It happened again.
Me, a man, found myself once more in a situation where another man "confronted" me with the "accomplice-macho-talk" we all know.
It happened in a work-related situation with a nice, kind, generous man – of course, because if it was a horrible person it wouldnt be difficult to turn my back on him.
The comment was subtle, testing the ground, testing the boundaries. The kind of comment meant to invoke a sense of complicity in the other man.
Me: I ignored him, because although I could tell right away there was a sexist provocation in it, there wasn´t anything objectively wrong with the words.
Him: he insisted and developed upon it, adopting a sexist language, that was not related with the work in hands at all.
Me: I didn´t play the game, but in my eyes I failed to put an end to the situation. I felt uncomfortable, got embarrassed, looked away. It was as if I was the one doing the wrong and by feeling so and acting so I handed him the power to decide weather or not to continue the conversation on the subject.
Why?
Why are this kind of situation and my response to it both recurrent?
Because since my childhood – in various places except for by my family – it was made clear to me that we men are supposed to talk about (and to) women in a certain way, to treat them as objects, showing respect only in their presence, as wearing a mask that even they know to be false. Because it was made clear to me that you were only a "real man" if you treated women like that, and if you were homophobic and, sometimes, even racist – and only now I understand that such a "male camaraderie" was based in the demonstration of power that was based in the proud of belonging to the group that was on top of the pyramid and repressed. (And that is probably only a mean to overcompensate some deep insecuritiy.)
And also because it was made clear to me that if I didn´t behaved like that, it meant there was something wrong with me, it meant I was too sensitive, girly, a "faggot". "They" teached me that contradicting that sense of complicity between "real men" was to be a traitor. While going along and participating was "bonding" (although such men would prefer to shit in their pants than using that word) and connecting by means of camaraderie.
And so I learned that what I felt to be right was wrong. And vice-versa.
It didn´t stop feeling wrong to speak to women and treat them in a certain way, but I learned that the most I could do was not to take part and to be quiet in the hope the subject would come to an end. The most I could do was swallowing the words of defiance I wanted to shout.
Today I know that taking a stance for the values we believe in means to be brave and strong, but at the time things seemed different.
Learning to act and live in such a way marks a person. It destroys important things in ourselves. It creates guilt and fear. It makes us feel as a disguised traitor, in an upside world, always afraid of being unmasked and get left out. It takes our voice away.
This is not man-bashing. Obviously I´m not saying all men behave this way when they are among themselves. I wouldn´t even say it is the majority of men. The problem resides exactly in the fact that while such an oppressive behaviour doesn´t get called out and defied, even if the majority doesn´t participate, there is a message that might be transmitted – the message that it is normal and manly.
I want to distance myself from the "all men are pigs" and other similar stereotypes. And I want to stress that the problem doesn´t apply to male camaraderie in general, since this can be a fantastic thing and only suffers with these whole issue.
Its not a matter of biology, but a systemic issue, that conditions and controls.
Actually, it only conditioned me so deeply because many women participated in this, even if unconsciously, through the image of the "ideal man" they were creating, through the way they reacted to oppressions and above all, through the boyfriends they chose. Because I experienced that who was not accepted by men, was not wanted by women. They might not have agreed with a big part of the macho behaviour, but they too were conditioned, they too were limited by the same logic of condemning who was different, who stood for new points of view. They too knew how too show me "what was a real man and what wasn´t".
After all, how could the definitions of what "a real man is" be so different for women and men, if both lived in the same space, in the same time, getting fed the same shit?
And here I would like to acknowledge transgender and those who do not identify as men or women, who so many times are left out and must feel invisible, ignored by the narrative, those, who in many cases probably suffer more than men or women through this mechanisms. And also want to make clear that although this is representation of what men experience, I do not by any means intend to ignore or diminish what women go through. Instead I want to give what I can offer and that is what I have experienced as a white man in two distinct european countries.
Most of that conditioning took place many years ago. Things are different now. The role of women and men has changed. But the phenomenon persists. Us men are just more confused, lost between the "good old macho complicity", the feminist claims that pressure us from everywhere, the search for our own values and the ability or inability to act according to them.
Yes that phenomenon still exists, so much so that I feel embarrassed in work related and other kind of situations, just as I felt in school, in the conversations where cocky boys bragged while lying and calling girls whores - boys who then lowered their voice while talking to girls, while dreaming of them.
The phenomenon still exists, so much so that in such situations even I, a heterosexual white man, in good physical shape – and so, anything but the obvious target of discrimination – even I feel a guilt that partly stops me from acting according to my values. And it is because I feel a prisoner, unable to think and act in those moments, so stolen of my freedom of expression, that it is important to share those moments here.
Image: Pulsar Aberto
Text: Pulsar Aberto