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Seeing all of the stories about #SpeakingOut has hit me incredibly hard, given how toxic and misogynistic I used to be and the toxicity I'm still unpacking through therapy and engaging by trying to change things in my life. From that experience I want to say a couple things.
I warn everybody that this thread is gonna talk about drug use, lewd conversation, harassment, etc. This part of the thread will serve as a content warning for anyone who, justifiably, would want to prioritize their own mental health.
I want to say first and foremost, that I'm incredibly proud of every woman who has shared their story. That took immense courage. I believe every last one of you and I believe every woman who is not yet at a place where she can share her story.
I want to mainly focus on the men here. Specifically, those men who want to chime in "Not all men" or those that are trying to defend the harm of those that have been outed. I think it's fundamentally important to understand that yes, ALL men are a party to this.
This isn't because all men are rapists, harassers, etc. This is rather because all men are socialized in the same culture that creates the potentiality for them to be rapists, harassers, etc. The culture that says you can't be raped by your husband, rape culture isn't real,
that puts the onus of any and all misogynistic violence on the woman i.e. "Well what were you wearing?" We've been reared in a culture that emphasizes that women are passive, subservient, caregivers, etc. It's quite apropos that we're talking about police culture right now,
because just as we are discussing that police culture works to make police perceive themselves as predators and everyone else as prey hence a contributing factor to police brutality, so too a culture that makes men believe they're owed everything a woman has in her power to give,
makes every man, on some level, engage women with a sense of entitlement. The thing about culture too is, it's generational. Now this doesn't absolve individual actors like myself for our own transgressions, but it illuminates statements like "Men are trash" and "Abolish men"
My father was 28 years old when he got involved with my mother who was only 16 and in high school. For a long time I never really mulled over that but for the last year or so I realize how predatory that was. I'm not gonna get wholly into the details of my childhood, but I will
remark that my father and his heroin addiction would often be viewed as something tragic that happened to him and the hands of my much younger mother. To use Kate Manne's term, the family culture was one of "himpathy" that upheld my father as a victim and my mother as a monster.
My father and my uncle were both predators, the latter has been serving a life sentence the last several years. But the continuous dehumanization of my mother stunted my view of sex and women, in combination with behavior by my Father that I now view as utterly reprehensible.
See, my Father being a heroin addict and having other issues, he would often hog the bathroom for hours at a time. I know times I would be able to get in when I was around maybe 10 or in my early teens (trauma really fucks up your sense of time.) He would tell me about his
sexual escapades with women and describe them very lewdly and graphically. These two things in synthesis, surrounded by the culture of toxicity and co-dependency where I lived, on top of both growing up disabled and my early years with my parents, made me misogynistic.
I've spoken before on here about how I developed a cyber sex addiction (My internalized ableism made me believe I was unworthy and unfit for healthy relationships). I behave abhorrently during that time and it began when I was 17 and only now, after years of trying to quit, do I
feel I have it handled. I was a cheater and a harasser and I was very self-destructive and because of my misogyny and not healthily engaging my trauma, I hurt a lot of people and was a piece of shit. I make no excuses. Toxic culture or not, my choices were mine and days like
today make me never wish to go back and be that man again. The harm I caused and even the harm I failed to prevent, will stay with me until the day I die. So why do I even say all of this? Because saying "Not all men", not taking accountability, and invalidating survivors is
really fucking shitty. My mother is a survivor of misogyny as are many of my female friends and family. You may argue that a guy that catcalls a woman and a rapist are morally separated several degrees and while that's true, they both reside on the same continuum.
That continuum being a culture that renders the woman as Other, as something to be subjugated and met with violence and objectified. A culture we've all participated in one form or another that upholds the culture entire. I've seen women talk about the first time they were ever
looked at sexually and some say as early as six or eight and I become physically fucking ill. Other women say they don't feel safe going for a walk at night and that's a cruel injustice. We have a responsibility to end this, to do our part even if it is just being accountable,
to dismantle patriarchy and make the world safer for women. Go to therapy, be in dialogue with women, LISTEN TO WOMEN AND BELIEVE THEM, Join organizations and materially engage patriarchy and misogyny, in the words of my mother who I talked to today about #SpeakingOut
"Show me something!" I'm so grateful for the female comrades and friends I have. I'm so grateful to have an amazing therapist, to have read people like Kate Manne (Down Girl should be required reading) and to have reconnected with my mother, who was subjected to a vile
character assassination. I've been toxic, I've caused harm and even now I'm working through shit, but every woman in the world is worth the work all of us men have to do. Show me something. Be better. You can't alter the past, but that doesn't absolve you for making
restitution in the future. I don't want absolution, I want a society where patriarchy has died, where misogyny is resigned to the dustbin. To every woman #SpeakingOut and who has ever spoken out: I'm so sorry for what happened to you, and we owe it to you to make it better. End.
