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To The Men on the Other Side of #MeToo
To The Men on the Other Side of #MeToo
October 16, 2017 / John Pavlovitz
snip//
This isn’t the time for each of us to broadcast our self-created good guy resumes, to defend our personal virtue, or to imagine why these are all some other guy’s stories—because that’s largely the point here: these are probably our stories.
The wounds of the #MeToo’s are likely ones we have been responsible for inflicting, if not in personal acts of aggression:
In the times we stood silently in the company of a group of catcalling men; too cowardly to speak in a woman’s defense.
In the way we’ve voraciously consumed pornography without a second thought of the deep humanity and the beautiful stories beneath the body parts.
In the times we pressured a woman to give more of herself than she felt comfortable giving, and how we justified ourselves after we had.
In the times we laughed along with a group of men speaking words that denied the intrinsic value of women.
In the times we used the Bible to justify our misogyny.
In the times we defended predatory bragging as simply “locker room talk.”
In the times we imagined our emotional proximity to a woman entitled us to physical liberties.
In the way we’ve voraciously consumed pornography without a second thought of the deep humanity and the beautiful stories beneath the body parts.
In the times we pressured a woman to give more of herself than she felt comfortable giving, and how we justified ourselves after we had.
In the times we laughed along with a group of men speaking words that denied the intrinsic value of women.
In the times we used the Bible to justify our misogyny.
In the times we defended predatory bragging as simply “locker room talk.”
In the times we imagined our emotional proximity to a woman entitled us to physical liberties.
Guys, while we may not believe we have committed direct acts of violence against women (however given the statistics, this is quite likely), we have each participated in a culture of misogyny and sexism that continues to victimize and traumatize, to steal safety and generate fear, to deny humanity and to cultivate disrespect. We are fully complicit in these #MeToo stories, whether we have intentionally acted, contributed unknowingly, nurtured with our silence, multiplied with our laughter, our cosigned with our credit cards.
more...
https://johnpavlovitz.com/2017/10/16/men-side-metoo/
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
the sins of omission as well as the sins of commission, at least if you're sane and not totally narcissistic.
I'll just leave that there.
