I’m not sure if you’ve pissed off a large group of men recently, but I have, and I learned a very interesting lesson: a surprising number of modern men are really, really into the idea of “equality.” They even want to talk about it!
That’s a hell of a development in the history of humanity. Way to go, guys! Of course, being men, we’re primarily interested in how this “equality” affects us. Some of us don’t want to give an unnecessary inch — we want to make sure every other group, namely women, minorities, children, and the elderly, reciprocate any changes we make to our behavior. Otherwise, sorry, Grandma … that’s not equality! And we won’t have it. We only want “equality” from here on out.
I recently read an essay by a man complaining about how seeing Magic Mike in a theater was a sexist experience for him. No, he was serious. At least, I think he was. (In the past, the writer hasn’t shown that he has a sense of humor, so I have to assume he actually meant what he said.) His experience with sexism occurred when he was confronted by a theater full of women hooting and hollering at a naked man dancing up on the screen. He had to ask himself: if things were reversed and a roomful of men were hooting and hollering at a naked woman, would that be PC? [Side note: I think at this point the only people who still use the term PC are men who feel things aren’t “equal” for them. What a rich irony.]
Here’s the thing, guys. I see that we’re suddenly very interested in this whole notion of equality. That’s good. That’s cool. We should keep doing that. But I think sometimes we’re doing it wrong, or at least, not as well as we could. We should not use our new love of “equality” as an argument to suggest everything needs to be balanced and reversible like a chemistry equation: mathematically, logically, critically fair and equal. No. It doesn’t work like that. Equality refers to the idea of fairness in society; however, in this instance, it does not refer to the absolutist definition of the word as used by mathematicians and engineers. This equality refers to our efforts to correct societal imbalances.
Let me repeat for clarity: equality isn’t exactly fair and equal — it’s corrective, like how a pair of glasses helps a person see the world clearly.
For example, we build ramps for people who rely on wheels to get around. We provide scholarships to those who might not otherwise be able to afford higher education. Does anyone want to stand up and say ramps for the wheelchair-bound and granting college scholarships to the economically disadvantaged son of a West Virginia coal miner are bad ideas? Anyone? Is it fair that no tax dollars are spent making it easier for you to have access to a building? No, I don’t suppose it is fair, mathematically speaking. Is it fair in terms of the values of our society? Completely.
There are always “special cases.” Some people, for reasons I think the majority of folks would support, deserve extra corrective measures. A good example of this would be veterans. At present, we do a shameful job of attending to the physical and mental health of veterans. If one wishes to use a “waiting in line” analogy, veterans should move to the head of the line.
Now, of course, you can’t compare a car crash to PTSD and say one deserves medical treatment ahead of the other. We’re not doing that sort of triage. I’m saying, in the case of veterans, there needs to be an increased effort to reach out to them, to help transport them to services or bring services to them, to do everything we can to provide easy access to services, and to ensure “customer satisfaction” (I mean, seriously, WTF!). Those extra efforts to make sure our veterans get the care they need is an effort to equalize the field because veterans are often ignored by society to the point of neglect, they often feel isolated and depressed, and they need and deserve far more attention, both socially and with taxpayer dollars. They deserve it far more than me. I know that’s true. That’s how equality works in my book.
When I recently suggested that men hold themselves accountable for how many women and men feel fear in the presence of a stranger who is a man, I was told that wasn’t equality. Women need to learn to speak up for themselves … in bars, dark alleys and vacant parking lots. Some men argued that was the end game of equality: Women are now on their own — just like they wanted to be! (You’ll sense a punitive tone in some of the statements these men will make about women seeking equality. “They got what they wanted” is a common catchall response.)
I didn’t ask men to become drones serving a constantly rotating queen bee based on whichever woman happens to be standing closest to them. But that’s what some men heard: a call to subservience and submission. Not at all. What’s clear from listening to women (and men) is that a few corrective measures would help people feel safer in public spaces. Advocating for this got me a whole goodie bag of keepsakes, like emails telling me to castrate myself. Yes, I can see how that’s a totally rational response to suggesting we care about the people around us. “You should consider women and their sense of safety in a public space.” “Oh yeah, bro, and you should take a knife to your sack.”
Maybe these guys missed the memo, but women are rad! (And yes, if you need extra qualification — not all women are rad — there, you feel better?) Whether or not you agree with my assessment doesn’t matter — you don’t need to agree with that part. But you should agree to respect women, as well as other men, in public spaces. Why? Because they report that they don’t feel safe. So, we should do something about that. This is the process of equality in action. I feel safe, but my neighbor doesn’t. Just because we spend time, energy and maybe even money to make my neighbor feel safe, it doesn’t mean we need to spend the same amount of money on me to make things equal.
Suggesting that you, a man, accommodate the fears of strangers by being considerate in public is not a lot to ask. Just consider how our society accommodates the fear of military men. Look at how we constantly buy them expensive new war toys so they (you) feel safe. I’d call that accommodating their fear. It’s expensive and excessive. We do way more (costly things) to make men feel safe, if you really think about it. So maybe guys ought to be cool when someone asks a man to change his behavior in public. Especially if it’s so you might be more respectful of others — both women and men.
You’ll notice I also don’t feel the need to discuss how women ought to act in public spaces to make men feel safe. Why not? Because men are not banding together and using public platforms to make their collective voice heard, to tell the world how men don’t feel safe around women. (If you feel it’s necessary to tell women how to act to make men feel safe in a public space, you value your time on Earth differently than I do, but knock yourself out. You go right ahead and write that one up. Hell, I’ll even read it.)
So far, some knee-jerk responses to the current discussion of rape culture have called upon rhetorical devices like comparing the amount of rape on one continent with the amount of rape on another continent. This is not only insulting but, frankly, it’s astonishing that someone wants to take that position. It’s like, really? You really want to be the guy saying: “Look, we rape way fewer people over here, so I don’t really believe we have a problem.” Really? If I wrote that down on a t-shirt would you wear it to a family function? America: We rape less than Asia.
To hijack a conversation about something like #YesAllWomen and use it as an opportunity to speak in favor of “male equality” is insulting. Why do men need the mic right now? Lots of women said men have done horrible things to them. Some women say you sometimes scare them, that they can’t tell if you’re going to hurt them. Yes, you, a man. Any man. Why would any guy feel the need to speak up and insist he be heard saying that he’s not that sort of man? No one said you are.
Women said men, and yes, you are a man, but in this instance, rather than personalize it and speak about you, personalize it by listening to individual women’s stories. Imagine what that must feel like. Rather than feel incorrectly categorized by some glowing pixels on a screen that you have determined as a great affront to your sense of self, let your eyes focus on those same letters on the screen and read them again. Listen to the woman’s voice inside those glowing pixels.
Making arguments based on a man’s need for equality between men and women is, at this point in our social history, silly. Yes, men need better paternal custody rights. Yes, men need help preventing work-place accidents and violent deaths. These are very real and critical problems for men. But they don’t need to be compared to the problems of others. We need to do what we can to correct imbalances for everyone.
So I put it to you, guys, do we really care if a roomful of women are hooting and hollering at a naked Channing Tatum up on the movie screen? Are we jealous? No. He’s a fantasy. Are we mad that we can’t, in good conscience, hoot and holler at women in a movie theater? Is that what bothers us? The fact we can no longer treat women … the way we do at strip clubs on any given night of the week? Or cheerleaders on any given Sunday? Or how we treat the women who work at Hooters and the cocktail waitresses who work in Vegas?
Let’s face it, we still hoot and holler and sexualize women (while they’re at work, no less). Only now, like it was for the women in the movie theater, it’s in more appropriate places. You can whoop it up at the strip club and no one cares. That’s what it’s there for. Losing out on catcalling women is not the same thing. Losing out on sexually harassing a co-worker is not the same thing. Losing out on visually undressing a woman is not the same thing.
We must consider how we treat each other. If you think you are more important than faceless others, you are wrong. How many great novels need to be written, how many award-winning epic movies must be made, how many amazing speeches must be uttered, how many dying wishes must be heard, how many times must a great person die a senseless and violent death before we look at our neighbors and say, “You know what, I don’t agree with that asshole on politics, sports, fashion, culture, or just about anything, but I sure hope things are going well for him because he is me and I am him.”
I’m not kidding. That’s the message of every religion and work of art worth its space in the canon: I am my brother’s keeper. That’s not some beta-male shit to say. That’s a human thing to say. And my brother can be a woman, a child, an elder; it doesn’t matter. I am my brother’s keeper.
We live on a space-traveling rock covered with a beautiful murderous garden we call Nature. Like any ecosystem, when we all work together, we do great things. People are happy and life seems sweet. Yes, “equality” means that groups that lack social power will be empowered over time. This is a good and fine thing because the wellbeing of another person rewards you. Their happiness is your happiness. Their fear is your fear. Their poverty affects your wallet. Their success makes your world a better place. Now, if all that sounds like some hippie-dippy horseshit, try this one on for size:
You live on a planet of billions of people. You are not special. And yet, you are incredibly important and unique. If that gives you trouble, it’s because it’s a paradox. They do that. Paradoxes are trouble because we prefer it when a thing is a thing is a thing. We want it to always be that one thing. But Nature doesn’t give a fuck what we want. Nature says light is a waveand a particle. Deal with it! Look, you needed the help of all human history to get you here. Stop acting like you did it all yourself. We live in a society of millions on a planet of billions and most of us have never grown the food we eat … yet, we fancy ourselves independent. That’s a cute trick.
You live on a planet maintained by everyone, together, so stop pretending you can go somewhere to get away from it all. The air you breathe in the middle of nowhere is affected by pollution from across the ocean. We are all in this together.
In essence, when my neighbor does better it means I do better. Say, you go for a walk with your grandmother; do you make her walk at your pace, or do you move at the speed of her comfort? What about when you walk with a kid? We constantly change our behavior for others out of respect and consideration.
How about this: rather than insist we use a one size-fits-all approach, that’s logically reversible and balanced like a chemistry equation, let’s embrace the chaos of life. Let’s allow for the beautiful/messy paradoxes. “Equality” is not designed to be mathematical. That’s a misnomer. And really, the word we use does not matter. What does matter is our impulse to help others feel safe to be themselves.
This is what equality means: we do what we can to correct for our societal imbalances. We accept that we’re all different and can’t ever be mathematical equals, but we still do the work to ensure that the blessings of society are better enjoyed by all because when that happens it makes your life better.
Is the world a garden or a jungle? Well, it’s both. Depends on what you choose to see. You can tend a garden or fight a jungle. Which would you prefer?
(this article originally appeared on HumanParts)
