some stuff, never suffering the discomfort or paying the social cost of being the stick in the mud. Did anyone else notice my action, or inaction? I'm not sure. Would anyone blame me? Probably not. There were other bystanders, too. Were there other incidents where I didn't even notice what I'd done, or what was going on? I'm absolutely sure of that. There were times I went far enough that I have made some apologies to some people. I've played my part.
It was easy to focus on the Weinsteins and the Cosbys. But that much subtler, much harder and more inward-looking work has to happen too if we want a real cultural change. Stuff like the bear meme will keep going around until one of them brings home the fact everyone plays a part, however small, and even well-meaning good guys who showed up at the rally can probably find ways to become better.
And it’d be a better world if part of some men doing better was by challenging other men to become better, too. Because if all we get is pick-me posturing, without self-reflection and accountability from man to man, the fact “one of the good ones” is doing less than he could is the other thing that makes women feel like no man is entirely safe, and the bear is a better pick.
“If the bear attacked me, people would believe me.” That women feel they won’t be believed shows that ALL of us have failed, not just the predators.
When #MeToo first broke, a friend suggested I write something like what I just wrote above — about the part men need to play now that women have pulled the worst moments of their lives out and set them on display in order to plead with us to finally, at long last, believe them. It’s sad, and kind of gross, the scale of display that it took to get some men to snap out of denial and gaslighting, even for a short time. My friend suggested I talk about the little stuff, and the stuff even #GoodGuys do when they think noone’s looking, stuff I did, which she knew about, as a call for everyone to do better, not just to externalize the finger-pointing and claim a moral high-ground over the Cosbys of the world.
My friend suggested the hashtag, “#ItWasMe” – I was part of the background radiation that sets women slightly on edge about their safety at all times. To my shame, I didn’t have the courage to stand out with such a challenging thought at the time, because I was worried about confessing some of my own actions and failures, those things I apologized for in the past, those apologies I made to others, and promises I made to myself.
When I look back on my life?
I’ve held and expressed opinions that didn’t respect women. I might still be wrong about some stuff.
I’ve taken part in a few different kinds of slut shaming and body shaming. I’ve passed on stereotypes and sexist judgments about a few women I’ve known. I’ve worked on this a lot.
Around other men, I’ve definitely laughed at that joke, or said nothing when I should have called out a gross word or attitude.
For all I know, one of those times, I sent somebody the message that it was okay, or cool, or acceptable even for people like me to hold such views or laugh at such jokes. That guy had lots of his own choices to make on his own personal path toward misogyny, and he’s responsible for himself in the end, but on his path, I could have been a roadblock, and instead, I stepped aside. For all I know, my choice to go along nudged someone else into becoming a bystander, too. Even trying to be mindful, I probably still miss some tiny choices like this.
I’ve pushed lines where I knew better, and I’ve been pushed away, had a line drawn, and tried again anyway. I’ve done that. I lined up my excuses, I made some apologies, but I also did those things. The specifics are between me and a few specific people, but I know what I did was wrong. Twenty-plus years later, it’s hard even now to write this and hit “publish.”
But without flinching, every man needs to reckon with this. Men can’t fix sexism on their own, but there’s stuff men can do, and there’s even stuff men are best positioned to do — like find those men who can only be persuaded by another man, and explain things to them. Men can be there in the locker room to shut down “locker room talk” that creates the permission structure for further disrespect. To be less passive about that, men need to look in the mirror… be honest about why she chose the bear, and go about changing the conditions — one locker room and restaurant table at a time — that keep creating men who are scarier to women than a wild animal.
