I often think about my blind spots, especially when it comes to sexual assault and the behavior of the men in my life. I am prone to flirtation, yes, but visibly and happily in a heterosexual marriage. I am not an obvious target. It is easy for the predators, abusers and manipulators not to come after me. And to betray my misandrist roots, I like men. There are a lot of good ones in my life. There are many that I’ve trusted longer than I’ve trusted women in my life. And yet there’s been an increasingly sharp sting in the back of my mind of what they do when I’m not watching. Who are you with? What do you tell her? Do you listen? Do you lie?
I am not saying anything no one has thought of or even written about before. “Men disappoint” is not really a headline anymore. But recently, another story played out in my life the way it always does. A man in the periphery who I assumed to be good, or at least neutral, and a story from a friend that proved otherwise. Another man moved from column A to column B, another person who I cannot change, but who I’ll look at sideeyed from now on. You know, same as it ever was.
I think about the small ways this keeps happening, even in the good parts of my life. Once, I had to explain to a man why his soon-to-be-fiance may not want to take his last name. A good man, a man I knew and trusted, said it would be devastating if she didn’t. I asked why and he said it’s because he loved his name and his family, and sharing it with her was important to him. I asked if she came to him saying the exact same thing, or said that her name was important to her and that she wanted to keep it for herself, what would he say? He admitted he had never thought that was something that could happen. She took his name. I want to believe he took what I said to heart and that he didn’t pressure her. I want to believe she did it for the number of other reasons why you would. I worry.
As questionable male behavior goes that’s a pretty mild example! It’s not something that shook my trust of men to the core, just another blip on the “ugh, men” screen. I don’t look at him sideeyed anymore. Once a friend kissed me and pinned me to a wall as I yelled “no” and only backed off when I slapped him. I don’t look at him sideeyed anymore either.
My life does not depend on these men. They were not family members or significant others or well regarded writers and editors who I may someday work with. But it’s that anticipation that’s making me keep people at arms length. The not-quite-fear that any day another person I know or like will be revealed as an inhabitant of column B, or that maybe they already have and I never noticed because they didn’t do anything to me. The fact that I made it to 29 before this sort of paranoia set in is called luck. This feeling is not special and that’s horrible.
I wrestle with forgiveness and justice. I’m not talking about the justice of the law, that may not be applicable, and few of us feel comfortable attempting anyway. I’m talking about the personal justice of the cold shoulder and curt email. I don’t know where to draw the line. Do I cut ties with anyone a friend tells me has been abusive or manipulative, or does their abuse need to reach some arbitrary level of horror? Do I need proof? How many people do I have left after that? When you cut them out, how many publications are left to write for? How many parties are left to go to? How many friends do you start to question because they’re friends with the person you cut ties with? Do they even lose anything without me, or am I the one at a disadvantage?
I think we’re understanding more and more that having columns A and B doesn’t always help. People can be good, loyal friends and talented in their professions and abusers and manipulators, and there’s a large grey area of how and when those latters supersede the formers. I want to believe that people can learn and attone, and that lives and careers don’t have to be ruined on either side. I want to believe that I am not defined by the times I have abused and manipulated, or the shitty things I said on my blog when I was 19. But I have a vengeful core (the Slytherin and the Scorpio in me) that never forgives or forgets.
I was stuck on how to end this meandering set of thoughts and I went to Twitter, and someone retweeted an Elena Ferrante quote into my timeline. When asked what she hopes readers take away from her work, she responded “That even if we’re constantly tempted to lower our guard — out of love, or weariness, or sympathy or kindness — we women shouldn’t do it. We can lose from one moment to the next everything that we have achieved.” That is a bummer of a quote, but I hate that, right now, I sort of believe her.
The Internet has made it increasingly difficult for me to maintain any illusion that the men around me will regard me as a human being. The actual abusers may be a relatively limited group, but the accessories and the simply indifferent are not. It’s like picking up a rock and seeing all the maggots squirming around on the bottom.
Sigh. Yes. Even dudes who are mostly all right are conditioned to not fucking listen to us.
I was in the UK recently on business, and one of my (young dude) colleagues — who I generally like but who is obsessed with cars and racing — picked me up from the train and raced down crazy windy narrow country roads to the point that I was nauseated.
When I got out of the car, I was like “Never again, dude! Ugh, I feel like I’m gonna hurl.” I was laughing at the time, because who wants to go from zero to shrill with a work colleague?
But then he did it AGAIN a few nights later. And it triggered my feminist rage because, really? Because I said something in a light-hearted way that means you don’t have to listen to me?
I told him how pissed I was and he was like “I honestly thought you would like it once you did it” and I was like MOTHERFUCKER I TOLD YOU I DIDN’T LIKE IT and THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT RAPISTS SAY. He was so, so surprised that I was upset. Like, sure, I should just be willing to substitute his judgement of what I would enjoy and what would make me nauseated for my own fucking experience.
Then there was the time I told my brother that this guy had raped me and then our conversation became about me trying to make him not go to that guy’s house and kill him … instead of anyone supporting me, the actual person who was victimized.
I do not know what to do about this anymore. I do not know what to do with my feminist rage. When I was younger it didn’t seem like such a big deal but now I’m 43 and I’ve had e fucking nough of all of it.
Then there was the time I told my brother that this guy had raped me and then our conversation became about me trying to make him not go to that guy’s house and kill him … instead of anyone supporting me, the actual person who was victimized.
I’m so sorry that happened to you. The kneejerk ‘I’LL KILL HIM’ response that so many men have to finding out what has happened to the women in their lives is one of the most rage-inducing examples of performative masculinity going around. It centers everything on them and their hurt, and turns the person who actually needs support into their defacto therapist. I hate it in fiction, and I am so sorry it happened to you real life.
(My Dad told me that when he found out that I had been abused by his brother all through my childhood his first instinct was to jump on a plane and kill him, but then he realised that wouldn’t actually do anything to help me and started looking for information on how to support victims. That’s why what actually was that he said he believed me, asked me if I wanted to talk about it with him or with someone else, and told me that it was okay if I didn’t want to go to the authorities, but that he would be there every step of the way if I decided to take that route some day. I have never loved him more than in that phone call.)
I am so sorry you lived through that, but hurray for your dad. That is A+ Dadding.
Thank you … And I’m really glad your dad was able to support you in a way that was helpful and actually supportive.
Woof. That ending quote is a punch right in the heart. I’m right there with you – in that I, too, believe her and really don’t want to.
I guess I don’t have much to add other than solidarity. I know them feels.
I don’t even have columns anymore, just a running tally with commentary: Man A did X last year and just said Y, Man B has a longstanding pattern of Z. And *all* the dudes I know are arranged on this continuum of Probably Decent to Avoid At Thanksgiving, there’s no hard line that moves you from acceptable to problematic.
But when that happens I definitely can tell.
this is a thing. this is definitely a thing. i feel like a thing that’s loomed larger in my own life is the fracturing of friend groups over “taking sides” in the fallout of sexual assault or domestic violence. (or people kind of disappearing into the ether because they don’t really know how to react/what to say when they find out about it.) which is just so, so shitty.
A few years ago a friend of mine went through a terrible breakup with a man who was an alcoholic. A previous ex had stalked her, and this ex was starting to do similar things, which was (appropriately) freaking her out.
I was infuriated to note that our mutual friends kept inviting the dude to social events! When I asked “why are we inviting this terrible dude who was awful to our friend” I got a lot of evasiveness and “I don’t want to take sides” and “people do things when heartbroken.” I never saw that circle of friends the same way again.
Sadly, I cannot risk giving men the benefit of the doubt. I know, trust, and love a lot of men, but assuming best intentions of strangers and acquaintances is not something I can afford to do. It’s unsafe and imprudent for my career.
When men critique “SJWs” and “touchy” women and “overreacting” survivors, this is what they don’t get. As much as I would love to be accommodating, generous, and emotionally laborious for every person in my life and every new one I meet, the risks are just too high.
Sometimes my friends and I will just shake our heads in bewilderment at how many times men have disappointed us, how many times we witness or experience behavior that makes us once again think “oh I thought you were better than that, but you’re not.” It’s disheartening especially when someone you like and thought was better turns out to be just as disappointing as every other guy. It’s been enough to make me deeply cynical at too young an age.
I’m at the moment wallowing in an especially fervent misandrist phase. So yeah, let’s ban men.
“oh I thought you were better than that, but you’re not.” quoted a million. Especially when it doesn’t even break your heart any more. It’s just…”oh”.
me, to a fellow writer and aspiring comedian busily cracking transmisogynistic jokes: Look, not only is it bigotry, it’s not even funny. It’s a cheap, lazy shot. You’re better than that.
him: [doubles down on his joke]
me: … my mistake. You’re not better than that.
I mean, not ban them from EXISTING. We can find an island for them somewhere.
It would really only take a couple generations of banned men, I’d think. A big part of the reason they suck is that they’re allowed to get away with sucking and even encouraged to suck. If a disease struck the planet, wiping out everyone with a y chromosome, women would be in charge of everything. If they found a cure for said disease and were able to birth and raise a new generation of males, would we have the same problems with men who were accustomed to women running the show? It seems unlikely.
I mean, I suppose women might ultimately start being a problem if it continued, but am I a horrible person for thinking that maybe the planet would benefit from such a disease? It would solve the overpopulation problem as an added bonus. Even if repopulating was a concern, the amount of sperm in sperm banks would keep humanity going for some time. I’ve thought for a long time that this is why men have oppressed women from day one.
They try to paint us as the inferior sex because deep down they know it isn’t true. Sperm’s the only part of a man needed for reproduction, and I imagine science would figure out how to create it if the future of the planet depended upon it. A womb’s a lot harder to replicate. There are men I adore, (although, like Jaya, I wonder if it’s because I just don’t know enough about them yet) but if I had to choose a sex that was more expendable, biologically-speaking, the answer’s pretty obvious.
So, if we do it, can we make sure it’s an island they can’t escape from for a few generations?
Maybe we’d learn parthenogenesis, which is like the closest thing to magic I can think of.
This comment gave me such warm fuzzies. Like some of the other commenters, I’m in my late 30s, soon to be 40s, and I have had. Enough. Of men. Luckily, I’m bisexual, and polyamorous, so if my dear sweet man mate had to go to the island, I imagine I’d be ok.
As someone who had an abuser who was friends with a ton of shared friends, whose friends didn’t stop being friends with this person even when I told them (and in fact, one of my closest friends had some intimate relations with this person despite knowing how terrible he was), I oscillate a lot between being angry and being resigned. I am not angry at my friends on an individual level, but I am angry, generally, that no one said or did much of anything other than “Hm, I thought something was up,” or “Yeah, he’s not great to women.” It’s a personal choice, whether or not you continue to be friends with someone, but I think if any of the men in my life now were accused of that I’d certainly confront them about it. A few years ago, I didn’t even do that, there was a friend, he’d made me uncomfortable once during a night out, I brushed it off, and then he assaulted one of my friends while she was drunk. I didn’t speak to him after that.
All this to say, I think just being awake, asking difficult questions, demanding more of our people—we need that, desperately. And we have been coached to do just the opposite of that.
It’s the “Yeah, he’s not that great to women.” guys that make me want to start burning things. Oh so you know your friend is terrible to women, so why aren’t you telling him to quit it? Why aren’t you warning these women away from him?
Seriously, “being shitty to 50% of the entire earthly population” is an acceptable character flaw? Like, “being a bit untidy” or “always needs to be reminded it’s his round at the pub”?
I’m so sorry that happened. To paraphrase Captain Awkward, deciding not to take a side between a woman and her abuser IS taking the side of the abuser.
I had something like that happen to me – I was in a relationship with a narcisisstistic abuser and when it finally ended, I was pretty taken aback by the reactions of some of my closest girls – they were a lot like what you quoted. While some of them were smart enough to sever ties with him even before I did, others kept a very rosy view of him and even disbelieved me when I talked about how he had treated me. Some of the times I would be blamed for his behaviour. I could not believe it. Some of the friends were uncomfortable “taking sides” and I was like “Wow. Do I have to put you in my shoes before you feel comfortable with having an opinion and being supportive?”. I don’t know, some people seemed to have preferred to bask in the light of that man’s glamorus pathological persona over nurturing a friendship that had lasted for years.
We won’t help to improve things if we silo ourselves surrounded with just those who behave the way we want them to. Best to stay friends with people, and be the person in their life who says, “why not just take her last name?’, etc.
Which is to say that I agree with you. Especially the part where I sure I am grateful that I’m not being held accountable for the stupid/mean/hurtful things I’ve done and said over the years.
But hey, if someone moves to column B and you can still be friends with them, that will work out fine. We have the same for other things. I think of coworkers who I think very well of, but I know their shortcomings and what not to depend on them for. That’s all.
It can be exhausting to be in the position of gently reminding the men in your life to think of you as an equal, or even as fully human. That’s not really equivalent to thinking “I can’t count on Bob to meet deadlines at work.”
Yes this. I’m an emotional laborer in my work life. In my work life, I am constantly guiding people towards their best selves, as consciously and gently as I know how. A lot of that work is convincing young men not to be jackasses.
I’ll be damned if I’m going to do it in my personal life, because my personal life is for enjoying. If you’re too problematic, I’m going to cut you out. I don’t have time for that shit.
“My personal life is for enjoying” EXACTLY EXACTLY EXACTLY
ooof “my personal life is for enjoying” is a statement i need to embody more in so very many dimensions.
It’s one thing to have a coworker that you know is going to turn in projects late, but another to have a stressful undercurrent of doubt about your safety with a friend and whether or not he has basic human regard for you. Friendship is a give and take, and to expect women not to cut ties with people who threaten them and instead act as their benevolent quiet unpaid educators is deeply unfair.
THIS. Should I hang out with homophobes because it might improve their character? Should a person of color subject herself to racism because it might educate those around her? Why is it okay to expect women to do that when most progressives would be horrified if someone asked a member of another minority group to do the same?
No. What you’ve described is an attitude of entitlement towards women’s emotional labor. That sense of entitlement is exactly why we’re in this situation in the first place.
It is not a woman’s job to educate, excuse, or emotionally coddle the men in her life. It is not our fault that so many men can’t seem to take the initiative to view us as equal human beings. Nor that they have, for some reason, deemed themselves as being incapable of doing the absolute minimum when it comes to examining their own behaviors and biases.
This is not our problem to solve. It’s yours.
And on a broader it makes me think of how much the burden of “solving sexism” has fallen to women, the victims of it. It would be exhausting to personally call out and attempt to rectify every problematic thing men said or did.
Yep, exactly! And this sort of attitude isn’t limited to just sexism, sadly. In our current kyriarchal culture, the burden of change almost always falls on the abused instead of the abusers, as if we have to justify our worth to them before they will deign to change their ways.
Sure, it’s not our fault. And it’s frustrating that that the burden of change always falls on the abused instead of the abusers. But when have oppressors ever suddenly figured “well, I’m being oppressive. I’d better take some initiative and stop, because it’s wrong”? What possible chain of events could lead to that conclusion? That defeats the whole purpose of oppressing.
It’s everyone’s job to educate. To emotionally labour. The problem isn’t that women do it; it’s that men don’t. You can fight the fight by educating, you can fight the fight by fighting, but just walking away leaves the fight for other people, who will have to fight it eventually. And if you are stuck loving the douchebag in question for whatever reason, walking away may legitimately not be an option.
If walking away is what you need to do, then it should be done. I’ve done it, and will almost certainly do it again, because this shit is fucking exhausting. But the only thing it will help is your sanity. It still leaves the problem squatting on the table and shitting all over everyone’s dinner, even if you’ve decided it’s not your problem.
Thank you. My thoughts exactly, but more eloquent.
Perhaps, but I’ve never, ever heard of a woman defaulting to holding men accountable for the emotional labor of understanding sexism. That’s a perspective we have to learn, not unlearn.
I believe that you’re misunderstanding my argument. Nowhere did I say that women shouldn’t do any emotional labor at all. What I was protesting was the pervasive assumption that emotional labor is a woman’s job and that men (or people of privilege in general) are entitled to having those they oppress/abuse educate them and show them the error of their ways.
Of course, in a perfect world, everyone would do their fair share of emotional labor and it wouldn’t be a gendered task (or one that is delegated to those who are oppressed).
I’m also not saying that women should never take the time to educate, they can do so if they feel up to it and feel like the person they’re in conflict with is open-minded enough to listen.
Either way, whether they decide to walk away or expend the energy and time it takes to educate, the problem still and always will lie with the oppressor. In this case, it is on men to fix their broken worldview, not on women. It is their problem. Full stop. We can (rightfully) call out oppression/sexist views and take all the time in the world to educate them, but the onus is on them to act and help dismantle the broken system they helped build and maintain.
I’m having a really hard time articulating what makes me uncomfortable about this comment. I have a disability and if someone told me it was my JOB to educate people about ableism my response would be a resounding hell no, people are responsible for educating themselves and I can help if I’m willing and able. Is sexism different than ableism? Part of me says yes but I think that part is actually the patriarchy.
Yup, and also, women can’t solve sexism alone because men need to figure out their toxic relationship with their own gender role and GET ON THAT SHIT!
Is anyone else reading N.K. Jemisin? There’s a great line in The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms about men being so weak that they can’t even handle having emotions. . . it’s great. She’s got some other good zingers in there, too.
SUCH a good book.
Yeah, it is absolutely the problem of the abuser (or really just the “wrong” party–this extends beyond situations of abuse) to solve the problem. But, if someone is willing to solve the problem, being cut off from their community doesn’t help.
There are some situations in which someone people have to cut a person out of their life. I get that, and I support it. Everyone has a different line–based on their history, or their relationship with the abuser–and all of those thresholds are okay. Still, I believe in restorative justice and reconciliation. I don’t think that means everyone has to swallow their hurt and be friends. But I do think that a community is the best tool to push back at each other and mold a person into their best self. It’s not a matter of just rolling your eyes and ignoring someone’s awful comment and thinking, “Oh yeah, Joe just has that sexism problem.” It’s a matter of engaging in it and Joe saying, “Shit, I’m being sexist again. I need to unlearn this behavior.”
But, yeah, this is predicated on the idea that someone exhibiting fucked up behavior is willing to confront that behavior and wants to change it. I know that in a lot of situations that’s not case.
I agree in theory, absolutely, but in practice I tend to avoid or cut out men rather than engage, because I have a >15 year history of my thoughts & statements being ignored/dismissed/belittled by even otherwise “decent” men, because of my gender.
What I REALLY want is a cisman-shaped shell through which to call out shittiness and expound feminist theory to clueless men, and the confidence of a mediocre man that I should & will be listened to and taken seriously no matter what.
Or, perhaps even better, a living cisman to call this shit out so you don’t have to?
And, it’s totally okay that for you, the threshold of unacceptable behavior can be crossed very quickly. Because even though I might feel a responsibility and capability to keep engaging in one situation doesn’t mean that everyone should. I don’t want anyone continuing in a situation that really damages them.
And like another toastie said, they work in a job that requires a lot of emotional labor, so they don’t have much emotionally energy left in their personal life to spend on people who are fucking up. My job doesn’t require much emotional labor, so I have some left over at the end of the day. I also have mental illnesses that take a lot of my emotional energy, and some other folks don’t have to spend emotional energy in that way. We are all special snowflakes, is what I’m saying, and we should all protect our little snowflake selves. If you are able to help others be better after you take care of yourself, then great.
But a living cisman would go and take all the credit! No, I want to be acknowledged as being right about everything. I want men to feel as though they have to apologize to me, personally, anytime they have a less than charitable thought about a woman. The only solution is a megaphone that casts a spell of inherent worth and power through all my words.
More seriously, the root of my comment was more that I do often feel like I could be doing more! And then I try, and no one listens, and then I remember why I stopped trying. When I think I have a chance of being listened to- like, for example, with my Toast-reading brother- I do still engage, for sure. But that’s frustratingly rare.
Ummm….I totally agree with that first part and when you wrote, “More seriously,” I was like, “Oh. Some of that was sarcasm.”
Because men should apologize, personally, to each one of us when they have an uncharitable thought about a woman. On the other hand, it would be depressing to get that many constant apologies throughout the day.
Also, you could be doing more. So could I. But don’t for a second feel guilty because it isn’t your JOB. It’s an option, and back to my OP, it’s an option that should be used in situations when people want to change. So fuck those guys who are beyond hope.
Ha, I suppose it was meant to be self-deprecating in that I don’t feel my compulsion to always be right about everything is the most useful motivator for educating others about their fuckups. I’d rather have call-outs come from a place of compassion than snottiness, yknow?
Otherwise, switch “more seriously” on my above comment for “more realistically” and I think we’re on the same page, here!
As the emotional labor person from upthread, I want to clarify. It’s not that I don’t have energy to perform emotional labor outside of work. It’s that I don’t have energy to perform UNRECIPROCATED emotional labor. If I call you on something, and then you apologize, and then take steps to behave better, you’ve vindicated my investment in you, and I’m grateful for you investing in me, and our relationship. But I can’t make investments where I’m not going to get a return.
That makes a lot of sense. And, yeah, anyone who isn’t willing to give something back is not worth anyone’s time.
I’m sorry if it seemed that I was speaking for you. I thought your experience was a great example of why people might have differing ability to invest in whatever emotional labor at whatever time.
I agree with RLT if and only if we’re talking about feminist activists instead of women in general. Education is activism, and I think we should encourage each other to fit some activist work into our lives. We’re not responsible for educating men simply because we’re female, but if we think of ourselves as political feminists, we should consider what we can do. Of course, if we find that we CAN’T stay friends with column B dudes to teach them how to human, we don’t have to! But if we respect emotional labour as hard work, we can support each other in doing the amount of work that we’re able to (with the understanding that the amount can be zero), for the cause. It’s volunteering!
Nah, bugger that. Activism can be about building things with women, not tolerating crap men.
This is where I end up more and more as I get older and deal with more and more crap from men tbh.
Will we help to improve things by minimizing the hurt these interactions cause, or by not showing our anger? Will we help to improve things by not holding people accountable or by insulating them from the consequences of their actions?
If we could cut out the people in our lives who do these things, what would be the problem? They’d see the consequences of their actions, repent, and change, or they’d be over in their bitter silos with all the other assholes; either way, we wouldn’t have to deal with their bullshit, and I know this is an implausible scenario but it honestly sounds pretty great to me.
I get PAID to work with colleagues. I do not get paid to have friends. I am only friends with people who justify the investment of my time and energy by being fun.
“Best to stay friends with people, and be the person in their life who says, “why not just take her last name?’, etc. ”
Best for whom? Certainly not me. And I’ve pissed away literal years trying to improve people the way you claim they can be, to nothing but distress on my part and disdain on theirs.
Yep. Just… yep. I have a brother who lives in that gray area, and it’s messed with our relationship in ways that make me queasy to think about.
It did not occur to me until this precise moment how emotionally conflicting it could be to have brothers. I have a father and an uncle, but that is most certainly different, even though sometimes they both give me cause to sigh (never through their actions, merely due to their slightly blinkered understanding of the world). But if my sister was a brother — I didn’t even think of the emotional dissonance that could create.
Wow. Yeah, me too. We have our own stuff, my sister and I, but if I had to factor different levels of privilege into it…
I’m sure I could handle it. But since I know it’s a big part of what’s kept me from being close with my cousins, it would only make sense that a difference in gender privilege might complicate things.
I just read these comments and they kind of put into words something I’ve been trying not to feel about my brother for a long time. It’s one of those situations that’s maybe compounded by the fact that he’s the Good Kid in my parents’ eyes and I’m not but . . .
But he’s male, and I’m not. He’s straight, and I’m not. He’s thin and muscular in a conventionally attractive way, and I’m not. He looks like our white father, I look like our half-Japanese mother. And he has no idea that he has those advantages in the world and thinks the two of us are on a level playing field.
This is very, very good.
Thanks for writing it, I kind of like the centerless organization because it mirrors my own thoughts on the stuff. The timing is also appreciated– yesterday I was in a rotten mood mostly because men, you know, they were just so…. disappointing, like you say, and yesterday I was just down about it.
Anyways. Thank you, Jaya. It was nice to read this and feel less alone under the weight of disappointment.
I kind of like the centerless organization
Seconded. The style and flow of this was gorgeous. Heartbreaking, but gorgeous.
Sometimes I think about how I am with my heterosexual partner in part because he has never made me feel small or weak or stupid in the ways that every single other close male has done to me, and I wonder what does it mean that safety and kindness and respect are apparently things that I have to be profoundly grateful for?
I am with him for a lot of reasons, so it’s not like this is about him- its about other men. How do we live in a world where this is so rare?
I’m so tired of giving men props for not being an asshole. I’m so tired of holding them to such low standards and still being forced the lower my standards further.
That deserves to be on a coffee mug.
This is the reason I’m not entirely unconvinced I won’t end up unpartnered forever. Not because I am not awesome, but because so many of the men I’ve been with have made me just feel… small. And hollow. And tired. And I am by nature an expansive, full to the brim type woman, and I want a partner who will fill me up even more.
this this this! I know exactly how you feel. When I express doubt about marriage down the road people are so quick to say “Oh you’ll find someone!” but if it’s such a crapshoot and so difficult to find someone good, of course there’s a chance I won’t, and it’s not something that should reflect poorly on me if the men out there are such disappointments.
I know exactly how you feel. So often I was (and still am, except with my partner) reminded by men that I am really just too much. Too loud, too big, too smart, and I should really just get in this box and be quiet, you know?
They aren’t worth it. I hate that I see so many women making themselves smaller.
Yes. Exactly this. And then my partner doesn’t, and that really did – and still does – feel like a revelation.
I’ve met very few men since who have made me feel that safe.
Similarly, but separate from the issue of romantic partners — I was abused by an older male relative, and the abuse was sexual in nature, but never physical (sorry if that’s confusing, I don’t have a better way to describe it). I’ve never been physically assaulted, never been raped. I don’t have PTSD (once I had a small panic attack related to my abuse, but it’s not an ongoing or repetitive issue). So I consider myself lucky, despite my history, because at least I have my physical safety. How fucked up is that? That things that should be givens — kindness and respect from our significant others, physical safety — are somehow things that it feels like a privilege to have?
This echoes my own experience so much.
I’m pretty sure I’m gonna marry my boyfriend, but if (god forbid) we ever break up, I have seriously thought about only dating people who aren’t cis dudes. I never thought I’d be thankful to be bisexual, but there you are.
Hi yes it me
Yeah, and we live in a world that constantly tells us we SHOULD be grateful when men are decent. Men who aren’t assholes–who treat women with respect, or stand up for what’s right, or parent their own children–are treated like heroes, when it should just be the bare minimum we expect from anyone.
This punched me right in the fucking gut. A man who was a very close and trusted friend (honestly one of my closest friends when this happened) became someone I don’t speak to anymore when I heard another woman’s stories. I know my hurt is not comparable to what that woman experienced, but I still felt betrayed by him. There wasn’t ever a final conversation, a “this is why we can’t be friends anymore” email. I think about him and this situation at least weekly, and it’s been two years. Sometimes I want to send the email, but as a smart and kind ladyfriend said, what good does that do me? It’s opening a door for contact that I don’t want. And it’s such a mental disconnect. I knew him as a person who Did Not Do This Type of Thing, and I miss his friendship even though I don’t want to.
I’m sorry. It makes sense to miss his friendship; any good counsel he gave you is still good counsel. Any comfort he gave you was still comfort. Any laughs you had together are still funny memories. It’s okay to miss all those wonderful things that existed in that relationship, even though he did betray you. It is really terrible that he would treat people in such a way that you had to walk away from that relationship. I don’t like him, on your behalf.
This comment means so much to me, and you weren’t even replying to me. Almost in tears at work! Thank you.
This is such an important and kind comment and I love you for posting it.
I’m sorry that your friend turned out to be… not so good. But speaking as “another woman” who had her own horrible stories, I would like to give you the largest Internet Hug ever for being brave and principled enough to draw a line in the sand and say “No” to continuing a friendship with someone you knew to be unworthy of your trust. I would do the same thing, even though it can be complicated.
In other words, thank you.
Thank you. I wish my friends had done the same. I might trust them, now.
As a woman who dates men I’ve just sort of resigned myself to constantly calculating whether the disappointing thing a man says is disappointing enough to stop seeing him, not whether or not he’ll actually say something disappointing. The man who is overtly gross on the second date is a no-brainer. But what about the man who argues but then apologizes after six months? Or the man who wants to agree-to-disagree after a year? In retrospect I know what decisions I should have made and I’m learning from that but damn, that is not a lesson I should need to learn.
OK, look, I know this is late. I just hate that your calculus here is how disappointing is too disappointing–that just breaks my heart. Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we not demand that men at least clear the decent human being bar? You deserve someone who does not belittle you or make small “innocuous” but actually toxic comments or not-so-small overtly sexist comments, someone who apologizes immediately when you point out he’s being an asshole (because, let’s face it, we’re all assholes sometimes, and the decent human being part is recognizing our own assholery and owning up to it and fixing it).
I, some random feminist internet commenter, support you no matter what you decide to do–if you prefer having a partner to flying solo that will obviously affect how you approach potential relationships and might make you more willing to tolerate some borderline behaviors. If something makes you uncomfortable, though, that’s almost certainly a red flag.
This is going on in my friend group right now. I’m the only one on the woman’s side. People keep telling me I wasn’t “there” so what do I know, but for me, the fact that no one believes her actually made me more convinced she is telling the truth.
(It happened to me once, is what I keep thinking.)
On the other hand, I know many of my friends of color feel exactly this way about white women. Like we let them down in the end. I say “we” because I am a white woman. I try to remain aware of that too. Maybe we should try to look at our own behavior w/r/t our privileges before writing off an entire gender.
I don’t know the answer I guess.
(It happened to me once, is what I keep thinking.)
What I find myself thinking is usually “It happened to me, and no one believed me, either.” Or no one thought it was worth believing, which is different: No one wanted to HAVE to believe, because it would get ugly — as if that cold cost-benefit analysis of social behavior and the value of believing a woman’s word weren’t already ugly.
thank you for adding race into this! it’s such a similar calculus for me with white friends, while constantly thinking “pleasedon’tdosomethingracist, pleasedon’tdosomethingracist”
This is way too late, but thank you for this. It is important to hear.
Basically, I have a very short list of men who have the ability to disappoint me. Uhhhh Steph Curry is on there? And my husband. And like, maybe two other men I know personally.
Jon Stewart, Lin-Manuel Miranda.
I haven’t had two columns of people since the age of eight when my father proved to me that even he was capable of betraying my trust (oh hey, I could tie this in with my comment to the Bluebeard story if I wanted to, which I don’t, so you’re welcome).
The most I’ll give someone when meeting them (anyone, but especially men) is not automatically assume they are an axe-murderer. I don’t give anyone benefit of the doubt, I never assume the best of people, and I certainly don’t give them my confidence until they’ve proven they deserve it. Even then I’m sometimes disappointed (although it happens rarely anymore).
There’s a reason I don’t have many close, in-person friends and I’m 100% fine with that. I know most people aren’t as comfortable in their emotional isolation as I am, though (the Burgomaster really likes liking people) and I am sorry for the people with beautiful, open hearts who walk around with constant bruises on them. I think the world needs both kinds, but it sure isn’t equally kind to both.
I can’t stop re-reading the last part of this, it’s beautiful and sad and I’m crying.
Like some others here, I was in an abusive relationship with someone whose friends saw at least some of the very bad things that were happening, and did nothing at best. Some of them tried to position themselves as “better” potential partners and saviors for me. The worst ones actively enabled my abuser or themselves committed horrendous acts of violence on my mind and body. Most of these people were men, but each of these categories also had women in it.
I am biased by my position as a survivor, I know. But I cannot forgive these people. I do not allow many men into my life. I allow very few new people into my life who seem to actively want something from me – it takes a long time to earn my trust. I’m not willing to give very many strangers the benefit of the doubt. It’s very easy to wind up in my “B” column because I am not willing to risk my life and health that way anymore.
I will admit that sometimes this is exhausting, and lonely, but I’ve fought really hard these past few years to stay alive, to reclaim my sanity and my sense of safety, and I suspect I’ll be actively fighting for these things all my life. I feel now that a trusting nature is maybe a luxury, maybe a gift, and I don’t begrudge it of anyone, but I can’t do it myself. I just can’t. I’d rather nurture my small circle than care whether or not I’m writing someone off “unfairly.” I think I’ve paid a high price for that prerogative. I think about justice a lot, what it could look like, and I honestly don’t know. The options available to us are a very weak, very cold comfort. Maybe the only justice is the hard-earned skills I’m learning to nurture myself and people like me.
I’m really sorry to read about the disappointment and pain this causes you, Jaya, and everyone here. On some level I know that suffering is the human condition, but this is one kind of suffering that I just can’t bear and wish that no one ever had to experience.
I am biased by my position as a survivor, I know
I don’t know if you are? I mean, if you’re biased by your position as a survivor, it’s only in the same way that someone else is biased by not being a survivor. Your experiences give you a certain kind of knowledge and a perspective, but it’s not the case that you a biased and someone else who hasn’t had your experiences is somehow objective.
I view these kinds of things as less “bias” and more “a well-honed talent for spotting manipulators and abusers.”
Exactly!
It’s kind of like when The Toast was talking about how Shady Older Dudes often target women in their early twenties. Part of the reason it’s harder for them to pull that bullshit with older women is because we have lived through that time in our lives when Creepy Dudes saw us as the easiest of prey, so when they try that shit when we’re over 30, we roll our eyes and keep walking.
Having experienced something or being a survivor makes you better able to distinguish a threat, in my opinion. In fact, if I were dating a new guy and a friend who had survived abuse mentioned to me that he was setting off her alarms, I’d listen. She’s the one who lived through it, and she can see patterns and behaviors that I might not see.
I have an ex-friend who was kicked out of our college after several other women accused him of sexual assault. At the time I – also one of his victims – struggled a lot with watching most of our mutual friends, many of whom were women who themselves had shared with me and others their stories of subtle-to-explicit non-consensual incidents with this man, try to justify his behavior to various degrees: “they were both drunk” “I saw her hanging out and fooling around with him after she claims it happened, and nobody would stay with someone who abused them,” and many other garbage lines that didn’t hold up under even the most basic scrutiny. It was honestly one of the most disheartening periods of my life so far, to watch these people I had befriended and in many cases admired for years lose all objectivity the moment it was someone they knew personally and otherwise liked. In the end the ex-friend only got kicked out because one of the women had “proof” in the form of a written confession via facebook chat.
It’s now been several years since then and I have more sympathy for these old friends and defenders, as I know in many cases they themselves were victims and probably just trying to process their own experiences. But all the same I have only stayed in contact with one, out of easily a dozen. I just can’t move on from their earlier words and actions, and I don’t really think I want to.
I’m not sure what I’m trying to say, except that this whole piece resonated with me in a very personal way. Knowing where your “line” is as regards garbage sexist behavior can be tough enough, but frankly that line is never truly a line for most people when it involves someone you care about or who cares (or presumably cares) about you, who can affect your life in negative ways if they so choose, etc. It’s such a hard thing to navigate, and I wish there were easier answers.
Yes, having empathy for those survivors unwilling to name their experience is so complicated and fraught – I was one of those people once, and for me it took an experience that was without question a “real” sexual assault to see that all the other assualts were real too. That was very traumatising, and I understand why someone would choose denial, especially when the reckoning of those experiences are happening because of someone else, someone easy to blame. But that still doesn’t make projecting your own denial okay. Its such a difficult, shitty situation
This is…exactly where I am at. I lost a friendship with a man I had known for almost 10 years because I refused to stop being friends with his ex-wife when he demanded it. He said she was abusive to him, but she also said he was abusive to her. Near as I can tell, they had a horribly toxic marriage and are both far better off divorced. I feel bad for him feeling that way, but I wasn’t going to abandon her after I had spent so much time trying to help her through the agony of the end of their marriage and her attempts to get on with her life in healthy and affirming ways when he hadn’t bothered to talk to me about what happened on his end (I tried to reach out to him, which was how this came up). He hasn’t done this to any of our other mutual friends, to my knowledge, and opened my eyes go the kind of controlling behavior he had been belittling his wife with during their marriage.
I have watched men close ranks against women time and again that I really wonder sometimes if we are in a war.
Hi! I’m wondering if someone can clarify the tone of this post for me. Why on earth is this not simply an issue of supporting the survivor or target of bad behavior or abuse, at the obvious and easy expense of benefit of the doubt? is a survivor not so much more acutely concerned about who she may have left, or which parties she may go to, than a bystander might be? Is she also meant to position herself in this post? This piece seems to be resonating with others (it did not with me), so I’m wondering if that’s what others intuited.
I think the tone of the post is exactly about supporting the survivor. You support those women, and at the same time you are disappointed and sad when a man you trusted turns out to be an asswipe who hurts women.
And just like that, I can read it exactly that way. I am not sure why I couldn’t the first few times. I’m glad I asked. Thank you.
Because supporting survivors is an easy choice with often shitty real-world consequences, which are often imputed to the survivor (“I can’t hang out with my friend because y said he harassed her and she’ll be mad”) rather than to the asswipe.
I made this post and then went to have a shower to re-centre myself, and even though I’m now able to understand the post better I still want to say: I think sometimes, it appears difficult to drop a person, but for me it became significantly easier when I realized that instead, I was offering consequences for bad behavior by cutting even just bad vibes out of my life. People aren’t monolithic! It feels hard to drop the good qualities that are also contained in the same fleshy vessel of the source of much abusive behavior. But trying to think about blocking the bad behavior, which is unequivocally fucked up and needs to be opposed, instead of blocking the complicated person, has simplified this issue considerably for me. I am not sure it would work for everyone the same way, though.
yeah, I have very few qualms about cutting dudes out of my life, buuut I also think it’s okay to mourn the loss of those friendships, and important to acknowledge how exhausting it is, that it’s necessary to maintain this sort of emotional calculus about every fucking guy I’ve ever known, before they’ve even done anything to earn my suspicion.
Yeah, for sure. We have to live in our feelings, you know? I think for me it’s just less about “tough choices” and more about coping with the choices that are clearer for me to make.
I think it’s hard because you’re mourning a loss of faith too. In every kind of relationship we have to offer of ourselves varying degrees of vulnerability and trust, and to be disappointed by someone makes it that much harder to offer it again.
I am finding it easier and easier to cut shitty people out of my life, but when that shittiness comes from a friend that you cared about and respected, the decision to cut them off isn’t painless (even if it is easy). There isn’t really a lot of cultural context to mourning a friend-breakup in the way there is for romantic breakups let alone for when you are mourning the death of a person that never really existed.
yup on yup. i’m beginning to realize that my dearest friendship is likely going to change significantly, by my own volition, and it’s goddamn painful! i love her, but i am also hurt by her.
thank you for saying this! that’s a helpful frame for me, and it applies to many a situation.
For me, if a person in my friend circle openly stated that they had been abused by a mutual friend and requested support, that’s often a simple/obvious/easy situation, as you’ve pointed out here. Still, just because it’s easy to know what you should do in that situation, doesn’t mean you wouldn’t have complicated feelings about it, specifically the feelings of disappointment and disillusionment with men in general that Jaya wrote about.
More complicated, though, and a part of the piece that really resonated with me, is how to react and how to feel in the face of shitty behavior that doesn’t necessarily qualify as abuse. Jaya gave the example of a friend of hers who was completely baffled by the idea that his fiancee may not want to take his name. His conversation with Jaya about it wasn’t abusive, but it still served to reveal to her that her friend — someone she liked, trusted, and respected — believed that women partnered with men should be happy to take on their husband’s name. Being on the receiving end of that knowledge sucks. Then there’s the added fact that Jaya’s friend’s wife did end up taking his name, and Jaya can hope all she wants that he didn’t pressure her about that decision at all, but she has no way of knowing, and it sucks to have suspicions like that about your friends.
Then there’s the larger context, that when you have at least one story like that about just about every man in your life, where do you draw the line about which men are worth your time or not? And how do you reconcile that with your own knowledge that you’re not a perfect person, that you’ve made mistakes? Especially (as Social pointed out up thread) for those of us who are privileged in other ways, who are surely the ones doing the disappointing with some of the people in our lives.
A week ago a man who was previously in my “safe” column contacted me late at night while drunk and offered me money in exchange for a Skype session.
He’s married, monogamous. I know his wife. I know his kids.
He’s now not “safe”, any more than the roommate I had that snuck into my bedroom and my bed late at night to grope me, the man who pushed me up against a wall and rammed his tongue down my throat while two other men watched, uncomfortably, and said nothing. The men that told me I owed them reciprocal affection because they had a crush on me. The scores of men who treated me as property or as a commodity because I was “cool about it”, because I was a female in public.
I still talk to several of my former abusers. I only recently realized that that is what they were – what they are – and yet I invite them into my home, wish them a happy birthday on Facebook, maintain relationships with them. It’s incongruent with what I experienced and everything I stand for, and yet when I look at it I think “it’s not that bad” or “it happened years ago” or “I’m over it now” (despite being repeatedly told I should never be “over” my abuse or have come to terms with it, which I find really really fucked up in a lot of ways).
Where’s the line? There is no line, it’s more of a shifting sand. Who can you trust? No one, no one, no one.
“People can be good, loyal friends and talented in their professions and abusers and manipulators, and there’s a large grey area of how and when those latters supersede the formers. I want to believe that people can learn and attone, and that lives and careers don’t have to be ruined on either side. I want to believe that I am not defined by the times I have abused and manipulated, or the shitty things I said on my blog when I was 19. ”
I love this point, but I also want to think more about it because I definitely hold some columns – although it may be more of a spectrum as grumblyqueer mentioned above. Hazily, I am toying with the idea that atonement is possible, change is possible but sometimes really changing means recognizing that you need to go change *somewhere else.* Even if the problem is a collection of micro-aggressions and A Dude eventually realizes that and stops doing it, maybe the folks who spent the time calling him on it and being harmed by it are just too exhausted to want to deal. Too much water under the bridge. I don’t think that means their change isn’t valid or that I can’t forgive/recognize it, but that doesn’t mean moving them back into the circle of people I trust either.
Hazily, I am toying with the idea that atonement is possible, change is possible but sometimes really changing means recognizing that you need to go change *somewhere else.* Even if the problem is a collection of micro-aggressions and A Dude eventually realizes that and stops doing it, maybe the folks who spent the time calling him on it and being harmed by it are just too exhausted to want to deal.
This is part of what got me to finally give up my garbage ex. Because I wanted it to work, and I wanted to go to counselling and I gave a lot of thought to what would need to change for for me to be happy.
And what tipped me into finally deciding that I was out for good was realising that even if he was willing to address the (extremely long) list of things that needed to change (unlikely), the process of rebuilding that trust and getting back to the point where I wasn’t nervous and doubting myself and walking on eggshells everyday just seemed… exhausting. I felt tired and anxious just thinking about going through the process. It would have taken years of worry and doubt before I could trust that we had an actual future, and I had already wasted almost the entirety of my 20s with him.
So yeah, you can be the sorriest sorry that ever sorried, and I’ll wish you luck with that, but you can also go do that away from me.
God help me, I am raising a son, and as far as I know any girl can trust him completely, but how far can I know? Have I taught him right, and have I taught him well? Don’t all the mothers of all these men believe their sons would never do such things?
#momfears
Totally with you on this.
I’ve got a boy and a girl, and so far I’m feeling pretty good about the fact that she’s the self-centered narcissist and he’s the empathetic sweetheart. I think he’s going to turn out to be a fairly decent human being with very little additional input on my part because he’s already on that path. She requires a lot more parenting when it comes to learning that other humans have rights and feelings and boundaries and all that good stuff.
Thank you. Yes. I have two small boys and about to have a third, and this cuts to the core of all of my anxieties.
Does it help to be reminded that parents aren’t the sole arbiters of how their children grow up? Parents come first in the parade of influences, but ultimately kids are themselves, first, and a reflection of parental values, effort, influence, etc. farther down on the list.
I’m wondering if it’s the other side of Lets Blame Parents (Moms) for everything about their kids. Thinking a lot about Dylan Klebold’s mother’s memoir. (See, this is right at the front of my mind, and I STILL identified her with her child’s name. Sue Klebold, for the record.)
So…
I have been guilty, in the past, of maintaining silence about/laughing off some pretty terrible male behavior within my friend group.
Is there a way to say “I’m sorry, and if you ever need to come to me about this again, I’ll be listening” without saying “Wow, *I* just realized how guilty *I* should feel about this thing *I* did ages ago. Let me just dig up all those terrible feelings again so I can feel better about myself” ?
Maybe you don’t get to be the person that others come to. Maybe you don’t get to feel better. Maybe if, in the future, someone reaches out to you for help, you help, and maybe that doesn’t change how you were before.
Begging your pardon, but I don’t understand what appears to me to be the implicit assumption that an apology is about making oneself feel better.
Surely the point of an apology is that you’re offering the other person the consideration that you previously failed to offer, and … hm.
I was about to type something along the lines of “validating the worth of their viewpoint”, but when I put it that way I find myself thinking: “But their viewpoint doesn’t require your validation”, and viewed like that it almost makes an apology seem like condescension. But at the same time, many people *do* want that validation; I know that if I feel someone else has slighted me and thereafter they apologise, it makes me feel better to be reassured that I wasn’t just being irrational.
Then I was thinking “why do *I* apologise” when I think I’ve treated another person poorly, and… I’m not sure. Principally because that’s how I was raised, but I have a nasty suspicion that it’s also on some level about ostentatiously showing “Look! I don’t think that shitty thing I used to think! See, I’m not being *wrong* any more!” which seems, uh… Kind of like you were right all along.
Fuck I hate introspection.
But at the same time, if *I* feel better when other people apologise for wronging me, doesn’t that suggest that other people will also feel better if I apologise to them? Should I just stop apologising?
I think if you can think of specific friends and specific situations where you were crap, then a short and sweet, “oh hey, I was thinking about that time at that party when that guy tried to feel you up, and instead of being righteously angry, I was rubbish and told you to take it as a compliment. That was crap, and I’m sorry.”
Don’t:
– apologise generically for being male, or for general crapness – apologies like that are just, “um, OK, whatever?”
– contact people you’re not really in touch with to apologise – that’s about you, not them
– expect a particularly affirming or self validating response
– bring it up again if you don’t get the response you were hoping for the first time.
But I think a single time apology for specific times you were crap to friends who you’re still close to is an ok idea.
Yep, what bcs said. Everyone has done some really terrible things in their past, things they feel guilty about. Recognizing that they are terrible and changing that behavior is how we forgive ourselves, which is important. But we don’t always get forgiveness from other people, and we have to be okay with that.
Your feelings of guilt do not create a responsibility for others to forgive you. It’s a hard, hard, thing to learn and be okay with. One of the 12 steps (and I’m not in AA or Al-Anon, so correct me if I’m wrong) is that one must make amends to the people they have hurt. But the clause is that you can’t force them into that making amends process if you think it might cause them even more pain.
So, you are not allowed to bring up something that might be traumatic for them. But, if there are situations when they bring up A) their friends not sticking up for them or B) the gross male behavior, I think you can probably say, “Yep, I realize I was one of the problems back then. I am really sorry that I didn’t stop that behavior.” But only if they bring it up, and only if it’s not in a group setting where they have to deal with a lot of people focusing on their past.
This resonates with me super hard. My abuser reached out to me on Facebook yesterday with an “I’m so so sorry about what I did to you,” and rather than block him as I had every previous time he tried to contact me over the past few years (which was a few, and the reason I’m fairly secretive on social media and slow to post on linkedin about my current job is because of him, full stop) I actually allowed him to have a conversation with me. I had this crazy idea that he was ready to hear about the specifically horrible things he did to me that made me cut him out of my life and changed who I was (open, friendly, trusting, fearless) irrecoverably. Instead, I got that he was “out of his mind” at the time, some fucking sob story about how bad he feels and how tough the past five years have been because of all of his drug and addiction problems, and that he really wants me to forgive him so he can get some closure. He had no interest in knowing the terrible awful things that he supposedly can’t remember doing to me (although he DOES remember some dumb thing he tried to do months later to try and be nice after making my life hell). He had no interest in telling me what I wanted and needed to hear, namely that he genuinely understands that these specific things are shitty to do to another human being and that he’s working on it, and that he will not ever do to another person the things that he did to me.
Apparently, he just wants me to forgive him so he can feel like a nice guy again. Apparently someone he hasn’t seen in person for 8 years who lives more than 500 miles away knowing he’s an asshole is terrible for him. Obviously he can fucking deal with it.
((((hugs))))
I think so, but it requires the unqualified apology*.
No explaining why you didn’t act before, why you behaved before, what you know now that you didn’t know then, no justification, nothing.
“I was dead fucking wrong when I said/did X, and I am so sorry for my behavior.”
Expect nothing in response, as you shouldn’t for any apology. To be clear, that is what the * is about up there. This is all true for any apology you give, and if you can’t give it utterly and completely unqualified, you aren’t apologizing. You may be initiating a meaningful discussion on the topic, but you aren’t apologizing.
If you can’t give an unqualified apology for the contexts you describe, don’t initiate a discussion unless the one you offended initiates it. And if the one you offended does initiate a discussion, I still strongly recommend the unqualified apology.
I’m an apologist, it would appear.
Yes. I think other commenters here are thinking about full reconciliation, which is not always possible. But making the relationship be as close as it was before the trust was broken is not the only goal of an apology, at least not to me. Apologising is also about acknowledging and settling debts. Think about what you would do if a friend stole something from your home. There’s a difference between
a) them keeping it forever without saying anything (debt in the negative numbers)
b) giving it back and apologising (breaking even, relationship at zero)
c) giving it back, apologising and managing to repair the relationship to the level where you trust them inside your home again. (positive numbers)
Option C is out of your control, but option B isn’t. And there’s a huge, huge difference between A and B – the important thing is to not settle for A if you can’t have C! You know your friends best, but maybe you could start out by saying “I smoothed things over and that was wrong” the next time there’s a similar case in the news, or something like that. Then, when you spot abuse or oppression, be the person who speaks up. Eventually you may get a sense of whether some people might like a personal apology, and then you can offer it to them. If it seems like they don’t, you have still given them the choice – ask very carefully if you’re unsure, but NEVER allow them to do emotional labour for you (for example, by comforting you, reminding you or explaining things). Make it easy to feel safe around you!
I was abused and betrayed by a long line of people (mostly boys and men) starting when I was 11, including classmates, teachers, parents, and friends. I still deal with the anxiety on a daily basis. My entire personality is in part because of this. It’s why I take fencing instead of dance, why when I do practice dance, it’s mainly with women. It’s why I kickbox, run and basically made myself into a bad ass bitch. No one can touch me or hurt me without my permission.
That being said, I am also a Slytherin, and I am touchy about people who cross that line. You get like 2 passes (depending on severity, of course), but at some point, I will burn that bridge to the ground and walk away with very few regrets. I would say I don’t care, but I do. I’m always worried I’ll have no friends one day because I can’t forget and forgive or that my standards are too high for everyone.
“I’m always worried I’ll have no friends one day because I can’t forget and forgive or that my standards are too high for everyone.”
Sames over here. I mean, I have some friends that I’ve had for a long time, but one says something about how a black lady moved in next door to her and man, aren’t black people loud and messy? And another one talks about how he got ass-raped by bank fees. And, sure, I speak up, and I try to bring my friends along into a bigger perspective … but still. It’s easy to forgive and hard to forget.
Also not saying I am perfect here … I know I have said casually racist things, I know I haven’t always been the best friend in times of need. I am trying, though. And it seems like a lot of other people don’t even think there’s anything to try to get better at. Even people I really love, and have loved, for a long time.
You’ve articulated what I’ve been struggling with for a good year at least. Fucking A, that fear of loss and loneliness makes me such a coward at times.
I can’t even count how many guy friends I’ve dropped once their sexism or shittiness started to show. I used to worry about what they felt and go down that rabbit hole of “well, they’ve been raised that way and they’re human and it’s all perspective and they’re not to blame”, and while I think that’s a healthy point to remind yourself of re: differences with other humans, it’s pretty moot. Real friendships involve trust, safety, mutual respect – if any of that isn’t there, fuck it.
Also: I’ve given up on having my litmus test for a man’s level of *woke* be what he says about women, and changed it to what he says about men. The ones who claim to be feminist but still have super rigid ideas of how to perform their masculinity usually wind up dropping some misogynistic comments at some point. On the other hand, my boyfriend has long hair, and when I stick a flower behind his ear he wears it the whole way home no matter how many people stare. My only male friend from college who I treasure is the (cis/het) one who wore a flowy dress to class one day because he’d always wanted to wear a sun dress. It’s so interesting to me that the men in my life who don’t give a shit about their own gender roles have turned out to be the gems.
Oh, that is such a smart litmus test. It’s true, the men I treasure in my life are the ones who are not concerned about achieving a certain level of masculinity. Even the ones who are really traditionally masculine are so open and affectionate with their less-masculine guy friends. They recognize that their masculine interests and behavior are not better/worse they just are.
They are also the ones who, when I tell them about a gross thing a man did or said they say, “Ew, what an asshole. God, sorry that men are so gross and sexist.” and not, “Oh, I would beat him up for you!” to prove that they are A) one of the good ones and B) masculine enough to protect me.
Oh god, the dreaded “I’ll beat him up!” offer. No, dearie, that’s not the point. I want them to respect me, not you.
Huzzah for having open-minded dudes in your life as well! They’re rare Pokemon. (Hopefully not as rare as the comment sections on the Internet makes it seem.)
“I want them to respect me, not you. ”
mind. blown.
This sounds right to me. The first time my husband touched my hand, it was to compare the nail polish we were both wearing.
Two of THOSE guys (or, someone I *thought* was one of those guys) disappointed me recently, and seeing as they were the standouts, I find myself leaning toward not trusting men, period. 🙁
Yeah, abusive ex wore dresses sometimes, and I know other less extreme examples of men who are shitty to women and also paint their nails or whatever.
Eesh, I’m sorry to hear that. Didn’t mean to imply that all guys who are gender-bendy are enlightened, it’s definitely no fool proof gauge…
BLARG! I know that feeling, when the cream-of-the-crop (or so you thought) disappoint you. It stinks, I’m sorry!
Thanks.
I’ve pretty much given up on men now, unless they’re fictional. Real ones have disappointed me far too often. But the problem is, they don’t get why I can’t trust them the same way any more; to them, it was just a throw away comment, or one thing they did years ago. To them, that’s not enough, and so I can’t pull back like I want to, go completely incommunicado. I have to keep acting like I’m a still their friend, or I still want to work for them, or whatever else, and it makes my chest tight and my stomach feel like lead the whole time.
Which is to say: I feel you, Jaya.
(To be honest though, I’m frequently disappointed by fictional ones too.)
You can burn those bridges. Burn them to the motherfucking GROUND. It doesn’t matter if it’s “not enough” for them. If it’s enough for you, that’s all that matters.
I was just telling my friend today how exhausting it is to me to have to constantly explain feminism to the guys I date – that I don’t want to have to stop everything for 101, that I want them to just *get it*. That I’m worn down from years of guys assuming I’ll want something just because I happen to be female. He started talking about what (BS) stuff he thinks when he hears feminism, because he thinks of me as a normal person but feminism seems to be about getting *more* than equality. Finally I got so tired I was just like, “Dude, I don’t want to have to have these conversations. I don’t want to have to prove over and over that I’m worth something. I want us to be at a point as a society where I don’t have to prove that I can take care of my own body because I want to stop having this conversation and get on with my life.” If you’re tired of feminism, fix shit. Once we fix it, I promise to never bring it up again (because I won’t have to).
YES. Exactly this.
” If you’re tired of feminism, fix shit. Once we fix it, I promise to never bring it up again (because I won’t have to).”
FUCKING PREACH
I’m stealing this and applying it EVERYWHERE. Feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, racism, NAME IT. Don’t want to hear about feminism? Fix it. Don’t want to hear about gay/trans/bi/queer pride? Fix it. Don’t want to hear specifically that black lives matter? Fix it. I mean, I say this sort of thing often in long-winded, roundabout ways, but this is beautiful and succinct and YES.
I’ve literally unfriended men/cut men out of my life because I was tired of explaining feminism to them and being met with defiance and MRA-influenced bullshit. I should never have to explain to a man as to why women matter and why our feelings are valid.
I know that this thread wasn’t written for me, and that i really should just shut up and listen to the stories being told.
I did want to say how grateful I am for this post and the discussion. It’s a therapeutic kick in the gut, just as I’ve been worrying again about how pernicious and pervasive this Guyland shit is in our culture and in my own hetero male soul.
I have to admit I often surprise and disappoint myself with the crap that goes on in my brain.
This kind of hit me in the gut because I’ve been experiencing some of this with my little brother. Like, this is already hard when it’s a guy who’s your friend, but when it’s your family, it feels so much worse. And it’s not like it’s blatant, MRA-type stuff (which is good because that would result in a lot more yelling at holidays), but it’s still unsettling.
Like a story he told me over Christmas about a guy he knew who decided there was a girl he wanted to date. And he asked her out every single day. And he’s telling it like it’s a cute story (and the guy and girl are apparently engaged and happy, but still), and my “not-safe” alarms are going off all over the place. So I tell him that’s not a good way to get a girl to like you. That it comes across as creepy and honestly, just an all-around uncool thing to do. And my brother got so defensive and angry.
And I just wanted to say: that was me, that was me. When I was 10, when I was 16/17 (coupled with some sexual harassment that my parents eventually managed to step in and get it to stop), when I was 18 and new in college. That was me, and it ranged from irritating to unsettling to downright terrifying.
I worry so much about him, but it also makes me worry about the women in his life. But trying to talk to him about it makes him defensive and angry and it’s just a complete mess of feeling like I can’t get through to him.
As for guy friends, I’ve gotten to the point where they move from “we hang out a lot” to “we’re now acquaintances” to “goodbye forever” if gross stuff starts coming out, I challenge it, and they just double down. It’s frustrating to keep that sliding scale always handy because experience has taught me that even great guys do that kind of crap. It’s just gotten to the point where I’m thinking “when” instead of “if.”
It’s just gotten to the point where I’m thinking “when” instead of “if.”
That hits depressingly close to home.
Yes. My brother-in-law asked my sister out several times before she said yes. Everyone thinks it’s sweet, but honestly, it doesn’t matter how many years they’ve been together or how happy she seems, a part of me will never trust him because the relationship only began because he didn’t take no for an answer.
YESS. This is exactly what’s happening with my little brother too, and I didn’t notice until I went home for Christmas this year. We’d gone to see the new star wars and he was complaining about Rey being a Mary Sue, (which is nonsense) and I told him that this conversation wouldn’t be happening if Rey was male and he got SO pissed at me, and SO defensive and just refused to even acknowledge that we hold male characters and female ones to different standards.
Just want to say: hugs to everyone here who has expressed exhaustion and disappointment (non-contact hugs if you prefer). We all deserve better. Kittens and cheese for all.
I was always friends with boys growing up. I have seen a lot of them become men. They said some real dumb bullshit things when we were young that I (as a baby feminist) told them were stupid or unfair. They know that I don’t mind going on a feminist tangent and a few of them have said that I changed their minds on things or made them think about stuff that they didn’t realize. The patriarchy hurts them too, and I take heart in knowing that a lot of my friends were willing to address and change their behaviour. Some weren’t and I keep them at arm’s length. THAT SAID: my experiences were pretty surface level stuff. If I meet a man now who says dumb shit, I’ll try to explain why they are wrong, but it’s exhausting. I imagine I’ll be doing it the rest of my life.
Yeah, it’s a hard one. A similar thing happened in my circle of friends a few years back – the man in question (who I shall call X) was someone I’d never been particularly comfortable around or someone I was close to, so I tried to just quietly melt out of that corner of the social circle without making a fuss, and just hang around with the friend who had been attacked and with friends who were not mutual friends. And then when someone did spill the beans about what had happened, the narrative was that obviously my friend must have been mentally ill to make such terrible accusations.
And then I kept being told about how terribly hurt X was about these terrible, terrible accusations and that I wouldn’t speak to him or be anywhere that he was, and how it was so unfair on him, and all I could think was that my friend had lost basically her entire social circle and had moved cities to get away from this, as well as having to deal with the assault herself, while the social circle had really rallied around to support X.
Even if my friend had been the one lying (and honestly, my own experiences with X and things I’d heard from others led me to have no doubt whatsoever that she was telling the truth), she sure as hell didn’t benefit from it – and ‘poor X’ suffered the loss of… maybe four friends, none of whom were particularly close to him in the first place.
I really appreciate this post, and the comments.
After being abused by a friend, I was forced to end a lot of mutual friendships. It was pretty shocking how many people were neutral in the situation and didn’t reach out to ask if I needed help after a traumatizing attack. Of course my close friends were supportive of me, but one of my closest/oldest female friends is still in touch with my abuser and it kills me. I can’t think of her in the same way and I wish she would end ties with him, but she won’t. When confronted about it, she says shitty people have friends too, which I understand, but I can’t get past the situation. If anyone ever hurt/abused a friend, I would write them off in disgust.
I also hate that as a woman in any kind of confrontational/abusive situation, i am labeled as dramatic for being involved. The men of course are not. I am treated as if its my fault for ending up in the situation.
Speaking openly about women’s issues probes people to say I’m “bitter”.
The aftermath of this event leaves me hurt, confused, and unable to really express myself without facing uncomfortable reactions and/or stereotypical assumptions.
I cut a friend out of my life this fall.
They violated some boundaries in a pretty fucked up way and I can’t trust them at all. I had hoped I’d be able to be friends again but after violating my trust the one thing I told them to do was not talk to me until I talked to them first and they couldn’t do that.
But now I’m dealing with feeling like I’m overreacting and being too sensitive… at the time this happened a lot of our mutual friends were also very angry. He stopped being at parties and things. For a month or two.
Now I show up at places and he’s there. Talking with our mutual friends, sharing a table with his ex, who broke up with him after being on the other end of the fucked up boundary violations that happened to me. And it’s made a rift. i can’t talk to him. I started to panic when we were both at a house party and he walked up the stairs behind me and we were briefly alone in the same space. When he is at things with out mutual friends, suddenly I can’t be with those friends. I bring different people with me so I can lean on them if I have to.
And I wonder if I’m being too sensitive, too dramatic. Should I still be this upset? Am I being unreasonable? If the woman he cheated on can forgive him why can’t I? Shouldn’t I be at a point where eye contact doesn’t make me feel nauseous?
I see these friends so much less now.
Captain Awkward has a lot of good advice on how to handle this kind of rift and how to have a social life without including someone who induces this level of discomfort. In general, though, you “should be” at whatever point you are at. That is to say, judging yourself against some ideal benchmark of how you think someone in your situation should feel is not useful, because your feelings and comfort level now are what they are, and that is 100% legitimate. Not feeling comfortable around him is your brain trying to keep you safe, and your approach of bringing other friends with you so you have support is an excellent way of building a protective wall.
If, however, you actively wish you didn’t feel that way and you would like to be able to talk to him or be around him without being nervous or panicking, that might be worth discussing with a counselor. But I think what you describe is part of a standard process of grief and recovery that everyone moves through at different rates. You are moving through the process at the rate that is best for you, so if you can, be kind to yourself. Life is hard, yo.
This is something I’ve been struggling with a lot lately, though I’m maybe coming at it from a slightly different perspective. I ended an abusive relationship about six months ago, and one of my best friends (who is a dude, although my abuser is not) remains fairly close to my ex. I’ve told him what went on. I’ve told him what she did. And he’s still friends with her.
I try not to let it hurt me. I tell myself I don’t want to make him choose sides. But at the same time, if he knows and he’s still hanging out with her, I feel like he already has.
*jedi hugs* offered. That is a shit situation to be in.
Thanks. It’s a bit of a bugger, I gotta say!
Thank you all for making me feel less alone about this struggle. For helping me feel less guilty about the fact that I didn’t ignore the man in question when I ran into him, the fact that I’ve been civil to him when I saw him. For, everyone else seemed to forgive him and I guess that’s why he was still around, in our lives. But I wish I could take it all back. The more time that passes, the less I can forget what he tried to do to my friend. And even though she was one of the ones who said “it’s OK” to his “sorry” — I’m enraged on her behalf. For I know that some of our friends doubted her, thanks to her own history of drunkenly trying too much with people who didn’t ask for it. Yes, life is complicated and messy but that doesn’t let dude off the hook, now does it?
Captain Awkward has a lot of good advice on how to handle this kind of rift and how to have a social life without including someone who induces this level of discomfort. In general, though, you "should be" at whatever point you are at. That is to say, judging yourself against some ideal benchmark of how you think someone in your situation should feel is not useful, because your feelings and comfort level now are what they are, and that is 100% legitimate. Not feeling comfortable around him is your brain trying to keep you safe, and your approach of bringing other friends with you so you have support is an excellent way of building a protective wall.
If, however, you actively wish you didn't feel that way and you would like to be able to talk to him or be around him without being nervous or panicking, that might be worth discussing with a counselor. But I think what you describe is part of a standard process of grief and recovery that everyone moves through at different rates. You are moving through the process at the rate that is best for you, so if you can, be kind to yourself. Life is hard, yo.
Elena Ferrante’s characters do absolutely HORRIBLE things. To men, to their women friends, to themselves. Jesus Christ, if you put her women characters in Columns A or B on how they behaved toward men they’d all be in Column B, and if you put them in columns for how they behaved toward women they’d be in Column C.
YESS. This is exactly what's happening with my little brother too, and I didn't notice until I went home for Christmas this year. We'd gone to see the new star wars and he was complaining about Rey being a Mary Sue, (which is nonsense) and I told him that this conversation wouldn't be happening if Rey was male and he got SO pissed at me, and SO defensive and just refused to even acknowledge that we hold male characters and female ones to different standards.