Pathetic, Insecure, and Weak
Dear Men: It’s time to Evolve.
Perhaps I should start this piece with a huge “Trigger Warning,” but I don’t think it’s necessary. Men are tough, and they can take it. Men aren’t snowflakes, they don’t melt. They don’t hide, they stand tall like Silverbacks and pound on their chest to remind us all who’s really in charge. Inevitably they harass, attack, or kill anyone who challenges their all knowing way of life. And since the majority of those in power positions are already men, they get away with a lot more than anyone else does.
Now, I need to backpedal a little. This isn’t a hit piece for every cisgender heterosexual male on the planet; I am not that stupid. I know there are millions of men who actually have their shit together. This little diddy is about is about those who don’t (have their shit together), but think they do.
Where did everything go awry?
Probably right around the time that every religious text was written. The wheels of sexism and misogyny began spinning the moment men wrote text that gendered their creator, and painted women as the downfall of civilization because one woman dared to eat — of all things — an apple. From this point on, women were removed from sharing any equal footing with a man; we had nowhere to go but down, and men have since made sure we knew our place.
Sure you will find some glimmers of females holding station over a kingdom, but the word itself — KINGDOM — tells you how men have shaped our lives to buoy themselves.
Strong and independent women were once thought to be witches and heretics; their bodies sacrificed to fire — A stern warning to other women seeking to assert their own agency.
Women were denied the right to vote, until popular opinion swung to their favor, but even now there are still men who don’t believe women should have this right. More bizarre, there are even small groups of women who believe this as well; though usually they exist in oppressive religious families. Of course, in those same situations, it’s not uncommon to find a husband who believes he is endowed by his creator with the right to abuse his spouse for acting out of term.
And what of the agency over a woman’s own body? Laws have been passed specifically to prevent women from engaging in prostitution. While it’s absolutely not an ideal profession, it’s the notion that a woman has been forbidden by men from a means of income that can be independent of a man. She cannot be permitted to make a living off what are clearly decent men (that’s sarcasm) who worked so hard for their money. Why should they have to pay for sex?
Of course, there’s nothing from preventing these men from being complete gentlemen and treating a woman so respectfully and equal that she might be smitten by them. But why do that? Better to blame women for the fact that you’re not a nice person; proclaim that you are “Involuntarily Celibate” and become so radicalized by not being given sex that you align with a group of lazy perverts called Incels and commit heinous acts of violence.
All because you couldn’t just be a decent human being.
Then there’s slut shaming. How else can a man justify why he raped someone? Just look at how she’s dressed! If a man can’t control his impulses, this isn’t a failure on the woman’s part. It’s weakness on the man’s part. But once again, the justice system skews to the man’s favor because it’s largely controlled by men. You needn’t look further that convicted rapist Brock Turner to see how the patriarchy bails out its own kind. If you’re a white male (bonus points for being affluent) you’ll get a slap on the wrist.
But this isn’t all about women, it’s about anyone who is different than those in power positions. Take this pervert for an example. A white cisgender man kidnaps a woman, strangles her till she loses consciousness, then masturbates on her; he received no jail time. Anyone with a shred of common sense knows that if this individual was a person-of-color, non-christian, or someone openly LGBTQ, they would never have gotten away without jail time. But the patriarchy lives on, and this is why we have so many victims of assault who don’t bother coming forward; they simply cannot get justice. Or if they do, the pursuit of that justice is designed to be so emotionally denigrating that it reinforces the message to other women to keep quiet. This is especially true when the sentence doesn’t remotely reflect the crime.
It’s disgusting that women who have been victims and remain silent are even more victimized when they speak out against a public official before a critical election. This isn’t a matter of convenient timing, it’s a matter of women trying to keep a rapist from assuming a position of power that might embolden them to continue victimizing others.
I for one never question these women — for one very simple fact… They know that coming forward during a sensitive timeframe will catapult them into a horrific media shit storm that will catastrophically devastate their entire family and echo throughout the rest of their lives. This is an act of a brave and powerful woman attempting to reclaim her stolen dignity; not the act of an opportunist. The negatives of going public significantly outweigh the positives. And yet, the patriarchy aims to eviscerate these women.
Let me be clear, men who seek equality in all forms are not the people I am talking about. I am talking about men whose every action is determined to diminish any forward momentum of any progressive societal movement. Anything that might lower them to equal footing while elevating others is considered bad. It’s game rigging at its most vile, and it’s irksome when these same men profess to be acting as Christian. Last time I checked Christ was an equal opportunity kind of guy. He would not have had a hand in diminishing anyone. Perhaps they need to be reminded that the Golden Rule is to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
The men I am referring to systematically work to keep all minorities from getting equality. Whether you are LGBTQ, an immigrant, a person-of-color, or simply the fairer sex, these men intend to keep you down by all means regardless of legality.
These are the same people who surround themselves with arsenals and are honestly so fightented that they can’t make a jaunt to Home Depot without brandishing a side arm (a behaviour I’ve witnessed several times).
I get it, the world can be a scary place. But just because you have a gun at your disposal and some rabid FOX News fear mongering pumping through your veins doesn’t give you any more rights than anyone else. What you are really doing is getting strapped for shock value and becoming the fearmonger by proxy. But you know what’s funny about that? It kinda seems a lot like something a scared, fragile snowflake would do.
Now don’t get me wrong, I grew up in podunk Pennsylvania, I love guns as much as any redneck can. But I’m also an empathetic redneck. Perhaps the fact that I happen to be Transgender plays into my empathy, but I doubt that. You see, when I came out, I didn’t experience any significant blow back from any of my family. These people who all grew up in the same podunk place had the same level of love and understanding that they had before I told them I was transitioning. Being “country” doesn’t make a person a gun-toting bigot, that’s a by product of a weak and fearful mind. Violence directed at those seeking equality only begets more fear, more suffering. What sane person would want that?
So what can be done to remedy the downfall of men? Simple, every one of you toxically masculine dudes who thinks your shit don’t stink, and that your creator put you on this planet to single handedly rule over it, needs to understand what sociopathy is. Because believing you are at the top of the societal ladder is a lie.
When you feel a pang of anger for every person-of-color who lives a better life, don’t you dare whip out that old institutionalized racism trope that they attained their position through “equal opportunity.” That’s total bullshit and you know it. You’re just too fucking lazy to go earn an equivalent education. And before you try to accuse me of being elitist… Take note: I am white, I only have a High School education, I am a college dropout. My ability to advance my station in life wasn’t diminished because a person-of-color kept me from higher education. I am simply a subpar student, and always have been. I will never hate anyone who earned their place in society and a better life. My color did not determine where I landed in society, my apathy towards academics did. If you try to convince me that you failed to succeed because a handful of motivated, intelligent people-of-color got scholarships, I’m gonna call bullshit.
Frankly the more I think about this topic the more overwhelmed I get. The same men attempting to diminish the agency of others are constantly looking for scapegoats to explain what kind of horrible people they truly are. To use my own community as an example. In a recent study it was determined that legal protections for transgender individuals did not alter statistics regarding assaults in public restrooms. This however doesn’t stop lawmakers from repeatedly attempting to pass laws to limit access to public facilities to transgender individuals. While I have a suspicion that former Governor Pat McCrory passed the North Carolina bathroom bill in an attempt to facilitate his own desires to “chase” Trans women, I must admit it’s speculation on my part. However, there has been a long list of anti-LGBTQ politicians who have found themselves connected to their own LGBTQ sex scandals and that only elevates my suspicion about McCrory and anyone attacking my community.
Then we have the repeated abuses perpetrated within the church. While the current news cycle is dedicated to abuses recently uncovered within the Catholic Church, it’s not really a new thing. And if I’m honest, I seriously doubt that sexual abuses in religion are any less prevalent in other churches. It’s the size of the Catholic Church that makes the proportion of abuses so obscene. But this harkens back to the very patriarchy that stems from the Bible. God is portrayed as a man, priests are men who act as God’s messengers, and that messenger can be corrupted by the power of the position. Lest we forget that old axiom — “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
One could write a book thicker than a dictionary on the abuses of (supposedly) Cisgender Heterosexual white men who lord their power over others. But it’s got to end sometime. The Good men, the ones who aren’t coveting their AR-15 and actually know that “love thy neighbor” is devoid of caveats, need to step up and advocate for equality. Not just for women, immigrants, people-of-color, or LGBTQ people; but also for themselves. Every time one of those men harms someone, that reflects poorly on you.
This gives you two options. Either become part of a solution, or reinforce the problem. The choices you make will have great consequences for the future of our society. I hope you make the right decision.
I hope you realize that minorities are the majority.
