On July 9th I authored a post called “Calling all Masculinists”, an opinion piece on some of the comments I saw under the MENZ article, “Feminism and World War III“. I’ve done some research and soul-searching based on the feedback I’ve gotten, and I owe these people an apology for two things:
1) I asserted that I understood your anger at women, which is ridiculous, seeing as I’ve only just learned about the men’s rights movement.
2) I admonished that anger, which is a big faux pas when talking to ANYONE. You don’t tell an angry person that their anger is wrong-what does that do? It makes them angrier!
I don’t regret making the post because it’s been a learning experience, but I think I just managed to piss off the people I was trying to understand. When you admonish a stranger for their view on something, you are effectively saying “all the experience and rationale that has brought you to your conclusions are invalid. You must be mistaken.” Hardly a way to make friends.
Now I’m wondering if I can take a stand on any issue that I don’t have a direct history with. Perhaps, but I’m guessing that it would be wise in the future to learn more about a movement before making a judgement on its participants (much less TO the participants), and to be more careful about passing judgement, period. You never know who’s on the other side of the computer, and to assume that you do isn’t very fair to them.
I thought I had a pretty good grip on the reason that these men would say things like “all women are psychopaths”, but that was just arrogance on my part. My “aha!” moment came when I was watching this video on Youtube about the basics of the men’s movement. For whatever reason, that’s when I asked myself to listen to the message as though I were a blank slate with no history in feminism, and, when I did, I felt….you guessed it: anger. If I could feel this way-a single woman who’s never experienced these injustices-how did the men who had been wronged by it feel? Then I knew it was time to put my literary foot in my mouth and apologize to these people for assuming I had any idea I knew what they had endured.
I do stand by my claim that blanket terms about any group of people are unfair. However, I realize that it’s damn near impossible not to lump people into categories based on personal experience, and that, when I think about it, I do it all the time. It’s nearly impossible not to. It’s not fair to stereotype any group of people, but stereotyping seems to be deeply ingrained in all people as a defense mechanism.
So what to do? I’m glad I wrote “Calling all Masculinists” because I’ve learned a valuable lesson, but damn if paradigm shifts don’t suck. And how do I reconcile feminism and masculinism? I agree with aspects in both of them, but one seems to work directly against the other.
I guess all I can do is to continue to approach issues with an open mind, and continue to seek the feedback of people from all sides of an issue. That being said, its time for your voice to be heard: and the question is this: What are your suggestions so that I can avoid making this same mistake in the future? Is it possible to fight for men’s rights and women’s rights without one oppressing the other? You’ve got an opinion and I want to hear it, so click on the “leave a comment” button at the bottom right of this post and let me know what you think.
-Vanessa
Glorious Taco 