Opinions Are Like A**h*les

One tendency I’ve noticed, and that I may have been guilty of (hopefully only) in the past, is that some guys, almost invariably white guys my age or older, are so used to being able to spout their opinions with a minimum of criticism or blowback, however idiotic those opinions might be, that they react very poorly to being called out, particularly by a woman. I don’t think most of them are even aware of what they are actually doing, which almost makes it worse than if they would just admit that they don’t like being corrected in public by a girl.

People in general, but especially conservatives, have gotten very postmodern about their “opinions.” Any refusal to hear what someone else has to say is viewed as intolerance or closed-mindedness – an accusation that the speaker almost never levels at him- or herself, by the way. It never crosses their mind that you might not want to consider Fox News’ opinions because they have nothing to say that you haven’t heard, considered, and dismissed thousands of times before. Continue reading

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The Boston Marathon Bombings Brought Up a Lot of Thoughts, Mostly About Right-Wing Whininess

800px-Boston_marathon_mile_25_beacon_street_050418So far, after the horrors of what happened in Boston yesterday, hope and love are winning out over fear and hate, but only by the tiniest of ever-slimming margins. I so desperately want to strike a positive note today, to focus on the stories of selfless heroism, generosity, and compassion that are still coming out of this event. As Patton Oswalt brilliantly said yesterday, “when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, ‘The good outnumber you, and we always will.'” Julie Gillis wrote that “we know there is something better than hating and hurting, something that is just as much our birthright as our breath. Love.”

We still don’t know who is responsible for the attack, whether it is a coordinated strike by a group of pathetic sociopaths or the act of a lone pathetic sociopath. This is where the negative comes in. We seem to be wired as a species, or at least as a culture, to focus on the negative or the prurient.

News of overwhelming donations of time, supplies, and blood cannot possibly compete with frenzied, breathless accusations against anyone’s favored bad guy, especially right now, when those accusations are utterly unburdened by the weight of any evidence whatsoever. And so we have the utterly predictable chorus of rants from the usual suspects about who might be responsible. Fox News claims Muslims, without a shred of evidence. Alex Jones claims a government conspiracy, or maybe the Illuminati, or maybe the radio transmitters implanted in his skull by video games. Westboro Baptist Church continues to do everything in their power to ensure that no one except protesters will attend their own funerals some day. Finally, there is the possibility that the Boston attack was the work of right-wing extremists, who most likely are white, and probably male. And that’s where the real hysteria starts. Continue reading

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How the Loss of Male Privilege Affects Men Who Don’t Care About Male Privilege (Short Title: Suck It Up, Dude)

(Originally posted in a Facebook comment thread.)

I used to bristle at being “lumped in with rapists, chauvinists and domineering punks” too. The problem is that, as a society, we are trying to have it both ways, and the only means of achieving equality that I can see is for men to endure a tiny bit of stereotyping (and honestly, who among us men has actually suffered real harm solely by being “lumped in with rapists, chauvinists and domineering punks”? I’m guessing none. Any harm that might seem to result from that is more likely to be based on individual circumstances.)

Back to my original point about having it both ways, just to give one example, a common trope with regard (trigger warning) to sexual assault is that women need to be more watchful and mindful, while at the same time men get offended when a woman acts as though he might be a potential rapist. Those two ideas cannot coexist. I hope that we can one day live in a world where avoiding sexual assault is 100% the purview of the potential assailant, but we are not there yet by a long shot. Until that time, so long as any men in our society continue to act as though their loss of male privilege somehow constitutes actual oppression, the rest of us have to live with that tiny bit of stigma.

Two conclusions I draw from this: (1) let’s focus our efforts on rooting out the male behavior at the core, rather than criticizing the largely-female-held opinions that are merely the result; and (2) we’re men, so according to our own folklore, we can handle a bit of criticism, right? (BTW, the opinions I am referencing are by no means limited exclusively to men, women, or any gender in between or elsewhere.)

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A quick thought on privilege

(This was a comment a made on a Facebook thread centered around this article, to which someone added this video, which ended up bringing in race, religion, and LGBTQ issues–in other words, a normal Friday morning for me. I figured I’d cut and paste my comments here for an inexpensive blog update! This is all verbatim what I wrote, except that I corrected a few spelling and grammar errors inherent to the Facebook commenting format.)

This will be a condensed treatment of the concept of privilege, but here goes: I’m a white, heterosexual, educated, affluent, originally-raised-Episcopalian, reasonably attractive and healthy American male. In other words, I am about as high up on the privilege ladder as you can get. About the only “minority” status I have is that of atheist, and people who don’t know me can’t exactly tell that just from looking at me. If I may borrow Stephanie for a second, if I were to tell Stephanie that sexism does not exist in America because I have never experienced it, or because her own stories of encountering sexism just don’t make sense to me, Stephanie would be within her rights to give me an epic rhetorical beatdown. As a guy, I have privilege in this society to ignore some pretty pervasive sexism. If I don’t want to see it or deal with it, it can be invisible to me. The same can be true for me about LGBTQ issues (no one has yet complained that, by advertising my engagement on my FB page, I am rubbing my sexuality in their faces. LGBTQ people don’t get that kind of deference from the whole freaking world). Christians can claim “persecution” when in reality they are just having to share the public sphere with others. Guys can claim unfair advantages for women when women haven’t even achieved parity. My actual point, though, is about the “race card.” When a person of color “plays the race card,” it is pretty much assumed that the sole purpose is to be divisive or to distract from something else, and that is a load of crap. There is racism all around us all the time, but most white (or white-identified) people do not have to deal with it as a daily fact of life. Just one example: I drove by four police cars yesterday, and in two instances I was going about 5 miles over the speed limit, but no one pulled me over. I have never been pulled over without verifiable evidence of speeding or making an illegal right turn on red, and I have never had my car searched for drugs “just in case.” For many if not most people of color in America, though, the simple act of driving a car down the street requires taking on more risk than my privileged ass can comprehend. I’m not claiming any greater knowledge of the reality of life in America, just that I get that there is much of daily life for others that I do not “get.” Claiming that a context-free allegation of racism is playing the “race card” is a cowardly refusal to even consider that the person might be correct. Note also that privilege is not limited specifically to white heterosexual males. The default setting of society is “white heterosexual male,” so nearly anything that unthinkingly falls into one of those categories can have the effect of propping up privilege, without awareness of how it might hurt others.

None of this means that I don’t get to have a say in issues pertaining to other groups. It just means that I need to listen for a change. It is really amazing how little privileged people actually listen to people without their same privilege. Google “mansplaining” if you want to have a sad chuckle.

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