Feminism Basics

*Trigger Warnings: We're going to be talking about bodies, sex, rape, murder, etc. Some “vulgar” or “explicit” words will be used.*

Hello, thank you for reading my essay. I am well aware that feminism can be a confusing, overwhelming, and touchy topic for society. There are a lot of misconceptions out there about feminism; and there are a lot of 'feminists' who promote sexism. What I want to do is talk about all of that. 

I'm American, and my main focus is on America. However, most of what I will go over is still relevant to the rest of the Western world. I'm also going to be quoting and linking to other people's articles. I may not agree with every single word or idea in them, but I agree with the overall point, or the connection I specify.

We're going to start off slow, and ease into things. That means we're first going to take a look at language and the definitions of different terms.

Feminism. The definition of feminism is “belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.” Equality. The true meaning of feminism is about having equal rights, about being who you are without society telling you it's not allowed.

There is a difference between misogyny and sexism. Misogyny means “hatred of women.” Sexism means “discrimination on the basis of sex.” Someone can love women and still be sexist. For example, if someone said “women are bitches” they're being misogynist; if they say “all wives should be homemakers” they're being sexist.

Agency. This is a term that you will see frequently in feminist discussions.Agency means “the means or mode of acting.” Or, to put it more simply, the “capacity for individualized choice and action.”

The gender binary. In an ideal world, the gender binary wouldn't exist. The gender binary is inherently oppressive and harmful to everyone. Getting rid of the gender binary is the end goal. However, you are probably wondering, what is the gender binary? Heck, what is gender? To learn the difference between gender and sex, the definition of the gender binary, gender expression, gender identity, etc. see here. Go read it, process it, and then come back. You need to understand it for later discussion.

Intersectionality and the Kyriarchy.

This is probably one of the most complicated parts of this essay, but we have to go over it before talking about other things.

Sexism is just one of many types of oppression. Now, what do I mean by oppression?

It’s a common argument that those of us – all of us – who work in social justice movements face: the straw man of reverse oppression. Even within the in-crowd of people who are quote-unquote “socially conscious,” this argument pops up now and again. 

“Yes, black women are beautiful — but I think what you mean is that all women are beautiful,” they say. 

“But isn’t telling men to ‘sit down and shut up’ also sexist?” they ponder. 

“But in the dictionary,” they start. 

And we – seasoned veterans in the war against anti-oppression – know that the battle has already been lost. 

It’s hard to convince someone that they’ve misunderstood a concept when their very (albeit misguided) understanding of the world depends on the existence of the falsehood in question. 

However, it’s true that reverse oppression – like “reverse racism,” “female privilege,” and (so help me God) “cisphobia” – cannot possibly exist. Because the very nature of oppression won’t allow it to! 

I don’t think that people who argue for reverse oppression are willfully ignorant; I think they’re just mistaken. And who can blame them? We’ve all internalized oppressive ideas and values. 

We have to be able to forgive ourselves for that and, instead of berating ourselves, spend our energy working toward change. 

Some people have just internalized the (oppressive) notion that the lived experience of oppression is freewheeling and available for everyone — uhh, and somehow enviable?! 

And we so desperately, desperately need to break that down. 

So let’s start here. 

The Dictionary 

Put it down. Close that web browser. 

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Merriam-Webster is not your friend today. 

The dictionary, to begin with, is a really trite resource to use when arguing complex topics. 

You can show me the definition of “plant” if you want to, but that sure as hell doesn’t make you a botanist. Similarly, your dictionary definition of “racism,” for example, doesn’t make you a scholar in sociology. 

And I’m not saying that everyone in the social justice movement is a scholar – although, obviously, some of us are – but those of us who have done the hard work to unpack privilege and unlearn socialization are getting our information from the greats – not the dictionary. 

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The dictionary is a great tool. 

Hell, I use the dictionary all the time because I’m always confusing “insure” and “ensure,” and I always want to use fancy words without actually knowing if they make sense in context. 

And that’s what the dictionary is there for – to give you a quick and dirty definition to work with. 

But the dictionary has no depth. 

The dictionary is younger me when I’d be asked to speak on issues that I only understood marginally, but wanted so desperately to have an opinion on: fumbling about, trying to make sense, but only having a paragraph – if that! – of information to go off of. It just doesn’t cut it. 

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Now that we better understand what oppression isn’t, let’s talk about what oppression is, then. 

See, the problem with the dictionary definition of “sexism,” for example, is that it posits that sexism is “prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination…on the basis of sex” or “unfair treatment of people because of their sex.” 

Now, the cool thing is that the dictionary is starting to get hip to the notion that generally, sexism occurs against women (and I say “generally” not to infer that it is possible to be sexist against men, but rather that sexism also affects trans and gender non-conforming people) – and definitions are starting to reflect that. 

But what the dictionary – and a lot of people who are making this argument – misses is that sexism isn’t just prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination (although all of those things are definitely bad). 

Sexism is a form of oppression. 

If you think of it in the form of a hierarchy, you’ll see that yes, all people can experience stereotyping (assumptions that all people in one group are similar), prejudice (dislike toward a group based on those stereotypes), and discrimination (refusing access to resources based on that prejudice). 

However, only oppressed people experience all of that and institutionalized violence and systematic erasure. 

See, and that’s why it’s not possible to be sexist against men. 

Because you can stereotype men. And you can be prejudiced against men. And you can also discriminate against men. And none of that is okay! But oppression – because it is institutionalized and systematic – is another level entirely. 

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1. It Is Pervasive 

It is woven throughout social institutions, as well as embedded within individual consciousness. 

This isn’t about one person being a jerk to another. This isn’t about one woman making “misandrist” jokes on Twitter. This isn’t about that one time you saw a black cop pull over a white guy for seemingly no reason. 

This is about a cultural value that is systematic in that it exists within the very fabric of our society and is practiced (albeit often subconsciously) in the very institutions we’ve been taught to trust – you know, like the exclusive, white-cis male-written dictionary.This is about an attitude that is so deeply embedded in our minds that we act on it without thinking. 

This is about a force that surrounds us and influences our relationships to ourselves and others. 

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2. It Is Restrictive 

That is, structural limits significantly shape a person’s life chances and sense of possibility in ways beyond the individual’s control. 

Check out these examples of male privilege, white privilege, Christian privilege, straight privilege, and thin privilege. 

By virtue of not having access to these privileges, the lives of oppressed people are limited. 

Women, for example, are likely to be brought up to believe that their worth is tied directly to their beauty – that no matter how smart, successful, or accomplished they are, their lives are still restricted to their sex appeal. 

Want a really great example of the ways in which oppressed people’s lives are restricted? Take a look at the school-to-prison pipeline, just one of many terrible ways in which the prison industrial complex limits the lives of people of color. 

Meanwhile, in most states, same-gender couples still can’t adopt children without going before a judge for approval – which is entirely out of their control. 

And in many cases, trans and gender non-conforming people can’t use a public bathroom safely, securely, and without question. Talk about restriction! 

I could go on, but you get it now, right? 

3. It Is Hierarchical 

That is, oppression positions one group as “better” than another. 

Dominant or privileged groups benefit, often in unconscious ways, from the disempowerment of subordinated or targeted groups. 

As a thin person, for example, and therefore someone who isn’t oppressed by fatphobia, this can look as simple as not being passed over as a dating prospect. 

Have you ever perused the Craigs List personal ads section? I have. (I swear it was for a grad school assignment.) And I don’t remember ever once seeing a “NO THIN CHICKS” disclaimer. But “No BBW?” You’ll find that everywhere. 

That’s a way that I benefit from fat discrimination. 

You can also look at the ways in which colorism (or shadeism) affects communities of color if you want to see an oppressive hierarchy at play. 

Because of white supremacy and the lingering impacts of colonization, people with lighter skin are considered more attractive – which also allows them more access to other positive associations, like wealth and intelligence. 

In order for one group to be on top, there are many others who have to fall underneath. That is oppression. 

4. The Dominant Group Has the Power to Define Reality 

That is, they determine the status quo: what is “normal,” “real,” or “correct.”Take my dictionary example from earlier: If white men are in charge of defining the confines of our common language, then they are in charge of that aspect of our reality. 

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One group having the opportunity to define the world is a lot of power. And power is the flipside to oppression. 

When people in power are stereotyped or discriminated against – awful as that is – it isn’t the result of subjugation, regardless of what the dictionary tells you. Those negative attitudes toward privileged people aren’t pervasive, restrictive, or hierarchal. 

That is, they aren’t losing out on anything just because someone’s words, actions, or beliefs were hurtful – or even harmful. 

And that’s a significant difference. 

Oppression cannot exist without a force of power behind it. And this is exactly why the idea that a dominant group being subjugated is so laughable – because what force is driving it? 

We have to talk about the ways in which people conceptualize their experiences. But when we attempt to do this by drawing false equivalences between experiences, we’re failing at understanding nuance, and that isn’t really helping anyone – not even the straw man. (source)

And:

Too often, when people are talking about racism or sexism or heterosexism or any other form of oppression, they’re simply referring to when a person was made to feel bad for or about their identity. 

There is absolutely no acknowledgement of wider systems of oppression and power. And this is no accident. 

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Yes. Any person of any identity can be an asshole to any person of any other identity. But that doesn’t make it oppression. It doesn’t even make it racism or sexism or heterosexim or any other -ism. 

There is a profound danger in watering down our discussion of identity by removing any mention of societal power, oppression, and privilege. 

Doing so ensures that the conversation remains about interpersonal slights rather than about the larger systems of oppression that are the true problem. 

Now, this is not to say, that the real issue is the system, so I can say whatever I want, and it shouldn’t matter. Not at all. 

Our interpersonal interactions are reflections of and support structures for the larger problems of systematic inequality and oppression. 

Instead, we need to recognize that not all hurtful words or deeds are equal when certain ones are backed by a history and current system of domination, violence, oppression, repression, dehumanization, and degradation. 

We need to be clear that when we are talking about oppression or a particular -ism, we are not simply talking about an interpersonal slight. We are talking about something much bigger. 

“But Why Can’t I Say the N-Word?” 

Take, for instance, the recent outrage from Fox News and others on the political Right over Charlie Rangel, a Black man, using the word “cracker”to describe Whites who violently resisted integration in the South. 

There are cries of “double standard” that White folks can be called “cracker”by people of Color, yet Whites can’t call Black people the “n-word.” 

Now, if no historical or current systems of oppression and marginalization existed as context, then sure, maybe those words would be the same thing. After all, on face value, they both seem to insult someone based on their race. 

But, of course, there’s a little thing called context. 

There’s that whole 600 year time period where Black people were sold as chattel by Europeans who reinforced their system through violence and repression and who recreated their same systems of domination through Jim Crow and the Prison Industrial Complex when slavery was made illegal. 

And there’s that inconvenient fact that the “n-word” was created solely by White people as a pejorative for Black slaves. 

And there’s that other inconvenient fact that the word “cracker” literally refers to White power and supremacy in its reference to the overseer who cracked the whip. 

And there’s the context of the daily assault on Black bodies and livelihoods (and the bodies and livelihoods of all people of Color) at the hands of a White power structure that continually makes said usage of the “n-word” hurtful and relevant. 

So when we consider the context of power, oppression, and privilege, the use of these two words in two different ways does not create a double standard. As Jay Smooth puts it, that’s a standard. 

Shifting the Conversation 

A young person with whom I am friends on Facebook recently posted the following as his status: “Why is it that all of a sudden the worst thing in the world you can be is a white, straight, middle class, Christian? [sic]” 

And I engaged him. Because I’m hearing this sentiment more and more from folks of privilege: 

There is a tremendous fear (no matter how grounded in fiction it may be) that they are under attack. 

It is a fear peddled by conservative media and in daily conversation. It is a fear that what was once promised to us as people of identity privilege (often at the expense of others) is no longer a guarantee. 

It is a fear that speaks to the progress –humble in some areas and significant in others – that has been made (and continues to be made) in overturning (or at least reforming) systems that were built fundamentally for the benefit of a tiny few. 

But it is also a fear that speaks to the kind of resistance we can expect as we move forward in these struggles. 

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This only seemed to make him angrier and more frustrated. 

So I took a different route. 

“None of this is to say that people with identity privilege do not struggle,” I said. “Plenty of us are struggling with real and tough things. Plenty of middle class White families are fighting in a system that is working against anyone who isn’t rich. It is just important to keep perspective about the relativity of privilege.” 

This shifted the conversation considerably. 

I don’t think I convinced him that he’s not under attack. But I do think this statement helped him see that, as he put it, “the problem is a broken and incompetent system.” 

Call It Out, Call People In 

So now, whenever I hear people make these types of statements, ones that ignore the reality of power structures and oppression, I try to use the “call it out, call them in” method. 

The language that denies systemic oppression they are using must be called out as problematic and silencing to the experiences of those actually experiencing oppression.But that doesn’t mean the person saying that language can’t be brought into a thoughtful conversation about the nature of oppression in the world around us. 

In the case of the young man above, perhaps his family is struggling with the class inequality that is ever more present for middle class people of all races and he is projecting those concerns onto issues of race, religion, and sexual orientation. 

Well, if I simply write him off as a bigoted jerk who doesn’t understand power structures, where do we go? 

Instead, it is my responsibility as a person of privilege striving to be an ally to call him into discussion. 

It is my responsibility to at least attempt to bring him to a place where his words are less hurtful, and – who knows? – perhaps doing so will help him along the path to being an ally himself. 

Because while we fight tooth and nail to make powerful change to systems of oppression, we need to ensure that if people who benefit from these systems are not actively acting in solidarity, at least they aren’t in the way. 

And this is primarily the work of other people of privilege. 

It’s time for us to call our people in. (source)

The fundamental system of oppression has the same structure no matter what subject we are talking about. A crucial part of it is internalization. Internalization means, “to make internal, personal, or subjective.” Thus, when someone else brings attention to how the system of oppression works in our lives, we take it as a personal attack:

For white people, their identities rest on the idea of racism as about good or bad people, about moral or immoral singular acts, and if we’re good, moral people we can’t be racist – we don’t engage in those acts. This is one of the most effective adaptations of racism over time—that we can think of racism as only something that individuals either are or are not “doing.” 

In large part, white fragility—the defensiveness, the fear of conflict—is rooted in this good/bad binary. If you call someone out, they think to themselves, “What you just said was that I am a bad person, and that is intolerable to me.” It’s a deep challenge to the core of our identity as good, moral people. (source)

We must separate the system from ourselves if we are ever to acknowledge said system and create change. That's why calling the people in while calling the system out is so important.

But how do we do this?

As I reflected upon our talk, I took stock of some of the tools I have been given over the years from my diversity work to make this conversation more accessible and less hostile. 

I decided to try again, so I reached out to my friend. The second conversation was tense at times, as any conversation about privilege can be. 

But this time it went really well, and I think it did because I worked hard to change the tone of the conversation. 

Afterward, I couldn’t help but think, “I need to share these tools!!!” Thus, whether you’re trying to talk male privilege with your dad, white privilege with someone on the bus, or right-handed privilege with your golfing buddy, here are a few things to consider before jumping into the conversation: 

1. Start By Appealing To the Ways In Which They Don’t Have Privilege 

One of the fastest ways to disarm a person’s defensiveness about their own privilege is to take some time to listen to the ways in which they legitimately do not have privilege and validate those frustrations. 

I once attended a workshop with Peggy McIntosh, the original author of “Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” The goal of the workshop was to give people tools for leading workshops of their own on privilege and oppression that get past the defensiveness. 

One of her suggestions was to have people divide a paper in half. Have every person start on the left side of the paper and write down all of the ways in which they do not have identity privilege. They can include everything from being left handed and having to drag your hand through the ink to being a woman and having to deal with the gender wage gap. Then folks would write on the opposite side all of the ways in which their identity does afford them privilege that they did not earn. 

From there, folks pair up and do a listening exercise where they listen intently to the other person talk about both sides of their list. Doing so allows people to air their frustrations at being denied privilege while also acknowledging that they do, indeed, have privilege. 

From that place, it is a lot easier to help folks understand the power of privilege in creating a system of oppression and how eliminating that system is liberatory and transformative for everyone. 

Now, to do this, you don’t need to turn it into a workshop. Just try asking the other person to talk about the ways in which they don’t have identity privilege and validate those hurts and frustrations. 

Simply listening can go a long way! Plus, it’s a starting point for helping them build empathy for those who do not have their same privileges. 

2. Stress That Privilege Is Relative 

Each person experiences their privilege and lack thereof within the context of their own community and the people they interact with at the time. 

As such, privilege is relative, and we need to talk about it that way. 

Does that mean that all privileges are equal? No. I’m right handed and in turn, don’t have to drag my palm through the ink when I write. That’s a privilege I have by the nature of my birth. 

That is not to say, though, that my right-handed privilege bears the same weight or social responsibility as the privilege that my skin color, gender, wealth, or sexual orientation afford me. 

The point is that our identities are complex and intersectional. 

Some folks get defensive about discussing privilege because they fear such a conversation will not address the real and powerful ways in which they do not have privilege. So they deflect by only talking about those things. 

Just because we benefit from one form of privilege doesn’t mean that we benefit from all forms of privilege. 

When we realize that, we can work together with people who share our privileges and those who don’t to build something better! 

3. A System of Privilege and Oppression Hurts Us All 

What we most need to stress in conversations about privilege is that this system doesn’t just hurt the people who cannot boast one form of identity privilege or another. 

It hurts everyone. Until we understand that, we’re not getting anywhere because the only people of privilege who will ever act to end the system are the ones acting strictly from paternalistic guilt. 

Take white privilege, for instance. White privilege is, essentially, a social construction whereby wealthy Europeans wanted to make sure that they could consolidate their wealth by pitting poor people from Europe against poor Africans and Indigenous people. 

White folks were made to feel better about themselves and were given paltry privileges over people of color in order to divide the white proletariat. 

All that meant, though, is that the white folks got to be the lords over people of color while the wealthy whites still had their boots on the necks of poor whites! 

These privileges don’t help us as white people nearly as much as they hurt us! 

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4. Privilege Does Not Have To Mean Guilt! 

In The Construction of Masculinity, Michael Kaufman describes guilt like this: “Guilt is a profoundly conservative emotion and as such is not particularly useful for bringing about change. From a position of insecurity and guilt, people do not change or inspire others to change.” 

So often, when introduced to the idea that they have privilege they did not earn, people respond in two ways that relate to guilt: 

Defensiveness: “I’m not going to feel guilty for what I inherited. If some people don’t have those same privileges, tough luck!” 

Paralyzing guilt: “This is just so unfair, but what am I supposed to do about it!? I never asked for this, and one little person can’t change a system that’s been around for hundreds of years!” 

In both cases, we need to remind the person in question that feeling guilty doesn’t even need to enter the equation. 

They’re right – they didn’t do anything to earn those privileges. So feeling guilty about them doesn’t make a lot of sense. 

But a mentor of mine once said, “If we inherit injustice, we should never feel guilty. We are not responsible for that past. However, if we choose to do nothing about it going forward, then we have plenty to feel guilty about.” 

Remind the person that they shouldn’t feel guilty for their privilege but encourage them to act to undermine the system by refusing to simply live in their unchecked privilege. 

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5. Offer Concrete Ways That They Can Undermine the System of Privilege and Oppression In Their Own Life 

When people are feeling paralyzed by or defensive about the revelation of privilege, it can sometimes help to offer them big and small ways that they can be subversive. 

Encouraging action rather than stagnation can often bring people into the fold! 

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6. Make It a Conversation of Actions, Not Character 

Just as Jay Smooth says in “How to tell someone they sound racist,” the conversation about privilege should not be one about another person’s character. 

The actual privileges we inherit because of our identity don’t define our character, but what does is whether we choose to act to change the system of oppression that affords us those privileges. 

As such, the conversation should not be, “Hey, check your privilege, you privileged f*ck.” 

Instead, it should be, “How can we work to check our privilege and undermine the system of oppression that hurts us all?” 

When we focus on the actions we can take, the steps toward liberation we can take together, we make this conversation one that is not only accessible but far more powerful. (source)

No one is perfect. Absolutely no one. But if we work together we really can change the world.

So we've gone over what oppression and internalization are. What is intersectionality?

Twenty-eight years ago, Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” in a paper as a way to help explain the oppression of African-American women. Crenshaw’s then somewhat academic term is now at the forefront of national conversations about racial justice, identity politics, and policing — and over the years has helped shape legal discussions. A leading thinker and scholar in the field of critical race theory, Crenshaw, a professor at Columbia Law School, directs the Center for Intersectionality and Social Policy Studies and is a co-founder of the African American Policy Forum, a think tank, both based on campus. 

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Crenshaw: Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects. It’s not simply that there’s a race problem here, a gender problem here, and a class or LBGTQ problem there. Many times that framework erases what happens to people who are subject to all of these things. (source)

And:

Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced the theory of intersectionality to feminist theory in 1989 by becoming the first person to use this word in this context of feminism.[13][14] The first use of the term was in a seminal 1989 paper written by Crenshaw for the University of Chicago Legal Forum, "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics".[15][16] In her work, Crenshaw discussed Black feminism, which argues that the experience of being a black woman cannot be understood in terms of being black and of being a woman considered independently, but must include interactions between the two identities, which frequently reinforce each other.[17] 

In order to show that women of color have a vastly different experience from white women due to their race and/or class and that their experiences are not easily voiced or pinpointed, Crenshaw explores two types of male violence against women: domestic violence and rape. Through her analysis of these two forms of male violence against women, Crenshaw claims that the experiences of women of color consist of a combination or intersection of both racism and sexism.[18] Because women of color are present within discourses that have been designed to address either race or sex, but not both at the same time, women of color are marginalized within both of these systems of oppression.[18] 

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The ideas behind intersectional feminism existed long before the term was coined. For example, in 1851 Sojourner Truth delivered her famous "Ain't I a Woman?" speech, in which she spoke from her racialized position as a former slave to critique essentialist notions of femininity.[23] Similarly, in her 1892 essay, "The Colored Woman's Office", Anna Julia Cooper identifies black women as the most important actors in social change movements, because of their experience with multiple facets of oppression.[24] 

Though intersectionality began with the exploration of the interplay between gender and race, over time other identities and oppressions were added to the theory. For example, in 1981 Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa published the first edition of This Bridge Called My Back. This anthology explored how classifications of sexual orientation and class also mix with those of race and gender to create even more distinct political categories. Many black, Latina, and Asian writers featured in the collection stress how their sexuality interacts with their race and gender to inform their perspectives. Similarly, poor women of color detail how their socio-economic status adds a layer of nuance to their identities, ignored or misunderstood by middle-class white feminists.[25] (source)

The two articles about oppression are perfect examples of intersectional feminism.

There is another important term connected to this – the Kyriarchy. Most people have heard the term Patriarchy, but what is the Kyriarchy?

If you’re familiar with feminism, you’ll have heard of the term patriarchy– the social order that privileges men and oppresses women. It’s a useful term as it gives a name to the institutionalisation of male privilege. 

But feminism has moved on from being purely concerned with male privilege. 

We now – thankfully and rightfully! – take into account the number of different privileges and oppressions that people experience. 

First named by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, intersectional feminism is concerned with the social order that privileges and oppresses people based on race, gender, language, class, sexual orientation, (dis)ability, culture, and so on. 

Intersectional feminism tells us that oppression comes in many different forms. Someone is not simply oppressed or privileged: we can be simultaneously privileged and oppressed by different aspects of our identities. 

For example, somebody can be privileged by the fact that they are cisgender, thin, and white, while being oppressed by the fact that they are queer, disabled, and female. 

Because of this, we need a word to describe the complex social order that keeps these intersecting oppressions in place. 

Kyriarchy is an excellent word for this concept – it is more in line with intersectional feminism, and is not as problematic as the word patriarchy can be. 

The term kyriarchy was coined by Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza in her 2001 book, Wisdom Ways: Introducing Feminist Biblical Interpretation. In the glossary, she defines kyriarchy as: 

a neologism…derived from the Greek words for “lord” or “master” (kyrios) and “to rule or dominate” (archein) which seeks to redefine the analytic category of patriarchy in terms of multiplicative intersecting structures of domination… Kyriarchy is best theorized as a complex pyramidal system of intersecting multiplicative social structures of superordination and subordination, of ruling and oppression. 

In other words, the kyriarchy is the social system that keeps all intersecting oppressions in place. 

In the glossary of Wisdom Ways, Schussler Fiorenza points out that “the theoretical adequacy of patriarchy has been challenged because, for instance, black men do not have control over white wo/men.” 

This is definitely true. 

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Oppression is not about isolated incidents. It’s about a number of incidents, habits, culture, and tradition enforcing the domination of one group over another. 

Effective anti-oppression movements will view oppression as systemic. These movements take into account the fact that oppression can only be eradicated through radical, holistic change. 

We therefore need a name for the institutionalisation of oppression. Feminists often call the institutionalisation of sexism “the patriarchy.” 

Mainstream feminism has been traditionally concerned with gender inequality. Intersectional feminism, however, is concerned with all types of inequality. The term kyriarchy is useful as it is therefore more in line with intersectional feminism. 

1. It acknowledges that gender-based oppression is not the only type of oppression that exists. 

We’ll never achieve equality by tackling only sexism. Inequality doesn’t begin and end with sexism – so why should we only recognize a system that keeps gender inequality in place? 

Unlike the term patriarchy, which refers only to institutionalized sexism, kyriarchy covers all forms of inequality. 

To achieve true, full equality, we need to tackle the systemic oppression of all groups of people. 

2. It acknowledges that one can both benefit from and be oppressed by the system. 

I’m oppressed by the fact that I am a woman. I am, however, privileged in that I am white. I’m both oppressed and privileged, and I can fight my own oppression while perpetuating the oppression of others.The existence of the kyriarchy means that we can be both privileged and oppressed at the same time. It also reminds us that since different oppressions exist, we can fight one form of oppression while perpetuating others. 

This has been particularly true of the mainstream gay rights movement, which has at times excluded trans, gender non-conforming, intersex, and polysexual people. Gay rights activism in my country particularly has a history of being exclusive of people of color and poorer people. It is also true of mainstream feminism which has traditionally excluded trans people as well as women of color. 

In both cases, the movement has attempted to challenge the oppression of one group of people while throwing another group of people under the bus, so to speak. This demonstrates that a movement can simultaneously challenge oppression and be oppressive. 

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3. It could suggest why so many oppressed people are complicit in their own oppression. Nobody is either a bully or a victim in the kyriarchy. 

As explained above, most people are likely to be both bullies and victims – most groups of people consist of members who have dominance over another group of people.Certain people, who experience both privilege and oppression, do not want to challenge the social structure that oppresses them. This is because they recognize that challenging this social structure will cause them to question – and perhaps lose – the dominance they have over other groups. As Lisa Factora-Borchers argues, 

[S]tudying kyriarchy displays that it’s more than just rich, white Christian men at the tip top and, personally, they’re not the ones I find most dangerous. There’s a helluva lot more people a few levels down the pyramid who are more interested in keeping their place in the structure than to turning the pyramid upside down. 

These people are the overworked lower-middle-class people who oppose state grants for the poor. These people are the gender-conforming straight women who shy away from feminism, thinking that the movement is only for queer or gender-non-conforming women. 

Whether it’s out of greed or a matter of survival, people tend to conform to the system that spits on them. 

4. It does not erase people who do not identify as men or women. 

The idea of a patriarchy has a very binary view on gender. It asserts that one is either a man, and therefore privileged, or a woman, and therefore oppressed. 

Yes, men definitely have systemic privilege over women. But what about people who do not identify as one of those two genders? The concept of a patriarchy fails to take into account that women who are cisgender will have privilege over people who identify as a non-binary gender. 

The kyriarchy, on the other hand, can take into account the range of gender identities people can have, as well as cisgender privilege. 

5. It acknowledges that oppressions are interlinked. 

The term patriarchy might still be useful if we’re talking only about gender relations. It could be useful if we are referring to a certain culture, for example. So I might say that Capetonian, middle-class, white culture is aggressively patriarchal, as the dominance of males over females is deeply entrenched. 

However, considering gender relations without taking other forms of institutionalised oppression into account is extremely simplistic. Examining gender oppression on its own would be to strip the issue of its real-world context. 

The use of the term kyriarchy is therefore better, as it demands that we take other forms of oppression into account. 

To return to my example of patriarchal Capetonian, middle-class, white culture: It would be foolish of me to ignore the fact that it’s a highly elitist and racially exclusive culture, or that it is heterosexist and cissexist, too. 

Ignoring these oppressions would mean erasing the experiences of people of color, queers, trans* people, and poorer people. 

Additionally, a person does not simply experience being a certain gender or a certain race. Our experiences are informed by all of our identities, not just one at a time. I cannot separate my experience of being oppressed as a woman from my oppression as a queer person, as that is what I’ve been all my life. 

The kyriarchy gives us the framework to discuss oppressions in context of one another. (source)

And:

When Annie Lennox, legendary Scottish singer from the Eurythmics, recently declared that Beyoncé is not feminist with the statement “Listen, twerking is not feminism,” she firmly established herself as a representative for White feminism. 

What is “White feminism?” We’ll let Cate from BattyMamzelle define it for you: 

“White feminism is a set of beliefs that allows for the exclusion of issues that specifically affect women of color. It is ‘one size-fits all’ feminism, where middle class White women are the mold that others must fit. It is a method of practicing feminism, not an indictment of every individual White feminist, everywhere, always.” 

Now, Lennox likely doesn’t think of herself as a White feminist, but by referring to Beyoncé’s feminism and expression as “disturbing,” “exploitative,” and “troubling,” she expressed the politic many White feminists are known for advancing: “Feminism must look like we want it to look, or it’s not feminism.” 

It’s usually not that overt, and most White feminists would deny that this is what’s being said or done, but you notice it in more subtle comments like “Why do you have to divide us by bringing up race?” or “Are trans women reallywomen? There should be a distinction.” 

In the face of calls for a more intersectional feminism, there are even White feminists who claim the whole concept of intersectionality is just academic jargon that doesn’t connect with the real world. 

Yet the irony seems lost on some feminists who make these claims while staunchly opposing the language of “humanism” in place of “feminism.” 

Simply put, it’s not those who are calling for a feminism that is responsive to the specific issues they face that are being divisive. It’s those of us who refuse to acknowledge the need for an intersectional ethic in feminism. 

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To better understand the concept of intersectionality, let’s look at one of the most cited pieces of evidence for the oppression of women: violence targeting women and girls.Using conservative estimates, between 25% and50% of women experience gender-based violence (sexual violence, intimate partner violence, street harassment, or stalking) in their lifetime. 

But to cite that number without disaggregating the data hides the ways that multiple oppressions compound this violence. 

For instance, women (and men) of color are more likely to experience these forms of violence than White women or men and that wealth privilege can help to insulate some women from some forms of violence. 

We also find that bisexual women are far more likely to experience sexual violence than other women. 

And of those murdered in LGBTQ-based hate incidents, 78% were people of color, and Transgender people are 27% more likely to experience hate violence than cisgender people. 

In short, all women are at risk for gendered violence in the United States, but some women are far more at risk. 

And if we just talk generally about violence against women (or other issues like the wage gap), we fail to address the actual issues at stake, and as a result, we cannot envision solutions that dismantle the intersectional oppressions at play. 

At a more personal level, though, feminism without intersectionality keeps us from fully expressing who we are! A lack of intersectionality leads to an erasure of people and their identities. 

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Intersectionality is not only about confronting more obvious problems like violence and economic inequality. It’s also about allowing people to live more fully in their being and to have a voice in our movements! 

One misconception about intersectionality is that it encourages division and exclusion in the feminist movement. By including race, class, sexuality, and other identity markers in feminist analysis, some say, intersectional feminists are spreading the movement thin and undermining its unity. 

The trouble with this line of thinking is that a one-size-fits-all feminist movement that focuses only on the common ground between women is erasing rather than inclusive. Even if all women deal with sexism, not all women deal with racialized sexism, or transmisogyny, or cissexism. 

Glossing over the issues faced by specific groups of women for the sake of unity centers the feminist movement on those who have the most privilege and visibility. It allows those who already take up a disproportionate amount of space in the movement to look as if they’re making room for others without giving up any themselves. 

One-size-fits-all feminism is to intersectional feminism what #AllLivesMatter is to #BlackLivesMatter. The former’s attempt at inclusiveness can actually erase the latter’s acknowledgment of a unique issue that disproportionately affects a specific group of people. 

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There’s no room for perfectionism in feminism. That is to say that we must be willing to make and learn from mistakes in the process of doing feminist work. 

Adopting an intersectional framework is not an easy process. It involves seeking to understand things that are difficult for you to understand, empathizing with people who are not like you, stepping back instead of speaking over others, and opening yourself up to a high level of accountability. 

But it’s better to do all of that and fail than it is to avoid making an effort entirely. When people don’t make an effort to be intersectional, they’re quick to dismiss other people’s lived experiencesin favor of their own beliefs, get defensive when called out, and complain that others are too politically correct or sensitive. 

It’s less constructive to avoid mistakes and bristle at criticism than it is to be open to learning, growing, and self-correcting as part of a continuous process. So when you inevitably mess up or are called out for something, how you respond matters. 

When people call each other out in social justice work, it can be an act of love. It’s about holding people accountable and making sure that the work they do is actually of value to those it’s meant to serve. 

Rather than take it personally or become defensive, recognize that being called out is not really about you or your worth as a person. You can be a perfectly nice person with good intentions and still do something that upholds oppressive structures, so focus on adjusting your behavior rather than saving face or exempting yourself from systemic oppression. 

Intersectional feminism is difficult. If you’re doing it right, it should be challenging you, stretching you, and making you uncomfortable. 

But feminism isn’t here to make anyone comfortable. 

Quite to the contrary, intersectional feminism should be making everyone uncomfortable because we never grow or progress when we are comfortable. We grow when we are hurting or struggling or stretching ourselves to understand something new. 

The difficulty of intersectional feminism is a difficulty and discomfort that is meant to inspire change. 

Thus, we have to be willing to take up the critical thinking and self-work necessary to push back against our privileges and to create an intersectional ethic and lens through which our feminism is crafted. 

The journey toward intersectionality is difficult. You will make mistakes; we all will. But if we want to realize relationships, communities, or societies built upon justice, we have to keep doing that work. (source)

Some more statistics:

The Gay and Lesbian Student Education Network also reported in 2009 that 33 percent of African-American students surveyed experienced physical violence at school due to their gender expression. That number rose to 45 percent for Latino students and more than 50 percent for Native Americans. (source) 

More than 4 in 5 American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced violence, and more than 1 in 2 have experienced sexual violence. Alaska Native women continue to suffer the highest rate of forcible sexual assault and have reported rates of domestic violence up to 10 times higher than in the rest of the United States. (source)

Intersectionality matters. Because of that, I do not use terms that include [x]phobia/[x]phobic because systems of oppressions are not phobias, and using such language perpetuates ableism. However, some of the articles I quote and link to do use those terms. I am not disagreeing with the content of any of the articles, merely the terminology.

The Origin of Feminism. Before we move on to some of the different facets of feminism, we need to acknowledge the origin of modern feminism. Here are two articlesby historian Sally Roesch Wagner:

For 20 years I had immersed myself in the writings of early United States women's rights activists - Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826-1898), Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815-1902), Lucretia Mott (1793-1880) - yet I could not fathom how they dared to dream their revolutionary dream. Living under the ideological hegemony of nineteenth-century United States, they had no say in government, religion, economics, or social life (“the four-fold oppression” of their lives, Gage and Stanton called it.) Whatever made them think that human harmony - based on the perfect equality of all people, with women absolute sovereigns of their lives - was an achievable goal? 

Surely these white women, living under conditions of virtual slavery, did not get their vision in a vacuum. Somehow they were able to see from point A, where they stood - corseted, ornamental, legally nonpersons - to point C, the "regenerated" world Gage predicted, in which all repressive institutions would be destroyed. What was point B in their lives, the earthly alternative that drove their feminist spirit - not a utopian pipe dream but a sensible, do-able paradigm? 

Then I realized I had been skimming over the source of their inspiration without noticing it. My own unconscious white supremacy had kept me from recognizing what these prototypical feminists kept insisting in their writings: They caught a glimpse of the possibility of freedom because they knew women who lived liberated lives, women who had always possessed rights beyond their wildest imagination - Iroquois women. 

The more evidence I uncovered of this indelible Native American influence on the vision of early United States feminists, the more certain I became that this story must be told. (source)

And:

Where did early suffragists ever get the idea that women should have the same rights as men? The answer may be in their own backyards—in the egalitarian society created by Native Americans. 

“One day, a [Native American] woman gave away a fine quality horse.” The audience of women’s rights activists listened attentively as ethnographer Alice Fletcher addressed the first International Council of Women. The scene was Washington, D.C. The date was March 1888. “Will your husband like to have you give the horse away?” Fletcher recalled asking the woman, shocked. The Native woman’s “eyes danced,” Fletcher told the suffragists and, “breaking into a peal of laughter, she hastened to tell the story to the others gathered in her tent, and I became the target of many merry eyes. Laughter and contempt met my explanation of the white man’s hold upon his wife’s property.” 

Fletcher had forgotten just for a moment that she was with Native, not white women. No white woman would dare give away her family’s horse. In fact, married white women had no legal right to their own possessions or property in most states, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. Far beyond simply lacking rights, married American women had no legal identity. They couldn’t vote, have guardianship of their own children, or have autonomy over their own bodies. A wife and mother didn’t exist in the eyes of the law; she became one with her husband the moment they were joined in matrimony. In fact, husbands were legally within their rights to beat their wives if they chose. Yet for most women, getting married was the only way to support oneself. Most jobs were closed to them and the few available ones paid half (or less) of the wages that men were paid for the same work. The founding document of America’s women’s movement, the 1848 “Declaration of Sentiments,” summed it up well: “He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.” 

Women’s second-class position in Western society had been in place for centuries. Even in the 1800s, most white people were still guided by the Biblical notion that God made Adam first, then Eve as a helpmate. When she was disobedient in Genesis 3:16, the text stated that Eve and all women after her would be under the authority of men as punishment. “Thy desire shall be to thy husband,” The Bible said, “and he shall rule over thee.” 

But the early feminists had to wonder: Was woman’s degraded position truly God-ordained as a punishment for Eve’s sin? Did it develop over time, with women depending upon men’s greater strength and wisdom to survive? If either was true, the oppression of women would be universal, they reasoned. Once the early suffragist-feminists discovered the authority and respect women held in Native American nations, however, they knew beyond a doubt that their subjugation was man-made, and they resolved to fight for a similar world of equality for themselves. 

Two of the earliest founders of the U.S. women’s movement, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage, saw the egalitarian Native model first-hand while growing up in New York, the land base of the Haudenosaunee—a label denoting the five nations of the Iroquois confederacy: the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca—later joined by the Tuscarora. Native women were the agriculturalists of their tribes, and from North to South America they collectively raised corn, beans, and squash. Their responsibility for the survival of the Nation, through the creation of life and the food that sustained life, gave women a position of equality in their society that white women could only dream of. 

“In the councils of the Iroquois every adult male or female had a voice upon all questions brought before it,” Stanton reported in The National Bulletinin 1891. “The American aborigines were essentially democratic in their government….The women were the great power among the clan.” Stanton went on to describe how clan mothers had the responsibility for nominating a chief, and could remove that chief if he did not make good decisions. “They did not hesitate, when occasion required,” Stanton recalled, “‘to knock off the horns,’ as it was technically called, from the head of a chief and send him back to the ranks of the warriors.” 

Gage, who was the third member of the National Woman Suffrage Association leadership triumvirate with Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, also wrote about her Haudenosaunee neighbors in her 1893 magnum opus,Woman, Church and State. “Never was justice more perfect; never was civilization higher,” she wrote. “Under their women, the science of government reached the highest form known to the world.” 

In particular, Gage was struck by the Native American political power structure. “Division of power between the sexes in this Indian republic was nearly equal,” Gage wrote. “The common interests of the confederacy were arranged in councils, each sex holding one of its own, although the women took the initiative in suggestion, orators of their own sex presenting their views to the council of men.” 

Gage not only observed this process, she experienced it as well. Given an honorary adoption into the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk Nation in 1893, Gage’s adopted Mohawk sister told her that, “this name would admit me to the Council of Matrons, where a vote would be taken, as to my having a voice in the Chieftainship.” What must this have meant to a woman who went to trial the same year for voting, which was illegal for women to do? Considered for decision-making in her adopted nation, she was arrested in her own state for attempting to do exactly that. 

Haudenosaunee women’s authority in “family relations” provided another inspiring model for suffragists. While U.S. women had responsibility for the home, the authority for all decisions ultimately rested with their husbands. Not so with Native women, Gage explained in Woman, Church and State. “In the home, the wife was absolute.” 

Although saccharine tribute was paid in the West to motherhood, the harsh reality was that American women, Gage pointed out, had “no legal right or authority over her children.” These laws, Gage wrote, even permitted “the dying father of an unborn child to will it away, and to give any person he pleases to select the right to wait the advent of that child, and when the mother, at the hazard of her own life, has brought it forth, to rob her of it and to do by it as the dead father directed.” 

This claim is supported by New York law of the time, which read, “Every father, whether of full age or a minor, of a child likely to be born, or of any living child under the age of 21 years and unmarried, may, by his deed or last will duly executed, dispose of the custody and tuition of such child, during its minority, or for any less time, to any person or persons in possession or remainder.” 

“What an anomaly on justice is such a law!” Gage asserted. “‘It is better to be a live dog than a dead lion,’ was a proverb I learned in my childhood—but I have learned a new rendering: ‘It is better to be a dead father than a live mother.’” 

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Stanton’s study of Native American nations concurred. “From these cases, it appears the children belonged to the mother, not to the father, and that he was not allowed to take them even after the mother’s death,” she wrote. “Such, also, was the usage among the Iroquois and other Northern tribes, and among the village Indians of Mexico.” 

Condemned for her public declaration that women should be able to leave loveless or dangerous marriages, Stanton delightedly shared Rev. Ashur Wright’s description of divorce Iroquois-style with the International Council of Women meeting in 1891. “No matter how many children, or whatever goods he might have in the house,” she quoted, the husband “might at any time be ordered to pick up his blanket and budge; and after such an order it would not be healthful for him to attempt to disobey.” 

Also not “healthful” to Native American men, was the spousal battery their white counterparts so cavalierly engaged in. In fact, violence against women was a behavior seldom seen among Indian nations, and when it occurred, it was dealt with severely, generally by banishment or death. In fact, white women entered a paradise of personal safety among Native people that they never experienced on their own soil. “It shows the remarkable security of living on an Indian Reservation, that a solitary woman can walk about for miles, at any hour of the day or night, in perfect safety,” Mary Elizabeth Beauchamp, who taught school on the Onondaga Nation, remarked in a letter to the Skaneateles Democrat in 1883. 

In the 200 years since the early feminists first came into contact with liberated Native women, very little has changed in terms of their status within their tribes. Iroquois Haudenosaunee women today continue to have the responsibility of nominating, counseling, and keeping in office the male chief who represents their clan in the Grand Council. In the Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, Haudenosaunee women have worked alongside men to successfully guard their sovereign political status against persistent attempts to turn them into United States citizens. For the suffragists who were inspired by Native women, and the feminists who continue their important work today, women’s empowerment is synonymous with women’s “rights.” But for Iroquois women, who have maintained their traditions despite two centuries of white America’s attempts to “civilize” them, the concept of women’s “rights” actually has little meaning. To the Haudenosaunee, it is simply their way of life. Their egalitarian relationships and their political authority are a reality that—for many non-Native women—is still something to strive for. (source)

I'm going to continue on this thread for just another moment:

Prior to colonization, Indian societies tended not to be male-dominated. In fact, many societies were matrilineal and matrilocal, and Indian women often served as spiritual, political, and military leaders. When work was divided by gender, both men’s and women’s labors were accorded similar status. Violence against women and children was rare - in many tribes, unheard of. 

The egalitarian nature of Native societies did not escape the notice of the colonizers. It was a scandal in the colonies that a number of white people chose to live among Indian people while virtually no Indians voluntarily chose to live among the colonists. 

According to J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, “Thousands of Europeans are Indians, and we have no example of even one of these Aborigines having from choice become Europeans!” 

Native societies were also a dangerous example to white women who wished to live free of patriarchy. Richard Hill has argued that the equal status accorded to women in Native societies “fueled some [white] men's hatred towards Indians. After all, they now had to worry about their prized possession being happier with savage Indians than with them.” Women were seldom accorded high status in European societies, and were often severely persecuted. Europe's hatred for women was most fully manifest in the witchhunts. As many as nine million people were killed during the witchhunts; over 90 percent of them women. It was not possible for these violent, women-hating societies, transplanted to the Americas, to exist side-by-side with egalitarian Native societies. As the letters above demonstrate, European men could not easily have kept their own women subjugated without subjugating the women of indigenous nations as well. White women would have had little incentive to stay in their communities when they could live among the Natives and receive better treatment. 

Nevertheless, the constant depiction of Native men as savages prevented white women from seeing that the real enemy was not Native people, but the patriarchy of their own culture. Even in war, European women were often surprised to find that they went unmolested by their Indian captors. Mary Rowlandson said of her own captivity: “I have been in the midst of roaring Lions, and Savage Bears, that feared neither God, nor Man, nor the Devil . . . and yet not one of them ever offered the least abuse of unchastity to me in word or action.” William Apess (Pequot) asked in the 1800s, “Where, in the records of Indian barbarity, can we point to a violated female”? Even Brigadier General James Clinton of the Continental Army said to his soldiers in 1779, as he sent them off to destroy the Iroquois nation, “Bad as the savages are, they never violate the chastity of any women, their prisoners.” (source)

Egalitarian societies with no sexism and no Rape Culture? Yes indeed, we most certainly owe modern feminism to the First Nations. 

For the rest of this essay, I am zeroing in on sexism. Intersectionality is crucial, but it is not my primary focus for this particular essay.

The default male. From common conversations to the medical field, the default male is everywhere. It manifests itself in many different ways, as well. 

Because I am a very serious feminist, I recently tried to go an entire day without calling groups of people “guys.” 

“Y'all” was out of the question (I'm from Boston), so I made do with “people” for about three hours before accidentally starting a meeting with, “Hey guys, you ready?” This, followed immediately by, “Oh, shit.” 

You guys, this is getting out of hand. “Guys” has become a sort of second-nature verbal tic synonymous with “everyone.” The problem is, “guys” is not everyone. It's guys. 

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I know. It seems like a minor gripe compared with more pressing feminist issues like sexual violence or the wage gap, especially when modern usage shows this kind of language is meant to be colloquial rather than confrontational. And unlike obviously offensive gendered slurs like “bitch” or “slut,” there's usually no ill-will behind words like “guys,” “dudes” or “men.” 

But sexism doesn't exist in a vacuum, and language, as the tool that brings order to our thoughts and allows us to communicate, infiltrates nearly every aspect of our lives. When, as in English, it relies almost entirely on the presupposition of masculinity, it can shape how we see the world.  

“The 'universal male' (like using 'men' to mean 'people') assumes that the normal, default human being is male,” Sarah Grey, a professional editor who has led a course called Editing for Inclusive Language, told Mic. Such thinking has consequences well beyond linguistic sensitivity, affecting everything from economics to advertising to health care. 

It's also tiring. As journalist Annie Lowrey recently wrote in New York Magazine regarding subtle sexism in general, “It is pervasive. It is persistent. And it is so, so exhausting, all those subtle hints that you are a little different and that you behavior is being interpreted a little differently.” 

Male-centric language is just that: a subtle yet constant hint that women are different, that their lives constitute a sort of subcategory of human experience dependent on feminine modifiers (which, in turn, often “infantilize” them, Grey said: “actress, suffragette”). The use of “he” to refer to nonspecific persons doesn't point to some great conspiracy to keep women oppressed, but it does reflect an inequality coded into our linguistic inheritance, a micro-aggression that consistently reminds half of society they are, as they have historically been, secondary. 

So why do we say “guys,” anyway? Part of the reason saying “guys” is a hard habit to break is because English doesn't have a clear gender neutral pronoun, nor an easy way to address groups of people apart from the distinctly Southern “y'all” or the ungrammatical “youse.” “Folks” is old-fashioned, and female generics — such as “gals,” “ladies” or “girls” — tend to be used more in the name of irony than as nod to gender equality (more on that later). 

Toss in a well-documented history of female oppression and an arguably unfounded aversion to the singular “they,” and it's no wonder we've all become “guys,” “dudes,” “men,” “hims” or “hes.” 

Google's Ngram tool, which tracks word frequency in printed sources over the past 200 years, marks a sharp uptick in “guys” in particular throughout the latter half of the 20th century. Its “vaguely jokey” social media usage, on the other hand, is relatively new, according to an interview with Merriam-Webster editor Kory Stamper in the Washington Post. 

But maleness underpins English beyond direct address, from occupations (chairman, postman, freshman) to verbs (to man something) to the human race (mankind). This unquestioned ubiquity of male-centric language makes it one of the sharpest tools of identity erasure; soft sexism is harder to spot, let alone correct. 

It can take distance to see what's right in front of us — something Douglas R. Hofstadter created with the 1985 parody article “A Person Paper on Purity in Language.” Under the pseudonym “William Satire” (a reference to long-time New York Times political and linguistic columnist William Safire), Hofstader wrote a defense of an imagined world in which English “revolves around the age-old usage of the noun 'white' and words built from it,” like “middlewhite, Frenchwhite, forewhite, whitepower, whiteslaughter, oneupuwhiteship, straw white, whitehandle and so on.” 

“There is nothing denigrating to black people in being subsumed under the rubric 'white' — no more than under the rubric 'person,'” he wrote. “After all, white is a mixture of all the colors of the rainbow, including black. Used inclusively, the word 'white' has no connotations whatsoever of race.” 

In recasting patriarchal etymology as white supremacist (at least, more blatantly white supremacist), Hofstader highlighted the absurdity of expecting all genders to feel included by specifically masculine generics when they clearly prioritize men in our thinking. Psycholinguist Toshi Konishi confirmed as much in a cross-cultural study of the effects of grammatical gender on thought, writing, “Although 'he' and 'man' are said to be generics, numerous studies show that these words cause people specifically to think of males.” 

Konishi's conclusion seems obvious in light of the fact that using “women” to reference the entirety of human gender expression is not so readily accepted. Indeed, data collected from a Mic survey conducted using Google Consumer Surveys, 1,528 18- to 44-year-olds revealed that while 71.8% of people “often” used “guys” to refer to mixed-gender groups, 88.1% “rarely” or “never” referred to mixed groups by female generics such as “gals,” “girls” or “ladies.” 

It's easy to find out what a feminized lexicon might actually look like, though, thanks to a Google Chrome extension called Jailbreak the Patriarchy. Created by programmer Danielle Sucher, the extension swaps pronouns in Web content. For example, “he went to the movies” becomes “she went to the movies,” and a transcript of the Declaration of the Independence turns into a sort of uncanny valley of U.S. history: 

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all women are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” 

Jailbreak the Patriarchy is as illuminating as it is entertaining, revealing the extent to which gendered language and, in turn, expectations infiltrate our lives; even simple swaps of “he” to “she” make clear how frequently positions of power have been and remain dominated by men. 

Girly bridges, manly clocks: Though the extent to which language shapes thought is still up for debate, we do know languages with gendered nouns (like Spanish and German) can influence native speakers' perceptions of inanimate objects. Linguist and author Guy Deutscher explored this phenomenon in a 2010New York Times Magazine article, referencing studies from the 1990s in which Spanish speakers characterized masculine objects (like a bridge, el puente) as having more 'manly properties' like strength,” while Germans tended to think of the same objects, which are female in their native tongue (die brücke), “as more slender or elegant.” 

If gendered nouns can affect perception, it's not a leap to suggest that gendered pronouns do the same. “The gendered assumptions built into the language we use affect the way we see and think about gender and sexism, whether we see women and queer people and people with non-binary genders as people,” Grey said. Such language also reinforces “biases by assuming that everyone fits neatly into one of two genders.” Men rest atop the hierarchy of the English language, followed by women, with gender-nonconforming individuals relegated to the bottom of the linguistic ladder. 

This is part of the reason it's so hard to recognize problematic gender dynamics of male generics; language reflects and reinforces existing patterns of power, and masculinity subsumes “lesser” womanhood all the time in culture. The mindset behind the use of “guys” or “he” or “mankind” is the same that allows women to wear pants — markers of male expression — but mocks men for choosing to embrace feminine signifiers like skirts (exemplified most recently in the “controversy”about Will Smith's 16-year-old son Jaden photographing himself in a dress). 

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Grey said the divisions engendered (rimshot) by male-defaulted language refract throughout society. “There are sports, and then there are 'women's sports.' The blog Sociological Images has a lot of great examples of this — like'chef coats' versus 'women's chef coats,' because of course the default chef is male.” 

By encouraging to the needless gendering of products, the male default also becomes a factor behind the so-called “pink tax,” wherein female consumers then pay more for “women's” deodorant, ear plugs, razors and so on, despite the fact that, apart from some pastel packaging or flowery fragrances, they're the same product as “men's.” In medicine, diagnostic criteria may also be based primarily on male subjects, potentially hurting women whose symptoms aren't always recognized as quickly by doctors. 

Perhaps most importantly, using “men” as a synonym for “people” erases female, or simply non-male, personhood. And when the world stops thinking of women and gender non-conforming individuals as full human beings, it's easier to justify both stripping away their right to self determination and the use of violence against them. 

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Any easy fix: Today, some are using gendered language to draw attention to everyday sexism rather than erase it. Man-fronted portmanteaus like mansplaining, manspreading and manslamming use language to point out the ways many men unconsciously express entitlement to public spaces, for example. 

It's clear language can both a force of oppression and revolution, but overhauling patriarchal language systems probably isn't a realistic endeavor. Limiting the use of objectively sexist generics, on the other hand, is. Being more thoughtful with our words requires only a modicum of concentrated effort, and, in fact, might be one of the easiest things we could do to further goals of respect and equality for guys, gals and everyone in between. (source)

My personal fix for 'guys as neutral' is mostly just omission – and it's a lot easier than you expect. We don't actually have to call groups of people anything. For example, when meeting a group of friends or coworkers I just say “Hi!” in greeting. In other instances I go with the singular 'they', 'all of you', 'everyone', or 'folks' depending on the situation.

However, that is the least harmful example of the default male. We cannot ignore the significant impact the default male has in medicine:

Perhaps of even more concern is the default male in the medical industry. In a paper by Verdonk et al in 2009, they write, “Medicine is said to be ‘male-biased’ because the largest body of knowledge on health and illness is about men and their health.” Indeed, because the male sex is allowed to represent everyone, research on the male body is assumed to be universally applicable, with women having ‘extra, womanly issues’ like childbirth, period pains and breast cancer, neatly cordoned off into an exclusive section called ‘women’s health’. When the Body Worlds exhibit first opened, an exhibition showcasing plastinates—preserved human bodies— posed in many different ways, many women were incensed at the fact that all the bodies, with the exception of the bodies used in the pregnancy section, were male. The message was clear: men are humans! They can be young or old, they can play sport, they can write, play chess, ride a bike…in short, lead full, complete lives. Women, on the other hand? They make babies. 

The male-bias in medicine has serious consequences. Let’s take the heart attack as an example. Now almost everyone can tell you the symptoms of a heart attack. A squeezing, painful feeling in the chest is the surest sign, accompanied by pain in the left arm. Right? Well, as it turns out, that pain in the chest is a classic male heart attack sign, and female heart attacks often have very different symptoms, more comparable to indigestion than chest pain. According to Katherine Kam on WebMD, “many doctors still don’t recognize that women’s symptoms differ, [and] they may mistake them for arthritis, pulled muscles, indigestion, gastrointestinal problems, or even anxiety and hypochondria…many emergency room doctors still look mainly for chest pain.” In such cases, the male-bias can be fatal. (source)

And:

As I learned more about autoimmune diseases, I discovered just how lucky I’d been to get diagnosed within several months. According to a survey by the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association, patients with autoimmune diseases see an average of four doctors over four years before they are accurately diagnosed, and nearly half report being labeled “chronic complainers” overly concerned with their health during that search. 

As I started asking among my social networks if other women had had similar experiences, it turned out it wasn’t just women with autoimmune diseases who had struggled to get health-care providers to take their symptoms seriously: There was a friend whose abdominal pain and incontinence from a ureaplasma infection was diagnosed as “stress.” There was another friend experiencing dizziness, wooziness, ringing in her ears, and floaters in her eyes from West Nile virus who was referred to a therapist for depression. Another who’d been told her stabbing chest pain from pericarditis, inflammation of the lining of the heart, was likely just anxiety. The list went on. 

After spending the past few years writing a book about gender bias in medicine — and hearing from nearly 200 women with similar tales of having their symptoms dismissed, belittled, or disbelieved entirely — I’ve realized that doctors just aren’t equipped with the knowledge they need to be able to provide care for their women patients as well as they can for their male patients. 

For decades, women were largely left out of clinical research, a problem that wasn’t even on the radar until the early ’90s. Even today, analyzing research results by gender to determine if there are any differences between men and women still isn’t the norm, even though we increasingly know there often are differences — in everything from drug metabolism to the symptoms of a heart attack. Preclinical research on animals and cell lines still skews to male subjects. Many conditions that disproportionately affect women — including endometriosis, fibromyalgia, vulvodynia, interstitial cystitis, and chronic fatigue syndrome — are still very poorly understood, yet receive minuscule amounts of research funding. And since medical education evolves at a snail’s pace, much of the new knowledge about women’s health that has emerged over the past few decades still hasn’t made its way into clinical practice. 

When I first started hearing stories from women whose ailments were brushed off as anxiety, depression, or “stress,” I assumed this was just yet another realm where women’s voices were not granted the same authority as men’s voices are. But the distrust of women’s reports of their symptoms has even deeper roots. While we tend to think of “hysteria” as a quaint relic of the nineteenth century, in fact, while the terms may have changed, the concept of hysteria never really disappeared. The idea that any physical symptoms that medicine can’t explain by a well-understood physical disease can be attributed to the patient’s “unconscious mind” — and the belief that it is women especially who have such psychogenic symptoms — has proved to be a very persistent one. 

Encountering this kind of medical gaslighting when you have a degree of privilege, like I do, can feel a bit like walking through the looking glass and finding yourself in 1950. As one woman, the filmmaker Jen Brea, told me, “It was the first time in my life that anyone had ever doubted my account of the world.” When she’d suddenly begun experiencing disabling dizziness and neurological symptoms after a severe fever, doctors insisted she was just stressed or dehydrated and, eventually, that she had “conversion disorder” from a repressed trauma. In the real world, she was an accomplished Harvard PhD candidate; in this medical realm, where there seemed to be stereotypes at play that she sensed but didn’t fully understand, she felt like she needed to bring her fiancé to appointments to “vouch” for her credibility. Even more disturbing: that did seem to help. 

It’s hard to overstate how disorienting it can be to be told that “nothing is wrong” when your body is telling you that something most definitely is. As feminist scholar Susan Wendell has written, “What can I know if I can’t know what I am feeling in my own body? How can I remain connected to a world that denies I am in pain, or dizzy, or nauseated, when I myself cannot deny that I am?”(source)

Rape Culture. Rape Culture is everywhere in America. It's incredibly pervasive. But what actually is Rape Culture? 

Rape culture is a system that everyone, men and women, unconsciously participate in. It’s a system that promotes the normalization and trivialization of rape. It’s a system that encourages the idea that male sexual aggression is the norm, and that violence and aggression are themselves sexy. (source)

Here are some Common Rape Myths:

Rape Myth #1: Stranger Rape 

The Stranger Rape Myth is the idea that most rape is random and that rapists don’t know their victims. The image that follows is of a crazy rapist waiting in the bushes or lurking in dark alleys. The fact is that most victims and survivors are raped by people that they know. The Stranger Rape Myth is based on our societal need to distance ourselves from rapists. By calling them strangers, we can place perpetrators in the “other” category. This is much more comfortable than the darker truth of sexual violence: that the people who are raping our friends and abusing our children are our own friends, neighborhoods, coaches, and even family members. Perpetrators of sexual violence are not “other.” They are within our communities and are people that we know. 

Rape Myth #2: Women should not (fill in the blank) because then they will get raped 

Women are told they are not supposed to do a lot of things, lest they will get raped and/or murdered. Most women have heard these messages. Don’t wear provocative clothing. Don’t leave your house at night. Don’t walk alone. Don’t travel alone in unfamiliar places. Don’t go running in the park alone. Don’t go camping alone. Don’t do anything alone. As someone who has traveled alone by bike, backpacking and hitchhiking, I cannot count how many times people have told me that I am “lucky” that I wasn’t raped. 

If women follow all of these “avoid being raped” messages, they severely limit the ways in which they can move through the world. The question is, does this practice actually protect women from violence? Just like the myth of stranger rape, these warnings are not based on the violence that is being perpetrated or experienced. [cut]The most dangerous place for a woman, statistically and ironically, is the same place women are told to stay to protect themselves. If we were basing our violence prevention messages in reality, we would be telling women to carry mace in the kitchen and into the bedroom. Because the “don’t walk through the woods alone” message is so divorced from reality, it does nothing to protect people from actual violence. So, what purpose does it serve? The fear of rape is used to control women and limit their lives. The threat of rape is used as an excuse to narrow what women ought to do and limit women’s personal freedom. 

Rape Myth #3: By carrying a rape whistle, you can prevent rape. 

The discourse around how to prevent rape is completely wrong. Rape prevention is directed towards people who are rapable, not people who are rapists. Women are told to walk in groups, watch their drink, carry a rape whistle, take self-defense classes, etc. The warnings of “don’t go to a party alone” have become a standard part of freshmen orientation at American colleges. Yet these warnings and women’s efforts to follow them have not decreased actual incidents of rape. The warnings do, however, created a fertile ground for victim blaming. The idea that you can protect yourself from rape implies that if you do get raped, you did not do a good enough job of protecting yourself. You should have watched your drink. You shouldn’t have wandered off by yourself. The implicit “you messed up” message of “rape prevention” culture is internalized by a lot of women who feel ashamed and/or stupid after being raped. Imagine a society in which the responsibility is placed where it belongs. Instead of telling women to limit the way they move through the world and to watch their backs we would tell everyone to obtain clear consent from their partners. And the only message we would ever send to survivors of sexual violence (and this cannot be said enough) is: IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT! 

Rape myth #4: Rape is clear and obvious 

The narrative of rape that we hear in the media is the story of a man overpowering a woman: with a knife, gun or sheer physical force, a man aggressively violates a woman as she tries to stop it, but cannot. The problem with the pervasiveness of this narrative is that, although it is one of the ways in which rape happens, it is not the only way. The experiences of survivors of rape and unwanted sexual experiences that fall outside of the paradigm of “forcible rape” are left with their experience unrecognized and delegitimized. If the sexual assault did not involve penetration, if the victim was drunk, if they said no but didn’t really mean it or didn’t say it enough– then it’s not really rape. This inaccurate and narrow definition of rape creates the dramatic under-reporting and prosecution of rape in the United States. The US Justice Department estimates that only 26% of rapes and attempted rapes are ever reported to the police. And only 5% of perpetrators will ever spend a day in jail (US Dept of Justice, 2001) 

This “all or nothing” definition of rape hurts survivors. Most survivors of sexual violence experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). One of the first steps of healing from PTSD is naming and labeling the trauma. Survivors who don’t meet the narrow definition of rape struggle to name what has happened to them. To even begin the process of healing, “imperfect” rape victims must overcome a culture that says what they have experienced does not meet the definition of rape; that what they have experienced has no name. 

To adequately support survivors of sexual violence, we need to embrace fact that rape is not clear nor obvious. It is complicated. It can be ambiguous. It is often infinitely subtle. For example: you are my date and I have consented to having sex with you, but not consented to having sex with you without a condom. As we are both excitedly getting ready to have sex, you slip it in. I ask you to get a condom and you ignore me. I ask you to get a condom again and you hold me down. Is that rape? I would say yes. What would the police report say? 

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We must shift the responsibility from the “perfect” rape victim who does everything in their power to fight off a rapist, to the responsible sexual partner who always obtains clear consent. 

Rape myth #5: Rape is about sex 

Rape is not about sex. Rape is about control. Rape is not about horny and sex-crazed men who cannot handle themselves. It is about perpetrators who want control so much that they choose to violated and take the control of another person’s body. Rapists are not “out of control” Rapists are in complete control. Rape is an exercise and demonstration of power. This is why rape is used as a weapon of war. 

The myth of the sex-crazed rapists supports other problems that surround rape culture, like victim-blaming. If you wear a short skirt or act sexually provocative you are “asking for it”. The idea that rape victims are sex objects is played out routinely in pop culture. Movies are full of gorgeous women being brutally raped and murdered; colloquial conversations are strung with axioms like “ugly girls don’t get raped”. The gender roles of a predator/prey dynamic are constantly reinforced. The message that rape comes from uncontrollable male sexual desire teaches us that male sexual desire is dangerous. How are men supposed to develop healthy sexuality when their desire is held up as the main cause of rape? Our culture needs models of not only healthy masculine sexuality but also respectful and honest expressions of it. If male sexual desire was demystified and respected, instead of limited and vilified, its expression would come out less often as violence and more often as consensual (and hopefully awesome) sex! 

Rape myth #6: Rapists are monsters. 

Rapists are not monsters. Rapists are people that have done something wrong. Through sexual predator labels and lists we vilify rapists and perpetrators of sexual violence. People want clear categories for the type of person that would do something so horrible and want that category to be clearly different and separate from mainstream society. But, as explained above, most of the perpetrators of sexual violence are people that we know. They are us. The perpetrators of sexual violence are not imagined, crazy perverts, but rather our neighbors, family members, football coaches and religious leaders. To prevent sexual violence we need to honestly confront who is committing these atrocities. To adequately deal with the reality of who is committing these crimes, we need a more complicated approach towards perpetrators that integrates the violence of their acts with the reality of their humanity. 

The myth of rapists as monsters gives us a false sense of security. If child molesters are strange, anonymous men driving white vans, then by successfully avoiding strange white vans, we can successfully avoid sexual abuse. But children who are sexually abused are more likely to be abused by a family member than by a stranger. How can we teach our children to avoid sexually abusive parents and uncles? Actually preventing sexual violence is messier and more difficult than our culture has accepted. We perpetuate these myths about rapists to avoid that messy and complicated process. 

If only monsters perpetrate sexual violence, what happens when a woman is raped by her husband, who she loves, and who is not a monster? What do you do when you coach does something sexually inappropriate? Or if you think you saw your neighbor touch a child, but you could not imagine her to be that type of person? Vilifying perpetrators silences victims. Because most victims and witnesses intimately know the abuser or rapist, and because the label of abuser or rapist is so extreme, people struggle to speak up about sexual violence. We don’t want to label people we know as monsters, even though they’ve committed monstrous acts. To adequately support the victims abused, raped and molested by the people they know and love, we need a more complicated approach towards perpetrators that integrates the violence of their acts with the reality of their humanity. 

The hindering effect of vilifying rapists is that it stops the conversation at “rape is wrong”. If we are ever going to prevent rape we need a conversation that goes beyond “rape is wrong and done by bad people”. Categorizing rapists as awful people and separate from us puts a neat ribbon on the whole rape discussion bundle so that we can collectively avoid the more uncomfortable topic. The more uncomfortable topic being: What in our culture and what in ourselves creates this epidemic of sex as violence. (source)

And the horrific truth about false rape statistics:

I Am a False Rape Allegation Statistic 

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I was raped three years ago. Almost exactly: the beginning of August 2010. It was a violent, stranger rape, as I was walking home from work. I honestly had no fear about calling the police. My dad’s a cop. I was in shock, mostly, but certainly not thinking that making a report was going to be worse than what had just happened to me. Plus, there was so much physical evidence–deep tissue bruising on my arms, burns on my labia, tearing that went from my vagina to my anus–it never crossed my mind that I wouldn’t be believed. 

Two male detectives arrived at my house. I stammered out a request for a female detective; it was denied. (I learned later that they violated procedure by not accommodating the request.) They made me go through what happened. I was in excruciating pain and dripping blood but they didn’t want to take me to the hospital just then, and said the hospital “wasn’t ready” anyway. So I described the rape. Then they asked if I was taking any drugs. Well, just my medication. I thought it was strange that they literally spent more time asking about my mental health history and the types of medication I took, instead of the rape, but at the time, again, I was in shock, and not thinking much. 

Long story short: I submitted to an invasive physical exam, described the rape more times than I can count. They didn’t wait for my rape counselor, that I requested, another thing I found was actually against the law. (But when she arrived, she kicked major ass. And really helped me through the process; I don’t know what I would have done without her. A rape kit is extremely invasive, and I was already in terrible pain, but she was able to get me through it.) The black light (to look for fluid/blood/etc) was broken, so I tried to approximate where he had kissed me, licked me, so the nurse giving the exam could swab those areas. (This will be important later.) 

Oh, aside: the hospital wouldn’t provide Emergency Contraception, although I did get a few pills to keep from getting STDs. Not AIDS, however–I was told the procedure was to only provide AIDS prevention if you already know the rapist has AIDS, which seems a little hinky, as it’s not exactly a question I could ask during the rape). The detective, who drove me to the hospital, refused to stop at a pharmacy on the way home, so I could get Plan B for myself. He said he “didn’t feel comfortable” with that and I should “wait for my parents” even though I was 24 and alone at home. Guess 24 is too young to make the decision to try and prevent becoming pregnant with my rapist’s baby! 

Over the next few months, I submitted to multiple, horrific “interviews” that really felt like “interrogations” as time went on. I was also dealing with a serious medical condition at the time (I almost died; my intestines ruptured, but was almost certainly not a result of the rape, just bad timing). But I still believed in the system. I still didn’t want the man who raped me on the streets. I did everything they requested, answered every invasive question (the werereally focused on my mental health history!), even got on the ground and acted out the rape for them, with the head detective on top of me acting out the part of the rapist. Not only was I absolutely hysterical by the time we were done, I’m positive that aggravated my PTSD for a long time after. 

And after all that, I was called in for an “interview” to discuss “a new lead in your case”. They didn’t let my rape counselor in the room–again, against the law, I found out later! For about an hour (I think; my sense of time was not that great) they were no longer even pretending to be supportive. They accused me over and over of making it up. They had very flimsy “evidence” (which I won’t go into because it’s both complicated and ridiculous) but mostly it was their “instinct”. 

Because I have a mental illness. Because I was hospitalized after attempting suicide. Because I “claimed” I had been sexually assaulted in the past. Because I was crazy, and he was sure I was just looking for attention. He had a bipolar ex-wife, you see, and she made his life a living hell. He told me how he understood mentally ill women, and how we need to create drama. How we’re liars, and we crave attention. 

And over and over they accused me of lying. Alone in this tiny room with two large, angry men, I was doing everything I could to keep from having a panic attack. I couldn’t respond to what they were saying; again, I think I was in shock. And they threatened me with jail time, with a felony on my record, destroying my family, public humiliation (he threatened to call the papers–something he did anyway, because, quote, “the community needs to know there was no threat to public safety”). They said I would be charged with a false report, with terrorizing the public (there was a public awareness campaign initially after my attack, though I didn’t have anything to do with it. After the rape, I did everything I could to maintain anonymity, and only told two people–beyond my family and the cops–hat I was attacked. But…I did it for attention, which was why I didn’t tell anyone? I’m just sneaky like that, I guess!). Accusations, threats, anger, pounding the table, over and over and over. 

The detective looked at me. His whole demeanor changed; he tried to seem kind, avuncular. “Tell me you made the whole thing up. This whole thing will disappear. Nothing will happen to you. You can leave, if you just tell me you made it up. Tell me you made it up and you’re sorry for lying, and I’ll let you leave.” I tried to hold out–but I didn’t last long. Honestly, at that point, all I wanted in the entire world was just to get out of that room. There are very few things I wouldn’t have done, if I could only leave. So I looked at him and lied. I said, “I made the whole thing up. I’m sorry.” 

To his credit, the detective was true to his word. (I now realize he could have been lying, and since I wasn’t under arrest or being interrogated–technically, I could have left any time, even though I didn’t know that–my words could have been used in court.*) That was all. He let me leave. Well. He made me give him a hug before leaving, but I was allowed to go. A very pissed off rape counselor and my very broken looking father were in the hallway just outside. 

(At the time, I thought the rape counselor hated me, thought I was a liar like everyone else. She didn’t; she was pissed at the detectives, but I didn’t know that until I ran into her two years later at an event. But at the time, I thought she wouldn’t want anything to do with me, and so I lost the one person who was really helping me recover.) 

So understand: I am a “false rape allegation” statistic. When they wrote their reports, sent the numbers off to the justice department to compile the information, I am down as a liar, a false allegation, even though no charges were ever filed against me. (Don’t know if that’s because they didn’t think they could make a case against me, or because they didn’t want to put a cop’s daughter on trial.) And you know what? I am not the only person. It is horrifying, the number of women that I have met in support groups and activist meetups who experienced very similar things. They too, are false allegation statistics. We were all raped. 

So just keep that in mind, when you quote the 6-8% “false allegation” statistic. I know we have to rely on the only information we have, and I use the statistic in conversations, as well. But I always remember that number is certainly not an accurate representation. (Maybe it should always come with an asterisk?) 

Please, remember my story when you see “false rape” statistics. Remember my friend, who admitted to a false report charge in order to keep her veteran benefits after being discharged (her rapist’s good friend and direct superior handled the case; a discharge was inevitable.) Remember the middle-aged woman I met, still traumatized, who, as a teenager, recanted her story when her rapist (and stepfather) threatened to kill her family. And the many, many others, all unknown, all forgotten–even in the bare statistics, which are often the only testament to our experiences. And we’re denied even that. Instead, our stories, our traumas, are used to stigmatize and further traumatize new victims. It makes me sick to know MRAs can take our numbers and use them to justify their “bitches be lying” stance. I can’t put into words how devastating that is. 

Are there false allegations? Of course. Jason, in opening up about such a difficult topic, has explained exactly that. And no one hates truly false allegations like a rape survivor. But we should balance that with the knowledge that the “official” numbers are not an accurate representation of the truth. 

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*This is why you never talk to any police officer under any circumstances without a lawyer. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been arrested, charged, or read your rights. I could have put myself in jail with that lie. (source)

But what causes this? How do we get a society so filled with Rape Culture?

A Stanford article on Simone de Beauvoir says:

Several concepts are crucial to the argument of The Second Sex. The concept of the Other is introduced early in the text and drives the entire analysis. It has also become a critical concept in many theories that analyze the situation of marginalized people. Beauvoir will use it again in her last major work, The Coming of Age, to structure her critique of the ways in which the elderly are “othered” by society. 

Beauvoir bases her idea of the Other on Hegel's account of the master-slave dialectic. Instead of the terms “master” and “slave,” however, she uses the terms “Subject” and “Other.” The Subject is the absolute. The Other is the inessential. Unlike Hegel who universalized this dialectic, Beauvoir distinguishes the dialectic of exploitation between historically constituted Subjects and Others from the exploitation that ensues when the Subject is Man and the Other is Woman. In the first case the Other experiences his oppression as a communal reality. He is part of an oppressed group. Here, the oppressed Other may call on the resources of a common history and a shared abusive situation to assert his subjectivity and demand recognition and reciprocity. 

The situation of women is comparable to the condition of the Hegelian Other in that men, like the Hegelian Master, identify themselves as the Subject, the absolute human type, and, measuring women by this standard of the human, identify them as inferior. Women's so-called inadequacies are then used as justification for seeing them as the Other and for treating them accordingly. Unlike the Hegelian Other, however, women are unable to identify the origin of their otherness.

This gets at a very dominate 'us vs them' mentality that is present in the entire Kyriarchy, andleads us to a crucial piece of the puzzle.

Objectification.

The definition of objectification is “representing a human being as a physical thing deprived of personal qualities or individuality.”

In essence, 'othering' women and seeing them as inferior. It is crucial to note that this is done in two different ways. As one article says,

CAN WE JUST STOP WITH THE WOMEN ARE SO MYSTERIOUS BS ALREADY?! Seriously. I mean, I understand in a world where women are facing 784,132,198,517,552 oppressions, that the whole “women are so mysterious” line falls to the bottom of really sexist shit to address, but come on already. Every time this comes up I see it played out in a “Yuk, yuk, WOMEN, *eye rolle* amirite?” way or in a “Women are such mysterious, complex, beautiful creatures” way and I don't care for either! In each case the speaker is othering women, and othering is a classical way to justify oppression. When you see a group as less a part of humanity, the guilt that can be associated with treating them like shit is lessened.

Saying women are these mysterious, alluring creatures may seem like positive statements on the surface, but they're not. Attributing 'special powers' to womanhood only makes women desirable objects.

We're not. We're just as human and flawed as men. We're layered beings, who deserve to be seen as the multidimensional people we are.

Usually when objectification gets brought up by 'feminists', they're talking about sexual objectification. Now, there is a lot out there about how horrible and evil sexualization is. Sexualization means “to make sexual.” I greatly dislike how that term is used, for reasons I'll talk about later. Right now, lets just say that when using the word sexualization, they usually mean sexual objectification.

An article from SPARK says:

Across all three studies when participants focused on the appearance of the women (rather than each woman’s performance), they rated them lower in warmth, competence and morality. There was no change in ratings when participants focused on the appearance of the men and there was no relationship with attractiveness. 

So, what do these three studies tell us? Often when we talk about objectification it is in relation to sexualization, but these studies just asked participants to focus on appearance in general. In all of the images Heflick used, women were dressed conservatively, in modest attire. This shows us that it’s the emphasis on how girls and women look that’s really problematic, even when that emphasis doesn’t involve sexualization. Excessive focus on appearance makes people perceive others as not only less warm, moral and competent, but maybe even as less human. 

Not only that, but focusing on appearance, rather than performance or the whole person leads to decreased perceptions of traits that are considered “essentially human” but only in women, not in men. This fits with objectification theory that predicts that women’s bodies (but not men’s) are always evaluated, scrutinized and potentially objectified.

This comes back to the 'other.' Men are not objectified, they do not lose their humanity. What this article shows is that the objectifying part is what leads to depression, low self-esteem, eating disorders, etc.

Not the sexual part.

Which leads us to the next piece of the puzzle.

Here is a quote from one article that talks about how sexual prudery makes America unhealthy:

To extreme social conservatives of the far right, the word “prude” is not an insult — it’s a badge of honor. “Prudes,” they would argue, should be upheld as exemplary role models because a sexually repressive society is also a society with fewer unplanned pregnancies and fewer sexually transmitted diseases. But not only do the facts not bear that out, they also demonstrate that the exact opposite is true. Countries that embrace many of the things social conservatives detest (comprehensive sex education, pro-gay legislation, nude or topless beaches, legal or decriminalized prostitution, adult entertainment) tend to be countries that haveless sexual dysfunction than the United States, not more. And when one compares sexual attitudes in the United States to sexual attitudes in Western Europe, it becomes evident that there is a strong correlation between social conservatism and higher rates of teen pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases.

Continuing on this vein, I want to point out Point 13 of this article; and another great article says:

When Catholic protesters recently shut down a New York exhibit displaying a naked, life-sized Jesus sculpted from chocolate, the outcry wasn't totally unexpected. Labeled offensive by critics, the artwork touched an angry nerve by pushing religion and nudity - two substances that historically don't mix -- into the limelight. While the media was quick to exploit the story, it also expressed surprising modesty when it came to the naked Christ, avoiding the full frontal and opting for photos of the Lord's backside. 

But in Europe, and particularly the Netherlands, where bakeries display anatomically correct marzipan nudes in their front windows right next to chocolate bunnies and chicks, such furor over confectionary draws a complete blank. On this side of the Atlantic, when it comes to nudity, Europeans happily assert they've got absolutely nothing to hide. 

“The Netherlands is a liberal country where public nakedness is allowed, and that's the way it should be - that's why there's a law for it,' says Ragna Verwer of the Dutch Naturist Federation (NFN), a 70,000-member-strong organization established to expand naturist activities. 

According to Verwer, 1.9 million Dutch regularly get nude, going to nude beaches or stripping down in their own gardens, though she estimates the numbers are much higher as NFN doesn't include sauna-goers in its research. “Naked recreation is well accepted here. But we have to take care that things stay this way, which is why we often discuss these matters with local city councils and recreation areas to create more places.” 

Legally, in Netherlands people are allowed to be naked anywhere except public roads or when they annoy others, a law in play since 1986. It is not uncommon to find nude swimming sessions at public swimming pools, nude or topless beaches. Recently, Fitworld, a gym in Heteren in the eastern Netherlands, introduced Naked Sunday, offering locals the opportunity for bare workouts. This quickly proved a popular idea - at least with journalists, photographers and television crews, who easily outnumbered participants on the opening day. 

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“Nudity is definitely not shocking or even arousing,” says Mandy Servais, a customer at Amsterdam's Sauna Deco, in a robe wrapped loosely around her body, which for all intents and purposes, was naked, as Dutch saunas are visited in the buff. Says Servais, who has frequented saunas since she was a teen, “I think as a society we're very simple and take a practical approach to sex and nudity. We think that everything that exists is normal so there's no need to make a fuss. We're not really occupied with what others think.” 

Verwer mirrors Servais' response. “I think the Dutch believe let everyone have their dignity and do what they enjoy most. This isn't just how we think about naked recreation, the same goes for gays - everyone's accepted,” she says. 

While the Dutch seem to accept that underneath their clothing everyone's naked, the same laissez-faire attitude doesn't apply in the States, where the public has been schooled in the cultural ideology that “nude is naughty,” and nudity is regarded as sexual. 

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This might appear a huge contradiction given the American media's rampant appetite for sex, but how else to explain the fury over Janet Jackson's “wardrobe malfunction” and the network's rush to cleanup before facing clampdowns and stiff fines? Or PBS's need to position the disclaimer “For mature audiences only” when broadcasting footage of Michelangelo's David. 

A further inconsistency when it comes to nudity is what Americans regard as risqué: barely clad Victoria Secret models strutting their way across television or nude grandmothers? As Dove soap found out this March, it's the latter. The Federal Communications Commission, which regulates America's broadcast media, banned a series of prime-time ads depicting six middle-aged women posing nude for Dove Proage products, claiming it was inappropriate, though the ads ran successfully in Europe and Canada. 

Ironically, Dove's parent company is the Anglo-Dutch giant Unilever. While a number of pro-family and women's groups complained the ad contributed to the further commercial sexualization of women - an ongoing and valid debate - clearly, older nudity is threatening because our culture rarely separates nakedness from sex, which is something the elder crowd, at least until Viagra, wasn't supposed to be having. 

On a similar note, in 2004 Wal-Mart, never one to balk at profits, refused to sell Jon Stewart's book “America,” which featured doctored nude photos of Supreme Court judges. Old, saggy bodies were simply too offensive compared to, say, the number of slasher films Wal-Mart also carries. 

Of the Dove Proage ads, says Claire Taylor, who works in international advertising, including projects with Ogilvy & Mather, the company responsible for the Dove ad campaign, “If the ad featured 20-year olds, there'd be no problem. It's so hypocritical.” 

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Another, perhaps sobering, reality: America has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in the industrialized world, according to the American Association of Pediatrics, and a rate that exceeds the Dutch by nine-fold. A healthy attitude to nudity as well as sex, something the Dutch are regaled for, might have a positive impact as more exposure typically leads to greater information. 

Still, in America, being naked remains complex. Because our associations are often limited to porn, hippy naturalists, or the $400 million a year nude recreation industry, nudity is either seen as sexual or a gimmick. Take journalistic “undercover” exposes - a choice phrase, given the situation - on nudists at play (“Just look at those guys playing tennis!”). 

Or the media's buzz over photographer Spencer Tunick and his nude landscapes. Tunick, who specializes in photographing hundreds of naked bodies sprawled together in abstract forms against an urban backdrop, has definitely pushed social boundaries at home. But in Amsterdam, where Tunick is due this summer, it's a different story - or no story. “Is it a big deal that's everyone's naked when everyone's naked?” asks Servais. 

In Europe, then, clearly neither moral outrage nor public disorder greets nudity. Men don't go wild, women remain safe and the zero fashion statement remains just that, something with zero impact. 

Taylor, who has fully adapted to Dutch ways, has taken her American sisters to the sauna when they visit and watched their transition from shock to comfort. “They're both overweight, so at first they were horrified. But one of my sisters quickly got used to being naked and it felt natural. When you see that other people are flabby and kind of falling apart, it's OK,” she says, laughing. “Listen, you got to check out each other's parts, but seeing the Cesearean scars, fat rolls, cellulite, eczema and aging bodies of the over 50s crowd puts it all in perspective - you realize how absolutely unique a gorgeous naked body is. Americans might associate nudity with eroticism but here, it's only associated with nakedness,” she says. 

But there is a glimmer of hope. Sometimes nudity can be a useful, positive statement, even in the States. Like the World Naked Bike Ride, a sort of "Critical Ass" of cyclists organized to protest car culture, promote sustainability practices and celebrate creative expression. Organized by Conrad Schmidt, a South African living in Vancouver, British Columbia, the international event is clothing optional. 

“It's a way of challenging the stifling conformity we get here in Vancouver and North America, and certainly nudity laws challenge a system that needs shaking up,” says Schmidt, who has been surprised how trouble-free the rides have been on a whole, though in America, Chicago tried to shut the event down and Los Angeles, never a hotbed of community activism, boasted a larger police-to-participant ratio. 

“In Portland, people are always riding naked these days, but what's strange is they're apparently harassed more by the police when they're clothed,” he says. “Nudity is tough for law enforcement because it involves the concept of indecent exposure. There's no good definition of what's indecent about the human body.” (source)

Frankly, Europe is just so much better when it comes to sex.

There is nothing wrong with being sexual. The way most 'feminists' use the word 'sexualization' is incredibly dangerous. Not only because it combines sexuality with objectification, but also when people hear the word 'sexualization', the sex part is what stands out. 'Objectify' has disappeared – and it's objectifying that is the real problem. 'Sexualization' ignores the objectifying part for the sexual part. In essence, the term 'sexualization' perpetuates and enforces Rape Culture.

Let's now talk about Purity Culture, because Purity Culture is really Rape Culture.

Purity Culture as Rape Culture: Why the Theological Is Political 

When I was 14 years old, I stood in front of my 800-member Baptist congregation with my parents as they handed me a small diamond ring we’d bought together at Walmart. Before the church body and before God, I pledged that no man shall touch my special places until after we had said “I do.” I pledged to keep pure. 

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Inevangelical America, a woman’s potential relationships and sexual choices are of paramount importance. Relationship guides and purity pledges are a cottage industry in evangelicalism, but the influence reaches far beyond just evangelicals. During the recent government shutdown and the ongoing battle over the Affordable Care Act, we’re seeing the far-reaching effects of a theology in which a woman’s purity is the most important part of her life. 

Purity culture kicked off in response to two events in the mid-20th century: the sexual revolution that characterized much of second-wave feminism, and the 1973 ruling of Roe v. Wade. The return to conservatism in the 1980s saw the beginnings of a resurgence of interest in womanly purity and “biblical” gender roles. With the set roles of the 1950s forever upended, many conservative evangelicals scrambled for a foothold—and they found it in the concept of purity pledges and balls. 

The first purity ball was held in 1998 in Colorado. Today, such balls are a staple of a conservative evangelical girl’s life. Fathers and daughters dress up in their nicest outfits, and the daughters make a pledge of purity to their father and to God. In the most extreme examples, the daughter is considered under the authority of her father until the day she marries, at which point she transfers that authority to her husband. 

If she remains invested in the purity movement throughout her teen years—which would mean regularly attending a typical evangelical youth service—she will be exposed to an abundance of narratives about how keeping oneself pure is a fight that must be won, that it is what God wants, and, most importantly, that her body does not belong to her, but rather to her future husband, and a lapse in purity is a betrayal of her future relationship. 

That last part is an extremely important one, and one that many secular students of evangelical purity culture miss—it’s the backbone to the entire concept of purity, the theological underpinning that makes conservative evangelicals such a unique breed. Until we understand just how deeply this “You are not your own” theology is intertwined within purity culture, we will not be able to truly understand the politicians who discuss rape in horrific terms, or the reasons Christian employers see fit to interfere with their employees’ access to birth control.  

Purity culture, in the evangelical world, is nothing more than an elaborate form of rape culture. But it is rape culture embedded so deeply that rooting it out requires challenging the very forms of Christology upon which many evangelicals have built their beliefs. In other words, making the change to believe in bodily autonomy and unassailable agency of the individual means changing how one views all aspects of faith. This conflict, naturally, is why traditional feminism and Christian evangelicalism are often so at odds. The challenge of bodily autonomy is, for many conservative evangelicals, anathema to their very belief structure. 

To understand purity culture as rape culture, we must understand why bodily autonomy is such an issue. For the evangelical, “dying to self”—or sacrificing one’s selfishness for the greater good of the Gospel—is one of the highest honors one can have. 

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In response to what is seen as a sex-saturated world in which women are asserting their sexual agency and exploring their sexual identities through their experiences, evangelical purity theology seeks to remind people that self-sacrifice—giving up one’s selfhood—is a Christian duty. Unfortunately, they take this so far as to believe that a wife’s body is not her own, that a woman cannot say no to her husband, and that it is sin to withhold sexual gratification from one’s partner. 

You can see where this comes into conflict with a feminism that preaches enthusiastic and continued consent. 

Purity culture and rape culture are two sides of the same coin. Prior to marriage, women are instructed that they must say no to sex at every turn, and if they do not they are responsible for the consequences. This method of approach—“always no”—creates situations in which women are not equipped to fully understand what consent looks like or what a healthy sexual encounter is. When the only tool you’re given is a “no,” shame over rape or assault becomes compounded—because you don’t necessarily understand or grasp that “giving in” to coercion or “not saying no” isn’t a “yes.” 

In Dateable, a Christian dating guide, authors Justin Lookadoo and Hayley DiMarco reinforce the idea of women as sexual gatekeepers. Throughout the book, we read that “guys will lie to you to get what they want,” and that all guys ever want is to have sex. 

So it is up to the girl—as discussed in faux-feminist “girl power” terms—to say no. Which is all well and good, until you realize that, in the authors’ estimation, a girl has the power to say no up until the moment she sends the wrong signals, because men are animals who can’t control themselves. Yes, the guide literally says that: 

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I was raised with the idea that I didn’t have a right to my own body, and that I didn’t have the right to say yes until I was married, at which point I didn’t have the right to say no. My body was never my own, but rather the property of whatever man happened to ask me to marry him. My virginity was the most precious thing I had to offer, and it was my responsibility to protect it, and if I was coerced into “giving it away,” I would have to repent. 

The purity movement not only robs women of their agency by not allowing them to say yes, it robs them of the ability to understand what it means when a “no” is not respected. By failing to equip women to understand their own agency and bodily autonomy, the evangelical purity movement creates an environment that is ripe for rape. 

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A woman asserting her right to say no after the bonds of marriage have been fixed is viewed as an affront to a solid marriage. Within the evangelical church, women who assert any bodily autonomy outside what is ascribed to them by gendered theological roles are to be avoided. If they say yes before marriage, they are tempting Jezebels, luring men off the path of glory; if they saying no after marriage, they are frigid, selfish wives who will be at fault if their husband strays. 

This is what many of our elected Republican officials believe. This is why we get statements about “honest rape,” or arguments that women who use birth control are sluts. This is the motivation behind several Protestant Christian colleges and Catholic hospitals suing the government in order not to provide birth control to their employees. This is why, when a rape exception to abortion bans is proposed, Christian politicians are quick to imply that women may “cry rape” to get abortion access. 

Fundamentally, evangelical, right-wing politicians do not believe women have a right to their own bodies, whether that control be related to purity or rape or birth control or abortion. This is beyond simply a political issue—it is, at heart, theological. And this fight is far from over. (source)

And:

So long as society teaches women our worth lives in our vagina, we are going to hold women to the old Madonna-Whore complex. Women are valued for their virginity, a concept that is more complex than the dictionary definition would have you believe. In Jessica Valenti’s The Purity Myth, she argues that “a combination of forces — our media — and society-driven virginity fetish, an increase in abstinence only education, and the strategic political rollback of women's rights among the primary culprits — has created a juggernaut of unrealistic sexual expectations for young women.” Holding women to a binary standard of pure versus impure reinforces rape culture. 

It was only in 2008 that a Tennessee senator mourned the good old days when rape was rape and women were dragon bait (virgins), “Rape, ladies and gentlemen, is not today what rape was. Rape, when I was learning these things, was the violation of a chaste woman, against her will, by some party not her spouse.” Oh my pearl-clutching horror! In this definition only virgins, or good women, can be raped. This idea seems so antiquated that it is laughable, and yet the purity myth continues, buttressed by the nostalgic ramblings of Senators. 

Elizabeth Smart demonstrated further evidence of the harm that purity culture causes, as a pupil of abstinence-only education she shared her experience being abducted and raped, “after that first rape, I felt crushed. Who could want me now? I felt so dirty and so filthy. I understand so easily all too well why someone wouldn’t run because of that alone.” Her viewpoint is devastating and indicative of the problem with teaching young women that abstaining from sexual activity is a mark of her worthiness as a human being. 

There are headlines in the news every week that ooze with either evidence or prurience or moral panic. Kindergartners are getting in trouble for wearing clothing that is too distracting; Pam Stenzel is zipping around the country telling young women that “If you take birth control your mom probably hates you.” We have a litany of messages forming a crucible of ‘purity’ in which to toss young women, and see who survives. Stenzel goes on at length about how sex is ruining young people’s lives, “If you have sex outside of one permanent monogamous relationship … you will pay” and pushing false information “10x more likely to contract a disease” due to taking birth control (citation needed Stenzel). All too often the abstinence-only educators peddle misinformation about sex. 

People are drawn to the idea of abstinence only education due to religious or moral reasoning. The fact remains, whatever the reason; abstinence only education is not effective. In a landmark study, “Impacts of Four Title V, Section 510 Abstinence Education Programs,” conducted by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. on behalf of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, focused on four federally funded abstinence-only-until-marriage programs in different communities. The study found no evidence that abstinence-only programs increased rates of sexual abstinence. (source)

And:

Namely, the emphasis on modesty that I received growing up is the food and fuel of the rape culture. Sarah Over the Moon wrote not long ago about how complementarians benefit from and use the existence of rape, but this is something more direct and perhaps more sinister. 

Growing up in a conservative evangelical home, I was taught that the way women dress can cause men to “stumble,” i.e. to think lustful thoughts or fall into sexual sin, and that Christian women should dress modestly so as to help their brothers in Christ avoid sin. 

Cause. Did you see that word? Cause. It wasn’t a typo. I was taught that I could cause a man to fall into sexual sins by dressing immodestly. In other words, if I dressed revealingly his sexual sin would be my responsibility, my fault. As a teen, I accepted this as a matter of course and was very careful about how I dressed. I never stopped to realize the full implications of this teaching. 

Rape culture. The idea that a woman who is raped must have been asking for it, that women who dress scantily are asking for it, that somehow, when a woman is raped, it’s her own fault. This idea that men can’t control themselves, that they can’t help it, that they are innocent victims of seductress females. The idea that when men express their sexuality inappropriately it must have been some woman’s fault for leading him on with her revealing clothing or demeanor. 

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Ouch. Just, ouch. A woman’s naked body is “what God designed for a wife to lure her husband”? And thus, when she goes about without covering it completely, she is intentionally “luring” other men. Here we get the rhetoric of the skimpy seductress and the helpless men who can’t do anything but … well, you know. I mean, after all, women just go around trying to “catch” men “with their bodies” so that they can, what, trap them into marrying them? And then if the woman puts out before getting a ring, the man “loses respect for her” and only wants to “satisfy himself with her body” because he cannot “trust” her “to be his wife.” 

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Ugh, this again. Why do they always do this? Yes, they say, men do need to control their lust. But women need to stop “causing” men’s eyes to wander! If only those slutty women would just cover up, men wouldn’t be forced into sin against their wills anymore! 

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Now of course, the argument being made here is not that women through their scanty dress force men to rape them but rather that they force men to lust after them. But really, how much separates the two in the terms of the mentality behind them? 

If you’re already decrying women for “causing” men to lust after them by dressing immodestly, how much of a stretch is it to assign some responsibility to women who are raped? Is it really so hugely different when someone says that a woman shouldn’t have made out with a guy if she didn’t want to have vaginal intercourse because how could she expect him to be able to stop, or that a rape victim’s behavior or clothing proved too “tempting” for her rapist to resist? Is it really that different when someone argues that a woman who attends a party with alcohol is “asking for it,” since how could she really wear a miniskirt and expect the men there to control themselves? 

This idea that women need to cover up or they risk “causing” men to stumble? Rape culture. 

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In the end, I don’t think it should be hard to see the truly damaging nature of the idea that a woman can “cause” a man to stumble by not wearing enough clothing, and I don’t think it’s possible to advocate modesty without buying into this. It is this idea that women need to cover up because men can’t help themselves, quite simply, that fuels rape culture in our society today. (source)

And:

My stepfather began having problems getting erections when I was a senior in high school. How did I find out about this? He told me that he was using me to get an erection so that he could have sex with my mother. 

We were very religious people. We attended a Fundamentalist Baptist Church so sexually conservative I was not even allowed to wear jeans. But still, he would sit me down and discuss what he had been thinking on those nights when he pressed my body against his and stroked my hair, the curve of my hip and the area between my collar bone and breasts until his penis was hard against my thigh. 

In those incredibly awkward and galling conversations he reassured me repeatedly that he would never do anything to compromise my virginity. Using the tone of a person explaining something perfectly logical that should be obvious to anyone with the IQ of a mollusk, he explained that my mother had gained weight and it was killing his boners. I was young, slender and attractive and he saw nothing terribly wrong with using my body to kick-start the old engine and thoughts of me to keep it humming along. 

What baffled me then but makes perfect sense to me now is why he thought that I would be reassured by his repeated promises that he would not cross the arbitrary line of virginity. He had no real plans to stop using me as his fluffer. But my virginity, which he had pledged to protect and to keep safe for my future husband, was off-limits. As time went by and his fluff-sessions became more lurid, I feared the line of technical virginity would be like the Maginot Line, more an illusion of safety than an actual defense. 

But he kept his promise. And now I understand why. The emphasis placed on virginity by the Purity Culture allowed my stepfather to minimize his non-vaginal sexual abuse of my body. 

I still cannot imagine what he thought that I would feel knowing that he was using me so that he could have sex with my mother. I wonder if it occurred to him how degrading and even disloyal it felt. I felt like I had been forced into a sick and incestuous ménage a trois. And of all the abuse that I have endured, including a nearly deadly sexual assault, this made me feel the dirtiest. 

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I will grant you that purity balls are indeed cringe-worthy. But it is important that we not stop our examination of the culture at that point because the Purity Culture is far more troubling, and the relationship between father and daughter becomes far more enmeshed and emotionally incestuous than most articles about purity culture expose. 

For starters, the balls are celebrations of the vow that these girls have made and the contract that they sign. They are agreeing to being spiritually married to their father and to God until such time as their father sees fit to give her to a husband. For their part, fathers pledge to protect their daughters’ virginity, which is the “most precious gift that she can offer her future husband.” 

In most cases, Purity Balls are just the spoonful of sugar that helps the poison go down. They are “field day” sort of reward in a curriculum that aims to teach girls two things: First, how a man should treat them on dates. Second, they are taught how they should treat a husband. 

According to Vision Forum, one of the leaders in the Purity Culture, a father treats his daughter in such a way that is that he “woos her and wins her with a tenderness and affection unique to that relationship.” 

My stepfather couldn’t woo me using Purity Balls, because there were none at that point. Back then, fathers were encouraged to woo their daughters on regular dates. My stepfather would bring me flowers, open doors for me and generally treat me like I was his much younger girlfriend. The example that he set for me while on these dates was supposed to keep me from picking bad guys in the future. The logic seemed to be that a man who opens your car door for you will never beat you, and if he pushes in your chair for you, he will never try to rape you. 

Not only is the logic behind these dates appalling flawed. To me, these dates felt more like an excuse for my stepfather to re-experience his youth. He got to be seen with a younger woman on his arm, and more importantly he got to spend an hour or two basking in the warmth and adoration of someone who was not allowed to challenge him.I am not being egotistical when I say that my stepfather fell for me, developed a huge and creepy crush on me during those dates. 

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But the dates succeeded in one way: They taught me exactly what I should expect while dating men in that environment: abuse. 

The second and more important lesson that a daughter is to learn through her relationship with her father is how she should treat her husbands, by being her father’s apprentice wife. In fact, girls are encouraged to think of their fathers as their boyfriends. We are meant to react to the wooing as described above by “giving her heart to him.” 

I learned how to cook my stepfather’s favorite foods, to anticipate his needs and to wait on him better than professional servers in five-star restaurants. It was my job to wake up two hours early to make him a hot breakfast, and I was the one who made sure that his glass of iced tea was never empty – even if I was studying and he was working out in his hobby shop. 

The second lesson, however, is about more than just being your father’s servant. It is meant to teach young women to orient their entire lives around pleasing their fathers as practice for pleasing their husbands. One of the more important ways that this shows up is in the requirement that a woman dress and groom herself in a way which pleases her father. 

A prime example of this is a statement from Michelle Duggar, a star of the hit series “19 and Counting” She said that she styles her hair however Jim Bob prefers because “what he likes is what I want,” The Botkin sisters, luminaries in the Purity Movement, talk about wearing their father’s favorite colors, styles in dress and hair so that their father will enjoy seeing them. 

This emphasis on a young woman dressing and grooming to please her father is important both symbolically and in practice. The Purity culture believes that what a woman wears has the ability to lure or repel men. That takes on a troubling tone when we understand that these daughters are being told to dress in the ways that their fathers find most alluring. 

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The authority given to him by the Purity Culture meant that he owned my body was his to do with as he pleased so long as he did not penetrate my vagina. As often happens often in these father-daughter purity relationships, he never gave me permission to date. The one time he heard a rumor that I might have kissed a boy, he reacted as if I had cuckolded him. 

Purity doctrine had made my body and its favors his to dispense, withhold or even sample. While he wouldn’t allow anyone too near the goods, he took obvious pleasure in showing me off to his friends. He drank in their compliments about me while I stood beside him feeling as depersonalized and judged as a prize heifer at the fair. 

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When I told my mother and three pastors what was happening, they were alternatively disbelieving or scornful of me. I was given advice very similar to this advice given to another young woman by Visionary Daughters.com: 

submit to an imperfect man's 'whims' as well as his heavy requirements. To order our lives around another person. To esteem and reverence [sic] and adore a man whose faults we can see clearly every day…Before you can accuse your father of being unprotective, (as close to abusive as they will say) ask yourself: 'Do you make it clear to him that you are a woman of virtue, worthy of his special protection? If your behavior was more gentle, feminine, respectful and lovely would he be more inclined to be protective of you?' 

Eventually my stepfather “admitted” that he had succumbed a bit to my “seductiveness” during the command-performance fashion shows. And he allowed that he might have made his hugs last too long. But whatever mistakes he made were “between him and God.” I was considered the instigator, not the victim. 

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Here is the frightening part of my story: It isn’t particularly unusual, or even a one-off in my own history. Opportunities for abuse are thick and compelling in environments where men own women’s bodies. We know from the reports of scores of women who have lived in purity cultures that sexual abuse and rape are rampant. 

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I am not alone. There are thousands upon thousands of other stories of people harmed by Purity culture. (source)

And:

The modesty doctrine also wreaks havoc on the minds of young men in the Christian patriarchy movement. 

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The “modesty doctrine” is the belief that women need to cover their bodies to prevent men from being attracted to them, because sexual attraction leads to sin and death for both. The modesty doctrine is not the same as wearing conservative clothing. You can do the latter without believing the former. It is the belief, the mindset of the modesty doctrine that is so harmful. Not the clothes. 

1.The modesty doctrine teaches men that they are constantly under assault. Advertising images of sexy women in skimpy clothing feel like clouds of fiery missiles hurtling into their brains. They have to avert their eyes everywhere they go just to avoid the images, and on top of that there are actual women wearing skimpy outfits. They feel like they can’t get away from sexual stimuli. When you’re taught that merely seeing something can defile you, guarding your eyes from “evil” becomes your eternal chore. 

For boys going through puberty, this is especially painful. They can’t participate in mainstream culture (if they’re allowed to in the first place) because the music, television and movie industries bombard them with sexual images. The solution, according to fundamentalist preachers, is to “change the culture” by telling women to cover up. But this is disingenuous. Once you’ve planted the idea that feeling attracted to a woman is sinful lust, you can’t walk away that easily. Women who already do dress “modestly” are the next targets. Are they drawing attention to themselves with fashionable jewelry or luxurious hair? They should cover up and wear plainer clothing. Young men at Message youth camps would complain if a girl had on sandals or nail polish because her feet and hands were too attractive. Were they just trying to be mean? Some might have been, but not others. 

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Men who are raised with the modesty doctrine learn that everything women wear is directed at them. When an “immodest” woman walks by, it feels like both a test and an assault. My best friend from church got a job at Wal-Mart when he was 17, and he complained to me endlessly about how women at his workplace would tease and flirt with him. I was treated to a detailed account of how one of the women (also a teenager) stood behind him and ran her fingers across his lower back. He went stiff as a board and tried to brush her off as politely as he could. Perplexed, she asked whether he might be gay. He related this story in helpless frustration. He couldn’t figure out how to avoid female attention without acting like a jerk, and his co-workers couldn’t understand how a heterosexual man could want to avoid female attention. He felt like he was hemmed in by demons and armed with a toothpick. 

2. Young men can react to this pressure by learning to despise women. Even as they are being taught not to look at women’s bodies, they are being taught to look at women as bodies. They are encouraged to speak hatefully about the scantily-clad models on magazine covers and billboards. Pastors scream about filthy harlots from the pulpit. The specter of Jezebel is raised and crucified once again. In Message circles, young men grow up hearing Branham’s crackling voice crying that “immoral women” are lower than dogs and livestock. This translates easily to hating girls who just happen to wander into their sight “immodestly” dressed. My male friends used to vent their frustrations by mocking “fat” girls who wore shorts, because “no one wants to see that.” It didn’t occur to them that it would be hurtful to me, a thin girl, to see them dehumanize other girls. Now, as I look back, it strikes me that they really believed that women only wore skimpy clothing to attract them. Everything women wore was directed at them, personally, because they were men. 

Walking down the street for them must have been like fending off endless trays of hors d’oeuvres at a party. Only the hors d’oeuvres were poisoned, so it was urgent that they turn down each offer, graciously if they could, but most of all firmly. Every woman who walked by was offering, inviting, enticing them to sin. If their bodies responded, they were in peril for their lives. The “fat” girls were easy targets for these boys. Although they were still “offering” (by not dressing “modestly”), they were like sardines on a platter: lacking allure, they were easy to turn down and laugh about afterwards. Finally, the idea of being friends with such a girl or listening to what she had to say became ludicrous. She had already said everything she could possibly want to say to a guy when she put on a pair of shorts. 

(I won’t go into detail about the horrible ramifications of teaching young men that women are constantly offering themselves for sex just by being visible. But I’m sure you can imagine what I might say about that.) 

3.The modesty doctrine teaches men that the worst possible danger lies between their own legs. They are taught to fear their bodies and natural urges. There is no such thing as an innocent sexual thought for an unmarried Christian man. There is most definitely no masturbation. When a guy actually courts a girl, he must walk the impossible line of learning to love her without wanting to kiss or touch her at all. Courtships and engagements can be blindingly short for this reason, but what happens afterwards? A man who has been taught to avoid feeling attracted to all women, including his fiancée, now suddenly has to be passionately attracted to his wife and able to perform. This sounds like a recipe for a lot of false starts, fears and failures of communication. 

4.The modesty doctrine does not give men any tools to deal with unwanted sexual attraction. It only tells them not to feel something they can’t help, and then tells them that they could go to hell for it. They do not learn to take a beat and let it pass, to move on and forget about it, to live their lives with the security of knowing that they are in charge of what they do. They literally believe that they can be moved to animalistic rape by the curve of a woman’s knee. 

Evangelical Christian culture teaches men that being faithful to their wives is an incredible challenge. Evil women are lurking everywhere, waiting to pounce and drag them into their dens of sin. Women’s sexual power is so overwhelming that, at any moment, they could topple into the devil’s pit. Worse yet, there’s nothing they can do to prevent it other than pray and avert their eyes. No wonder they feel helpless. No wonder they’re afraid. 

It is this perpetual peril that drives evangelical men to ridiculous lengths to rid their world of sexual stimuli. The only way to prevent the inevitable (adultery or fornication) is to keep women under wraps (literally). Men become micromanagers of their wives’ and daughters’ clothing. My pastor once chastised his 11 year old daughter for wearing her sweatshirt off her shoulders (with a t-shirt underneath). “Either take that off or put it on,” he ordered sternly, warning her that boys might see the sweatshirt and think about her taking all her clothes off. I was mystified that this had even entered his mind. Because the Christian patriarchy movement invests men with such significant power, their fears take precedence as the laws of the home. Because it’s impossible for a man to fully protect himself, the job falls to all the women around him to make sure he doesn’t turn into a sex-crazed werewolf. 

5.The modesty doctrine gives men contradictory messages about masculinity. The doctrine teaches them that they need to protect themselves from sin by avoiding feeling attracted to women. American culture, on the other hand, tells them that the only way to prove that they are masculine is to be interested in sex with women (along with violence, beer and mechanical things). Christian boys feel like sitting ducks for abuse from their peers, who assume that they are gay because they avoid participating in the rituals of adolescent sexuality (like flipping through smutty magazines and checking out the cheerleaders). Since conservative evangelical groups consider being gay an even worse sin than having the hots for a girl, these boys are trapped between a rock and a hard place. They are terrified that gay boys will be attracted to them, and terrified to be attracted to girls. 

My teenage best friend was constantly trying to assert his heterosexuality. Not only could he not date (taking away the “I have a girlfriend” excuse), he couldn’t spend time alone with female friends, return the playful glances of his coworkers or have a crush on a movie star. He therefore plunged headlong into identifying as a “nerd” whose intellect left no time for girls. The truth was that his family had forbidden him to court until he finished college. While in college, perceiving visual assaults on all sides, he locked himself in his room for almost the entirety of a six-week study abroad program in France. The reason? There were girls there, drinking. (source)

And:

Before my wife and I got married, I became a full-on feminist. The more I’ve learned about how evangelical purity culture damages girls, the more against it I’ve been. 

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Speaking now as a happily married man, I’m like, “Yeah, totally. Women should be able to wear whatever they want without feeling objectified or (God forbid) afraid of being attacked.” But as a young man in purity culture, I felt very differently, and I think I know why. 

I’ve read a lot from the girl’s perspective. Like a lot. What I’m about to share isn’t intended to tell girls that purity culture isn’t hurting them as much as they say it is. I want to validate that difficulty and say, “It hurt you? Yeah, it hurt me too.” 

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Instead of being sex objects to be lusted after, purity culture objectifies women as objects that men must resist the horrible temptation to lust after. 

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Another time, I heard Shaunti Feldhahn, author of For Men Only and For Women Only on Focus on the Family and she explained her journey toward realizing how visual men are and how terrible it was to discover how women are torturing men by dressing provocatively. When I heard her say that, I breathed a huge sigh of relief and felt that finally, somebody understood how hard it was for me! 

And it is hard, sisters. Ladies, hear this: for men in purity culture to be around beautiful women, particularly if they aren’t “covering up,” it is very hard, but it is not your fault. 

Let me say that again. 

It is hard for Christian men in purity culture to be around you, but it is not your fault. 

The blame for that idiocy falls squarely on purity culture. 

When your average 20-something single guy walks onto a beach full of beautiful women in bikinis, he might check them out and be interested in them, but his “temptation” is absolutely nothing compared to what a young man in purity culture feels. He knows it’s wrong, which feeds his desire, which feeds his guilt, which feeds his desire. That poor kid has a molotov cocktail of guilt, shame, and knowing-it’s-wrong with a fuse of temptation sticking out and soaked in gasoline. All he needs is the spark of a beautiful woman who isn’t ashamed of her body. 

I’ve heard over and over again that in purity culture, girls’ bodies are the enemies – problems, temptations, things that will cause men to stumble. Ladies, don’t feel alone… Purity Culture does this to men, too, but in a different way. 

Guys tend to associate lust with being turned on. Honestly, sometimes that just happens. It doesn’t mean you’re lusting if your pants have a protrusion. It just means you’re turned on. 

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The problem’s not the woman. 

The problem isn’t even the man. The problem is the training the man got from his church. 

And the worst part about it is that even if the poor schmuck burns his magazines and destroys his computer with a baseball bat, his worst enemy is still there hanging between the front of his legs, waiting to pop up like a jack-in-the-box. A jack-in-the-box bent on sin. 

Yeah, girls. It’s not just your bodies that are the enemies. Our bodies are enemies, too. And this is psychopathy. It’s unChristian. Scripture teaches that God created everything good, including your body. When you teach men that their bodies are rebelling against God, you end up with all sorts of weirdness and psycho-ness and eunuchs. 

This is, I think, the cause for the popular teaching that men can’t control themselves: when it comes to the little jack-in-the-box, we really can’t control it. It’s a product of evolution. Guy sees girl, gets turned on, goes and has sex with her, potentially dominates her, she gets pregnant, reproduction happens, the human race continues. But we can rise above this. That’s part of what it is to be human, I think. We don’t have to jump on top of a girl and have sex with her just because our genetics recognize that this is someone of the opposite sex and procreation is a possibility. 

Unfortunately, I think most of the folks in purity culture don’t believe in evolution so they probably don’t get the genetic predisposition part and just call it “Sin nature.” 

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It’s crazy. I was in purity culture for a long time. I was fighting my desires for a long time. 

Then one day at camp one of the girls did a Bible lesson. She got out paint. We all stuck our hands in the paint and left our handprints on a big white piece of paper. I can’t remember what the lesson was, but I was struck with the realization that she wasn’t just a potential wife or a temptation, she was a person. 

Crazy, right? 

That’s what purity culture does to you. Every woman is one of two things (yes, things): A potential future spouse, or a temptation. When you start dating a woman, it gets more psycho, because she literally becomes both. You have to keep yourself pure for your future spouse (yes, at least some guys do think about this too) but what if she’s the one? Is it still cheating on your theoretical future spouse if you become physically involved with someone before you’re married – if that someone is your future spouse? (Trying to keep it PG, folks). 

And then when you do get married, all women other than your wife are just temptations. 

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When I was dating the girl I dated before I met my wife, I was struggling with a porn addiction. I use that phrasing because it was an addiction (I couldn’t stop) and because I’m confident that was caused by how wrong I felt it was. I had discontinued using pornography but the jack-in-the-box still popped up. Sometimes I won, sometimes the guilt won. 

I told the girl often how privileged I felt to be dating her and how I really was a wicked sinner and had done some things that she would find horrible, but she always talked about how much she liked me and how it couldn’t have been that bad and I tried to tell her, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it until near Christmas when our pastor told me that I should tell her. I did, and my fears that she would find it all horrible were confirmed. 

It took her a day or so to recover enough from the shock and horror to call me and break up with me. I honestly don’t remember much of the conversation, but one line stuck with me for years. I still remember like it was yesterday exactly where I was when she told me that her parents had asked, “I thought you wanted to marry someone who was pure.”I wasn’t pure, and there was no way that I could turn back the clock and get back to purity, and no forgiveness for this horrible sin was remotely possible. 

Why? Because purity culture is at its core a culture of self-righteous legalism. The less you’ve done, the better you are. I’m reminded of the parable of the rose that gets passed around a room until it’s lost all of its beauty and goodness from being handled. Everything you do sexually that is outside the context of marriage will destroy you forever. 

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My life was marred for a long time, yes, but it wasn’t by my addiction. I have the words “I thought you wanted someone pure” burned deep into my soul. Those words affected my relationship with my wife. I always thought that either she or her family would one day realize that I wasn’t pure and throw me away like that rose. 

Healing started before we even started dating when I told her the story and she just loved me more (though she didn’t admit it at the time). That and our married relationship we’ve enjoyed for the past year have helped heal me to the point that it’s just a scar, and a fading scar, but it’s still there. I’ll probably still remember those words for a long time, but they don’t hurt anymore. 

Purity culture hurts everyone involved. It’s horrible to women, and it’s awful to men. It turns every day living in grace into every man’s battle against temptation – and by temptation, I mean women. (source)

And:

Many commentators have puzzled about the seeming hypocrisy of those who would see adultery and womanizing as grave sins. And yet for those who know the history of evangelicalism in America, this should be no surprise at all. 

In fact, there are good reasons why we should expect this result. The history and sexual politics of evangelicalism in America fit well with Donald Trump and his message. 

White evangelicals, particularly in the South, long ago lined up their party with “family values,” which above all else has meant patriarchy. 

As historian Christine Heyrman displayed in her classic book "Southern Cross,”the authoritarian dynamic was central to Southern antebellum families. To win Southern hearts, evangelicals buttressed patriarchy, empowering fathers and looking the other way when they took prerogatives which crossed moral lines. Catering to Southern values, evangelicalism became one of the predominant forms of religious expression in America. 

But despite this early and enduring success, evangelicals still often see themselves as embattled outsiders. As sociologists of religion have observed, religious outsiders have much to gain from boundary maintenance, often courting outcast status or even persecution to rally the faithful. 

From this perspective, evangelicals are most successful when they resist total assimilation into the values and cultural norms of wider society, highlighting the ways they are misinterpreted, misunderstood, and misjudged. They thrive precisely because they are embattled. 

Picking political fights on Twitter is Donald Trump's stock in trade. Criticism by the “fake news” organizations plays directly into this sense of embattlement, yielding stronger support amongst the base. 

This sense of being besieged is also echoed in the president's rallying call, “Make America Great Again.” This slogan, harrowing up fears of the rise of racial and sexual minorities in America, also conforms to the classic evangelical sermon form, the “Jeremiad.” Since the time of the Puritans, evangelicals have used the Jeremiad to voice lamentations of social decline, thereby chastening and strengthening their ranks. 

While adultery is most certainly a sin from a strict evangelical perspective, it is an eminently more forgivable one than standing against the patriarchal order. While challenging patriarchy would radically undermine the social structures on which evangelicalism is predicated, one sinner's discrete lapses in sexual judgment create opportunities for the community to reassert its values and its identity. 

Which brings us to the most paradoxical aspect of evangelicalism of all: Sexual scandal has always attended revival religion in America. So forbidden sex is not just a forgivable sin, but somehow essential to its expression. 

The Second Great Awakening, the high water mark for evangelicalism in America, saw countless scenes of sexual shame. Whether it was Joseph Smith embracing polygamy, the even more scandalous complex marriage system of John Humphrey Noyes, or the countless sexual indiscretions of “reverend rakes” in Methodist, Baptist, Congregational, and Presbyterian churches, charismatic preachers were known for stealing the affections of female parishioners. It was how they grew their ranks. Evangelicalism is “heart religion” (not the staid stuff of more mainline churches), so evangelicals take the benefits, but also the risks, of charismatic authority in their churches. (source)

We see several trends throughout these articles. Both men and women are taught that any sexual thought, fantasy, or action (or anything to do with lust, really) is a sin. A woman's purity is the most important part of her/her worth lies in her purity. A daughter is under the authority of her father, and then her husband. A woman's body is not her own, but her husband's. A woman doesn't have the right to say yes until she's married, and then she doesn't have the right to say no. Men can't control themselves; it's all about how the woman dresses. Women cause it. A woman's entire body is a sexual tool to lure men. Men are told that women are objects of temptation that must be resisted. Men are told that they're supposed to be the one responsible and in power. If a boy has sex he's just stumbled; if a girl has sex she's damaged goods/beyond redemption.

We need to notice this contradictory part. The articles from the women make it clear that in practice, men who have sex or break from theory have just stumbled; however the articles from the men say that if they have sex or break from theory, they are damned. This is a clear example of theory versus reality – the theory says both men and women are treated the same (damned), but reality gives a very different picture. The articles above are from a few men who genuinely believed the theory.

We are now going to talk about the Pro-life Movement for a moment, because it is a core part of Purity Culture.

The spring of my sophomore year of college I was president of my university’s Students for Life chapter. The fall of my junior year of college I cut my ties with the pro-life movement. Five years later I have lost the last shred of faith I had in that movement. This is my story. 

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As a child, teen, and college student, I sincerely believed that personhood, life, rights, and the soul all began at fertilization. I was honestly opposed to abortion because I believed it was murder. It had nothing to do with being anti-woman or anti-sex. I thought that the pro-life movement writ large – the major pro-life organizations, leaders, and politicians – were similarly genuine. I thought that they, like myself, simply wanted to “save the lives of unborn babies.” 

I have come to the conclusion that I was a dupe. 

What I want to share here is how I came to this realization. And if you, reader, are one of those who opposes abortion because you believe it is murder and you want to save the lives of unborn babies, well, I hope to persuade you that the pro-life movement is not actually your ally in this, that you have been misled, and that you would be more effective in decreasing the number of abortions that occur if you were to side with pro-choice progressives. If this is you, please hear me out before shaking your head. 

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My journey began one blustery day in October of 2007 when I came upon an article in the New York Times. This article completely shook my perspective. It didn’t change my belief that abortion was murder or my desire to save the lives of unborn babies. Instead, it simply completely overhauled my tactical focus and made me realize that the current efforts of the pro-life movement are extremely backwards. 

The first thing I learned from that New York Times article shocked me: it turns out that banning abortion does not actually affect the abortion rate. 

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I was flabbergasted upon reading this. I followed the link to the summary of the study, printed the entire thing out for reading over lunch, and then headed off to class. As I perused the study over a taco bowl in the student union later that day I wondered why I had never been told any of this. I was shocked to find that the countries with the lowest abortion rates are the ones where abortion is most legal and available, and the countries with the highest abortion rates are generally the ones where the practice is illegal. It’s true. 

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Banning abortion does not actually affect abortion rates. I was could not have been more shocked. I learned that all banning abortion does is make abortion illegal – and unsafe. I found that almost 50,000 women worldwide die each year from unsafe abortions, and that many more experience serious injury or infertility. These deaths happen almost entirely in countries where abortion is illegal – and thus clandestine. In fact, when abortion was made legal in South Africa, the number of abortion related deaths fell by over 90%. 

Overturning Roe, I realized, would not make women stop having abortions. Instead, it would simply punish women who have abortions by requiring them to risk their health to do so. This is all well and good if the goal is to punish women for seeking abortions, but if the goal is to keep unborn babies from being murdered, this is extremely ineffective. 

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As I sat there in the student union reading over my lunch, I found that making birth control widespread and easily accessible is actually the most effective way to decrease the abortion rate. Even as I processed this fact, I knew that the pro-life movement as a whole generally opposes things like comprehensive sex education and making birth control available to teenagers. I knew this because I had lived it, had heard it in pro-life banquet after pro-life banquet, had read it in the literature. The pro-life movement is anti-birth-control. And opposing birth control is pretty much the most ineffective way to decrease abortion rates imaginable. In fact, opposing birth control actually drives the abortion rates up. 

As I mulled this over, I realized how very obvious it was. The cause of abortions is unwanted pregnancies. If you get rid of unwanted pregnancies the number of people who seek abortions will drop like a rock. Simply banning abortion leaves women stuck with unwanted pregnancies. Banning abortion doesn’t make those pregnancies wanted. Many women in a situation like that will be willing to do anything to end that pregnancy, even if it means trying to induce their own abortions (say, with a coat hanger or by drinking chemicals) or seeking out illegal abortions. I realized that the real way to reduce abortion rates, then, was to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. And the way to do that is with birth control, which reduces the number of unwanted pregnancies by allowing women to control when and if they become pregnant. 

I realized that the only world in which opposing birth control made any sense was one in which the goal was to control women’s sex lives. After all, birth control allows women to have sex without having to face the “consequences” of sex. But I had never opposed abortion in an effort to make women face the “consequences” of having sex. I had always opposed abortion out of a desire to save the lives of unborn babies. As a child, I had been moved to tears by the image of millions of babies murdered by abortion each year. If making it easier for women to have sex I personally believed was sinful was the price I had to pay to save the lives of unborn babies, it was a price I was more than willing to pay. 

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But even as my position shifted, I was still willing to give the pro-life movement the benefit of the doubt. Why? Because I believed that the pro-life movement’s opposition to birth control stemmed not from a desire to control women’s sex lives but rather from the belief that the pill was an “abortifacient.” This meant that the pro-life movement could oppose abortion as murder and yet also oppose birth control without actually being inconsistent. But in the last few months I have read several things that have shaken this belief. 

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Now, the birth control pill works primarily by preventing ovulation in the first place, and also by impeding sperm so that it can’t get to the Fallopian tubes to fertilize the egg. But leading organizations in the pro-life movement argue that there is some chance that women on the pill will have “breakthrough ovulation,” and if this occurs and sperm somehow make their way into the Fallopian tubes, you could technically end up with a fertilized egg. Pro-life organizations further suggest that because the pill also thins the uterine lining, this fertilized egg would be flushed out of a woman’s body through her vagina rather than implanting in her uterus. 

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When I learned that birth control, not banning abortion, was the best way to decrease abortion, I knew about this argument. However, I concluded that the small number of times this might happen was outweighed by the number of abortions the widespread use of birth control would prevent. Yet even though that was my conclusion, I could at least understand why those in the pro-life movement almost universally opposed the pill and other forms of hormonal birth control. I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that, even though I thought they were misguided in their tactics, they really did simply want to “save the lives of unborn babies.” And give them the benefit of the doubt I did. 

I later learned that an increasing pile of evidence suggests that the pill does not actually result in fertilized eggs being flushed out of a woman’s body. I began to feel that the pro-life movement had no qualms with twisting the scientific evidence if need be, which was confusing because there didn’t seem to be a motive for insisting on the belief that the pill causes abortions if scientific evidence indicated the contrary. I also found that the pro-life movement is not afraid of twisting the evidence when it comes to things like the supposed harmful side effects of abortion, such as depression and breast cancer. 

Cooking up “scientific facts” in an effort to scare women out of having abortions rather than working to encourage birth control use in an effort to reduce the number of unintended pregnancies seemed extremely backwards, and I became increasingly troubled by the way the pro-life movement treated science and their constant willingness to play fast and loose with the facts. 

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I have to be honest, this blog post totally shocked me. I wondered about the numbers Sarah used, so I went looking for verification. As I did this I opted to use the pro-life movement’s own numbers on the rate of fertilized eggs that fail to implant for women on the pill. Remember, once again, that scientific studies have found again and again that the pill does not result in fertilized eggs failing to implant. However, I felt that if I used the pro-life movement’s own numbers I could not be accused of simply using studies with a liberal bias. And so I explored the numbers. What I found was that Sarah’s numbers were off. What I found was that for every 100 fertile women on birth control each month, only 0.15 fertilized eggs will be flushed out. In contrast, for every 100 fertile women not on birth control in a given month, 16 fertilized eggs will be flushed out. In other words, Sarah’s numbers were far too conservative. She was more right than she knew. It is the people not using birth control that are “murdering” the most “children,” not women on the pill. 

After reading Sarah’s article and doing the math using the pro-life movement’s own numbers, I concluded that the idea that the pill is an abortifacient is used as a smokescreen. It has to be. If the pro-life movement believes that even a very small chance of a zygote being flushed out is enough reason to oppose the use of the pill, then there should be an extreme amount of concern about the much, much higher number of fertilized eggs flushed out of the bodies of women notusing the pill. Anyone who really thinks about it cannot help but come to the conclusion that if your goal is to save “unborn babies,” and if you truly believe that a zygote – a fertilized egg – has the same value and worth as you or I – the only responsible thing to do is to put every sexually active woman on the pill. Sure, according to the pro-life movement’s figures a few fertilized eggs would still fail to implant and thus “die,” once again according to their own figures, an enormous number of these “deaths” would be prevented. 

And yet, the pro-life movement still up the pill as a great evil. Pro-life doctors often refuse to prescribe the pill, and pro-life pharmacists refuse to fill prescriptions for it. This makes utterly no sense unless the point is not “saving unborn babies” but rather making sure that women who dare to have sex have to face the “consequences,” i.e. pregnancy and children. As I thought through all of the implications of Sarah’s article, the benefit of the doubt that I had been giving the pro-life movement began to falter. How could they justify opposing the pill when putting sexually active women on the pill would actually save the lives of unborn babies? 

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The pro-life movement is not about “saving unborn babies.” It can’t be. As someone who as a child and teen really did believe that life – personhood – began at fertilization, and who really was in it to “save unborn babies,” this is baffling. If I had known all this, I would have been all for this sort of research. I would have been all for sexually active women using the pill to cut down on “deaths.” But I didn’t know any of this. The adults of the anti-abortion movement, though, and certainly the leaders, they surely must know these things. This isn’t rocket science, after all. They must know these things, and yet they are doing nothing. 

Reading Sarah and Fred’s articles and then thinking them through and doing some research made me realize that those in the pro-life movement, or at least the leaders of the pro-life movement, are incredibly inconsistent. You simply can’t be against the pill for fear that it will result in flushed out zygotes and yet not concerned at all about the vastly greater number of zygotes flushed out naturally every day. At least, not if you really truly believe a zygote has the same worth as an infant, toddler, or adult, and not if you’re truly motivated solely by a desire to save the lives of these “unborn babies.” 

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Obamacare stands to cut abortion rates by 75%. And yet, the pro-life movement has been leveraged in opposition to Obamacare, and most especially in opposition to the birth control mandate. They don’t believe women should be guaranteed access to free contraception even though this access is the number one proven best way to decrease the number of abortions. That access would, to use the rhetoric of the pro-life movement, prevent the murders of 900,000 unborn babies every year. 

When I was pro-life, I truly believed it was about saving unborn babies. If I had seen a study like the one above – that making birth control available free of charge would cut the number of abortions by 75% – I would have immediately supported the requirement that all insurance companies offer birth control without copay. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of lives. I cried about this as a child, cried about all the deaths. I felt guilty that I was one who had survived the abortion “holocaust.” Saving hundreds of thousands of these lives a year? I would have jumped at the idea! 

And yet, the pro-life movement is fighting tooth and nail to repeal the very act they should be praising to the rooftops. In fact, some of them don’t even just think birth control shouldn’t be covered without copay, they don’t think birth control should be covered at all. When I read this study and thought about the pro-life response to Obamacare, I was baffled. Dumbstruck. But it gets worse. 

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One thing I realized back in 2007 is that, given that six in ten women who have abortions already have at least one child and that three quarters of women who have abortions report that they cannot afford another child, if we want to bring abortion rates down we need to make sure that women can always afford to carry their pregnancies to term. Maternity and birth is expensive, adding your child to your health care plan is expensive, daycare is expensive, and on and on it goes. Raising children costs money, and women who have abortions know that. 

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I realized, then, that if the goal is to cut the abortion rate, the pro-life movement should be working to make sure that women can afford to have and care for children. After all, a full three quarters of women who have abortions say they could not afford a child. If we found a way to offer more aid to parents, if we mandated things like paid maternity leave, subsidized childcare, and universal health insurance for pregnant women and for children, some women who would otherwise abort would almost certainly decide to carry their pregnancies to term. But the odd thing is, those who identify as “pro-life” are most adamant in opposing these kind of reforms. I knew this back in 2007, because I grew up in one of those families. I grew up believing that welfare should be abolished, that Head Start needed to be eliminated, that medicaid just enabled people to be lazy. I grew up in a family that wanted to abolish some of the very programs with the potential to decrease the number of abortions. When I shifted my position on this issue, I was in many ways simply becoming consistent. 

With the advent of the Tea Party movement and new calls for a small government and for cutting things like welfare and food stamps, those who claim to believe abortion is murder, who claim to want to bring abortion rates down, have only done further damage to what credibility they had left in my eyes. And lately, it’s gotten worse. You see, in some cases conservatives are actively working to make it harder for poor women to afford to carry unintended pregnancies to term. 

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In other words, this bill would make it so that if a poor woman gets pregnant, she has to decide whether to have an abortion or whether to carry to term, have the baby, and see her welfare benefits slashed, taking food out of the mouths of the children she is already struggling to feed. I want to say I’m surprised, but I’m really not, because I’m remembering rumblings underneath the polished surface of the things I was taught. This idea that women shouldn’t “spread their legs” if they’re not ready to raise the results of their promiscuity, that the government shouldn’t be expected to pick up the tab for some slut’s inability to say no. As a teen and a young adult, I never thought about how inconsistent these ideas were with the “saving unborn babies” pro-life rhetoric I so strongly believed in. But they are. If it’s all about “saving unborn babies,” it shouldn’t matter how those unborn babies are conceived, or whether their mothers are rich or poor, married or not. 

If those who oppose abortion really believes that abortion is murder, they should be supporting programs that would make it easier for poor women to afford to carry pregnancies to term. Instead, they’re doing the opposite. Overwhelmingly, those who oppose abortion also want to cut welfare and medicaid. Without these programs, the number of women who choose abortion because they cannot afford to carry a given pregnancy to term will rise. Further, they are working against things like paid maternity leave, subsidized daycare, and universal health insurance for children, programs which would likely decrease the number of women who choose abortion because they cannot afford to carry a pregnancy to term. And in this specific case, conservatives want to penalize a poor woman who chooses to carry a pregnancy to term by making it harder for her to make ends meet. 

This makes utterly no sense if the goal is to save babies. 

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The reality is that so-called pro-life movement is not about saving babies. It’s about regulating sex. That’s why they oppose birth control. That’s why they want to ban abortion even though doing so will simply drive women to have dangerous back alley abortions. That’s why they want to penalize women who take public assistance and then dare to have sex, leaving an exemption for those who become pregnant from rape. It’s not about babies. If it were about babies, they would be making access to birth control widespread and free and creating a comprehensive social safety net so that no woman finds herself with a pregnancy she can’t afford. They would be raising money for research on why half of all zygotes fail to implant and working to prevent miscarriages. It’s not about babies. It’s about controlling women. It’s about making sure they have consequences for having unapproved sex. (source)

From Libby Anne's follow-up post:

Perhaps the biggest critique of my piece had to do with my argument that putting women on the pill, even with the small risk of it expelling some zygotes as a result, ought to be a moral obligation for those who view zygotes as people if doing so will save a much greater number of zygotes from naturally being expelled from a woman’s body. The counter argument is that actively killing a zygote, embryo, or fetus, even in order to prevent the deaths of a greater number of zygotes, embryos, or fetuses, is always wrong. 

In this way we begin to get into that oft-quoted moral conundrum: If you see a train going down a track and know for sure that if nothing is changed it will run over and kill ten people, but if that you pull a lever that will shunt the train to another track where it will kill one person, what should you do? Which choice is the more moral and ethical one? If you pull the lever you are causing the death of one person, but also preventing the death of ten others. If you don’t pull the lever, are you in some way culpable for those extra deaths, since you could have prevented them? On the other hand, if you do pull the lever, are you a murderer? 

But there is a second point. Scientific evidence suggests that the pill does notactually prevent implantation. When I played the numbers game with zygotes and the pill, I was using the pro-life movement’s numbers, not the numbers offered by current scientific consensus. If you look at science, what you will find is that neither the pill nor Plan B prevent zygotes from implanting. The reason that I played the numbers game at all was simply to point out that even if the pill did result in dead zygotes, opposing it was not actually so clear cut as the pro-life movement would have you believe. 

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Another critique of my post was that there is no way I could grow up pro-life and think the movement didn’t care about helping women afford to keep their children, because nearly every town has a crisis pregnancy center, often re-branded as “pregnancy resource centers,” available to help women who choose to keep unplanned pregnancies. I probably should have mentioned these centers in my post so as to close off this avenue for criticism. 

First of all, crisis pregnancy centers frequently lie to women about the health risks of abortion and engage in emotional manipulation in an effort to do anything possible to talk them out of having abortions. I attended banquets to raise money for these centers. Sure, there is talk about caring for the woman, but it is more geared toward caring about her as a sacred vessel than caring for her as an individual. The entire point of these centers is to save the lives of babies by talking women out of having abortions by any means possible. So no, I don’t count crisis pregnancy centers as evidence that the pro-life movement cares about women. 

Second, giving a woman a crib and diapers is great, but that’s not the real expense involved in raising a child. I could buy a new crib every week for what I pay in daycare costs for one child. The same is true for things like healthcare and, eventually, college expenses. The claim that the the pro-life movement does care about helping women afford to have children because it hands out formula and baby clothes is absurd. Those things are helpful, but they are wholly insignificant compared to the costs of raising a child from infancy through high school. 

Many commenters claimed that my mistake was in believing something I read in the New York Times, or believing research put out by the Guttmacher Institute. Why do I trust the facts these organizations put out? Well, the New York Times engages in fact checking and issues corrections when it gets something wrong. For its part, the Guttmacher Institute uses peer review and refuses to take money from organizations that would compromise their objectivity. It seems to me that the pro-life movement approaches science in much the way young earth creationists do: as though scientists are engaged in some sort of grand conspiracy and every scientific fact is somehow biased one way or another. Any time they are presented with a fact they don’t like they claim “liberal bias” as a way to get out of having to actually deal with that fact. 

It seems as though both the pro-life movement and young earth creationists hold tight to pre-conceived ideas and uses cries of “liberal bias” to reject any data that contradicts these ideas. In other words, the pro-life movement starts from the assumption that abortion causes women physical harm and that the birth control pill causes zygote “abortions” and then simply rejects all evidence to the contrary. The thing is, that’s not how I roll. If you want to be right, or at least as close to right as you can come, you have to be open to changing your mind. If you start out with an assumption and then throw out everything that indicates the contrary, well, that’s a problem. In contrast, I place a great deal of value on being willing to be wrong. When I approach facts, I consciously work against my biases. If I am wrong, I want to know so that I can change my mind. 

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One point that was made is that opposing abortion is not simply about saving babies, because women suffer from abortion too, so working to end abortion will help them as well. The trouble is that claims that abortion causes health problems or mental problems have been soundly refuted. The pro-life movement frequently cites studies that are openly acknowledged as flawed – such as those tainted by recall bias or not differentiating between causation and correlation – to back up its argument that abortion harms women while ignoring more comprehensive evidence that contradicts this idea. 

The problem here is much the same as in point five: the pro-life movement as a whole seems less interested in actual scientific accuracy than in proving the point it has already made up its mind on, that abortion hurts women. 

But I want to point out something else. Even if the evidence showed that abortion did have harmful side effects, that would not change my position on whether it should be legal. The side effect of a pregnant woman not having an abortion is having to carry her pregnancy to term and then either raise a child she did not plan on having or give it up for adoption. Thus even if abortion did have harmful side effects, whether or not to have an abortion should still be up to the individual woman. 

And finally, as for the argument that abortion harms women long-term because they live in haunted regret, well, you might want to take a look at the stories of some of the many women who are not sorry that they had abortion. Sure, we all sometimes make decisions we later regret. However, the fact that some people later regret an action is not enough of a reason to ban it. And also, it is a bit disingenuous that the pro-life movement trumpets the idea that women who have abortions live lives of guilt while simultaneously doing everything it can to induce that guilt in women who have abortions. 

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Third and finally, one commenter who works in embryology pointed out that the zygotes that fail to implant do so for a reason – they are not healthy zygotes. This commenter was concerned that I was actually advocating spending time and resources on saving these zygotes because even if that could successfully be done it would simply bring a lot of extremely severely disabled people into the world. I was indeed aware that these zygotes generally fail to implant because there is something wrong with them, but I don’t think that changes my argument. After all, we do what we can to help severely disabled people out of the womb, including ones that would die without modern medicine, so if pro-lifers are consistent in their claim that a zygote is a person just as much as you or I they should insist on doing the same for zygotes, even ones that suffer from abnormalities. However, because I do not view a zygote as the equivalent of you or I in any way shape or form, I do agree with this commenter that such research would be a waste of resources. My point was not to argue that we should be working to save the zygotes but rather simply that if the pro-life movement was genuine in its claim that zygotes are people like you or I, it ought to be doing so. 

Of all the comments on my post, the ones that I found most strange were the ones arguing that sex is about making babies, and people need to be responsible and accept the consequences of their decisions. I found these comments odd because they revealed that someone could somehow read my entire post and then make my point for me. For these commenters, being pro-life is not about saving babies, or at least not primarily about saving babies. Instead it is about making sure that sex has consequences. 

But why? Why must sex have consequences? When an obese person becomes diabetic we don’t deprive him of insulin and tell him his diabetes is his own fault and he just has to deal with the consequences. Should we deprive people of coffee because if you’re tired it’s your own fault for not getting more sleep? We do things to mitigate the consequences of our actions all the time. Birth control and abortion are just one more way of doing this. If someone argues that sex must have consequences – that sex and baby making must always go hand in hand regardless of the technology we have developed to separate the two – they are simply trying to impose their personal beliefs on everyone else. 

Furthermore, seeing abortion as a way for people to be irresponsible is disingenuous. When a woman finds herself with an unplanned pregnancy, she has to consider her options and choose a course of action. That is called being responsible. Having an abortion is one of those options. In other words, there is no reason abortion should be seen as an irresponsible way of handling an unplanned pregnancy, just like there is no reason having a baby should be the mandated consequence of having sex. 

If you are one who believes that abortion is murder, you will probably have some problems with the two previous paragraphs. But my point is that if it is all about preventing the murder of unborn babies, well, talk of “consequences” and “responsibility” is a bit disingenuous. When you talk about how sex should have consequences or about how abortion is an irresponsible way to get out of dealing with the results of sex, well, you are moving the conversation away from saving babies and toward controlling people’s sex lives. So if it really is about saving babies, and not about pushing your sexual morality on society in general, you shouldn’t be making this sort of argument. 

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There are two issues here. The first is whether or not Planned Parenthood is engaged in some sort of conspiracy to force women to have abortions. The thing is, being pro-choice means supporting a woman’s right to choose. Pressuring woman into having abortions would be antithetical to choice. There is is not space here to get into all of the arguments I grew up seeing thrown around regarding Planned Parenthood, nor do I have time at the moment. Suffice it to say that I find the idea that that organization could be staffed by pro-choice individuals all somehow complicit in forcing women to have abortions without word leaking out. It would have to be a conspiracy on a simply massive scale. Based on what I know and have experienced, the idea that Planned Parenthood is engaged in a scheme to push women into having abortions appears ludicrous. 

But that said, those who make the argument that Planned Parenthood is engaged in some sort of conspiracy seem to assume that if this was the case it would somehow be an argument for abortion. If Planned Parenthood really were trying to force women into have abortions rather than allowing women to make their own choices and supporting them in those choices, I and every other pro-choice individual I know would be horrified and work to expose the organization and bring reform and accountability. I would not, however, suddenly decide that abortion should be banned. If one health food store chain turns out to be embezzling people’s money, does that mean we should ban organic food? Um, no. Whether or not Planned Parenthood is engaged in some sort of conspiracy has no bearing on whether or not abortion should be legal.

And her third post:

If abortion is murder, the argument that women need to “take responsibility” for the “voluntary decision” to have sex by carrying the pregnancy to term is irrelevant. It should not matter. If it’s just about “saving babies,” then abortion is wrong because it’s murder, not because it’s a woman failing to “take responsibility” for having had sex. When someone makes the above argument, then, they make clear that some proportion of the anti-abortion movement is not simply interested in “saving babies,” but rather in depriving women of control of their own reproduction. Some proportion of the anti-abortion movement, then, is actively anti-woman, not simply passively anti-woman. They make opposing abortion about “slut shaming,” about trying to control women who want to have sex but not to have children, not about “saving babies.” 

And then they wonder why women get upset. They wonder why they’re called anti-woman. They shouldn’t. It should be obvious. 

[cut] 

Having an abortion is one way of taking responsibility for an unwanted pregnancy, just as deciding to go through with the pregnancy and either keep the resulting baby or give it up for adoption are other ways of taking responsibility. We should trust women to make their own decisions, not force them to take the course we personally think they should take. Unless, of course, it really is about punishing women audacious enough to have sex without wanting to be mothers by forcing them to go through pregnancy and have a child. 

And if you read the above paragraph and then say “but wait! it’s a baby! abortion is not ‘taking responsibility’ because it’s murder!” then why in the world would you make the “take responsibility” and “deal with the consequences” argument in the first place? If abortion is murder, then why talk about women needing to “take responsibility” for their “voluntary choice” to have sex? Shouldn’t you just be focusing on the whole murder thing, rather than talking about a pregnancy and resulting baby like they’re some sort of “consequences” that a woman choosing to have sex should have to be shouldered with? If abortion isn’t murder, the only reason to oppose it is in an effort to control women’s sexuality. If abortionismurder, than whether or not women should “take responsibility” should not matter. Only inveighing against murder should matter. 

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Women need to “take responsibility” for what, exactly? Since birth control sometimes fails and I doubt this argument includes exceptions for birth control failure, I have to conclude that the argument is that when a woman chooses “voluntarily” to have sex she must “take responsibility” if a pregnancy results. In other words, if a woman chooses to be sexually active, well, she is assenting to motherhood. This used to be true, and was one reason women could not reach parity with men – they faced constant childbearing, with all of the difficulty, invasiveness, and risk it involved. But this isn’t true anymore, and those who want it to be true, whether they realize it or not, are hearkening back to a time when women “stayed in their places.” 

And before someone says that women can just abstain from sex if they don’t want to become pregnant, let me point out two things: a) in the case of premarital sex, this is a free country and you are not allowed to impose your personal views on another and b) in the case of marital sex, remaining celibate is silly, since sex is important to maintaining a healthy marriage (Getting married should not mean becoming a constant baby machine. I’m in my twenties, married, and the mother of two children. My husband and I don’t want more at this point in time, or perhaps ever. Should we then be celibate until I reach menopause?). 

Unless we women can control when and if to have children, we cannot reach equality. Being able to control our reproduction is, in my opinion, one of the most important advances in women’s rights in the twentieth century. And damned if I’m giving that up.While the comment discussed here didn’t use the word “punishment,” just the other day on facebook I saw someone talking about how women need to deal with the “consequences” of their actions, aka children. In other words, “oh, you had sex and got pregnant and yet you don’t want to be a mother? too bad! when you had sex you were assenting to motherhood, so you have to take the baby regardless!” This is not okay. We do not punish people by forcing them to raise or bear children! And beyond that, we don’t punish people by forcing them to let a foreign entity grow in their bodies for nine months! That is wrong on so many levels! 

In other words, pregnancy and motherhood becomes a consequence that any sexually active woman must bear whether they want to or not. You had sex? Well then deal! This is part of the package! Of course, this completely ignores the fact that it does not have to be part of the package. This is what the sexual revolution was all about. Thanks to birth control and abortion, women can be sexually active without becoming mothers. And that’s the problem, isn’t it? Because at some level, the people talking about how women need to “take responsibility” for “voluntarily choosing” to have sex don’t want women to be able to be sexually active without facing the attendant pregnancies and children. Opposing abortion is a way to control women’s sexuality, and through their sexuality, their lives. 

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Anyone who makes the “take responsibility” argument, regardless of whether they also believe abortion involves “murdering babies,” opposes abortion at least in part out of a desire to control women and their sexuality. And then the act all confused when people point that out. “It’s all about saving babies!” they say. Really? Then drop the “take responsibility” for your “voluntary choice” to have sex bit. Because you’re not fooling anyone. 

Ultimately, this is about betrayal. The argument made in the comment I quoted at the beginning of this post bothers me because it lays bare the reality that there is a blatantly and actively anti-woman aspect in the anti-abortion movement. I grew up ignorant of this. I thought it was all about “saving babies.” I really believed that. And now, every time I see this argument and realize that it is not simply about saving babies, that to many people it is about controlling women, including me, well, I feel betrayed. And angry. My childhood innocence and trust is gone. 

Note: Ironically, every politician who makes an exception for rape is doing so based on this argument – the idea that when women “voluntarily” choose to have sex, they have to “take responsibility” for the “consequences” of that, and that rape victims are exempt because they never “voluntarily” chose to have sex. After all, if abortion really is murder (the “save the babies” argument) it doesn’t matter how those babies were conceived or who their fathers are. It’s still murder. In other words, someone who opposes abortion in all circumstances has plausible deniability when it comes to being anti-woman (i.e. they may actually think it’s all about “saving babies” and not realize that they’re erasing women) but someone who allows rape exemptions does not. Weird, I know.

Libby Anne goes over the hypocrisy of the Pro-life's theory perfectly. It is never about babies, and always about controlling women.

Let's now go back and talk more about that 'men are responsible' bit. An article in support of modesty/purity culture says this:

Teaching modesty and purity to women does not make them responsible for the way men behave. The Apostle Paul says quite the opposite. Ephesians 5 calls men to “present her a pure and spotless bride,” referencing a husband presenting his wife to God. While men and women are both charged to express self-control for their own individual purity, only men are charged specifically with being responsible for the sexual wholeness of the opposite gender. According to God, it’s the man’s responsibility to act in integrity regardless of how a woman acts or dresses. This seems to place the ultimate responsibility for respecting human sexuality squarely on the shoulders of men not woman. Protecting a sister’s sexual integrity is one of the highest forms of respect that a man can show to a woman. We don’t have to earn that respect, but we can be worthy of it. That’s why it is so important that women have good conversations with one another about modesty and purity, and why it’s especially important that we celebrate our daughter’s beauty while we teach them self-control. 

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But the third wave feminists have upped the ante to something terribly illogical: I can do whatever I want and the consequences are never my fault.  

No. You can’t behave anyway you want without people losing respect for you. 

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Saying that teaching modesty promotes rape is not only a gross exaggeration, but it is an invitation for women to believe they can behave anyway they want and the consequences are never their fault.

The goal of this article is to reveal the “myth” of modesty/Purity Culture enforcing Rape Culture. As you can tell, I strongly disagree with the article. The whole 'lust is evil' is the foundation that the article (and Purity Culture) works off of. The quotes above did a great job talking about that. The concept of 'modesty' is also inherently part of Rape Culture. I want to point out here the inherent objectification – a man must protect and is responsible for all women's purity. What women themselves think or feel doesn't matter. What we decide to do with our bodies doesn't matter. In fact, according to the article, we should be grateful that men will police us; and teach our girls modesty, so we're worthy of that domination. And it is domination. The men hold all the power.

The second and third parts I quoted are pure Rape Culture – nothing a woman does means she deserves to be raped or sexually harassed. Respect has nothing to do with how a woman dresses, or if she flirts. If I personally don't have much respect for someone, that's fine. But that lack of respectdoes notmean I, or anyone else, has a right to harm them or violate them.

None of this is limited to Purity Culture. It's Rape Culture, and all of these are an inherent part of our society. Many people who are not conservative Christians do these things too. Sexism and Rape Culture are so ingrained into our society and social conditioning, most of the time we're not even consciously aware of it.

'Men can't control themselves, and a woman's body is always sexual' is the underlying statement of Rape Culture. We see this especially when it comes to female nipples and breasts. This video (watch it!) between an Australian newsman and an American woman (Lina Esco) is informative and thought provoking. Men can go topless without a problem, but women get arrested. Public breastfeeding is not only shamed, but even illegal in five states. A female nipple gets an NC-17 rating but a graphic beheading doesn't.

And it's not just nipples and breasts. It's all of the female body. It's schools' dress codes, which enforce Rape Culture (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).It is the whole incredibly shaming phrase 'modest is hottest'. One student, when speaking against her principal, says,

You are literally sending the message to young girls, who are already struggling with self- confidence, that hiding their body makes them more attractive. You are establishing a sense of shame in these young, developing minds and bodies. A human has the right to wear whatever they feel comfortable in. Showing less skin doesn't make you any more attractive. Showing more skin does not make you any less attractive. When someone calls you attractive that just means that they are attracted to you. 

At what point in your career did you find it appropriate to define my “hotness”? Why are you at all concerned with how “hot” I am? You are teaching us, through modesty, to be objects of sexual arousal. I'm sorry, but I don't dress myself to look "hot" for anyone. I dress myself as a way of expressing my body and myself. If covering up my body is supposed to make people sexually and physically attracted to me, then how would those people feel if I decide to have sexual relations with them, without clothes on? 

How am I supposed to love and feel proud of my naked body and develop a sense of sexuality when exposing my body is deemed shameful and unattractive? Since when should being “hot” be my concern? I don't want to be with someone who just thinks I'm hot. I want to be with someone who loves and respects all the parts of my mind, personality and body. THAT'S what you should be teaching, not “how to be hot.” 

My body is not a sinful temptation that needs to be hidden. 
 

My body is not your personal, sexual object. 
 

My body does not overshadow my character. 
 

My body is not any more sexual than a man's body. 
 

My body is not here to look “hot” for you.

Remember that one of the first comments made to victims is 'what were you wearing?', as if booty shorts or a tank top make someone rape you. They don't.

Let's look at some more quotes.

One article says,

The commenter is making the same logical error that many slut-shamers and victim-blamers do: He is equating being attracted to someone with vocalizing that attraction (which can often be unwanted and intimidating). Lust is not the problem, and neither is attraction or desire. Let me say that again: Lust is not the problem. [cut] I saw a guy in the elevator the other day who was the most heart-stoppingly perfectly shaped man I had ever seen in the flesh. Did I want to take his clothes off and get it on in the elevator? Hell yes. Did I say that to him? Did I wink at him? Did I stare at his ass? Did I try to touch him? No, because my desire is not his problem. 

I’ve spent exactly one afternoon on a topless beach, and the emotional reaction I associate with that experience most vividly is one of freedom. Not physical freedom (though seriously, it feels great), but freedom from a very specific kind of fear and worry. People looked at me, of course, as they looked at everyone, but they also looked past me. I realized, perhaps astoundingly late in life, that they’re just breasts.They are not powerful inducers of assholery, magnets for commentary, or beacons beaming out a signal that men can’t help but respond to with harassment.

Another article says,

Meanwhile, men are free to walk around without their shirts on (because apparently the male nipple is a far more benign sight) and it’s only when they intentionally expose themselves in an intentionally lewd manner that their public nudity becomes a problem. In other words, by American cultural logic, topless men are only sexual when they want to be, but topless women are inherently sexual regardless of their actions — with the sole exception of breastfeeding. 

[cut] 

When I studied abroad in Spain during college, the beaches my friends and I went to were topless. The first time I overcame my initial nervousness and removed my bikini top, nothing happened. No one gawked or pointed. Nobody cringed or leered. I was just another beachgoer soaking up some Mediterranean sun. My exposed breasts were just breasts, not billboards for sexual willingness, and it felt incredible.

Another article says,

The human breast is a mysterious appendage. We ascribe so much meaning to it and make such fuss about a pair of them. But men's breasts are not exactly a big deal, are they? Men can be topless and walk down the street on a hot day, wash the car, or sunbath without much reproach in modern America. Their breasts are not sexualized like women's breasts are. Men's breasts are thought to be vestigial organs. Useless. Or better yet: no one really thinks of men's breasts at all. That is, unless they become enlarged like those of women through the accumulation of fat or sculpted muscle. Then and only then do male breasts become noticeable as an attractor or detractor of male appeal. 

Nevertheless, stigmas about male breasts are ignored more often than not. 

Women's breasts, on the other hand, are never ignored. They are perceived as sexy, sexual, and beautiful. Unlike the male breast, the female breast is a “private part” - almost as private as male or female genitalia. As private as female breasts are however, they are celebrated, exploited, and even condemned. Strangely, we are completely accustomed to these habits as if they are just as natural as breathing. 

[cut] 

What is even more silly is how post-partum lactating women are shooed away from the public sphere as they feed their infants with their scorned nipples. Counterintuitive to nature, our confrontation with the maternal functionality of breasts can inspire disgust in many people. What those people do not realize however, is that they are unwittingly judging the female breast based on sexuality and archaic notions of decency, not on the actual reality of its true purpose or existence.

And another says,

Sigh. What’s the problem with girls not wearing bras, you ask? How about ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. What the fck is good with people policing how women chose to dress their own bodies? That’s the real problem here. 

My Facebook friend who wrote this status is enforcing the idea that there is a specific way to be a “proper lady.” This ideal, in part, rejects women who embrace their sexualities or bodies in any way. “Proper ladies” restrain their “sexy parts” from bouncing all over the place. In other words, by not wearing bras, women are displaying themselves as sexual beings, which is #disgusting! 

This is pretty ridiculous, because, contrary to popular belief, breasts aren’t even sex organs. Their anatomical function is to feed babies. So not only is this dude imposing an archaic and unfair standard which dictates to girls a narrow, “correct” way for us be in the world, he’s also sexualizing our bodies. 

Personally, most of the time, I don’t like wear a bra, so I choose not to. For me, bras are unnecessary and uncomfortable, but my choice comes with consequences. One day my senior year of high school, my friend and I were preforming Nicki Minaj’s Roman’s Revenge at this karaoke event my high school puts on every year. I wasn’t wearing a bra, and I was jumping all over the place, attempting to channel my inner Roman, when my shirt slipped thus exposing my nip. I was horrified. As I exited the auditorium, I happened upon my friend Jake. He had been planning to ask a girl to be his prom date by writing “PROM?” on his chest with a marker, and there he was in the lobby of our school getting assistance from a faculty member who was filling in the dot of the question mark on his nipple. Which is great for Jake! What made me so angry about that situation was that I had to feel embarrassed and ashamed, where no one thought twice that Jake’s nipple was visible. 

That, my friends, is what I call inequity. I’m not at all saying I want to walk around with my nipples out all day. I’m saying that the right to do so (for the most part) is given to guys, while women who don’t wear bras or expose their breast in public are not seen as respectable or appropriate. 

Over and over (and over) again, our personal agency as women is stripped from us, especially when it comes to making personal choices about our own bodies. And this robbery doesn’t only come from unjust laws churned out of our state legislators. It also comes from our peers, families and friends, from our schools, places of worship, communities and Facebook newsfeeds alike. From all sides, the “right” way to live in our bodies is dictated to us. As a woman, sometimes disregarding these rules means getting your feelings hurt, getting teased or looked down upon. Sometimes your safety is threatened when you step outside of the norm. 

Instead of looking to girls to “act the right way” we as a society need to analyze where these concepts of “rightness” come from and why we find in necessary to hold onto them so dearly. Most importantly, we need to give the right of choice back to our girls. I want a world where girls can choose to whether or not bras are for themselves. I want a world where she doesn’t have to validate or explain her reasoning for this choice. I especially want a world where that choice isn’t seen as reflecting upon her morals, politics, or what “type” of woman she is.

So is this sexualization? After all, all parts of women's bodies are being called sexual.

But they're actually not. Read the quotes carefully – the mindset is that of objectification. A man's nipple is benign because he's more than just his nipple – he's a human being. 

This is where the true definition of being sexual comes in: “relating to the instincts, physiological processes, and activities connected with physical attraction or intimate physical contact between individuals.”

Any body part can be sexual, but no body part is inherently sexual. 

If a woman is just an object, however, then her body can be sexual whenever a man wants it to be. By this logic, the very act of a woman living and going about her life gives men the right to do whatever they want with her. She's just there for their use, right?

Wrong.

That type of thinking is the foundation of Rape Culture.

Slut and Prude Shaming. So now that we've talked about Rape Culture, we're going to talk about two shaming methods that go along with it. 

Slut-shaming, also known as slut-bashing, is the idea of shaming and/or attacking a woman or a girl for being sexual, having one or more sexual partners, acknowledging sexual feelings, and/or acting on sexual feelings. Furthermore, it’s “about the implication that if a woman has sex that traditional society disapproves of, she should feel guilty and inferior” (Alon Levy, Slut Shaming). It is damaging not only to the girls and women targeted, but to women in general an society as a whole. It should be noted that slut-shaming can occur even if the term “slut” itself is not used. 

Put in the most simple terms, slut-shaming happens when a person “publicly or privately [insults] a woman because she expressed her sexuality in a way that does not conform with patriarchal expectations for women” (Kat, Slut-Shaming vs. Rape Jokes). It is enabled by the idea that a woman who carries the stigma of being a slut — ie. an “out-of-control, trampy female” — is “not worth knowing or caring about” (Tanenbaum, p. 240). 

If all negative connotations are removed from the word, a “slut” is simply a person, most often a woman, who has had sex with multiple partners. In societies where the only acceptable expression of female sexuality is within a marriage (usually for the purpose of having children), engaging in sex with more than one partner is enough to justify the label of “slut” and the slut-shaming that comes with it. In societies such as the United States where it is not uncommon for people to have several relationships throughout their lives, for the most part it is no longer considered a requirement for a woman to wait until marriage before engaging in sex. However, this shift in sexual mores has simply shifted the goal posts for “proper” female sexuality from marriage to “the attitude of the girl, her emotional feeling for the boy she’s with and her feelings about sex as an expression of love” (Taunenbaum, p. 67). 

Policing women via what’s considered “normal” and “acceptable” boundaries for female sexuality is not limited to sex and sexual activity. For instance, women who wear “provocative clothing” (or just photographed while having breasts) are subjected to slut-shaming. As are women who are sexually aggressive and/or unabashedly lay claim to their own sexuality. 

As illustrated above, any woman who has had sex can be a victim of slut-shaming. A virgin can be a victim of slut-shaming. Indeed, as long as gendered slurs like “slut” continue to be weapons casually wielded against girls and women by both people from all walks of life, any female who acts in a way that another person doesn’t like is at risk for being slut-shamed. 

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Linguistically, the slut-shaming double standard can be seen in a variety of ways. One telling way is the frequency of sexual slurs aimed at women versus those aimed at men:In a study of North American English, Stanley (1977, cited by Graddol & Swann, 1989, p. 110) identified 220 words for a sexually promiscuous woman but only 20 for a sexually promiscuous man. [Sandra McKay and Nancy H. Hornberger (Cambridge University Press, 1995.): Sociolingüistics and language teaching, p. 226] 

Although the exact number of words for women versus men have undoubtedly changed since the above study, the ratio most likely remains about the same. In addition, the imbalance comes not only from frequency, but also content: 

[Terms for women who “sleep around” include] fast woman, hussy, doll, inamorata, siren, gypsy, minx, vamp, wench, trollop, coquette, bint, crumpet, floozy, scrubber, slag, groupie, nympho, and slut. […] The comparatively small field devoted to male promiscuity reinforces the notion of the double standard alluded to previously. The tenor of the terms is also entirely different: Casanova, Romeo, Lothario, and Don Juan derive status from their literary and historical pedigrees, while ladies’ man, lady-killer, gigolo, stud, and sugar daddy obviously do not have the same condemnatory overtones as most of the female terms. They embody machismo notions of power and conquest. The sole exception is roué. The invocation of great lovers of the past, real and fictional, serves to provide role models suggesting respectability. [Online 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica: Entry on Promiscuity] 

It is also worth noting that the above article contains the only positive reference to a sexually active woman I could find while researching this piece: sex-kitten. 

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As with many sexist phenomenon, women aren’t just the targets of slut-shaming, they are often the perpetrators as well. Not to mention that many times women will slut-shame in one moment and go on to revel in their “sluttiness” in the next. This, especially when compared to male behavior regarding sexuality, can be seen as confusing and contradictory: 

So is that what women slut-shaming other women is about? Do they worry they themselves might be labeled sluts? Do they want to appear less slutty? I don’t know. That may be part of it, but I don’t think it’s quite the same. After all, rarely do het men parade around in “gay” outfits and say “Look how gay I look” to other het men unless they want to get beat up. And yet a woman could wear what she considers herself to be a “slutty” outfit and say “Look how slutty I look” to her fellow non-slutty friends and get a couple of laughs and that’s it. [ubuntucat (Ubuntucat): Why do women slut-shame?.] 

The first thing to realize when talking about women slut-shaming each other is that infighting among oppressed groups is a necessary part for keeping those groups oppressed; ergo women are encouraged, through internalized sexism, to distrust each other and fight for male approval. In other words: 

Slut-shaming is one of the chief ways that women attempt to compete with each other for male approval in a patriarchy that defines women’s worth by their physical attractiveness and limits their ability to distinguish themselves by other means. [Nine Deuce (Rage Against the Man-chine): Sluts!.] 

It is also important to keep in mind that, in a patriarchal society, “male approval” translates into a form of power (albeit a limited one). Even in societies where women have access to other ways in which to attain power, girls are still encouraged from a young age to seek out and maintain male approval as a way to secure their own power in the world. 

Tanenbaum looks at this phenomenon as it relates to slut-shaming: 

Slut-bashing is a cheap and easy way to feel powerful. If you feel insecure or ashamed about your own sexual desires, all you have to do is call a girl a “slut” and suddenly you’re the one who is “good” and on top of the social pecking order. [Leora Tanenbaum (Harper Paperbacks, 2000.): Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation, p. 238.] 

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The consequences of slut-shaming go beyond the personal, shaping societal discourses on rape, abuse, and harassment: 

How many times has rape been discounted because a woman was deemed a slut? How many times are women called whores while their partners beat them? How often are women’s sexual histories used against them in workplace harassment cases? The sexual double standard is a lot more dangerous than we’d like to think. [Jessica Valenti: He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut: The Sexual Double Standard] 

A brief Google search on the above questions turned up: Alleged Victim Slut-Shamed, Rape Case Thrown Out, False Rape Accusations and Rape Culture, Georgia rape case dismissed because of victim’s sexual history?, 13-Year-Old Girl Commits Suicide After Classmates Spread Nude Photos, and Fighting back: workplace sexual harassment and the case of North Country *. (source)

Slut shaming is only done to women; men who have had a lot of sex are praised – they 'scored'. The word scored completely annihilates and objectifies the woman the man had sex with. She is just a way for the man to get social status and power.

Prude shaming is just as commonplace. How, you may ask? Well, it's done in mainly two ways. The first is when a woman says no. This brings on an onslaught of aggression and belittlement used to pressure the woman into saying yes (for reasons we will be talking about in a little while). This goes back to the objectification – the woman should feel grateful and flattered that a man wants to use her. She's just a sex object.

The second is a much more general way, and can be done to both women and men. The other end of the belief spectrum is that there is nothing better than sex, and that everyone should be having sex all the time. When this plays out between women, they will boast about their sexual experiences to other women and demean them if they say they aren't interested in sex, or that they don't have much experience. It is done somewhat differently with men. With men, it is connected entirely to their power and status. We will be talking about this more in a moment.

In reality, when (or if) to have sex is an extremely important personal decision. Everyone has the right to their own decision, and it needs to be respected.

Also, 'sluts' and 'prudes' are sexist terms in themselves and are only used to hurt. The end goal is to get rid of them.

Femininity and Masculinity.

A large amount of 'feminists' rage war on femininity, which actually only enforces oppression. Saying that there should be only one type of woman is the complete opposite of true feminism. Especially when that ideal type is a masculine woman.

Women (including myself) frequently get told we're not really feminists if we like makeup, dresses, skirts, cooking, staying at home, etc. That the Patriarchy brainwashed us into liking those things. I am told that there is nothing natural about femininity, that it's all a performance.War is raged, calling romantic love “the pivot of oppression”, that love “compounds painful feelings of dissatisfaction and low self-esteem.”

This is sexism, plain and simple. By saying femininity is unnatural and bad, we are saying that to be feminine is wrong. We are saying women can only be accepted if they act masculine. We don't blink at the sight of a woman in jeans and a t-shirt; but a man in a dress is ridiculed, harassed, and labeled a cross-dresser. It really says something that in the past it was okay to be a stay-at-home mom and not to be a stay-at-home dad, and now it's not okay for either of them to stay at home.

No one should be forced to wear make-up, or stay at home. But if you love dresses, and love, and pink, that is absolutely alright. This is something I struggled with for a while – I bought the lie that I had to scorn pink, dresses, blouses, skirts, high heels, etc. to be an equal and enlightened woman. And you know what? I felt miserable, because I wasn't being true to myself. It's psychologically proven that your clothing affects your mood (here, here, here, and here), and there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to look your best. Make-up makes some people feel better and more confident (here and here). Self-love and self-care is crucial for your mental health (here and here).

A woman doesn't have to be the breadwinner or 'do it all' to be happy and successful. Many women are happier staying at home and many are happier working. It's all about what's best for you, and those in your life; not what society “says” you should do, and feel guilty if you don't – that's sexism.

Like I said earlier, in an ideal world, the gender binary wouldn't exist. The gender binary is inherently oppressive and harmful to everyone. Getting rid of the gender binary is the end goal. However, we are not there yet. Not only do we still put people in the gender binary, we continue to enforce toxic masculinity as the ideal while damning all femininity.

Anyone can have 'feminine' or 'masculine' traits – it's associating these traits to a specific gender and enforcing them as a whole that is the problem. We are confusing people being inherently different with the genders being inherently different.We are all amazingly complex beings with a large range of different traits. 

To be clearer, 'femininity' and 'masculinity' are social constructs because they take traits and assign them to a certain gender. The traits themselves are not social constructs.

But, you might be saying, what are 'feminine' or 'masculine' traits? Here's a list of the most common ones:

Stereotypical Feminine Traits: peaceful, gentle, kind, vulnerable, delicate, humble, empathetic, nurturing, loving, affectionate, compassionate, optimistic, submissive, domesticated, refined, passive, codependent, interdependent, accepting, soft, graceful, naive, innocent, emotional, vulnerable, forgiving, sensitive, intuitive, hysterical/unstable/irrational/insane, nice, fragile, weak, patient, veganism/vegetarianism, environmentally conscious

Stereotypical Masculine Traits: aggressive, assertive, stoic/unemotional, active, independent, coarse, dominating, ambitious, driven, demanding, hardy/strong/tough, worldly, sensory, desire, decisive, direct, brave, powerful, logical/rational, cynical, revenge, war, career-focused, successful, daring, adventurous, courageous,competitive, proud, egotistical, protective, impatient, meat

There are both negative and positive traits under each label. Neither label is better than the other – and hopefully one day there won't be any labels. But that day is far off.

I love love, I love the psychology behind love, and having healthy and loving relationships is one of the biggest priorities in my life. And you know what? That doesn't make me any less ambitious or driven. You are not weak for wanting love.

True, unconditional, healthy love is the very basis of our being. It is the most powerful force in the world. Love is infinite, you never run out of it. It strengthens you. Love is not like hatred or revenge, where the only way to fuel it is to give up happiness and peace. Love fuels itself. The proof? Psychology shows that love gives you more energy, is good for your heart, and overall makes you healthier, as does physical affection (here, here, here, here, and here). Love and physical affection are crucial to our brain development (here, here, and here). To find out about healthy love, see here; and here for what is abuse.

Assertiveness is the healthy alternative to aggressiveness. Humility (hereand here), forgiveness (here, here, here, and here), kindness (here, here, here, here, and here), patience (here and here), hope (here and here), empathy, gratitude (here and here),and compassion (here and here) make us healthier and better people. Consequently, the opposites (same links), are unhealthy: pride, revenge, resentment, judgment, grudges, condemnation, contempt, despair, cynicism, scorn, ingratitude, impatience, frustration, meanness, etc. True strength comes from being vulnerable (here, here, and here).

We are now going to talk about toxic masculinity and society's 'ideal' man, and the consequences that has for us all. 

I’ve been teaching workshops on male gender socialization for about 15 years or so. The foundation of my presentation is the Act Like a Man Box, which I learned about from Paul Kivel’s book, Men’s Work: How to Stop the Violence That Tears Our Lives Apart. I like calling it the “Act Like a Man Box,” rather than “The Man Box” (which is a title I’ve also seen used for the basic idea) because it highlights how masculinity is a performance. When I do this exercise, I ask the group to brainstorm words that describe “real men.” And while I influence the responses by asking leading questions like “what does he do for a living?” or “what does he do for fun?”, the responses have been pretty consistent, regardless of the age, gender mix, sexual orientation, or racial makeup of the group. As long as the participants grew up in or have spent significant time in the US, they know what this guy looks like: 

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One of the primary reasons that boys and men gay bash and bully queers is that they need to perform masculinity in order to show the world that they’re in the Box. And since very few guys can always be in the Box for their entire lives, the trick is to act like you are in order to cover for any lapses. In effect, the performance of masculinity requires constant vigilance to make sure that nobody sees any missteps. Since the logic of the box is an either/or, you’re either all the way in or you’re all the way out. 

On the other hand, all of the words on the outside fit into one of three groups: gay, female, loser. I think that says pretty interesting things about homophobia and sexism. The way I think of it, those are the bricks that make up the Box and shame is the mortar that holds it together. 

The Box is one of main reasons why men harass women on the street and why catcalling and violence tends to escalate when men are in groups. Since the Box is hierarchical as well as performative, the guy at the bottom of the heap is at risk of being cast out. So each guy has to compete with the others in order to not be the one who’s outside the Box. And as each one’s performance becomes more vigorous, it forces the others to do the same. 

As a sex educator, I often see how the Box affects sexuality. The guy in the Box has lots of partners, a really big penis, and always gets it up, gets it in, and gets it off. 

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So the notion that masculinity is fleeting and requires vigilant reinforcement isn’t new to me, but there’s some new research to back it up. Time Magazine has an article about a new paper, Precarious Manhood and Its Links to Action and Aggression, in which the researchers looked at the ways that men deal with the fleeting nature of manhood. Men have to constantly prove and re-prove their status, as they showed in three experiments. 

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As a follow-up, they asked men to braid hair (the control group braided rope) and tested their actions afterward by giving them the choice of solving a puzzle or punching a bag, and they were more likely to punch. In a similar experiment where both the hair-braiders and the rope-braiders were given a pad to punch, the hair-braiders punched harder. And in another version of the braiding experiment, all of the participants braided hair and were either allowed to punch a bag or not. The ones who punched it felt less anxiety. 

What does all of this tell us? Well, it helps explain why so many men resort to violence when they think that their masculinity is threatened – it’s an easy way to demonstrate that they’re in the Box. And it also shows how delicate masculinity can be. If all it takes to hurt it is braiding someone’s hair, it has to be pretty fragile. 

Unfortunately, while masculinity is pretty delicate, the construct of Box is quite resilient. When I get up in front of a group and start talking about it, I immediately put myself outside of the Box because the guy in the Box doesn’t talk about it. The difference, of course, is that I reject the entire notion of the Box. (source)

And:

For American men, the social mechanism many have come to call the Man Box is the dominant frame for performing masculinity. Charlie Glickman writes eloquently about it in his article titled Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box. Glickman prefers the phrase “Act like a Man Box” over simply “Man Box” because he views masculinity as something we men perform, much like an actor performs a theatrical role. I agree with him. 

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The Man Box exists to accrue power upward in its internal hierarchy and it does so by isolating men emotionally and then channeling their resulting anger into the repetitious and addictive act of policing and punishing others. Policing ranges from dismissal, sarcasm and contempt, to economic violence, physical brutality and murder. 

The level of conformity needed in order to be fully accepted within the Man Box is not, in fact, possible to achieve. The more that men and women are herded toward conformity, the more slight the differences that are needed to trigger comment, harassment or attack. This is because the purpose of the Man Box is not to achieve social conformity. The purpose of the man box is to target difference and grant permission for acting out aggression. This self-perpetuating closed loop of emotional suppression, reactivity and policing is constantly taking place even among groups of men who reside entirely within the Man Box. 

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Men who inhabit the Man Box exist in an unyielding web of micro aggressions and finely tuned conformities. Accordingly, the Man Box is both emotionally and relationally isolating. It does not encourage community through empathy or emotional connectivity. Men in the Man Box are “stoic” and “self reliant”. They do not reveal their deeper fears or insecurities. Accordingly, their hidden emotional landscape and the issues that arise from it are rarely addressed or resolved. Men who suffer from a lack of emotional connection typically struggle with higher levels of stress, alcoholism, drug abuse, violence, failed relationships and shorter lifespans. 

Because the man box thrives on attacking difference, empathy and tolerance of diversity represent direct threats to the othering the Man Box requires to acquire external targets for policing. Inside the Man Box, men must be ready to join in the escalation of what Glickman calls “the performance of manhood” without hesitation or risk being cast out. This performance of manhood can range from conforming to a sports focused social culture to attacking a transexual person in a back alley. 

Ultimately, the internal pressure to police leaves men little choice but to attack what they are told to attack. As their capacity to connect emotionally is suppressed and their dependence on the narcotic thrill of attacking others is constantly reinforced, the stage is set for disastrous results in the social, political, religious and corporate cultures these men inhabit. 

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The illegal and unethical behavior by big banks like JP Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs in the lead up to the subprime mortgage collapse is the result of corporate cultures that continue to elevate their own interests above those of even their own clients. This capacity to dismiss ethical and moral responsibilities on a corporate scale is clearly a by-product of a culture of othering by which those who do not reside within a corporate culture have little value beyond being disposable sources of revenue. In corporations where the Man Box is embedded in the dominant organizing structures, corporate executives dismiss the interests of those who are outside the organization, often placing them in a collective adversarial category, in which those who are not directly aligned with corporate leadership deserve to suffer; or worse, should actively be punished. 

A startling glimpse of this institutionalized punishment dynamic was revealed in 2004 when CBS News gained access to tapes of Enron energy traders who, after artificially spiking energy prices that had plunged California into rolling blackouts, then laughed at the results. 

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The repetitive policing and punishing of others which takes place at the personal level in the Man Box ultimately underpins entire institutional cultures which, in turn, dehumanize and prey on others on a vast scale, resulting in economic, environmental and military violence. When individual othering goes global: the poor on other continents are defined as different and deserving of their suffering. Entire continents are marginalized and the body counts can run into the millions. 

When the Man Box informs the worldview of those at the top of our private or public institutions, those institutions are automatically aligned against any who are not white, male, American, Christian, employed and so on. As private institutions like corporations undermine our global economic stability with impunity, public institutions like the US House of Representatives, lately a bastion of Man Box style thinking, attack the safety nets meant to cushion populations from the vicious boom and bust cycles unregulated corporate malfeasance creates. We all suffer the effects of this catastrophic othering, whether it is pollution and unemployment here, or endless military engagements overseas. Military engagements in places where drone strikes create “collateral human damage”, but that’s acceptable because it’s happening to “them”, and they are not like us. And in so much as economic and military violence are ongoing to this very day, we all are, on some level, able to collectively other those who lie below us on the global economic ladder. (source)

And:

Boys aren't supposed to do a lot of things: show fear or pain, compassion or tenderness; but of course men feel a full range of emotions, whether we're “supposed to” or not.“That was like the central struggle of my life, making sure I got angry in time so that nobody got to see me cry in public,” said Carlos Andres Gomez, author of this year's Man Up: Cracking the Code of Modern Masculinity. Gomez is part of a growing movement of men discussing the alienating emphasis of aggression and dominance in male culture. This movement blames the disconnect at the heart of male culture for a variety of social ills, from homophobia to bullying to violence against women. And it's trying to encourage men to reform masculinity from the inside-out. 

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The toxic narratives of unhealthy masculinity are often unquestioned, and they start very young. “There are no four more depressing words in educational policy circles then 'boys will be boys,'” Kimmel says. “Because when do we say that? We say that when we throw up our hands in resignation that we can't do anything. Why don't we say 'boys will be boys' when a man wins the Noble Peace Prize?” 

But violence against women, and violence in general, disproportionately happens at the hands of men. So how to balance the countering of negative narratives (men are inevitably violent) with the reality that men need to take responsibility for male violence, and work to end it? 

Compassion might be a place to start, for yourself and others. “Trying to hold men accountable connects to unhealthy masculinity,” McGann says. “I've said for years that one of the things about unhealthy masculinity, or dominant stories of masculinity, is that men are socialized to push past pain, ignore pain, like it doesn't harm you in any kind of way, you're not vulnerable. If you can't really recognize and experience your own pain, then how can you do it with anybody else?” 

Gomez has seen this divide on the book tour for Man Up, where men will often argue with him during the Q&A and then pull him aside after to say that they relate to his message. “The self that we project publically is at war with its private self, and you're asking them to align those two things, and that's a scary thing,” he says. 

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For now, the turning of the tide is happening man-by-man. Which given the emphasis on rugged individualism in masculine culture, isn't so surprising. But Gomez thinks this just the start. “I believe in a majority of one,” he says. “My whole life, I just wanted one guy to be that foil,” Gomez says. 

To illustrate, he tells me a story about some young guys he met at a prison reading. “These are men who've been told that they're worthless and they're monsters and they're demons; and I get really emotional in front of them, and then some guy gets emotional and reads me some letter that he wrote to his mom, who he'll never see again. Why is he doing that with a stranger?” 

Because we are hungry, I want to say. Because we know we are more than what we've been told. 

“If that's possible in that space with a guy who I've met for 20 minutes,” Gomez says. “You can't tell me that all of us don't have that kind of magic inside of us.” (source)

Please watch The Devastating Effects of the Phrase “Be a Man” video.

And:

Schools in Philadelphia are currently on high alert because of a threat of violence made against “a university near Philadelphia.” The threat was posted on 4chan, an anonymous message board, on Friday, the day after a murder-suicide that left 10 people dead in yet another campus shooting. Today’s threat, echoing other comments, praised the Oregon shooter for being part of a “Beta Rebellion,” a beta being a weak, unattractive man who lacks confidence and can’t get a girl. An unnamed police official described the Oregon shooter this way, “He didn’t have a girlfriend, and he was upset about that. He comes across thinking of himself as a loser. He did not like his lot in life, and it seemed like nothing was going right for him.” 

Prior to last week’s mass shooting, the gunman allegedly also wrote a 4-chan warning, “Don’t go to school tomorrow if you are in the Northwest.” Among the responses, many encouraging him or glorifying mass killing, was the comment “You might want to target a girls (sic) school which is safer because there are no beta males throwing themselves for their rescue.” Another read, “//r9K needs a new martyr alongside our hallowed Elliot,” a reference to Elliot Rodger. Like Rodger, it appears the Oregon school shooter felt let down by life and women. 

It’s impossible to confirm if the original post was made by the gunman, but the commentary is insightful and disturbing nonetheless. 

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The term “beta male” succinctly captures certain attitudes about gender, hierarchy and sex. Whether role playing or not, as one redditor put it, some people are taking the idea that there are betas and alpha males seriously and concluding that, “Since sexual freedom is rising and women today can choose with whom they want to have sex, a small minority of “alpha males” gets all girls while most betas are left in the dust. See this picture. After the betas have realized this, they’ll rise up and stop the feminist insanity that left them without pussy.” 

However, many media outlets and analysts continue to treat information like this like an aside, or, when addressing the issue, actually feed it. Consider, for example, this headline: “Chris Mintz Defies The Age Of The Beta Male.” In the meantime, another young white man with a gun has wreaked havoc on a community and once again the media is fixated on a numbing conversation about guns and mental illness. These are important dimensions of this crisis, but they are insufficient ones. Without addressing the gender and race dimensions of male entitlement in the United States — and the role they play in the treatment of mental illness, gun culture and the targeting of victims — we will never tackle this problem in a meaningful way. 

Consider schools, for example. Schools make up 10 percent of mass shooting sites in the US and are highly gendered targets of opportunity. They are places where educated women aggregate and compete with men as equals. According to one thorough analysis, women are twice as likely to die in school shootings. This year alone we have already had 45 school-based mass shootings. 

But schools are not the only places. Gyms, shopping malls,  places of worship are also frequent targets, and are similarly places where women and girls are predictably present in greater numbers. Similarly, movie theaters provide opportunities for gunmen to express particular rage. When John Hauser, a man who had publicly repeatedly expressed misogynistic views in public, methodically mowed down 11 people in July at a theatre, the film they were watching was Trainwreck, a “chick flick” in dismissive parlance, one frequently discussed in terms of feminism. Workplace shootings also have a marked result: being killed while at work is the second most likely way for women to die in the workplace, after car accidents. 

Lastly, there is, perhaps, no greater gendered target of opportunity than homes which, in terms of intimate partner violence, become Alpha male arenas. As Melissa Jeltsen wrote earlier this year, “The untold story of mass shootings in America is one of domestic violence.” Fully 70 percent of mass shooting incidents occur in homes, but we don’t generally hear about them because these crimes are considered a matter of private, not public health. In August, for example, a man tracked down his ex-girlfriend, and executed her, her husband and six children. He was apparently angry that she had changed the locks on her doors. Headlines focused on the “incomprehensibility” of the crime and about “domestic disputes.” 

Overall, according to a recent Huffington Post analysis, 64 percent of the victims of mass murders are women and children. 

So, it doesn’t require an explicit statement of misogyny to result in a explicitly disproportionate harm to women and children due to the violent expression of masculinity. There is, however, for the record, no shortage of explicit and public statements of hatred of women, in the U.S. and the rest of the world. Particularly in connection to women’s education and status. 

What may come to mind for many people in terms of anti-feminist violence, schools and girls is the catalytic shooting of Malala Yousafzai and her classmates, while on their way to school. Acid thrown on schoolgirls in Afghanistan and is not far behind in terms of hatefulness. However, we have no shortages in countries where we tend not to focus on gender. In 1989 a man walked into an engineering class in a Montreal school and — yelling,  “I hate feminists!” — shot 28 people, killing 14 women. He only shot men who interfered. In the US, in 2006 a truck driver walked into an Amish schoolhouse, “ordered the 15 boys in the room to leave, along with several adults, and demanded that the 11 girls line up facing the blackboard.” He tied the girls’ legs together and shot them. In 2013 Norwegian mass shooter Anders Breivik killed 77 people, 69 of them teenage students. Anti-feminism was an essential aspect of his manifesto, although that information often got buried in his wider ranting. He was concerned that feminism would “deny the intrinsic worth of native Christian European heterosexual males.” He wrote that, “the fate of European civilization depends on European men steadfastly resisting Politically Correct feminism.” Prior to killing six people during his 2014 killing spree, Elliot Rodger explained, “I will enter the hottest sorority house of UCSB, and I will slaughter every single spoiled stuck up blonde slut I see inside there...The true Alpha Male.” Clearly Boko Haram has no monopoly on targeting educated girls or schools. 

The demographics of mass shootings in the United States are a testament to how inseparably and tightly bound race and gender to one another. During the past 30 years, all but one of the mass murders in the U.S. was committed by men, 90 percent of whom were white. Sociologist Michael Kimmel has worked for decades, conducting extensive research, to illuminate the relationship between race, hyper masculinity, homophobia and violence. As he put it after the Sandy Hook shooting, “White men... have a somewhat more grandiose purpose: they want to destroy the entire world in some cataclysmic, video-game, and action movie-inspired apocalypse. If I’m going to die, then so is everybody else, they seem to say. Yes, of course, this is mental illness speaking: but it is mental illness speaking with a voice that has a race and a gender.” 

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When we spoke last year, she made a comparison with people’s behavior when drunk. “The way people express their symptoms has a lot to do with the ways that people learn to think. For example, Americans are violent drunks. American college men want to destroy things when they’re drunk. That’s a learnt behaviour. Violence is not necessarily associated with alcohol around the world.” Luhrmann’s research, revealed that the voice-hearing experiences of people with serious psychotic behaviors differ around the world. In Ghana the voices people hear are benign and playful, in the U.S. they are violent and harsh. 

Gender considerations also affect the way people deal with mental distress. “Women in distress,” she explained, “turn their anger against themselves, men in distress, turn to violence. I think that before the biomedical revolution of the 1980s, mental illness was feminized. Our general cultural ideas tend to think of emotion as just more feminine. However, after biomedical revolution, I would say that the stereotype for serious psychotic disorder did shift to more of a male model, the crazy angry psychotic person. It is, however, still much more difficult for men to seek help or to recognize that he needs help.” Think, for example, of something as basic as men learning to associate simply asking for directions as shameful or embarrassing. 

Last week’s shooting was, like many others, effectively a murder-suicide. The killer was dead before the end of the episode. It is estimated that there are 12 murder-suicides a week in the U.S. They may not be as publicly spectacular as this one, but they are every bit as tragic. Ninety percent of cases are perpetrated by men and involve guns 78 percent of those killed are women, and more than 90 percent of the killers who commit suicide are men. 

So, yes, we need strict gun control laws, a deeper understanding of the role of media and better mental illness treatment. However, what we really need, central to all of those dimensions, is a public conversation about hegemonic masculinity in the United States, particularly the historical and social relationship between ideals of white manhood, agency and guns. Masculinity does not have to be misogynistic. It doesn’t have to be based on white supremacy. It doesn’t have to cultivate the denial of men’s emotional pain. (source)

And:

After US president Obama’s call for restrictions on assault weapons on Dec. 6, Americans went gun shopping. 

That Monday, The New York Times reports that stock prices for gun makers Smith & Wesson and Ruger soared. Guns sold well on Black Friday, too, the day after three people were shot dead at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado and just two weeks after terrorists killed more than one hundred in coordinated attacks in Paris. In fact, gun sales have been rising steadily all year, as though determined to keep pace with the growing frequency of high-profile shootings. 

But who exactly are America’s gun owners? 

According to a Pew survey conducted in 2014, Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats to be members of a gun-owning household. Gun owners are also geographically spread out: They’re just as likely to live in the Midwestern US (38%) as they are to live on the West Coast (35%), or the South (34%), debunking the myth that gun ownership is more prevalent in southern states. (In the Northeast, by contrast, gun ownership is lower, at around 27%.) 

Above all, though, gun owners are men. It is true that gun sales are rising among women, but a substantial gender gap persists: In 2013, men were around three times as likely as women to own a gun. 

Over the past few years, far more women have favored banning semi-automatic weapons. A full two-thirds of women favor a ban compared to only 48% of men, according to a 2013 Pew study. Indeed, women tend to prioritize gun restrictions over gun rights generally, unlike their male counterparts. Couple this with the fact that the vast majority of mass shooters are also men, and a pattern emerges. America’s gun problem can’t be distilled down to one single issue, of course, but it’s clear that on top of crime and fears of terrorism and insufficient mental health resources and the Second Amendment, America’s gun problem has something to do with America’s masculinity problem. 

As Alankaar Sharma, a social worker and researcher, tells Quartz, “Possessing a gun is considered by many men, if not most, as a straightforward way of subscribing to dominant masculinity.” In his view, the patriarchal system, which privileges a certain set of masculine behaviors, values, and practices, provides men with “a clear and justifiable reason to own guns.” It cements their identity as masculine men. 

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Self-defense is a common rationale for carrying a gun, but studies show that defensive gun use rarely plays out the way people imagine. Shooting someone in the high stress scenario of an attack is extremely difficult, even for well-trained personnel. After the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris, a pro-gun group simulated the attack to demonstrate how they would have used guns to save lives. Tellingly, they all still “died” in the exercise. 

Not only does civilian gun use fail to protect people, there is a direct relationship between gun ownership in America and gun violence. John Cassidy at The New Yorker is right: Americans’ rush to buy more guns is a bit of “collective insanity.” But it’s a mistake to think about the trend in logical terms in the first place. Buying a gun isn’t a rational decision; it’s an emotional one. As Carlson puts it, the gun rights platform is about a “crisis of confidence in the American dream.” 

Of course, this is a very specific kind of American dream—one in which men hold a distinct, and presumably dominant, place of power and respect. But trade and technology have displaced the usefulness of brawny, working class men. This in turn has led some men to feel adrift, both emotionally and professionally. 

As Harry Brod, a sociologist and a founding figure in the field of men’s studies, explains to Quartz, “We’re talking about masculinity in a period of rising feminism and changing gender roles.” Women are leaning in. Hillary Clinton might be our next president. The patriarchy is far from finished, but men on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum especially are feeling threatened. 

Idealizing a physical masculinity can help negate this feeling. Gun marketers know this and so they appeal to male self-image to sell their weapons. In ads that ran in 2012, for instance, Bushmaster Firearms promised that if you buy their semi-automatic weapons, you can “consider your man card reissued.” (Guns makers have also started targeting women—as has the National Rifle Association—which doubtless helps explain the increase in female purchasers.) 

This might also explain why gun sales spike less after a shooting than after calls for stricter control: For men who look to guns to validate their sense of masculinity, the prospect of restrictions imposed by an external authority is disempowering and emasculating. 

Brod insists that we need to think about America’s gun problem as a distinctly gendered problem: “If you don’t understand that connection,” he tells Quartz, “you’re not going to solve the problem.” (source)

And:

Among survey respondents who said they’d been victims of sexual assault or rape, the majority of incidents were reported by women and girls (84 percent), while 16 percent were reported by men and boys. 

Most research on sexual violence focuses on male perpetrators and female victims, though the NCVS estimates that men were victims of over 51,000 incidents of rape or sexual assault last year. Some research suggests that men face a greater stigma in reporting rape and sexual assault than women, though men identified themselves as victims of predatory sexual behavior in several high-profile cases in 2017. 

“I think men are victimized far more than we realize, because when they come forward, people question their masculinity and sexuality,” said Callie Rennison, a professor for the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver. (source)

And:

An increasing number of men are admitting to having sex with women, not because they want to, but to prove they are not gay. 

Jesse Ford, a PhD sociology student at New York University, interviewed 39 college-aged men, from a variety of backgrounds, who said they have had unwanted, non-consensual sex with women. 

The study was published by Oxford Academic, and was inspired by the lack of men who have come forward during the #MeToo movement. 

Ford explained that “unwanted” sex was very different from sexual assault, as it is not forced upon someone and they have the power to stop it. She clarified: “All sexual assault is unwanted sex, but not all unwanted sex is sexual assault.” 

Of the men she interviewed, Ford said: “These men were reluctant to call their experiences sexual assault, and were more comfortable with terms such as ‘unwanted’ and ‘non-consensual.’” 

The student quickly noticed a pattern as to why the men had unwanted sex with women, with many revealing they felt pressurised. 

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Ford writes: “Many described having unwanted sex in order to project an image and to take advantage of a sexual opportunity. They worried that saying ‘no’ to sex might be strange, immature, offensive or emasculating. A looming fear was ridicule, and they didn’t want to be talked about as the kind of man who rejects sex with an attractive woman, lest others might see them as a ‘virgin,’ an ‘idiot’ or someone who’s ‘gay.’” 

She concluded by highlighting that there could possibly be a large chunk missing when we debate sex. 

“I do think it’s important to understand how and why it happens. And it does make me wonder if it’s a missing piece in the overall debate over sex in our culture.” (source)

And:

One of the first things I discovered at the men’s group was that most men are scared of other men. Here we all were, 25 or so specimens of metropolitan masculinity, gathered in a London yoga studio to spend our Saturday learning how to “get vulnerable” with Rebel Wisdom, a newly formed men’s collective. “In today’s world, for men to be vulnerable and speak their truth is an act of rebellion,” says its chic new age website. “We exist to fuel this rebellion.” 

In practice, this meant we were going to spend a day doing breathing exercises, talking about our fathers, pretending to be tigers, leaning on one another, working out which Jungian archetypes we vibed with, and trying to articulate why we all felt so defensive and angry and misunderstood so much of the time. But first we had to stand in a circle and say how we were feeling. And one by one, the men – mostly in their mid-30s, mostly straight, mostly white – said they were afraid. One guy, a straight-talking youth worker, reckoned that if the estate kids he worked with could see him now, they’d rip the piss and would probably be right to. Another, extremely gaunt and pale, had recently suffered a huge emotional and physical breakdown, and confessed that this was the first time he had been out in weeks. When it came to my turn, I said I was hungover. (Humour is a good way of deflecting uncomfortable feelings, I find.) Then I tried a bit harder: “I can’t remember the last time I was in a room with all men,” I said. “I actively avoid these situations. And maybe that’s quite strange.” 

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I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but men are not exactly giving the best account of themselves at the moment. Every week brings another high-profile reminder of unhealthy masculinity, from Harvey Weinstein to Aziz Ansari to the former Oxfam boss Roland van Hauwermeiren. Clearly, something needs to shift. Like all the male friends I’ve spoken to recently, I’ve found the current reckoning disorienting at times, shaming at others, but mostly exciting, necessary and liberating. I’ve seen the overwhelmingly positive effect it’s had on many women in my life. But there are moments – say when I’m happily cooking with my son – when the dominant narrative of masculinity as toxic, entitled, corrupt, dysfunctional and so on seems a little limiting. If you’ve always found men such as Weinstein despicable and pathetic, it’s disorienting to find yourself in the same category as him by virtue of also having a penis. A couple of times, I’ve begun the sentence: “You know, not all men… ” only to recall that that in itself is seen as a dick move. And there are clearly dissonances in political, legal and psychological notions of gender that require careful unpicking: for example, the feminist notion that masculinity is in full control of itself and consciously uses sex to cement its power doesn’t quite tally with our understanding of the subconscious. Masculinity is very rarely under control and sexual abuse is often perpetrated by men who are threatened (often by other men), vulnerable, damaged, lashing out. Not that this insight can be expected to provide solace for their victims. 

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But as we know, men are not fine. Boys get worse grades than girls. Suicide is the biggest killer of men under 35; men also report significantly lower life satisfaction than women. According to statistics compiled by the Men’s Health Forum, men make up 76% of all suicides, 95% of the prison population, 73% of adults who go missing and 87% of rough sleepers. A key part of this is men’s reluctance to seek help. Last year’s cross-party Jo Cox Commission described male loneliness as a “silent epidemic”: more than one in 10 say they are lonely but won’t usually admit it. 

“One of the problems is that in the last 10 years or so, the world hasn’t really been interested in the psychology of gender,” says the psychotherapist Nick Duffell. “What we’ve been interested in are transgender issues and free choice and pronouns and gender as a social construct and abuses of power. But one of the things I’ve been working with is how powerless men often feel in the private sphere. Men are very unskilled when it comes to relationships and dealing with their emotions. We need to train them to be better at vulnerability, better at relating – and when they begin to do that, the power they develop is more authentic.” 

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A man must “do the work” to develop his own independence and grow into a “relaxed masculine confidence” that is not threatened by the feminine. Something magical and unexpected happens when men help each other do this, Fuller believes – and it’s something the world is calling out for in 2018. 

“Around the election of Donald Trump, it felt really significant that a lot of issues around masculinity were being reflected in the culture,” he tells the 60 or so attendees. “How is it possible that a man who boasts of sexual assault can be elected to the most significant public role in the world? It spoke to a deep dysfunction around our ideas of healthy masculinity. But, at the same time, there’s a narrative that there’s something about masculinity that’s fundamentally toxic.” What we need to do as a society – but particularly as men – he says, is to redefine “healthy masculinity”. A masculinity that is no better or worse than femininity, but that stands as its opposite, equal pole. 

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The patriarchy question is one that has been exercising Dave Pickering for some time. A London-based writer and performer, he interviewed 1,000 men about patriarchy for his live show, Mansplaining Masculinity, which he is now turning into a book via the crowdfunding publisher Unbound. About 85% of the men he interviewed thought patriarchy exists; some thought it was a good thing; some didn’t; some protested about the premise of the question; others cut-and-pasted the dictionary definition (“a system in which men have all or most of the power and importance in a society or group”). But it did provoke unexpected confessions. “A lot of men talked about being unfairly promoted, and not doing enough domestic chores,” Pickering says. “But a few were really surprising. One man said, ‘I raped my girlfriend because I didn’t know what rape was.’” 

Pickering feels one of the reasons men become so defensive about patriarchy is the idea that they are supposed to be benefiting from it when, in fact, so many of us are suffering under it. “The main breadwinner is not a pleasant place to be. The person who is expected to use violence to defend people is not a healthy place to be. More men are in prison, more men are in the army, men are more likely to hurt other men, and it’s usually because they’re policing masculinity. My mum told me that men are wrong and men are sick. That’s something I internalised. And that’s part of patriarchy. Hating ourselves is social conditioning, this idea that there’s only one way to be, and if we don’t feel that way, we should be ashamed.” (source)

There's a lot to unpack in these articles; and this last article has a lot of confusion in it, so we're going to break it all down. 

According to all of the articles, the Kyriarchy says that men are supposed to be stoic, rational/logical, aggressive, muscular, strong, independent, in control, the breadwinner, a cop/firefighter/mechanic/CEO/etc., and sexually experienced. Only physical and sexual violence is accepted for expressing emotions. This connects back to the prude shaming – for men, all of their power revolves around being physically and sexually aggressive.

In essence, the 'ideal' man is all of the toxic masculine traits, as well as the rejection of any feminine traits. This toxic masculinity is fleeting and requires vigilant reenforcement. It is the version of masculinity that the Kyriarchy and 'feminists' enforce and promote for women as well as men.

Let me be crystal clear here: toxic masculinity. Not all masculinity. We must recognize that toxic masculinity and toxic femininity are separate from healthy masculinity and healthy femininity. Except you're not going to find any articles talking about toxic femininity, because the Kyriarchy simultaneously says all femininity is bad and forces women to be feminine.

So, let's do a general breakdown of the traits.

Healthy Masculine Traits: Assertive, active, ambitious, driven, decisive, direct, brave, adventurous, courageous, protective, logical/rational, daring, worldly, career-focused, sensory, desire

Toxic Masculine Traits: Aggressive, stoic/unemotional, cynical, independent, coarse, dominating, demanding, hardy/strong/tough, revenge, war, powerful, successful, competitive, proud, egotistical, impatient, meat

Healthy Feminine Traits: Peaceful, gentle, kind, vulnerable, delicate, humble, empathetic, nurturing, loving, affectionate, compassionate, optimistic, patient, refined, accepting, soft, graceful, innocent, emotional, vulnerable, forgiving, interdependent, sensitive, intuitive, patient, veganism/vegetarianism, environmentally conscious

Toxic Feminine Traits: Submissive, domesticated, passive, codependent, nice, naïve, hysterical/unstable/irrational/insane, weak, fragile

You might be wondering why I've listed traits like 'powerful' and 'successful' as toxic. I've done so because our dominate culture is the Kyriarchy, and what it defines as 'powerful' and 'successful' is toxic.

The fundamental core of toxic masculinity is damning vulnerability and lashing out with aggression, and the articles above clearly show the connection between violence and toxic masculinity.

Toxic masculinity pushes sexual and physical aggression for men, which leads to an extreme stigma of male victims. Kevin Spacey's victims, Terry Crews, and Ezra Miller (who was assigned male at birth) are crucial parts of the MeToo movement, but are still predominately overlooked in most conversations. The truth is that just because male victims of sexual assault and/or domestic violence aren't the majority, doesn't mean they don't exist.

But toxic masculinity isn't the only thing that drives gun violence. What else drives gun violence, and why is the Second Amendment always brought up?

But this European settler was hardly the first human being in the “New World” killed by a gun. Forensic scientists excavating sites in Peru have found at least one gunshot fatality nearly a century older, an Inca man shot through the back of his skull by a conquistador. He appears to have been a noncombatant, possibly executed after a 1536 uprising, his body dumped in a mass grave alongside those of women and children. Many of their remains show signs of mutilation and abuse. No one can even pretend to guess at his name or theirs. 

These early cases of gun violence belong to a history of settler-colonialism and ethnic cleansing. As the writer and historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz argues in her brilliant new book, Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment, America’s obsession with guns has roots in a long, bloody legacy of racist vigilantism, militarism, and white nationalism. This past, Dunbar-Ortiz persuasively argues, undergirds both the landscape of gun violence to this day and our partisan debates about guns. Her analysis, erudite and unrelenting, exposes blind spots not just among conservatives, but, crucially, among liberals as well. 

These days, debates over the Second Amendment invariably turn on interpreting the connotation of “militia” in the stipulation that: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Liberals will often argue that gun ownership was always intended to be tethered to participation in institutions like the early Colonial Army or today’s National Guard. Conservatives tend to retort, in so many words, that “the people” were always meant to have guns as such, since an armed citizenry functions as a putative check on tyrannical government over-reach. When polled, a majority of Americans say they believe the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms, regardless of participation in formal militias, whether “for hunting” or, as the Supreme Court ruled in 2008 District of Columbia vs. Heller, for lawful “self-defense.” 

A distinguished scholar of Native American history, Dunbar-Ortiz dismisses these debates as a red herring. As she pointedly notes, at the time of the Second Amendment’s drafting, other lines elsewhere in America’s founding documents already provided for the existence of formal militias, and multiple early state constitutions had spelled out an individual right to bear arms besides. What the Second Amendment guarantees is instead something else: “the violent appropriation of Native land by white settlers … as an individual right.” 

Our national mythology encourages Americans to see the Second Amendment as a result of the Revolutionary War—to think of it as a matter of arming Minutemen against Redcoats. But, Dunbar-Ortiz argues, it actually enshrines practices and priorities that long preceded that conflict. For centuries before 1776, the individual white settler was understood to have not just a right to bear arms, but a responsibility to do so—and not narrowly in the service of tightly regulated militias, but broadly, so as to participate in near-constant ad-hoc, self-organized violence against Native Americans. “Settler-militias and armed households were institutionalized for the destruction and control of Native peoples, communities, and nations,” Dunbar-Ortiz writes. “Extreme violence, particularly against unarmed families and communities, was an aspect inherent in European colonialism, always with genocidal possibilities, and often with genocidal results.” 

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As Loaded proceeds, Dunbar-Ortiz traces the ways in which gun ownership has been the cornerstone of America’s growth into a “militaristic-capitalistic powerhouse.” In her account, guns are the reason that white people maintained control of the social order despite nominal changes in which parties or groups might claim power. For example, Dunbar-Ortiz notes how, in parts of the South before the Revolution, a class of armed white civilians was employed by the Colonial courts to serve as “searchers,” not just to track down fugitive slaves, but to detain freed blacks besides. Distinct from the formal militia, which was preoccupied with battling Native Americans, these “searchers,” subsequently known as “patrollers,” continued their work after the overthrow of the British, deploying a variety of tactics including the creation and printing of the first Wanted ads. 

After the Civil War, these groups of armed whites morphed once more, continuing to harass and terrorize emancipated black Americans, becoming either Klansmen or police (or, not infrequently, both at the same time). For these foot soldiers of white supremacy, the titles and group affiliations might change, but their roles—and the centrality of guns to those roles—remained the same. Indeed, as Dunbar-Ortiz notes, many Confederate veterans publicly associated with each other long after the war through so-called “rifle clubs,” often barely-disguised fronts for Klan activity. 

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The trope of “the hunter,” for example, recurs frequently in current debates over guns, even though hunting is no longer the leading reason Americans give for gun ownership. Dunbar-Ortiz traces the common image of the gun-bearing hunter to the folk-hero image of Daniel Boone, the frontiersman whose exploits in Kentucky were the stuff of legend even during his lifetime in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Yet, as Dunbar-Ortiz observes, Boone’s celebrity was largely the work of another man, John Filson, a real estate speculator who wrote under Boone’s name. He simply wanted to encourage settlers to buy claims over land that was already heavily populated by Native Americans. So much for the image of the rugged American frontiersman, gun in hand, experiencing his primordial oneness with the wilderness, so beloved by gun rights advocates. 

Likewise, Dunbar-Ortiz sounds the legacy of figures like pro-slavery paramilitary leader William Quantrill. Quantrill led a band of pro-slavery “bushwhacker” guerillas who carried out violent raids against pro-abolition communities in the Kansas and Missouri territories before and during the Civil War. In one instance, Quantrill and his men attacked Lawrence, Kansas, butchering some 160 civilians, including children. Yet as time passed, and it became expedient to forget and move beyond the violence of the Civil War, Quantrill and his men, who were famous for wielding six-shooter revolvers, became integrated into fuzzy legend of “the West.” They ceased to be seen as “bloody, murdering Confederate guerillas” and became “righteous outlaws.” 

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The right’s talk of preserving American greatness, Dunbar-Ortiz proposes, comes directly from this violent history. From Reagan’s race politics to Trump’s nativism, leaders on the right have articulated the principles that groups of armed American extremists practice. “White nationalists are the irregular forces—the voluntary militias—of the actually existing political-economic order,” she states, succinctly. “They are provided for in the Second Amendment.” 

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Since the early ‘70s, the number of privately owned guns in American hands has nearly tripled, to well over 300 million. Meanwhile, American military forces are now deployed in some 180 countries, and our arms industry has achieved export levels and profit margins unprecedented since the end of World War II. Towards the end of Loaded, Dunbar-Ortiz presents American “gun love” as a quasi-religious phenomenon, bound up in a primal national myth of chosen-ness, victimization, and righteous violence. (source)

And:

Their killers were almost all men—only one identified murderer was a woman. Why would most of these killers be men? What's so threatening to some men about trans women? 

It depends a great deal if we are talking about gay or straight men, and what kind of destructive rage they undergo in relation to someone who has stepped out as a trans woman. Killing is an act of power, a way of re-asserting domination, even a way of saying, “I am the one who decides who lives and dies.” So killing establishes the killer as sovereign in the moment that he kills, and that is the most toxic form that masculinity can take. Trans women have relinquished masculinity, showing that it can be, and that is, very threatening to a man who wants to see his power as an intrinsic feature of who he is. 

Zella Ziona, who was 21, was shot in the head shortly after she embarrassed a young male acquaintance by flirting with him in front of his friends. Mercedes Williamson was 17 when she was brutally murdered by a young man she knew and buried in the yard behind his father's home. 

Yes, and we can add Larry King to that list—said to have flirted with his murderer, though we do not really know. I think perhaps that if a trans woman flirts with a man who is straight, and that man feels humiliated or embarrassed (is that last word strong enough? Maybe mortified), it is probably because he is identified by the trans man as someone with whom flirtation is possible, who could himself be involved with a trans woman or might himself be one. For some straight men, it may be possible to flirt back or to say, "thanks but no thanks," and for others, they reach for a gun. What accounts for those differences? I presume that the straight man who shoots the trans woman, he feels like he has been "attacked" by the flirtation. That is very crazy reasoning, but there is lots of craziness out there when it comes to gender identity and sexuality. 

The violence these women endured was extreme.They were stabbed, shot. Tamara Dominguez was killed by a man after he left her out of his car. He ran her over, and then ran over her body again and again. What does this extreme violence indicate? 

It indicates that we are all living in a society in which such hideous and horrible things happen, and that there is nowhere near enough media attention paid to such matters. In fact, the popular media deflects from this aspect of trans existence when it should be raising our awareness and helping us to organize a systematic resistance to such violence. Perhaps the man who drives over the trans woman time and again cannot quite make her dead enough. At a certain point, she is already dead, but he is not finished killing her. Why? It is because he wants to obliterate any trace of his own relation to that living person, obliterating a part of himself and living person at the same time. But also establishing his absolute power, and his own masculinity as the site of that power. Perhaps he is rebuilding his gender as he continues to try to take apart and efface that trans woman who never deserved to die. He is seeking as well to establish a world in which no one like her exists. 

In many cases, police have been quick to announce that these murders are specifically not being investigated as hate crimes. I went to Philadelphia this fall to investigate the murder of Keisha Jenkins; Keisha was 22 and killed in a well-known trans sex work area by a group of men. Police immediately announced that this was a robbery and not a hate crime, but during my week-long investigation I heard testimony from other poor, black trans sex workers in the area that indicated otherwise. One woman told me that Pedro Redding, the man being charged with Keisha's murder, was also a client. Is it possible to separate these murders from the context of the victims' lives as transgender women of color? 

It is not possible to separate such murders from those contexts. The police are in this sense part of the very problem, refusing to name the crime, and so refusing to prosecute. This was also the case with Larry King in southern California. In trials such as those—as demonstrated by [psychoanalyst focusing on masculinity] Ken Corbett and [queer and trans theorist] Gayle Salamon—the murderer can be construed as a victim, “assaulted” by a joke or a flirtation. In the case of the murderous client, we have to wonder whether desire and hatred mix there in some truly toxic ways. The lives of transgender women of color are not accorded the same value as white women who are cisgendered, that is true. But what is really needed is an anti-racist, anti-transphobic movement that draws from the feminism of women of color and its trenchant critique of racism and police power. (source)

We cannot systematically tackle ending gun violence without acknowledging the intersectional nature of the Kyriarchy. Once we understand that, we have the potential to truly make lasting change.

Male Privilege. 

An often-asked question is, 'so if toxic masculinity hurts everyone, what the heck is male privilege?' 

This is a complicated subject, because male privilege requires conforming to the gender binary and toxic masculinity:

Our current cultural expectations, legislative system, and social programming work to sustain a hierarchy that constantly places men on the top. Consequently, men consistently achieve, succeed, and benefit at the expense of every other gender. That’s called male privilege. 

But here’s the thing about male privilege: it hurts everyone, including you. This is because accessing male privilege often requires you to conform to a toxic norm of masculinity. 

You know this norm – it’s idea that the only “real men” are the ones who don’t show their emotions, who solely value sports and physical strength, who don’t reach out for help when they need support. 

And you probably also know that no man completely fits into this narrow box of masculinity, and that our society is unforgiving toward people who don’t fit what they’re “supposed” to be. 

So we have to face the ways traditional masculinity is rewarded with privilege in order to liberate everyonefrom the painful trap of society’s oppressive boxes.[cut list of examples] 

A list of privileges on its own can give you examples of what privilege looks like, but it’s not a comprehensive explanation of what privilege really means. So now that we’ve gone through the examples, let’s be clear about a few important things. 

Examples of male privilege demonstrate how the patriarchy shows up – but they aren’t representations of every man’s life, at every moment. They aren’t things that only men have ever experienced. 

It’s just more likely that you’ll get these benefits if you’re a man, because they’re supported by the system of patriarchy. 

And since patriarchy doesn’t exist in a vacuum, there are other systems of oppression that affect different men differently. A man walking alone at night generally has the privilege of not being targeted for gender-based violence. 

But a man of color may have to worry about being targeted for racist violence. A mentally ill man could be targeted for police brutality. A gay man could be the target of homophobic violence. 

These examples don’t invalidate the existence of male privilege, which are benefits denied to people who aren’t men due to their gender. But they show why the context of intersectionality (how different forms of systemic oppression intersect) matters. (source)

I highly suggest following the link and reading the long list of privileges, because they do exist. But men having male privilege within the system will never change the fact that the system (Kyriarchy) will always harm everyone.

Vulnerability and Power. 

But let's go back to that fundamental core of damning vulnerability and lashing out with aggression.

To quote anthropologist Margaret Holmes Williamson,

Settling this problem is a necessary first step in understanding the real nature of Powhatan sovereignty. Briefly, “power” in this analysis means “efficacy,” and no more; as an aspect of Powhatan hierarchy, it belongs to those of lesser, not greater, status.

[efficacy means “power or capacity to produce a desired effect; effectiveness.”]

These propositions differ radically from commonly held ideas about political organization and process. Indeed, the phrase “political power” appears redundant: power is political, politics means power; and power is understood to mean force, whether legitimate or not. Radcliffe-Brown's summary agenda for the study of political organization makes this point explicitly (1940:xiv, see Fortes and Evans-Pritchard 1940:14; Dumont 1972:197; de Heusch 1987:217). While his position has been criticized on various grounds (e.g., Barth 1965; Mackenzie 1969; Gledhill 1994:13), nevertheless most discourse on political organization and process argues that power is universal and necessary to the maintenance of social order and that “a conscious or unconscious wish to gain power is a very general motive in human affairs” (Leach 1965:10; see Mackenzie 1969:215; Wolf 1999). 

“Power,” like Augustine's “time,” is a slippery concept, though. Like the term “political,” it is difficult to define, and its sources are notoriously baffling. Wolf, for instance, writes that “conceptualizing power presents difficulties of its own. Power is often spoken of as if it were a unitary and independent force, sometimes incarnated in the image of a giant monster such as Leviathan or Behemoth, or else as a machine that grows in capacity and ferocity by accumulating and generating more powers, more entities like itself. Yet is is best understood neither as an anthropomorphic force nor as a giant machine but an aspect of all relations among people” (1999:4). Because power is relational, he argues that it will differ in different kinds of relationships, of which he identifies four principal modalities: efficacy, control over persons, control over contexts, and control over resources, especially labor (Wolf 1999:4). [cut] 

One may thus look for power in the family or in gender relations as well as within a village or a kingdom, even if the relations between political leaders and followers are usually taken as the paradigm for a relationship of power. To related assumptions need to be made explicit in this context. One is the equivalence of hierarchy and power: the superior is powerful (whether the status is cause or consequence is immaterial), and the inferior is powerless. The other is that the power of the superior is “power over others,” that is, coercive. And while not everyone goes so far, still it is common to find the assumption that such power is inherently selfish, the powerful using their power for their own benefit rather than for the benefit of the whole society. By “benefit” is understood not only material gain but the preservation, if not the increase, of that power (e.g., Barker and Pauketat 1992; Wolf 1999). The conflict theory of the origin of the state, for example, takes coercive power for granted and assumes that the appearance of centralization and hierarchy spells doom for the autonomy of the majority (e.g., Carniero 1970; Earle 1997; Fried 1967, 1978; Haas 1982; Cohen and Service 1978; Earle 1991). 

[cut] 

If we confine ourselves only to native North America, we find that coercive power does not appear as a property or characteristic of rulers or leaders, or rather of the relations between such persons and those they rule or lead (Lowie 1967; Clastres 1977). Ethnographic accounts repeatedly include statements from the informants and from the ethnographers alike that political action depends on consensus, not coercion, both in theory and in practice. Descriptions of chiefs and of the processes of decision-making in the Southeast are no exception (e.g., Hudson 1976:205; Swanton 1987:652; Anonymous 1931:243; Gibson 1971:22). The importance of autonomy in native North American cultures and the corresponding etiquette that avoids any suggestion of command are commonplace of anthropology. Even chiefs are reported to ask or suggest of persuade rather than command. The notion that power or authority might be imposed by the higher on the lower – apart from the requirements of the spirits over human persons – seems thus to be alien to native American social relations. 

It would appear, then, that the assumption that power is coercive, that it means “control over others” and nothing else, is fallacious. Two other common assumptions about power are likewise fallacious: that power is limited, so that the more there is for one the less there is for others, and that it is the same as, or conjoined with, authority. 

A consequence of regarding “power” as “control over others,” or coercive, it that “power” is treated as a measurable “thing” and regarded in the same light that Western economics regards “things,” or “goods,” in general – that is, in terms of scarcity. If power is, as it were, a limited good, it follows that great power in the hands of one or a few necessarily means less or none for others: the power another has over me necessarily diminishes my power over the other as well as my autonomy, that is my control of myself. In other words, it is a zero-sum game. This understanding of the matter entails the conclusion that everyone must, to paraphrase Leach, seek power or do without. - Powhatan Lords of Life and Death, Introduction

And historian Karen Ordahl Kupperman,

English men in this period, particularly those of higher rank, believed that you could never allow yourself to be vulnerable. That if you were vulnerable you invited treachery, and that if you were the victim of treachery you had made yourself vulnerable and it was your own fault. I think that conditions a lot of the early actions in the colonies, particularly ones that are exclusively male, as Roanoke and Jamestown both were in the early days. Because they are extremely vulnerable - they can't cope, they can't feed themselves, they are living in constant fear. They are not really well-planned colonies. 

So they come with this knowledge of their own vulnerability. And their way of coping with that, since to be vulnerable is to invite treachery, I think, is to always act as though they are invulnerable, to act as though they are the stronger party even though they are not. 

[cut] 

At first sight you would think that this was an act of madness. When you are about to leave 100 men with no food, it was already late in the summer, alienating the Indians would seem to be the least reasonable course of action. But I think from the standpoint of someone like Grenville, it was the only thing he could do because he saw it as a challenge. And if he had allowed a challenge to go unpunished then he would have been showing that he was weak and he would have been inviting all kinds of treachery.  

So I think this is the mind set of English men, especially the gentry, coming to America. You always have to put on a show of your strength and power, especially if you are extremely weak and vulnerable, and that is what Grenville was doing in that case. (source)

Both of these quotes are talking about the late 1500's/early 1600's. It's crucial to note that our societal ideal has not changed – these quotes show the exact same thinking that is today's aggressive and abusive toxic masculinity. 

The first quote explicitly states the fundamental core of the Kyriarchy – toxic power, which is the belief that power is coercive and a zero-sum game. Toxic power drives everything the Kyriarchy does.

One of the most common ways toxic power shows itself is in the belief that logic is superior to emotion. 'That reasoning was very logical' is a complement, and 'you're acting really emotional' is an insult. Emotional is used as a synonym for being crazy/insane.

The truth is, emotional suppression is the number one way to become a dysfunctional human being. Emotions are crucial to good decision-making. One of the psychology articles linked above says,

Brown describes vulnerability as the core of all emotions. “To feel is to be vulnerable,” she says. So when we consider vulnerability to be a weakness, we consider feeling one’s emotions to be so, too, she says. But being vulnerable connects us with others. It opens us up to love, joy, creativity and empathy, she says.

Another psychology article says,

Key #1: Secure Attachment. To be human is to be emotionally connected to others.

And a different psychology article says,

We have a wired-in need for emotional contact and responsiveness from significant others. It's a survival response, the driving force of the bond of security a baby seeks with its mother. This observation is at the heart of attachment theory. A great deal of evidence indicates that the need for secure attachment never disappears; it evolves into the adult need for a secure emotional bond with a partner. Think of how a mother lovingly gazes at her baby, just as two lovers stare into each other's eyes. 

Although our culture has framed dependency as a bad thing, a weakness, it is not. Being attached to someone provides our greatest sense of security and safety. It means depending on a partner to respond when you call, to know that you matter to him or her, that you are cherished, and that he will respond to your emotional needs. 

The most basic tenet of attachment theory is that isolation—not just physical isolation but emotional isolation—is traumatizing for human beings. The brain actually codes it as danger. 

As the above quotes and all my links about what psychologically makes humans healthy, show, human beings are fundamentally made by their relationships. We are emotional creatures.

Emotion, love, humility, compassion, kindness, forgiveness – all are labeled 'feminine' and are scorned. Any type of gentle or tender (ie 'feminine') physical affection is vilified for men. These are the things that are proven to make us psychologically healthy, and toxic power systematically degrades them. This is why we have the high violence rates and Rape Culture that we do.

So what's healthy for us? Above I listed both independence and codependence as unhealthy, and interdependence as the healthy alternative. But what does this mean?

It’s also important to distinguish codependent relationships from interdependent ones. For as defined psychologically, codependence is clearly maladaptive and dysfunctional. It may have a certain mutuality to it, but it’s negatively symbiotic in a way interdependency is not. Having dependency needs isn’t by itself unhealthy. We all have them. In an interdependent relationship, however, each party is able to comfortably rely on the other for help, understanding, and support. It’s a “value added” kind of thing. The relationship contributes to both individuals’ resilience, resourcefulness, and inner strength. All the same, each party remains self-sufficient and self-determining. They maintain a clear identity apart from the relationship and are quite able to stand on their own two feet. 

On the contrary, a codependent union is one where both parties areover-dependent on each other. It’s a relationship in which the two individuals lean so heavily on one another that both of them are left “off-balance.” In their desperately trying to get core dependency needs met, their true identities are distorted, and their development and potential—personally, socially, and professionally—is stifled. The relationship is reciprocal only in that it enables both of them to avoid confronting their worst fears and self-doubts. As opposed to healthy dependency (defined here as interdependence), the codependent individual in such a relationship needs to be needed if they’re to feel okay about themselves. They simply can’t feel this way unless they’re giving themselves up, or “sacrificing,” themselves, for their partner. Sadly, without being depended upon (sometimes, virtually as a lifeline), they feel alone, inadequate, insecure, and unworthy. (source)

And:

Our culture praises independence. We are taught to be strong, never reveal weakness, and above all never rely on others. In theory this approach works great. Never open up to anyone, never rely on anyone, and never get hurt. But this belief has led to one of the most isolated and disconnected cultures to ever walk the planet. 

We feel weak when we express emotion and feel ridiculous for wanting and needing others in our lives. The reality is we are a species that is wired for connection and belonging. Training ourselves to be extremely independent is a huge disservice because when we are in a situation where dependence and reliance is required—such as a romantic relationship—we have no idea how to navigate these foreign waters. We often swing from one extreme to another, operating as either extremely independent or codependent, resulting in unhealthy relationships. 

On the flip side of the coin we have dependence. Many people cringe at the thought of being dependent in a relationship and there is often a very negative connotation that goes along with it. Dependence in itself is not the devil. In fact dependence is a core component of building a secure and lasting relationship. It is defined as relying on another person for support. It is born out of trust. Codependence on the other hand can become problematic in relationships. 

Codependence is defined as excessive emotional or psychological reliance on a partner. Many of us have encountered this feeling at some point in life. It is the feeling of losing yourself in another person. Not knowing where you end and they begin. This can be problematic for several reasons, but chiefly because you need to be a whole person rather than looking for another to complete you. You need to understand your value and worth as a person rather than depending on your partner for it. 

[cut] 

An interdependent relationship is where both partners are mutually reliant on each other. It is a safe bond where partners can rely on each other but also maintain their autonomous identity. 

[cut] 

Securely attached individuals are excellent when it comes to the balancing act of interdependence. Due to their positive view of self and others, they tend to see people as dependable and reliable. They trust that people will support them and they are eager to support others. They have a secure sense of who they are and don’t rely on others for their self worth. This means they enter into their relationships not only concerned with their own needs but also the needs of their partner. (source)

And:

Society is highly specialized and interdependent, so that few of us would know how to survive without running water, electricity, and a supermarket. We’re also dependent upon our personal relationships. 

[cut] 

Codependent couples usually are out of balance. Frequently, there are struggles for power and control. There may be an imbalance of power or one partner may have taken on responsibility for the other. They’re often anxious and resentful and feel guilty and responsible for their partner’s feelings and moods. Then they try to control each another to feel okay and get their needs met. Rather than respect each other’s separateness and individuality, they can’t tolerate disagreement and blame one another for causing their problems without taking responsibility for themselves. Sometimes, what they dislike in their partner is the very thing they can’t accept in themselves. Despite their pain, they can feel trapped in the relationship because they fear that they cannot function on their own. Their mutual codependency and insecurity also makes intimacy threatening, since being honest and known risks rejection or dissolution of their fragile self. 

[cut] 

What makes interconnections healthy is interdependency, not codependency. Paradoxically, interdependency requires two people capable of autonomy (the ability to function independently). When couples love each other, it’s normal to feel attached, to desire closeness, to be concerned for each another, and to depend upon each other. Their lives are intertwined, and they’re affected by and need each other. However, they share power equally and take responsibility for their own feelings, actions, and contributions to the relationship. Because they have self-esteem, they can manage their thoughts and feelings on their own and don’t have to control someone else to feel okay. They can allow for each other’s differences and honor each another’s separateness. Thus, they’re not afraid to be honest. They can listen to their partner’s feelings and needs without feeling guilty or becoming defensive. Since their self-esteem doesn’t depend upon their partner, they don’t fear intimacy, and independence doesn’t threaten the relationship. In fact, the relationship gives them each more freedom. There’s mutual respect and support for each other’s personal goals, but both are committed to the relationship. (source)

And:

One of my favorite topics in the science of relationships is an existential paradox, or what Dr. Brooke Feeney calls “The Dependency Paradox.”1 

As I described in a previous post, humans have a fundamental need for connection to others, or “relatedness.” But we also need “autonomy” (a sense of independence and the feeling that we have personal control over our behavior).2 Intuition tells us that these needs are distinct, and possibly conflicting. But the “paradox hypothesis” suggests the opposite—people who are more dependent on their partners for support actually experience more independence and autonomy, not less. Logically this is a contradiction, but only to the untrained eye. 

In a laboratory study, experimenters asked one member of a couple to report how much he/she accepted the other’s dependency (e.g., “I am responsive to my partner’s needs”); higher scores indicated more dependency. The other member of the couple was put in a separate room and given some challenging puzzles to complete. The couples were also given computers to communicate via instant messaging (IM), but this was a ruse. Participants completing the puzzles thoughttheir partners were on the other end of the computer, but really it was an experimenter delivering IMs with direct assistance (hints, advice, or in some cases, solutions to the puzzles). 

One might think that the participants with more dependency in their relationships would freely accept this assistance, but instead, the opposite pattern emerged. Those with more dependency actually completed more of the puzzles on their own, independently, and were more likely to reject IMs that contained hints or solutions. Paradoxically, dependence and independence went hand in hand. 

In a second study conducted outside the lab, participants listed a personal goal that they would like to achieve on their own in the near future. After 6 months, the experimenters asked participants if they accomplished their goals. Those participants who independently achieved their personal goals (without their partner’s direct assistance) were the ones with more dependency in the relationship. 

How can we explain this paradox? One perspective stems from attachment theory, and it works like this: when you are an infant, you are helpless and you have no choice but to depend on others. You need your parents (and sometimes others in your immediate/extended family) to help you learn, grow, and develop into a fully functioning person.3 The same process continues across the lifespan. Babies and children who are confident that their parents are available to support them grow up to function at a higher level emotionally, socially, and academically later in life. That is also why developmental psychologists label “secure” attachment as “autonomous.”4 

John Bowlby himself said it best: “Paradoxically, the healthy personality when viewed in this light proves by no means as independent as cultural stereotypes suppose. Essential ingredients are a capacity to rely trustingly on others when occasion demands and to know on whom it is appropriate to rely.”5 (source)

These four articles are talking about personal relationships, but fortunately for all of us this has also been studied at a cultural level:

The first section of this chapter examines cultural traditions that shaped the perception and experiences of the changes of the 1960s and '70s in the United States and the Netherlands. Out of the confluence of different cultural traditions, the social policies they influenced, and the different experiences of the upheavals of the unruly decades emerged what might be called an “adversarial” and an “interdependent” individualism. 

[cut] 

A key difference between the two individualisms pertains to the relationship between the self and others. In their 1985 classic Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life, sociologist Robert Bellah and his colleagues assert that “individualism lies at the very core of American culture.”5 Such individualism celebrates the sacredness of individuals and their judgement, self-reliance, and self-expression. But inherent in American individualism is also a tension between autonomy and society.6 Indeed, write Bellah and colleagues, American individualism includes a fear that “society may overwhelm the individual and destroy any chance of autonomy unless he stands against it.”7 That fear is accompanied by the belief that, to attain full autonomy and to commit to others and contribute to society, “one must be able to stand alone, not needing others, not depending on their judgements, and not submitting to their wishes.”8 

[cut] 

On the one hand, the celebration of self-reliance – and the stigmatization of dependency – have inhibited the institutionalization of income replacement programs that have made day-to-day living since the 1960s more secure in Europe.11 On the other hand, the United States has long imposed harsh justice on those deprived of freedom.12 Lacking a notion of membership in a wider society apart from individual volition, Americans see no alternative to punishment when individual volition proves insufficient to regulate behavior. Following the 1960s, the tradition of harsh justice grew into what David Garland has called “a culture of control”: the divestment from public welfare accompanied by rapid growth in incarceration rates, especially since the start of the War on Drugs, which has imprisoned a large segment of population, often on minor charges.13 

[cut] 

Writing in 1987, North American anthropologist Peter Stephenson observes that “the concept of self with respect to others in the Netherlands is simultaneously intensely egalitarian and highly individualistic.” [cut] And yet, an equally pervasive cultural value is that of functioning and living in close interaction and cooperation with others, a potential contradiction that is resolved by a particular conception of the self as “a discrete individual who can nonetheless work well with others.”15 

[cut] 

Indeed rather than view equalization and individualism as a threat to the social fabric, prominent Dutch sociologists of the 1970s and 1980s argued that people were becoming more dependent upon one another, leading to the “emancipation” of previously subordinate groups – children, workers, women, and homosexuals.19 They saw a new mode of regulating social relations in private and public life – negotiations between more or less equal parties who exercise self-restraint and willingness to consider each other's needs.20 Theory reflected public policy. Following the expansion of the welfare state in the 1950s and '60s, Dutch society of the 1970s and '80s underwent one of the strongest equalizing trends in the industrial world.21 And the assumption that people would, under controlled circumstances, self-regulate their impulses was reflected in a lenient penal policy, including the tolerance of soft drug use, which was institutionalized in 1976.22 

[cut] 

Many scholars and lay individuals in the United States harbored misgivings about the changes wrought by shifts in sexual and authority relations in part because, ironically, the conception of the self, celebrated and feared in middle-class culture, does not provide tools to conceptualize and foster self-restraint and social bonds without institutions that can hold individuals in check: marriage, religion, and the justice system. In the Netherlands, by contrast, lay individuals, scholars, and policymakers embraced the gains of “modernization” because they could draw on cultural resources to reconcile growing self-determination with strengthening of social bonds: traditions of inter-reliance and cooperation between elites lent themselves as means for exerting “soft” control and maintaining stability at home and in the polity in a more democratic society.23 - Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens, and the Culture of Sex by Amy Schalet

If we want to end the Kyriarchy, we need to end the toxic individualism created by toxic power; and create an interdependent view of power.

With regards to leadership, one article says,

But he admits, our culture has antiquated, mistaken ideas about influence and power that trace back to Machiavelli, whose theories implied that leaders need to be coercive and forceful to achieve power. Those ideas largely don't work today. 

[cut] 

We're approaching a cultural moment when we can add subtlety to the message. Some of us will be loud and proud. Others will be quietly firm. 

[cut] 

“We're really in this dramatic shift in our culture about what influence and power are. There are big debates about hard versus soft power,” says Keltner. The quieter types are starting to gain influence as leadership theory and management technique evolve. “The super pushy, assertive types aren't going to be as influential as the person who builds through quiet means, strong collaboration.” 

[cut] 

Leadership seminars and management trainings are starting to teach nurturing, motivational tactics — qualities traditionally seen as “female” — over commanding, assertive traits more often prescribed “male.” You can be a Gandhi or a Rosa Parks and still lead with traditionally “feminine” qualities.

It doesn't matter whether your personality is loud or quiet; neither is better than the other. What is harmful and destructive is our toxic masculinity and toxic power.

5 “Feminine” Traits That All Conscious Leaders Should Cultivate and What a Leader Needs Now: 7 'Feminine' Qualities are both great articles about 'feminine leadership' and healthy power. 

I use the term 'toxic power,' but Riane Eisler's term 'dominator model' is synonymous:

The first, which I call the dominator model, is what is popularly termed either patriarchy or matriarchy - the ranking of one half of humanity over the other. The second, in which social relations are primarily based on the principle of linking rather than ranking, may best be described as the partnership model. In this model - beginning with the most fundamental difference in our species, between male and female - diversity is not equated with either inferiority or superiority.5 - The Chalice and the Blade by Riane Eisler, page xvii

And:

We’re all familiar with relations of domination and submission from our own lives. We know the pain, fear, and tension of relations based on coercion and accommodation, of jockeying for control, of trying to manipulate and cajole when we are unable to express our real feelings and needs, of the tug of war for that illusory moment of power rather than powerlessness, of our unfulfilled yearning for caring and mutuality, of all the misery, suffering, and lost lives and potentials that come from these kinds of relations. 

Most of us have also, at least intermittently, experienced another way of being, one where we feel safe and seen for who we truly are, where our essential humanity and that of others shines through, perhaps only for a little while, lifting our hearts and spirits, enfolding us in a sense that the world can after all be right, that we are valued and valuable. 

Our human yearning for caring connections, for peace rather than war, for equality rather than inequality, for freedom rather than oppression, can be seen as part of our genetic equipment. The degree to which this yearning can be realized is not a matter of changing our genes, but of building partnership social structures and beliefs. 

In the domination system, somebody has to be on top and somebody has to be on the bottom. People learn, starting in early childhood, to obey orders without question. They learn to carry a harsh voice in their heads telling them they’re no good, they don’t deserve love, they need to be punished. Families and societies are based on control that is explicitly or implicitly backed up by guilt, fear, and force. The world is divided into in-groups and out-groups, with those who are different seen as enemies to be conquered or destroyed. 

In contrast, the partnership system supports mutually respectful and caring relations. Because there is no need to maintain rigid rankings of control, there is also no built-in need for abuse and violence. Partnership relations free our innate capacity to feel joy, to play. They enable us to grow mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. This is true for individuals, families, and whole societies. Conflict is an opportunity to learn and to be creative, and power is exercised in ways that empower rather than disempower others. 

[cut] 

Societies adhering closely to the Domination system have the following core configuration: 

top-down authoritarian control in both the family and state or tribe 

the subordination of the female half of humanity to the male half, and with this, thedevaluation of caring, nonviolence and other stereotypically “soft” values in women and men 

a high degree of institutionalized or built-in fear, coercion, and violence 

Societies adhering closely to the Partnership system have a different core configuration: 

A more democratic organization in both the family and state or tribe 

the male and female halves of humanity are equally valued and “soft” or stereotypically feminine traits and activities such as caring and nonviolence are highly regarded in both women and men 

a low degree of institutionalized or built-in fear, coercion, and violence (source)

I love the term 'partnership model,' and it is the interdependent view of power we desperately need.

Kindness vs Niceness

Being kind is fundamental to being healthy and interdependent. But there is an alarming tendency where people say that the healthy feminine trait of kindness is the same as the toxic feminine trait of niceness. It's not.

Yes, the Patriarchy often tells women to be 'nice' in order to silence them; and there is no doubt that niceness, silence, and passivity are connected.

However, kind means “having or showing a friendly, generous, sympathetic, or warm-hearted nature” (source) and nice means “pleasing and agreeable in nature” (source).

There is a distinct difference here. Niceness is about externally being pleasing or agreeable and not making a fuss. Kindness comes from within and is a fundamental part of being healthy:

Kindness is defined as the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate. Affection, gentleness, warmth, concern, and care are words that are associated with kindness. While kindness has a connotation of meaning someone is naive or weak, that is not the case. Being kind often requires courage and strength. Kindness is an interpersonal skill. 

You've heard about survival of the fittest and Darwin. Survival of the fittest is usually associated with selfishness, meaning that to survive (a basic instinct) means to look out for yourself. But Darwin, who studied human evolution, actually didn't see mankind as being biologically competitive and self-interested. Darwin believed that we are a profoundly social and caring species. He argued that sympathy and caring for others is instinctual (DiSalvo, Scientific American, 2017) 

Current research supports this idea. Science has now shown that devoting resources to others, rather than having more and more for yourself, brings about lasting well-being. Kindness has been found by researchers to be the most important predictor of satisfaction and stability in a marriage. Many colleges, including Harvard, are now emphasizing kindness on applications for admission. (source)

I linked five other great articles above about the exceptional power of kindness, and I highly suggest you read them. Again, it is not an accident that what makes us humans fundamentally healthy – love, physical affection, kindness, humility, forgiveness, patience, hope, empathy, gratitude, compassion – is systematically labeled feminine and then condemned.

Parenting.

I now want to turn back to stay-at-home parenting. I did not go into detail, or give evidence above, because you needed to know the rest of this (toxic masculinity, toxic power) to truly understand it.

One article says,

There’s no denying that childcare is one of the tallest expenses families face. The average annual cost of center-based care for a small child in the U.S. runs as high as $16,000 in states like Massachusetts, according to Child Care Aware of America’s 2013 report. For two children the annual expense can average as much as $28,600. These numbers can be much higher in metropolitan areas, rivaling the cost of sending a kid to college. 

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Perhaps not when you consider the facts of the matter. We know that women already pay a price for taking a leave of absence from the workforce. Sheryl Sandberg points out in her book Lean In that “women’s average annual earnings decrease by 20 percent if they are out of the workforce for just one year…30 percent after two to three years, which is the average amount of time professional women off-ramp from the workforce.” 

Research suggests the penalty may even be greater for men who temporarily exit the workforce. One study found that dads who left work for even a short period of time to cater to domestic matters earned lower evaluations and more negative performance ratings at work than women who opted out.

Family life and child care are not valued in our society. Parents are only given hardship by the world around them, and parenting is treated like dirty work. However, it is still expected of women to do that dirty work. We think them less competent, yes, but it's their natural role as women to care for the baby. A father takes off to care for his family? He has turned the entire Patriarchy on its head, and must be punished. She at least had the traditional reason of being female. He voluntarily gave up his manhood.

Continuing this,

That makes me a “house husband” - which I'd call myself if it weren't for the fact that saying that word out loud mysteriously shrinks my gonads to the size and firmness of month-old blueberries. 

A while back, I started calling myself a “domestic first responder.” 

Much manlier, right? 

The fact that I've gone to such lengths to butch-up my job title gets at a problem caretaking guys know all too well: While breadwinning women are now more common than ever (The Pew Research Center reports that women are now primary breadwinners in 40 percent of U.S. households), male householders are often gripped by a potent mix of shame, pride, isolation, frustration, delight and ambivalence. Even those rare guys who are completely at peace with their place in the family and world routinely bump up against assumptions that they secretly resent their wives, tolerate their children and down deep, kind of hate their lives. 

Are you OK?As Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has pointed out, this is the question men get when their wives succeed (while women married to successful men are told, “Congratulations!”) 

“That's the problem,” Sandberg says. “The problem is we demand and expect professional success from men. It's optional and even threatening from women.” 

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My novel Plus One is about one of those daddies, a marketing executive who quits his job to stay home when his wife's career takes off. In so doing I spun out all my craziest anxieties and deepest insecurities. I also talked to a bunch of guys in similar circumstances and many told me they feel privileged to be home with the kids, but diminished and belittled out in the world. 

To a certain extent, householding guys are just now facing the same hard realities women have been dealing with for generations. After all, guys like me have spent the last 20 or so years drifting into our masculine selves, trying this and that, peripatetically following our bliss. During the same period, our sisters have engaged in open and public warfare over their roles at home and in the workforce. 

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I for one feel deeply blessed to have that role with my kids and wife, to be available to my kids in a way I hope will create deep and lasting bonds, and to do the things that need doing so my wife can lead the professional life she does. That's a huge privilege. The fact that the culture sidelines anyone doing that work - man or woman - must change for the sake of all our well-being. Men can be natural caretakers and the world has got to stop assuming that we're all threatened and emasculated. 

So, a call to my fellow caretaking dudes: enough with the douchebaggery. There's nothing shameful in taking care of a family. Stop with the apologizing, the grandstanding, the hyphenating, the dodging and weaving. The time has come to own our place. Let's all try laughing at our failings rather than blotting them out with macho posturing. 

When someone asks what you do, say it loud and proud. 

I'm a Plus One, and I'm done apologizing for it.

As I said earlier, we are all a mix of different traits. Nurturing is one of them. Like practically everything, traits exist on a spectrum. Both ends of the spectrum are equally valid and acceptable.

So now you see how both women and men are punished for staying home, even for a short amount of time. Like all other facets of sexism, though, it gets even more convoluted.

Another article,

Mothers still have it the worst in the workplace: In recent decades, the wage gap between mothers and non-mothers has grown wider than the gap between women and men; motherhood now indicates a lower wage more often than gender alone. Women who have children are also more likely to be unemployed or work part-time. Add that to the fact that the cost of child care has almost doubled since 1985; that "the cost of putting two children in child care exceeded median annual rent payments in every state" in 2010, according to CNN Money; and that even taking one single year of parental leave chews off 20% of a woman's salary over the course of her career, as the Economist reported, and the financial and professional impact of having kids becomes particularly daunting. 

In fact, women, especially those with higher education, can largely avoid the gender wage gap by not having children, and avoiding what researchers Paula England and Michelle Budig have dubbed “the motherhood penalty.” 

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Yet, socially, women can't win: Despite the fact that having children remains a substantial burden in today's society, women — working or not — are treated as selfish or strange for choosing not to raise a family. Alex Kane Rudansky, a 23-year-old assistant account executive at a marketing agency in Chicago, says she prefers to focus on her career, but feels judged by coworkers for admitting to not wanting children. “It's acceptable to have a kid and a career, but we're not at the point where it's acceptable for women to have a career and no child,” she told Mic. 

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Young men don't face the same kind of pressure. Men who don't want children are not necessarily shamed for that choice. “Single men who are of childbearing age who put their careers first, they are not questioned,” Rudansky said. “They are lauded by their peers as eligible bachelors. When I say it's not for me, I'm questioned and put into categories.” 

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For young men, having children is a rational choice. There is no workplace penalty for men who decide to become fathers. As a matter of fact, male workers get rewarded when they choose to do so: The so-called “daddy bonus” is based on data showing that men actually earn more respect, promotions and salary when they become fathers. One study showed that including “PTA” on a resume made women twice as likely not to get a call back for a job, but increased the likelihood of getting a callback for men — even if the resumes were otherwise identical.

Even though mothers are punished regardless of staying-at-home or working, traditional society still expects them to do that dirty work – otherwise, they aren't fulfilling their natural role as women.

Men who have children and don't take time off, are rewarded. They are fulfilling all of their manly duties by both procreating and putting their manhood first.

Another article,

“Shame,” writes the psychotherapist Jeanne Safer in one essay, “—for being selfish, unfeminine, or unable to nurture—is one of the hardest emotions to work through for women who are conflicted about having children.” In 1989, Safer wrote a magazine article about her “conscious decision not to have a child,” but was so aware of the thorny territory she was wading into that she published it under a pseudonym. The article became a book, Beyond Motherhood: Choosing a Life Without Children, and Safer became a figurehead for all the likeminded women who felt, she writes, “that someone was speaking for them at last.” 

Twenty-six years later, the women Safer interviewed tell her they’re more than happy with their choices, but still the shadow of shame lingers. “Any person who marries but rejects procreation is seen as unnatural,” writes the author Sigrid Nunez in another essay. “But a woman who confesses never to have felt the desire for a baby is considered a freak. Women have always been raised to believe they would not be complete and could not be thought to have succeeded in life without the experience of motherhood.” 

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The inextricable links between increased education and intelligence, and opting out of procreation, are underscored by Laura Kipnis, a cultural critic who writes one of the more explicitly feminist essays in the book. Referring to the activist Shulamith Firestone, who believed that “childbearing was barbaric and pregnancy should be abolished,” Kipnis ponders the value of equating motherhood with “such supposedly ‘natural’ facts as maternal instinct and mother-child bonds,” which, she writes, “exist as social conventions of womanhood at this moment in history, not as eternal conditions.” The concept of profound maternal affection, she argues, was invented in the 19th century after both birth and child mortality rates started to decline. Before that, women couldn’t afford to get attached to infants that had a 15 to 30 percent chance of not reaching their first birthday. Ditto the concept of mother-child bonding, which coincided with the rise of industrialization, “when wage labor first became an option for women” and it became important to impress upon them the significance of staying home. The reason why fewer women are giving birth in Western countries, Kipnis says, is education. 

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“To me, the lack of desire to have a child is innate,” the Fusion culture editor Danielle Henderson writes. “It exists outside of my control. It is simply who I am, and I can take neither credit nor blame for all that it may or may not signify.” 

As a compilation of writing, Shallow, Selfish, and Self-Absorbed is generally very strong, bringing together a diverse range of voices and styles to riff entertainingly on a subject that has seemed, up until now, unriffable. But as a collection of manifestos, it’s hugely significant. It won’t influence anyone hell-bent on children away from having them, nor will it dissuade people who feel eternally conflicted about the subject. But what it does, more crucially, is refuse to accept the perpetuation of the myths that have surrounded childbirth for the last 200 years — that women have a biological need to procreate, and that having children is the single most significant thing a person can do with his or her life, and that not having children leaves people sad and empty. Try telling that to Oprah Winfrey, or Ellen DeGeneres, or Jane Austen, or Queen Elizabeth I. Or George Washington, or Nikola Tesla. The argument that lingers after having read the book is that the sooner having children is approached from a rational standpoint rather than an emotional one, the better for humanity, even if the result is that there are slightly fewer people left to enjoy it.

Note the the 'feminist' essay is the one that references someone who thought that pregnancy and childbirth were 'barbaric'. The rest of that essay brings up good points, but it must be acknowledged that the authors view 'feminism' as anti-femininity.

As Danielle says, her lack of desire is innate; just like any other personality trait. Like all others, the nurturing and parenting traits exist on their own spectrums. As I said above, it is assigning and isolating traits to a specific gender that is sexism. We are all amazingly complex beings with a large range of different traits, and none of them are defined by our gender. All choices, all parts of the spectrums, need to be acknowledged and respected. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to be a parent. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be a parent. It is sexist to say otherwise.

It seems to be human nature's instinct to reject and rebel to the opposite viewpoint, while still remaining sexist and judgmental. No one should be shamed or forced into femininity/masculinity/parenthood/etc. But just because sexism is trying to force us into something, does not make that thing inherently bad. 

Just as traditional sexists try and force women back into femininity/parenthood, reactionary sexists demean and damn anyone for choosing femininity/parenthood. We are seen as 'giving in' to the Patriarchy, and voluntarily choosing oppression – because anything feminine must be unhealthy and oppressive.

Because of that, young women are shamed by some for choosing not to have a family, and shamed by others for choosing to have a family. If we are naturally more masculine the traditionalists damn us; if we're more feminine it's the reactionaries damning us. Both are sexism and both exist at the same time – it merely depends on the kind of people around you. We have created a culture of sexism to combat sexism, and everyone suffers because of it.

There are several common comments to this from reactionary sexism, and Julia Serano has a wonderful response:

Early on in my first book Whipping Girl, while discussing the tendency within some strands of feminism to discourage women from engaging in acts and pursuits that are considered feminine, I argued that “We should instead learn to empower femininity itself.” While many people who read the entire book appreciated my stance on femininity, I have found that those who disagree often take that particular quote out of context. 

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Of course the reason why it is particularly easy to ridicule the idea of empowering femininity is because we (all of us, as a society) already harbor dismissive attitudes toward anything considered feminine. And the very point I was trying to make is that we should move beyond this knee-jerk tendency to dismiss and demean feminine gender expression. 

So to counter those who wish to smear the notion, here is a brief outline of ideas I forward in Whipping Girl (and specifically in the chapter “Putting the Feminine Back into Feminism”) that I believe will help us empower femininity. 

Recognize that feminine traits are human traits 

In our culture, a trait is deemed “feminine” if it is often associated with women. Common examples include being verbal and communicative, emotive or effusive, being nurturing and having an appreciation for beautiful or aesthetically pleasing things. Similarly, other traits are deemed “masculine” solely because they are often associated with men (being competitive or aggressive, physical exertion or using brute force, being silent and stoic and being mathematically or technically oriented). What all of these traits share is the fact that they are all human traitsthat are found to varying degrees in all people regardless of their gender. Most of us express some combination of traits from both the feminine and masculine categories. 

I would argue that there is nothing inherently wrong with feminine traits—like all human traits, they are often useful and play important roles. However, in our male- and masculine-centric culture, there are several forces that conspire to undermine feminine traits and the people who express them. 

Traits that are viewed as feminine are considered to be inferior to those deemed masculine 

This discrepancy is obvious in the adjectives that we commonly associate with gender expression: the assumption that masculinity is strong while femininity is weak, that masculinity is tough while femininity is fragile, that masculinity is rational while femininity is irrational, that masculinity is serious while femininity is frivolous, that masculinity is functional while femininity is ornamental, that masculinity is natural while femininity is artificial and that masculinity is sincere while femininity is manipulative. 

Not coincidentally, many of these stereotypes are identical to those that people have historically projected onto men and women. Over the decades, feminists have fiercely challenged these inferior connotations when they have been used to undermine women, and we should now challenge these same connotations when they are used to undermine people who are feminine [cut]. 

Feminine traits are misconstrued as being performed for the benefit of men 

We see this in the way that the quality of being nurturing (a human trait that is coded feminine) often gets distorted into the myth that it’s the woman’s job to take care of the man in heterosexual relationships. But it’s perhaps most evident in the way that people who appreciate beautiful or aesthetically pleasing things (especially with regards to their own manner of dress and self-presentation) are often presumed to be simply trying to attract or please men. 

The women I know who dress femininely are also (far more often than not) generally interested in other forms of visual beauty—they often decorate their homes, compliment others on their dress and comment appreciatively when they see things that look appealing to them (whether it be a particular hue or color combination, a fashion or style, a work of art or architecture, flowers and other natural objects and so on). So it is difficult for me to see this notion—that when they express this interest with regards to their own style of dress they must be doing it to attract male attention—as anything other than highly misplaced and entirely sexist. Not to mention the fact that stereotypically masculine men often never even notice when their female partners are wearing a new outfit or have a new hairstyle. And not to mention the fact that there are women who dress femininely but who are certainly not trying to attract the attention of men (e.g., femme dykes), and men who dress femininely even though such gender-non-conforming presentation is not traditionally considered attractive to most straight women and queer men. 

This myth—that feminine dress is primarily designed to attract male attention—exists for a single reason: It enables the societal-wide [sexual objectification] of women. After all, if we believe that she wore a pretty dress today because she is trying to pique men’s interests, then suddenly catcalls, sexual innuendos and ogling seem legitimate (because she was essentially “asking for” that attention). And if she says that she is not interested in a man’s sexual advances, well then she must be sending “mixed messages,” because she was clearly trying to “tempt” or “tease” him given the way she was dressed. 

A huge swath of our culture is dedicated to making women feel like their self worth is inexorably tied to how attractive they are to men. While critiquing that system is legitimate, dismissing people who are feminine (under the assumption that they buy into that system) is misplaced and often invalidates their autonomy (e.g., the fact that they may have dressed that way for themselves and not for others). It also overlooks a number of sexist double standards that lead us to perceive feminine dress differently from masculine dress. When a woman gets ready for a date, we often say she gets “all dolled up” (the assumption being that it is a frivolous and artificial process), while when a man does the same we usually call it “grooming” (which sounds so practical and natural, like animals in the wild). And while some feminists may complain about how feminine fashions often “show off women’s bodies for male enjoyment,” that completely ignores the fact that a man can go completely topless and no one will assume that he is doing it for anyone else (rather, people will likely assume it is a personal choice based on the fact that he is probably overheated!). 

Articles of clothing (or the lack thereof) have no inherent meaning. Any symbolism or connotations they seem to have come directly from our culture or personal assumptions. Rather than critiquing feminine styles of dress, we should instead destroy the sexist myth that feminine dress exists solely for the benefit of men. 

Girls and women are encouraged, and often coerced, into being feminine 

People who view femininity and masculinity as female- and male-specific traits (rather than more broadly as human traits), will often encourage “gender-appropriate” behaviors in other people. Sometimes this is done unconsciously or subtly (e.g., by simply expressing approval of gender-conforming behavior), and other times consciously and blatantly (e.g., by outright ridiculing or condemning people who are gender-nonconforming). This system has many negative ramifications, one of which is that it puts pressure on girls and women to express feminine traits but not masculine ones. 

Feminists have understandably been concerned about this system, although sometimes the strategies that have been forwarded to counter it have been misguided. For instance, some have encouraged women to avoid the feminine and instead pursue masculine approaches and endeavors. But this strategy seems to presume that things that are coded feminine are inherently weak, irrational, frivolous, artificial, etc., in relation to those coded masculine. In other words, this strategy seems to accept these sexist double standards at face value rather than challenging them. 

Other feminists have claimed that we must do away with all gender expression, both the masculine and the feminine. While I am all in favor of jettisoning compulsory femininity for girls/women and compulsory masculinity for boys/men, entirely doing away with all such behaviors seems unwarranted. After all, many of these behaviors (being nurturing, competitive, emotive, technically oriented, appreciating beauty or physical exertion) are simply human traits that are unnecessarily categorized as “feminine” or “masculine” by society. This approach also mistakenly assumes that people have no individual inclinations or tendencies with regard to these traits. In reality, many people find that, regardless of the gender they were assigned at birth or how they were raised, they tend to gravitate toward behaviors that are deemed feminine, masculine or some combination thereof. 

Most reasonable people these days would agree that demeaning or dismissing someone solely because she is female is socially unacceptable. However, demeaning or dismissing people for expressing feminine qualities is often condoned and even encouraged. Indeed, much of the sexism faced by women today targets their femininity (or assumed femininity) rather than their femaleness. It is high time that we forcefully challenge the negative assumptions that constantly plague feminine traits and the people who express them. That is what I mean when I say we must empower femininity.

Femininity and Masculinity in Pop Culture.

Here are several quotes on femininity and masculinity in Pop Culture.

I hate Strong Female Characters 

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No one ever asks if a male character is “strong”. Nor if he’s “feisty,” or “kick-ass” come to that. 

The obvious thing to say here is that this is because he’s assumed to be “strong” by default. Part of the patronizing promise of the Strong Female Character is that she’s anomalous. “Don’t worry!” that puff piece or interview is saying when it boasts the hero’s love interest is an SFC. “Of course, normal women are weak and boring and can’t do anything worthwhile. But this one is different. She is strong! See, she roundhouses people in the face.” 

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Are our best-loved male heroes Strong Male Characters? Is, say, Sherlock Holmes strong? In one sense, yes, of course. He faces danger and death in order to pursue justice. On the other hand, his physical strength is often unreliable – strong enough to bend an iron poker when on form, he nevertheless frequently has to rely on Watson to clobber his assailants, at least once because he’s neglected himself into a condition where he can’t even try to fight back. His mental and emotional resources also fluctuate. An addict and a depressive, he claims even his crime-fighting is a form of self-medication. Viewed this way, his willingness to place himself in physical danger might not be “strength” at all – it might be another form of self-destructiveness. Or on the other hand, perhaps his vulnerabilities make him all the stronger, as he succeeds in surviving and flourishing in spite of threats located within as well without. 

Is Sherlock Holmes strong? It’s not just that the answer is “of course”, it’s that it’s the wrong question. 

What happens when one tries to fit other iconic male heroes into an imaginary “Strong Male Character” box? A few fit reasonably well, but many look cramped and bewildered in there. They’re not used to this kind of confinement, poor things. They’re used to being interesting across more than one axis and in more than two dimensions. 

“Of course I’m strong, I’m an idealized power fantasy, but the most interesting thing about me is that, on the inside, I’m a dorky little artist,” says Captain America sadly, sucking his stomach in. 

“Does it still count as strength if I’m basically a psychopath?” inquires James Bond idly, lounging against the box wall and checking his cuffs. 

Batman’s insistence that he can, must, will get into the Strong Male Character box comes close to hysteria, but there’s no room in there for his bat ears and cape and he won’t take them off. 

The Doctor, finding that this box is in fact even smaller on the inside, babbles something incomprehensible and runs away. 

The ones that fit in most neatly – are usually the most boring. He-Man, Superman (sorry). The Lone Ranger. Jack Ryan, perhaps. Forgotten square-jawed heroes of forgotten pulp novels and the Boy’s Own Paper. If Strong-Male-Character compatibility was the primary criterion of writing heroes, our fiction would be a lot poorer. But it’s within this claustrophobic little box that we expect our heroines to live out their lives. 

Let’s come back to Sherlock Holmes. A better question would be – “What is Sherlock Holmes like?” 

He’s a brilliant, solitary, abrasive, Bohemian, whimsical, brave, sad, manipulative, neurotic, vain, untidy, fastidious, artistic, courteous, rude, polymath genius. 

Adding the word “strong” to that list doesn’t seem to me to enhance it much. 

And what happens when we talk about characters that don’t even fit the box marked “hero”? Is Hamlet “strong”? By the end of the play, perhaps in a sense he is, but it’s a very specific and conflicted form of strength which brings him peace only at cost of his life. Richard II, on the other hand, is not only not “strong”, he’s decidedly weak, both as a human being and a king. Yet some of the most beautiful poetry in the language, the most intricate meditations on monarchy, are placed in this weakling’s mouth. He has no strength, but he does have plenty of agency. The plot of the play is shaped around his (often extremely bad) decisions. In narrative terms, agency is far more important than “strength” – it’s what determines whether a character is truly part of the story, or a detachable accessory. 

And all of this without taking into account the places where the Strong Female Character may overlap with the stereotype of the “strong black woman”, when myths of strength not only fail but cause real harm. 

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She’s introduced briefing a number of potential recruits to the super soldier programme. This is the scene clearly written to establish Peggy’s SFC cred, and it unfolds like this: One of the recruits immediately starts mouthing off at her, first insulting her accent and then, when she calls him out of the line-up, making sexist, suggestive remarks. 

She punches him to the ground. 

Later she discovers Captain America being kissed by the only other woman with a speaking part in the film, who has no other role except to kiss Captain America. She outwardly maintains her composure until Captain America is handling his iconic shield for the first time, and its perhaps- impenetrable qualities are briefly discussed as well as the fact that it’s just a prototype. Peggy suddenly fires off several shots at Captain America, so that he must raise the shield (which does, thankfully, stop bullets) to avoid being killed. 

Both scenes are framed as funny and impressive. 

You can make a case for the punch, I guess – it’s wartime, she hasn’t got time to pussyfoot around with sexist idiots, she needs to establish her authority hard and fast – but it’s still escalating a verbal conflict to fairly serious physical violence within seconds, and it’s hard to imagine a male character we’re supposed to like being introduced in the same way. The second scene, though, when considered without the haha-what-a-little-spitfire framing of the film, becomes outrageous. Shooting a gun, without warning, at your love interest who has a shield you do not yet know can stop bullets (and what about ricochets?!), because you’re jealous? Or for any reason at all? What the hell, Peggy? 

That a female character is allowed to get away with behaviour that, in a male character, would rightly be seen as abusive (or outright murderous) may seem - if you’re MRA minded, anyway – an unfair imbalance in her favour. But really these scenes reveals the underlying deficit of respect the character starts with, which she’s then required to overcome by whatever desperate, over-the-top, cartoonish means to hand. She’s in a hole, and acts that would be hair-raising in a male character just barely bring her up to their level. The script acknowledges and deplores the sexism the character faces in her very first scene – but it won’t challenge the sexist soldier’s belief that women don’t belong in this story by writing any more women into it. Not women with names and speaking parts, anyway. 

I’m sure someone will claim here that this would have been simply impossible, because everyone knows there weren’t any women in World War Two, so, firstly – oh, PLEASE. Secondly, German women had done pretty well in the sciences before the rise of Hitler. Why couldn’t Erskine, the sad German scientist whose serum transforms Steve Rogers, have been gender-switched for the movie? Howard Stark, father of Tony/Iron Man, gets a cameo – couldn’t his future wife Maria appear too, grinding edges on that shield or something? What about the tower keeper who was guarding the supernaturally powered Cosmic Cube – did he have to be a man? Couldn’t the Red Skull have recruited a few evil women for Hydra, too? As it is, with when one recognizes that sole responsibility for representing her gender and tackling sexism rests on Peggy-the-character’s shoulders, that her actions are outlandishly large to compensate for all those other women who simply aren’t there, some of the strain and hyperbole in her characterization becomes more explicable. 

The Strong Female Character has something to prove. She’s on the defensive before she even starts. She’s George from The Famous Five all grown up and still bleating with the same desperate lack of conviction that she’s “Every Bit As Good as a Boy”. 

When I talk about this, people offer synonyms; better, less limiting ways of saying the same thing. What about “effective female characters”, for instance? But it is not enough to redefine the term. It won’t do to add maybe a touch more nuance but otherwise carry on more or less as normal. We need an entirely new approach to the problem, which means remembering that the problem is far more than just a tendency to show female characters as kind of drippy. We need get away from the idea that sexism in fiction can be tackled by reliance on depiction of a single personality type, that you just need to write one female character per story right and you’ve done enough. 

Switching back and forth between Captain America and Richard II may be rather odd, but I want to do it one more time point out two things that Richard has, that Bond and Captain America and Batman also have, that Peggy, however strong she is, cannot attain. They are very simple things, even more fundamental than “agency”. 

1. Richard has the spotlight. However weak or distressed or passive he may be, he’s the main goddamn character. 

2. Richard has huge range of other characters of his own gender around him, so that he never has to act as any kind of ambassador or representative for maleness. Even dethroned and imprisoned, he is free to be uniquely himself. 

It’s rare enough for a female character to get the first, and even rarer for her to get the second. Just look at the cast list of 2010’s Salt, say. Angelina Jolie plus dudes. 

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They march on screen, punch someone to show how they don’t take no shit, throw around a couple of one-liners or forcibly kiss someone because getting consent is for wimps, and then with ladylike discretion they back out of the narrative’s way. 

On the posters they’re posed way in the back of the shot behind the men, in the trailers they may pout or smile or kick things, but they remain silent. Their strength lets them, briefly, dominate bystanders but never dominate the plot. It’s an anodyne, a sop, a Trojan Horse - it’s there to distract and confuse you, so you forget to ask for more. 

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Let us remind ourselves that the actual goal here is not the odd character who’s Strong or Effective or anything else. It’s really very simple, but it would represent a far more profound change than any amount of individual sassy kickassery can ever achieve, and would mean far fewer posters like those above. 

Equality. 

What do I want instead of a Strong Female Character? I want a male:female character ratio of 1:1 instead of 3:1 on our screens. I want a wealth of complex female protagonists who can be either strong or weak or both or neither, because they are more than strength or weakness. Badass gunslingers and martial artists sure, but also interesting women who are shy and quiet and do, sometimes, put up with others’ shit because in real life there’s often no practical alternative. And besides heroines, I want to see women in as many and varied secondary and character roles as men: female sidekicks, mentors, comic relief, rivals, villains. I want not to be asked, when I try to sell a book about two girls, two boys and a genderless robot, if we couldn’t change one of those girls to a boy. 

Finally, when I think of what I want for female characters, I find myself thinking of what the performance poet Guante wants for himself, in this poem where he rejects the limitations of the insulting commandment “Man Up”. So if he’ll forgive me for borrowing and paraphrasing … 

I want her to be free to express herself 

I want her to have meaningful, emotional relationships with other women 

I want her to be weak sometimes 

I want her to be strong in a way that isn’t about physical dominance or power 

I want her to cry if she feels like crying 

I want her to ask for help 

I want her to be who she is 

Write a Strong Female Character? No. (source)

And:

If someone wrote a story about my life, I would not be a Strong Female Character. Don't get me wrong: I don't have any problems with my personality. I'm well-educated, hardworking and ambitious. But I'm also sensitive, a bit of a drama queen, shy, and a total Disney fangirl, and if I were a character on a TV show, I would probably be criticized for being too feminine, for embodying too many negative female stereotypes. For not being Strong with a capital S. 

The Strong Female Character has become another way for writers to avoid developing realistic women in their stories, relying instead on tropes and shallow stereotypes wrapped up in the guise of girlpower!feminism. Worse, it's become a way for readers and viewers to comfortably dismiss flawed or feminine characters as "weak," while holding onto their not-sexist card by praising the stereotypically masculine (but not too masculine) behavior of the Strong Female Character. 

The typical Strong Female Character (TM) usually has at least three of the four following traits: 

1. Action girl. She's a skilled fighter, whether that's shooting guns, duelling with swords, or being a badass with a bow and arrow. 

2. Non-emotional. She's the sort of character who steps over dead bodies without flinching, who responds to any insult with a sharp bit of snark, and definitely never doubts herself or cries. 

3. Not-like-other-girls. She has mostly (or only) male friends, and she disdains girls who spend their time on silly, girly things like fashion. 

4. Sexually “liberated.” She's all about casual sex and skimpy clothing that seems impractical for her action-packed lifestyle. 

With the possible exception of the impractical-skimpy-clothing (because seriously, who wants to fight a dragon without any armor at all?), none of these traits are bad things. Some truly great characters fit this mold to a tee. But - and it's a pretty big but - not all well-developed, dynamic, realistic female characters are like the Strong Female Character (TM), because not all women are like that. 

I may be making assumptions based on my own experiences, but I would even say that most women aren't like that. Some are, of course, which is why it's awesome to see female characters that get to be the tough one in a scene, who don't give a damn about others and who can take anybody in a fight. But many women, like many men, are a mix of stereotypically masculine and stereotypically feminine traits. They're young businesswomen who love rockclimbing and adventure but are quite shy and conservative when it comes to relationships. They're PhD scientists who like cutesy things and spend a lot of time styling their hair. They're girls who are generally very shy and overly polite, but have a very strong sense of themselves underneath.  

Some women outwardly fit all “strong female character” stereotypes because they know they wouldn't be taken seriously by colleagues if they didn't. And some women do genuinely fit inside a lot of feminine stereotypes, sometimes because of societal expectations, but also sometimes because that's just who that person is. 

The important thing is that none of these hypothetical women are “better” or “stronger” than any other. No character who fits any of these descriptions is a better or worse female character than any other. The key to a great female character doesn't lie in their interests or their attitudes to things. It lies in having agency (or reasons for a lack of agency), a well-developed personality and set of motivations, and an existence as an entity all to themselves, rather than as a tool in another character's story. Philosophers say that everyone views themselves as the center of their own story - a good female character will believe this too. And if she doesn't, there should be interesting psychological reasons why. 

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It leads to a culture that denigrates a female character for being uncomfortable with the sight of blood, or being unable to handle herself in a fight, or feeling hurt when someone insults her... all things that would be true of many real women (and real men), not because they're weak, but because that's who they are. It's the sort of expectation that has people criticizing Joan Watson in the Elementary trailer, when she acts like any non-murder-investigator human being would do, and flinches away at the sight of a bloodied dead body. If I saw a murder victim, I would probably throw up. I'd probably have nightmares. Does that mean I'm not a good female character? Does that mean I'm weak? Or am I just human? 

I want to find strong female rolemodels in fiction. I want women like Hermione Granger, who are incredibly intelligent and talented but sometimes crack under pressure, or Sansa Stark, who are gentle and kind but have an inner will of steel. And yes, I want characters like Alanna the Lioness, who disguise themselves as boys so that they can train to be badass knights. But strength comes in many different forms. It's time for writers, critics and viewers to accept that. (source)

And:

What I wanted to accomplish with Tella’s character in Fire & Flood was three-fold. First, I wanted her to embrace her femininity. Second, I wanted her to triumph inside the Brimstone Bleed. Third, I wanted Tella to continue to embrace her femininity at the end of the book, even after she triumphed, so readers would connect the dots. This worked for many. For others, they enjoyed that Tella performed well, but wished she wasn’t so “weak.” I have to believe a part of that perceived weakness was her affinity for nail polish and such. 

Thus the tweet. [“Dear teens, femininity and strength are not mutually exclusive. You can like nail polish AND conquer the world.”] 

The question I’d like to ask is this: When did femininity bashing begin? And what started it? I’m not sure I know the answer, but I think this subject is one that needs attention. Many readers will admit they want strong female characters, but what makes a female character strong? Someone who rejects fashion because they’re above such worries? Someone who puts on a fearless, emotionless face for battle? How about someone largely unconcerned with romantic relationships? 

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How do we change our way of thinking? How do we separate small acts of femininity (painting your nails, shopping with friends, baking cupcakes) from weakness? First, I think we admit there’s a problem. And we discuss it. 

That’s what I’d like to encourage you to do today. Consider this a post to kick off other posts. Share this with friends. Write a follow up telling me how wrong I am. Leave a comment. Do anything to keep the conversation going so that one day, somewhere down the road, we can read about a teen girl who loves to shop, and instead of thinking, “Weak. Maybe she’ll grow stronger throughout this book,” we’ll think, “Shopping, cool. I wonder what kick ass things this chick has up her cashmere, Chanel sleeve.” 

And now for a few comments from authors and literary agents in the young adult industry! 

“As authors, we want our heroines to stand out. To be strong. To be rebels in their communities. But when we do this by making our heroines “not like other girls,” what does it imply about the other girls — that they’re shallow or stupid or vain? If our heroines are strong only because they embrace characteristics / interests traditionally viewed as masculine, because they shun “girly” things — doesn’t that imply that girls – especially those who might like fashion or flirting or baking — are weak? I tried to deconstruct this in the Cahill Witch Chronicles. In BORN WICKED, Cate – influenced by the Brotherhood’s Victorian teachings – is downright judgy toward other girls, but over the course of the trilogy, she comes to love, admire, and deeply respect some of the women she originally dismisses as nothing but “cabbageheads.” - Jessica Spotswood, author of BORN WICKED 

“I play video games and sports, and I love to shop and dance. I run my own business and can service my car, but I also love to cook and host parties. I’ve never been just one type of girl, and I don’t know any girls who are. I don’t buy characters who are either. Women (and men) are layered, deep and complex beings, and their fictional counterparts need to be as well. This is definitely something I take into account when I read, and strong-yet-feminine female leads are seen throughout the books I represent, from Anna finding her strength to defend herself in Jennifer Rush’s ALTERED, to Alina, an orphaned soldier who enjoys soft dresses and champagne in Leigh Bardugo’s SHADOW AND BONE, to Eleanor kicking ghostly tail while wearing petticoats in Susan Dennard’s SOMETHING STRANGE & DEADLY, and the list goes on. No matter what the adventure they’re on, these girls feel real. To me, they are real.” – Joanna Volpe, Literary Agent 

“Girls don’t have to be boys to be “strong.” Too often, strength is depicted as big muscles. But that’s not strength. It’s what you do with what you have that’s strength–not just in the ability you have, but how you choose to use it. I have seen more strength in a woman choosing to stand up and face the day as herself after a personal disaster than I have ever seen in a muscle-clad superhero.” – Beth Revis, New York Times bestselling author of ACROSS THE UNIVERSE 

“One of my favorite movies of all time is Legally Blonde. And not because it’s about a sorority girl who goes to law school and wears pink. But because it’s about sorority girl who goes to law school, wears pink, and proves to everyone around her (including herself) that she doesn’t have to change to succeed. I tried to channel this same spirit and message to girls in my book, 52 REASONS TO HATE MY FATHER, about a spoiled teen heiress who is seemingly only good at one thing: spending her daddy’s money on designer clothes. In the end, the ultimate lesson she learns isn’t to completely change who she is and start wearing trash bags. It’s to embrace who she is and show the world she can be that…and more. Female characters don’t have to shed their feminine qualities to become story-worthy heroines. In fact, it’s just the opposite. They have to prove that the qualities that make them who they are were enough all along.” – Jessica Brody, author of 52 REASONS TO HATE MY FATHER and the UNREMEMBERED trilogy (source)

And:

Natalie Portman: “I want every version of a woman and a man to be possible. I want women and men to be able to be full-time parents or full-time working people or any combination of the two. I want both to be able to do whatever they want sexually without being called names. I want them to be allowed to be weak and strong and happy and sad – human, basically. The fallacy in Hollywood is that if you’re making a ‘feminist’ story, the woman kicks ass and wins. That’s not feminist, that’s macho. A movie about a weak, vulnerable woman can be feminist if it shows a real person that we can empathize with.” (source)

I greatly dislike labeling things 'feminist'. It is not only limiting and reductionist; it implies that feminism is a separate entity, and that something/someone must follow specific guidelines to be 'feminist' – and since this is done mostly by reactionaries, said guidelines are usually sexist.

In actuality, feminism is the inclusion of all possibilities for everyone.

Rape Culture and Sexist Terminology.

'You throw like a girl!' 'You're such a sissy!' 'Don't be a pussy!'

All are insulting and 'feminine' terms. See this video for more examples.

The term “pussy whipped” is used to shame men, and is mostly used by other men. It officially means “dominated by one's wife or female lover.” There are three of the above themes running through it. Whipped means dominated, ie toxic power. It reenforces that men need to rule with toxic power. Pussy does not only refer to women, it objectifies them. Rape Culture says that a woman's only use is for sex. Thus, only her vagina is referred to. A man is not being dominated by his equal, but his sex toy. 'Who does she think she is to have a say in what he does?! He's the man! He has every right to go out drinking with his friends, instead of coming home and watching the baby!' Thus the term is only used to condemn femininity and promote toxic masculinity.

There is the phrase “wrecked that pussy” or “I wrecked that”. Again, the words “pussy” or “that” are being used to objectify women. These phrases are used by men to brag about the women they have had consensual sex with. Wreck means “the act of destroying or the state of being destroyed”. The man is bragging about dominating and destroying the woman he was with; thus enforcing toxic masculinity.

Some more common phrases are “grow some balls” and “balls of steel” to equate strength, while “pussy” means weak. These are both sexist and scientifically inaccurate:

Because, if you think about it in realistic terms, it makes absolutely no sense for “vagina” to mean pathetic. 

Actually, it directly contradicts reality so much that you might suspect that equating the lady bits with weakness is sarcasm. 

Think about it. The average adult caslopis is an opening with a circumference ranging from that of a penny to a silver dollar. Yet, an adult caslopis can expand itself to release and push forth another human being, roughly the size of a watermelon, without being ripped to shreds. That is not weakness. That is the exact opposite of weakness. That’s strength and toughness to the Herculean degree.  

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As if that is not enough to support my theory that the word pussy is misused, also consider this, if we were to use any sort of genitalia to describe wimpiness, how is it that it isn’t the testicles? Why are balls a symbol of strength while the vagina is a symbol of weakness? It really should be the other way around considering the testicles have the strength and endurance of a strawberry and the vagina, well, the vagina pushes other human beings into the world. It’s a person with balls that should be considered the wimps, and it’s the pussy that should be equated with nerves of steel. 

After all, what happens when you kick a man in the balls? 

The man in the picture obviously has balls, but that hasn’t helped him much in the toughness factor. But if he had a pussy, he’d probably be kicking ass. Balls are a dude’s weak point in battle. (source)

Comedian Hal Sparks:

I disagree vehemently with the use of the word pussy to describe a weak person. Because the vagina is the tougher of the two genitals by a long shot. It’s not even close, folks. Just think about that analogy for a second. It can pass something 500 times its size through it and retain its elasticity. Yeah, try that with your dick sometime, guys. It’ll look like a windsock, and it’ll never go back to it’s original shape – ever. [cut] Pussies are tough. [cut] It bleeds every month, and it won’t die, it’s like the Predator or something. [cut] Pussies are invincible. 

Meanwhile, what do we say about a dude if we wanna say he’s tough? “Fuck dude. That guy’s got balls, bro. Dude, you wanna be that tough, you gotta have some big fuckin’ cojones, buddy. That dude’s so tough, he probably has to carry his balls around in a wheelbarrow.” Balls are the weakest part of me! They’re nothing but nerve endings, they have no natural defences except to hide inside me like the cowards that they are. [cut] You don’t even have to have good aim to hit them, my legs will guide you in like bumper pool. It’s the worst design flaw in nature. A six year old with pointy shoes can shut me off like a fucking light. You’ve been saying those phrases backwards! Now, stop it! (source)

Comedian Sheng Wang:

A friend said to me, 'Hey you need to grow a pair. Grow a pair, bro.' It's when someone calls you weak, but they associate it with a lack of testicles. Which is weird because testicles are the most sensitive things in the world. If you suddenly just grew a pair, you'd be a lot more vulnerable. If you want to be tough, you should lose a pair. If you want to be real tough, you should grow a vagina - those things can take a pounding. (source)

Comedian Trevor Noah:

I’ve never understood this because vaginas are such strong, powerful things. Humans come out of vaginas and they keep working. They’re indestructible. You just sit on a penis wrong and it breaks. (source)

And:

Have you ever come across a pussy? You realize vaginas can start revolutions and end wars. You realize, even on a physical level, the vagina is one of the strongest things that have ever existed. Virtually indestructible...The vagina is frighteningly powerful. You realize that human beings come out of a vagina. 

Human beings come out and still it continues to work as intended. Do you understand how impressive that is? A human being comes out of the vagina. And still, it continues to operate, it continues to work, after a human has just come out. You’re saying it’s weak? You just sit on a penis wrong and it breaks. “Don’t be a penis,” that should be the phrase. I wish I was a pussy. (source)

The vagina stretches to three times it's original size in girth for childbirth, it can nearly double in length, it is self-cleaning, it is self-lubricating, and it retains it's natural shape after giving birth (source and source). So it makes perfect sense why the Kyriarchy hates and fears the vagina.

There is no Rape Culture without toxic power, and there is no mainstream culture without Rape Culture; as this next quote shows:

Have you ever noticed how violent our language is? Even when we aren’t even talking about anything inherently violent itself? 

We tell people to “go f*ck themselves” when we’re angry. We’ll “tear you a new one” when we’re insulting. We “force ourselves” to do a myriad of tasks, “hit on someone” when we flirt, and tell (mostly) women to “suck it” when their power is threatening to us. 

That’s a lot of violence right there. 

You’ve probably also noticed that that’s a lot of sexual violence. 

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It’s not surprising that threatening sexual assault is the primary way that we engage in verbal warfare. 

This language is so normalized, it’s probably part of your vocabulary, too. In fact, not using sexual violent language is almost impossible because of how ingrained it has become. (source)

Another article continues:

When this metaphor is used to put people down, the person “sucking it” is not supposed to be enjoying it, which implies that they are not doing it by choice. Rather, the person using the phrase is asserting their dominance by making the other person “suck it.” 

This normalizes rape as a way to assert dominance. “Suck it,” along with “that sucks” and “that blows,” also depicts oral sex as an activity that puts the receiver above the giver, when in fact many people “suck it” by choice and enjoy it. 

To eliminate rape culture, we need to divorce oral sex from these power dynamics. As long as receiving oral sex is considered a way to assert dominance, it will be considered normal to force or pressure someone into it. 

The phrase “take it up the tailpipe” functions similarly, both normalizing anal rape and depicting receiving anal sex as a submissive act that putsone person below another. In addition, both phrases contain hints of homophobia, since both acts are associated with gay men and supposedly “feminize” them. 

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How did one of the most fun activities imaginable also come one of the worst insults imaginable? You guessed it: rape culture. If “f*ck you” alluded to consensual sex, after all, it would be a nice thing to say. (source)

These are just more examples of the extreme insidiousness of Rape Culture, sexism, and toxic power.

There are several other terms that continue this pattern of physical violence. The word “slay” is used to mean to impress or do really well ('you slayed it today with your performance'; similar terms are 'smashed it' and 'killed it'). This is another example of using violent language to describe a nonviolent act. Another term is kick-ass – it means someone (usually female) is really cool and/or 'strong'. However, it is the same mindset, and the word 'strong' is used in the same way, as it is in 'strong female character'. A term similar to kick-ass is badass. It has the same meaning, that a woman is really cool and/or 'strong', because she is 'bad' ie not feminine.

'You're not like most girls'/'I'm not like other girls':

When we proudly exclaim that we’re different from “other girls,” we imply that those “other girls” are inferior in some ways. 

Differentiating yourself from a group, and saying, “Hold up! I’m not with them!” implies that being a part of that group is a bad thing. 

But hold up. Let’s think about this a little more. 

Of course, no girl is like other girls. No person from any group is like anyone else from that group, because no group is a monolith. Every single girl will differ to every other girl in some way, based on their experiences, hobbies, preferences, and beliefs. 

Sometimes, I really feel like the phrase “I’m not like other girls” is informed by the idea that girls are usually all the same. It buys into the idea that gender stereotypes are true – especially since we often say the phrase before we describe ourselves as having traditionally “unfeminine” traits. 

For example, people often might say something like, “I’m not like most girls. I like soccer.” Or they might say, “I’m not like most women. I’m quite a deep, thoughtful person.” This implies that the vast majority of women or girls dislike sports or are shallow and superficial. (source)

And:

This article isn’t to say that all girls (and all people) aren’t unique – we are. But, when we claim we are “not like other girls” we position ourselves in opposition to and against other girls. It’s a compliment we accept, usually from guys, and an idea we perpetuate, and we need to stop it. 

I am definitely guilty of saying it when I was younger: “I just get on better with guys”, “I’m not really like other girls” were pretty much my mantras. I felt like I had to position myself against the girly stereotype to be seen as valuable and desirable, but in reality as I’ve got older I have realised that saying someone “isn’t like other girls” doesn’t elevate you, it just puts other girls down. Whether intended that way or not, when we differentiate ourselves from other girls, as though girls are a monolithic category, we make a value judgment. 

When we describe ourselves as being “not like other girls”, we make existing a form of competition. But as Sarah from Brighton says, “It’s a competition I didn’t sign up for.” 

In our society, women’s success is dependent on distancing ourselves from the rest of our gender. Arguing we are not like something, rather than being able to take pride in all the ways we are feminine or girly. I don’t blame girls who describe themselves like this at all though – really it’s something that has been created to divide us and comes from living in a sexist society. 

Hayley from Connecticut says, “Society wants women to pin themselves against each other and tear each other down. So they try to say that all women are the same, and that women who “are not like society’s view of women” are cool and need to be put on a pedestal, which is not the case at all.” Being not like other girls is seen as a defining compliment – and part of the reason for this is that the stereotype of women is so derogatory. Everyone knows the girls in school who were beautiful and talented and really athletic, and we were told we had to aspire to be like them, but at the same time we have to hate them. 

There’s this idea if we can’t reach this bullshit socially constructed idea of beauty, the only way we can be seen as desirable or valid is through arguing that we’re not like them, we’re not like other girls. We’re cool girls, we’re better than them – the girls who like to read, wear minimal make-up, are funny, who like sports and video games, and drinks beer, and doesn’t diet, and is “one of the guys”. 

There is nothing wrong with being like this at all – there is something wrong with the fact we are made to believe that it is only by saying we’re not like “other girls” that we are valid. Our self-worth shouldn’t have to depend on hating the rest of our gender, and I’m fed up of society telling us it has to. We shouldn’t have to embody more masculine traits to be wanted – there is power in femininity and this power is being denied to all of us. 

This girl who all of us have said we’re “not like” takes all the bad, devalued ideas of girlhood or femininity and packages it up as the uniform image of “a girl”. Girls and women, according to society, are bitchy, cliquey, catty, and high drama – but all this is, is a stereotype. 

From where I stand, girls are strong – you have to be when you grow up in a society that’s out to get you. You have to be strong when you start being followed home or catcalled at age 12. Alexa, a student from Madison, Alabama defends being like other girls. She told me: “I am like other girls because I am strong, I am independent, I am successful, I have emotions, I like to dress up and wear makeup, I like ‘girly shows’ like Gossip Girl, and fit into a lot of the other ‘girl’ stereotypes. I am proud of these things.” 

Not only is this stereotype that we are all judged against bullshit – but it’s just incorrect. Women are accused of being catty and high-drama – and maybe our arguments are more visible. But I study Politics, my entire degree is basically men causing drama, the same with History. Our society is founded on men causing drama, our roads are named after men causing drama – so it’s utterly ridiculous that it’s women who are lumped with this image. (source)

As for when someone else says it to you as a complement... just show them Hailee Steinfield's music video:

For a few seconds, you’ll think “Most Girls” is just another video where one girl runs down others, as a young man tries to charm Steinfeld by telling her she’s not like “most girls.” That’s where things change: instead of agreeing with him, Hailee Steinfeld ditches the guy and serenades us with a song about how most girls are strong, powerful, amazing people. 

As she celebrates the variety of ways women can be women, Steinfeld shows off an assortment of different looks: sexy bombshell, tough fighter, casual and relaxed, artsy, and bookish. They’re all equally good, and all worthy of attention and support. Hailee Steinfeld sings the praise of girls who go out partying as well as those who like to stay home and study. 

The video ends with an assortment of different women wearing shirts that show off their individual traits and personalities. As the group of girls sing together that they want to be like most girls, you’ll be hard pressed not to feel inspired. This isn’t about competing with other women or talking down to girls who make different choices about their bodies or their lives. Instead, it’s a celebration of womanhood in all its many forms. But if there’s one thing they all have in common, it’s this line from a sign in the back of the video: Most girls are unstoppable. (source)

One of the most controversial phrases? “Bitch”. This paper does an excellent job of explaining why “bitch” needs to disappear for good. Please read it, it really is an incredible paper. It is just too long for me to quote here.

~*~

I could go on forever, but this is just my Basics essay, and it has already become obscenely long. Thank you for reading.