The problem with "real ___ don't"
Trigger warnings for rape and domestic violence apply to this post.
There's an ad campaign going around. Several, really. The basic construct is the same: a smiling couple, the tagline, "She didn't want to, so I didn't. Real men don't rape." Or an image of a woman in a short skirt and the tagline, "I kept my hands to myself until she invited me to touch her. Real men don't pressure women." There are variants with people of all races, and some with same-sex couples and language.
Now, I'm of two minds about this.
On the one hand, there's been demonstrated effects of this: reports indicate that men exposed to these campaigns are less likely to sexually harass, assault, or abuse their partners. Which is great! I'm all for driving down the rate of sexual harassment and assault, and if it works, it works.
But.
"Real men"? What is a "real man"? I'm pretty damn sure that by every social and biological measure of "manhood" most of the men who abuse and rape are in fact men. How precisely is a man who is a rapist not a man? Does his penis break off after he ejaculates? Does his Y chromosome wither away after he gropes someone? Do his testosterone levels plummet after a certain length of time of him being too pushy? Does leering and catcalling lead to breast growth? Will he need to stop buying razors and beard trimmers after he hits?
It's profoundly illogical, and is predicated on a deeply pernicious idea: that manhood is conditional. If manhood is conditional, is womanhood?
Personhood?
It also firmly maintains the attitude that men are the natural leaders and have the right to control.
Look at the great man, it seems to say. He's so great and manly, he's respecting his partner's right to say no. How novel! How special!
Why not, instead, say, "Everyone has the right to their body's integrity, because they are people.
The great actor Patrick Stewart (aka Jean-Luc Picard and Charles Xavier) regularly speaks publicly about his activism about stopping domestic violence. He speaks, with great emotion and poignancy, about watching his father beat his mother, and about hearing police officers and ambulance workers say, ";Mrs. Stewart, you must have done something. Mrs. Stewart, it takes two to make an argument." His rage and grief at these decades-old memories is palpable and powerful, as he condemns this attitude: his mother did nothing to deserve being abused by her husband, and even if she had done "something" there is no excuse for him treating her so savagely. These speeches are incredibly powerful, and he's also an advocate for remembering that domestic violence doesn't have to mean closed fists - it can also mean words, and body language, and neglect. Someone can never lay a finger on another, and still be an abuser.
I appreciate his activism in this, and I also appreciate what he doesn't do: he doesn't go on about what "real men" do. His discussion of his parents doesn't talk about his how mother didn't deserve to be unsafe in her own home because wives deserve to be safe, but because that's what people deserve. It's a subtle difference, but an important one. Also very important is how he discusses his father: he points out that his father was struggling with what is now known as post-traumatic stress disorder, and with a life that was unlike what he'd hoped for, and that, on average, five days out of seven he wasn't violent.
Of course, that doesn't make his actions acceptable. It doesn't heal the bruises and the broken bones. It doesn't dry the tears. But it does mean that he wasn't an unalloyed monster from beginning to end, to be cast off into the waste heap of humanity. He was a person, who, with the right tools and help, could have found healing, and become a better, non-abusive husband.
Because real men fail. Real men struggle with untreated mental illness. Real men drink to much. Real men lose control of themselves.
And telling them that "real men" don't shames those who would change, would get better, if they were given the tools to. The shame drives the spiral down, it aggravates the self-rage, it says, "Well, I've crossed that line, there's no going back. There's no point in not doing that, or that, or that."
Are those people to be written off?
Also: are those they victimize to be written off?
Because I'm struggling to see how you can write the one off without writing of the other.
---
This has been an entry for therealljidol. The prompt for this entry was "no true Scotsman." Constructive criticism is welcomed.
There's an ad campaign going around. Several, really. The basic construct is the same: a smiling couple, the tagline, "She didn't want to, so I didn't. Real men don't rape." Or an image of a woman in a short skirt and the tagline, "I kept my hands to myself until she invited me to touch her. Real men don't pressure women." There are variants with people of all races, and some with same-sex couples and language.
Now, I'm of two minds about this.
On the one hand, there's been demonstrated effects of this: reports indicate that men exposed to these campaigns are less likely to sexually harass, assault, or abuse their partners. Which is great! I'm all for driving down the rate of sexual harassment and assault, and if it works, it works.
But.
"Real men"? What is a "real man"? I'm pretty damn sure that by every social and biological measure of "manhood" most of the men who abuse and rape are in fact men. How precisely is a man who is a rapist not a man? Does his penis break off after he ejaculates? Does his Y chromosome wither away after he gropes someone? Do his testosterone levels plummet after a certain length of time of him being too pushy? Does leering and catcalling lead to breast growth? Will he need to stop buying razors and beard trimmers after he hits?
It's profoundly illogical, and is predicated on a deeply pernicious idea: that manhood is conditional. If manhood is conditional, is womanhood?
Personhood?
It also firmly maintains the attitude that men are the natural leaders and have the right to control.
Look at the great man, it seems to say. He's so great and manly, he's respecting his partner's right to say no. How novel! How special!
Why not, instead, say, "Everyone has the right to their body's integrity, because they are people.
The great actor Patrick Stewart (aka Jean-Luc Picard and Charles Xavier) regularly speaks publicly about his activism about stopping domestic violence. He speaks, with great emotion and poignancy, about watching his father beat his mother, and about hearing police officers and ambulance workers say, ";Mrs. Stewart, you must have done something. Mrs. Stewart, it takes two to make an argument." His rage and grief at these decades-old memories is palpable and powerful, as he condemns this attitude: his mother did nothing to deserve being abused by her husband, and even if she had done "something" there is no excuse for him treating her so savagely. These speeches are incredibly powerful, and he's also an advocate for remembering that domestic violence doesn't have to mean closed fists - it can also mean words, and body language, and neglect. Someone can never lay a finger on another, and still be an abuser.
I appreciate his activism in this, and I also appreciate what he doesn't do: he doesn't go on about what "real men" do. His discussion of his parents doesn't talk about his how mother didn't deserve to be unsafe in her own home because wives deserve to be safe, but because that's what people deserve. It's a subtle difference, but an important one. Also very important is how he discusses his father: he points out that his father was struggling with what is now known as post-traumatic stress disorder, and with a life that was unlike what he'd hoped for, and that, on average, five days out of seven he wasn't violent.
Of course, that doesn't make his actions acceptable. It doesn't heal the bruises and the broken bones. It doesn't dry the tears. But it does mean that he wasn't an unalloyed monster from beginning to end, to be cast off into the waste heap of humanity. He was a person, who, with the right tools and help, could have found healing, and become a better, non-abusive husband.
Because real men fail. Real men struggle with untreated mental illness. Real men drink to much. Real men lose control of themselves.
And telling them that "real men" don't shames those who would change, would get better, if they were given the tools to. The shame drives the spiral down, it aggravates the self-rage, it says, "Well, I've crossed that line, there's no going back. There's no point in not doing that, or that, or that."
Are those people to be written off?
Also: are those they victimize to be written off?
Because I'm struggling to see how you can write the one off without writing of the other.
---
This has been an entry for therealljidol. The prompt for this entry was "no true Scotsman." Constructive criticism is welcomed.