How is a “men’s rights activist†made? We all have a story …
My awareness of what are now called “gender issues†began back in the early 1970’s, while I was attending a private, college-prep high school. In an elective seminar class billed as having to do with personal relationships, I was surprised when the teacher began to admonish the class that men had to respect women, but with no corresponding admonition to women regarding men. No one had ever previously suggested the unequal application of something neutral – like respectâ€â€to men and women. I had never been exposed to the proposition that anyone believed women were not deserving of respect, nor that somehow women were being deprived of respect by men. To the contrary, the men I saw and read about while growing up seemed to show a great deal of gentlemanly deference toward women – they treated women better than they treated each other! When the teacher offered the chance to participate, I asked her why women should not be expected to earn respect, just the same as the men. This precipitated a vigorous, but polite, class discussion.
Soon afterward, I was summoned to a meeting in the teacher’s office, along with a friend who had supported my position. We were told that we had been too “dominating†in class, and that we would have to be more respectful of the girls’ opinions if we didn’t want our grades to be negatively affected. So, my friend and I thereafter kept our mouths shut as topics somehow hinting at men’s guilt were vigorously examined – by the girls. Hardly a peep was ever heard from any of the other guys in the class, which seemed to suit the teacher just fine.
That experience got me to thinking that something wasn’t quite right, and I began to pay attention to increasingly hostile publicized rhetoric calculated, it seemed, not to bring the sexes together, but to drive a wedge of resentment between them. (“I am woman, hear me roar!†What the hell?)
But it was another event which fundamentally altered my view of the world — a conversation I had with one of my very best friends a few years after graduating from high school.
Debbi and I met as sophomores in high school, and “dated†each other for several months – mostly talking for hours just for the pleasure of it. Even after we moved on to other, more serious romantic relationships, we stayed in the same circle and remained close friends. Debbi died of cancer a few years ago, before the age of fifty. She left behind a family and many friends who loved her very much. She also left behind a legacy of which she was unaware.
This is a letter to my departed friend:
Dear Debbi,
Back so long ago, when we were young, and the generally affectionate battle of the sexes had not yet become a truly hostile, scorched-earth war, I could see how bad things would become if there wasn’t reciprocity and fairness in the approach to adjusting gender roles to new circumstances. I was worried — not only for us and our generation, but also for our as-yet-unborn children. I eagerly seized the opportunity to discuss this with you because, after spending so many hours in deep conversation over the years, you were a woman whom I respected greatly, and of whom I was very fond. I assumed that exposition of the facts and rational analysis would lead you to agree with me that, if harmony was to be preserved, men and women had to walk hand in hand while adjusting to new times, and had to seek equal justice with, and for, each other. I wanted us to end up “on the same page” to foster some hope that men and women across the board would be able to work out any necessary adjustments without upsetting the applecart of male-female relations upon which loving, stable families depend.
At the conclusion of our discussion, when you finally, and brutally honestly, declared that you didn’t care if women’s advancement meant that men would be treated unequally and unfairly — that they would have to unjustly suffer, even as they would be expected to fully support women’s interests — I was stunned, to say the least. It was a devastating epiphany to realize that you placed the interests of women that you would never know ahead of whatever affection you felt for your own male family and friends – and ahead of any sense of justice. Instead of fairness, justice, and family, you acknowledged that it was all about grabbing power. Perhaps I was naïve, and perhaps I overreacted, but to a significant degree, my general affection for women was shattered by what you told me, and was replaced with a sense of wary distrust. My view of women as men’s “better half†was destroyed. I saw that women were intent on being men’s competitors in a “winner-take-all†competition.
If any single event turned me into a “gender warrior,” it was that conversation.
A man comes to his view of women by extrapolation from the women in his life who are important to him. You were important to me. I trusted you, and viewed you as one of the best people I knew. You were a good and loving woman — I considered you to be an example of the best and brightest of your sex. You were certainly not a rabid feminist — never a bitter “man hater” — yet you conceded that you were ready to casually throw men under the bus in order to enable yourself and all other women (the “sisterhood”) to grab for the brass ring promised by feminist propaganda.
I took your comments personally; they hurt me, and they made me angry. Mostly, they almost completely disillusioned me with respect to my perception of women’s integrity in the context of the quest for gender justice. I felt, and still feel, abandoned and betrayed. I think that men, who have enabled and mostly supported women’s struggle, have been abandoned and hugely betrayed by the many women who apparently feel as you did — that gender “equality” is a one-way street for women, and that if something benefits women, any adverse impact on men is acceptable — if it is even acknowledged at all.
Debbi, I think you will agree that I never let my hurt feelings spoil our relationship. You never knew how deeply and negatively your comments had affected me. But, by avoiding a possibly uncomfortable conversation, I never gave myself the chance to forgive you. I like to hope that, if we had discussed this in later years, you would have by then moderated your views, and would have understood, and regretted, that your comments had the effect they did. It is too bad this did not happen, because it would have helped me to get past them — and to rehabilitate my assumptions of what even loving women of good faith are nonetheless capable of when it comes to disregarding men’s welfare while succumbing to feminism’s siren song of power.
I yearned to hear you tell me that you do care about what men are suffering so that women can be “liberated.” I wanted you to care that feminism hurts women, too — perhaps even more than men. I wanted you to care that feminist ideology and laws are destroying the concept of the nuclear family and are irreparably damaging our society. I wanted you to care because our own personal relationships are far from immune to the hostile, toxic influences permeating the society in which we live. I wanted you to care because we each have children who should not be deprived of their chance to be parents in loving, stable relationships. Finally, I wanted you to care, if nothing else, because I cared deeply, and I was your close friend. I would like to have felt that you supported me — that you accepted my feelings of anxiety and alarm, and even my anger, as valid.
Now I will never get the comfort and assurance I sought from you so long ago, which makes me sad. I think it would have helped me to feel less anxious, and much less angry, about the situation in which men and women – and their children — find themselves today.
I do forgive you, though.
With affection and regret,
Jay
