When ever sexual abuse is made public, women’s lives actually become more in danger. Not the opposite..(and that is a separate article..somewhere way down the line maybe)
Then there is all the men who did not do the hurting rush in at the outcry with their “but it’s not me” energy. They hit the gym, they keep on building the muscles and say that they are the protectors. They perform the statement of their masculinity while staying completely silent about the men who destroy it.
The thing is gentlemen…your silence does not make you innocent. It makes you also complicit. It may guarantee your pride safety , but it does not guarantee the safety of your sister, your daughter, your mother or female friends.
And here is why.
Bell hooks named it in her book “Will To Change”. The first violence patriarchy demands of males is violence toward themselves. Kill off the emotional parts. The parts that feel, grieve, need tenderness. Psychic self-mutilation so complete most men don’t realize they’ve been murdered from the inside.
And here is where we need to understand how men are conditioned into this silence.
And that is through shame.
Men were taught what NOT to be through shame. Dont be a girl. Dont dog out your friend. Dont be emotional. Dont act like you are gay. Dont be a pussy. Dont have an emotion. these external voices policed you as boys. This silence that stops men from calling out other men stops women being safe in the same world that you walk.
This culture of shame breeds silence. And this silence gets you belonging in the place that you were emancipated from in the first place. Silence becomes your survival mechanism.
Patriarchy teaches men to stay silent and this silence teaches dangerous men that what they do is ok.
By staying silent you are protecting the environment that breeds this danger.
Yet the silence is not courage.
it is fear.
The fear of other men. Of what they will say and think of you.
this is how the patriarchy sustains itself.
This system that teaches you silence that takes the lives of women, is the same system that has men taking their own lives. And within this architecture where men are afraid of what other men think of them, women are collateral the damage on one hand on masse whilst the suicide of men is colateral damage on the other.
A man knows what happens if he breaks rank. If he calls out abuse and refuses the code. The other men turn on him. They humiliate and erase him. He is exiled from a false sense of community. So he stays silent. His silence keeps him safe from the men who matter more to him than the women being hurt.
That’s what “it’s not me” really means: I didn’t do it, so I don’t have to do anything. I get to keep my brothers and my status and MY sense of emotional safety. And I still get to call myself a good man.
The silence is the violence now.
If you are a man reading this, know that the patriarchy is killing you. But your pain is not an excuse for your silence.
You have a choice your father probably did not have. You can feel the grief of what was stolen from you and you can do something about it. You can speak up when other men are out of line and be the one who breaks the code. For your daughters and your partners sake.
That requires you to be brave which is scared and doing it anyway. It means risking the judgment, the silence and the rejection of other men.
It means choosing the hard conversation over the comfortable silence.
This past week 18 men sat in circle to talk about what many men are avoiding to do so BECAUSE THEY CAN.. “our part in
culture.
They did not gather to put men on the chopping block. They gathered to ask “what is ours to do?”
Here’s what they learned and documented by the man leading the group..
1. When women say “all men,” we rush to prove we’re one of the good ones. I’ve done it too.
2. Start with the mirror. Have I ever kept going past a hesitant yes? Worn someone down until she stopped saying no? Treated silence as consent?
3. R*pe culture is built in small steps. Someone calls women “b**ches” in the group chat. It gets a laugh. The line moves slowly towards more dangerous norms.
4. The heroic moment rarely comes. The group chat comes every week. That’s where our power is.
5. Watch the language. When we talk about “getting” women, she becomes a prize to win, not a person to meet.
6. Call your friends in, not out. “You prob didn’t mean it that way, but that didn’t sit right with me.”
7. Name the impact, not immediately slamming his character. “I don’t like that” is hard to argue with.
8. Ask for consent before you need it. “I might lovingly call things out. How do you want to hear it?”
9. His response is data. How he handles “that impacted me” hints at how he’d handle a woman’s no.
10. Know your line in the sand in advance. If you don’t, fear will decide for you. What are you willing to lose?
11. You don’t have to be a hero. If you can’t be Direct, Distract. Delegate. Delay.
12. Invite the no, and mean it. A woman can’t give you a full yes if she’s afraid to give you a no.
13. When it’s unclear, slow down. “I’m not getting a full yes from you. How are you feeling?”
14. If a move came from porn, it needs a conversation before it happens in your bed.
15. Peaceful is not harmless. The answer isn’t shrinking into a nice guy. It’s full desire and full integrity.
The most powerful part of the call was what didn’t happen. It never became a pity party about what’s unfair to men.
Take the foot off the gas on what’s unfair. Put it on what’s ours to do. Starting with ourselves.
The full recap is inside of the sacred society community. DM “SACRED” HERE to watch it and be part of this mens community.
Women are watching.
We are watching to see if you will risk something for change. Because right now the message is very clear. The men who have hurt us stay silent and deny and the men who did not hurt them also stay silent. Often asking us to just move on…. especially parents……..and the church….. and deans of universities.
So what’s the difference?
The difference is the man who finally speaks. The man who changes the culture he was raised in because he realizes his emotional safety was never worth the cost of a woman’s physical safety.
AND yes… if you are here you know there are PLENTY of women working to change the emotional safety for men inside of relationships
Men who consistently speak up in front of other men are the men women are deciding to build with.
This is not about blame.
It is about responsibility. No…you did not create patriarchy. But you are living inside it, breathing it in, passing it on and benefitting from it ( although more and more it is killing you )
You have the power to do something different, if you are willing to feel the terror of what that costs.
The question is not whether you are a good man.
The question in this space is whether you are willing to stand in the face of the what women would prefer to with a bear over.
Always with love.
M
❤️