So #MeToo has been quite successful in raising awareness of rape culture. Our feeds have been saturated with stories by women about their sexual harassment and assaults, along with headline after headline of celebrity women coming forward to put Harvey Weinstein on full blast for being a skeevy, criminal, serial misogynist. The story isn't losing steam, either.
Good.
But where are the men? ask many of these women. Where are their voices, where is their outrage, where were their efforts to stop this?
Notice we aren't asking, where are the men? Surely they have been harassed and assaulted, too? Because we know you have.
I need the men in my life, the men who read my words, the men who would criticize #MeToo for not including them, to understand something about #MeToo: It's not for you.
Let me be perfectly clear. I'm not into exclusion. I do not wish to minimize or dismiss your trauma. I'm not suggesting only men commit sex crimes.
I'm not into exclusion because I am part of a frequently excluded demographic. Straight white men, you are not.
I'm not minimizing or dismissing your trauma because my own trauma, and the trauma of so many who identify as women, has been minimized and dismissed and yeah, it sucks. Straight white men, you have largely been the ones doing this minimizing and dismissing, either directly (by your words and actions to us), indirectly (by standing by and allowing people like us to be minimized and dismissed), or by association (you are part of the dominant, in-power group that runs the world).
I'm not suggesting only men commit sex crimes because I know that isn't true. Straight white men, do you know that most of us don't lie, exaggerate, or fabricate our #MeToo stories? Do you know how many of you think we do? Do you know how many of us will be harassed, coerced, drugged, groped, fondled, cornered, kissed, felt, or penetrated against our will? Do you know how many of us will be raped? If your brain isn't throwing up numbers right now, numbers you've read and remember and can cite in response to these questions, then I would ask you to focus more on what YOU don't know than what you think I don't know.
And if you do know, I wish you would use your voice to say "I won't, and I won't let my male friends, co-workers, relatives, neighbors, or acquaintences, either." I wish you would say those things instead of #MeToo.
#MeToo is a nonviolent, grassroots response to the Harvey Weinstein allegations of sexual harassment and assault. Weinstein hurt women. Weinstein took advantage of his power to objectify and abuse women. #MeToo is about that culture of male entitlement that treats women as commodities. #MeToo is about hatred and mistreatment of the feminine, whether it's cis women or any person who identifies as female, non-binary, trans, and so on. It's even about gay men, or men who are perceived to be gay, and a culture that views them as feminine so it can further marginalize them.
Oh, and a woman of color started #MeToo 11 years ago.
Tarana Burke, currently the director of Girls for Gender Equity in Brooklyn (mission: to empower young women of color), says of starting #MeToo:
"On one side, it's a bold declarative statement that 'I'm not ashamed' and 'I'm not alone.' On the other side, it's a statement from survivor to survivor that says 'I see you, I hear you, I understand you and I'm here for you or I get it.'"
So, men, when you jump in with #MeToo, are you saying to survivors, "I see you, I hear you, I understand you, and I'm here for you"? Or are you really saying, "hey don't forget about me! I've had it rough, too! Don't exclude me!" In what spirit are you "joining the conversation"? I'm asking you to ask yourself.
Sit down and think about it for a while.
Because joining a conversation is one thing. But joining it to criticize how survivors survive, to shout down those who are working for change just to say "don't forget about me!" when you are part of the ruling class, the dominant demographic out of which erupts rape culture and systemic misogyny, is...well, it's pretty gross. Your privilege is showing. And you're silencing the very people you're proclaiming to want to help and protect by insisting upon your right to this space that we've opened up for ourselves.
Straight white men, you are pretty much never excluded from spaces. If you are critiquing #MeToo for not being more inclusive, I hope you mean that you are talking to your friends and neighbors about the unfathomable frequency of sexual assaults on members of the non-binary and trans communities, rather than trying to hold the door open for more straight white men.
Straight white men, we are attempting, with #MeToo, to demonstrate the almost indemonstrable scope and reach of systemic sexism. Your trauma, while real and devastating, is not entirely part of that scope.
Straight white men, if you were abused, molested, harassed, or sexually mistreated, I am deeply sorry for what you've endured. Your trauma matters; your telling of your trauma matters. Your silencing is real, too. I don't deny the stigma that surrounds the rape of men. Fighting that stigma, making it "ok" for men to speak up and out about their assaults, is important. I urge you to find ways to do so that don't silence others.
But I need you to understand how done so many women are (waving wildly at you!) with being asked to put men's needs and traumas before their own, or even, in this case, alongside their own. I need you to dig deep and try to see us, hear us, feel us, and get it. If you're going to #MeToo, please make sure you are listening as much as, if not more than, you're speaking. If you're going to #MeToo, or critique #MeToo, please remember that the others who are using this hashtag are human beings speaking, perhaps for the very first time, their narratives of immense pain. I need you to know that if you can't do that, then you're part of the misogyny problem.
Weinstein, and yeah, #youtoo.
Can you do that, the listening and empathizing? Not sure how?
I might be coming off super jaded and anti-male here, but I think I'm not the only woman who would fall over sideways if a straight white male asked, "Hey, I read your post. What can I do to help you and this movement?"
After I picked myself up off the floor, I'd smile and say, Thank you! Listen more.
If you've read this far, thanks for listening.