Here’s a tale of a woman’s one (and only) date with a man who, she learned from verbal cues during conversation, appeared to be a rather strident men’s rights activist (MRA). The date started out okay, she says, but did not end well at all. Trigger warnings should abound.
Now, I’m sure not all MRA’s are like the doucherocket described by this woman (more on that below), but the level of sexual entitlement on display in this account (“He tried repeatedly to get me into his car…He said that I was untrained. He said that I owed him for the drive. A drive, mind you, that he suggested and made willingly. He kept pleading that I wasn’t giving him a chance to prove himself.”) is shocking for at least two reasons:
- The man brazenly states that he expects sex—or something close to sex—”because he drove two hours;” and
- Speaking as a guy, you don’t have to dig too deep into the cultural messages we’ve received about women, roughly since birth, to get a sense of where this guy might have gotten these ideas.
There’s a strong impulse, I know, to go all #NotAllMen on this story. To the guys out there, from one guy to another, don’t.
It’s not enough—it has never been enough—for guys to distance only themselves from actions like these. This was an assault, plain and simple. A well-placed punch to the stomach might have been the only thing that kept this from being more than a simple assault.
Various facets of our culture are telling us that this guy’s behavior—while extreme in its brazenness—is not only condoned, it’s actually expected in some circles. We can do better, guys, but not just by distancing ourselves with “not all men” protestations. We have to call this crap out. It will be a much better world if we do.
