Thank you for this and for sharing the Melinda Wenner Moyer newsletter which I'm reading right now. I don't know how I can help other adult men deal with their loneliness, but it is validating to read what she wrote about the importance of rejecting gender stereotypes in general and rejecting the idea that men and boys should suppress their emotions in particular.
A couple of years back while sharing happy memories about my mom with him at bedtime I started to cry and he started to cry and he hugged me and said "we are the crying boys" which is the best boy group I've ever been in. I doubt that I'll get everything right with raising this kiddo, but I feel pretty good about the emotional stuff.
I love that. When I read Moyer's newsletter I was so struck by the fact that it's mothers reinforcing this emotional repression. It really made me think hard (and talk to my therapist) about strategies for being a better person in those situations for ALL the men in my life...son, father, brothers, friends.
I think what you just wrote about being a better person for all men is the way I can help the men in my sphere of influence and a way that I probably already am. Maybe not directly with their loneliness, but at least to model something different. When either of my kids is feeling hurt or scared or apprehensive I try to validate their feelings and support them. For example their grandfather (a good person, but was raised to suppress his emotions and has been doing so flawlessly for the 22+ years I've known him) will say shit to them like "you're okay" or "just eat it, it's delicious" or whatever which just isn't helpful. I don't expect to change him, but maybe it will influence how he interacts with my kids and his other grandkids.
I think also just being a good friend to other dudes helps. My friend was telling me the other day how his pal just texts to meet up for beers and how AMAZING that is. But how he's tried to do it with other friends and how hard it is to get them to reciprocate. And it made me realize how much I rely on that in my own friendships. And how often the answer to my isolation is to just ask people to show up. AND THEY DO. But it's the asking that is terrifying.
My closest friends locally are women, but I lucked into a close friendship with a guy who took it on himself to organize a dad group where he lives a few years ago. They get together every couple of months to drink and hang out and tell truly terrible dad jokes and vote on the most groanworthy one. He lives a little too far away for me to join, but I am going to ask him how he got the gumption to start this thing.
I really should steal his idea and try to replicate it here. I have been thinking a lot about how the experience of Relay Iowa started with me just putting an idea out there and it turned into something pretty great...but how come I haven't done something like that for myself where I live? I got way more out of it than I put in so I have little to lose, but like you said...the asking is terrifying.
You should. Please do that. I have organised a monthly meeting of queer women in the town I live in. At the moment there isn’t anything for queer women, and I asked somebody who owns my favorite café if we could meet there for a three-month trial period to see if people show up and just met each other. The first meeting is the last Friday of September. I really hope people show up and it’s not just me with my pride flag and my sad ass bisexual self sitting in a corner. I figure trying to build community in small or larger ways is worth the risk.
awww. that is a very good boy group. we only had daughters but also only have grandsons. so we can relate to both sides. you sound as though you are definitely doing the right things.
“board adviser in a national financial services business, real estate investor, and I do my own private equity investing”.
Yeah, this woman hears, “unemployed”. But I went to Wharton, so not only do I know what these words mean...I know when they are meaningless. 🤪
Side note: this is why, much to my husband’s frustration, I don’t describe myself as a CEO or a Founder- to keep from sounding like this guy. I’m a small business owner, I love what I do, I’m proud we still exist after the pandemic, and it facilitates my ability to do Badass policy-oriented volunteer work that is meaningful and has impact.
***This isn’t to say men aren’t suffering; it’s just that their suffering apparently merits a level of concern that women’s suffering never has.*** This. This right here. I had never heard of this mini Andrew Tate before and will do my best to forget him. It is impossible to forget the ways in which our sexist system encourages men like this to feel entitled and angry when they don't get what they want. This guy is one of the reasons I am so happy my grandchildren are growing up in Sweden. Don't worry, Sweden is anti-women in a variety of ways. Just not to the same extreme... yet.
I'm sure you're well aware of 'passport bros'--men who find American women so undateable because we have jobs, advanced degrees, homes, cars and a strong sense of worth--that they feel the need to travel to other countries to get more submissive women (hence, the passport). Of course, very few of these 'bros' have little to offer and don't like being called out for their lack of preparation and life choices. So, they bitch, whine and complain, then show off their passports on TikTok with a 'that'll show them nasty feminists' bravado. Meanwhile, hardly any go overseas and the ones that do, rarely find women who want to hang out with broken (and sometimes broke) men. It's one helluva thing.
Oh wow. I was NOT aware of this subculture. Also, it's gotta suck for them because at least in more developed nations women have better access to pay equality, parental leave, and power. Like America is actually doing really poorly on those metrics. LoL damn.
I found it on TikTok, natch. A passport bros have run into trouble (why they documented it, IDK) overseas. One was practically run out of the country (somewhere in S. America I believe) by a woman's family because he was being aggressive and didn't have much money (quelle surprise). Another couldn't get back home because of a lack of funding, so he went on a TT live, begging for cash to leave. The best part, he was at the airport. 'I only need 50 more bucks to get on this *insert cheap airline here* flight!' Following this drama is my new go-to for entertainment since the writers and actors are on strike!
Immigration is difficult in many countries, as well as the United States. Women who marry "passport bros" -- who are often abusive -- often face difficult choices of sticking things out for a certain time period (to meet immigration or job requirements) or leaving. Just because a nation is developed and has a better safety net, doesn't mean all that applies equally to everyone.
Oh boy have I known these men. I’ve travelled a lot and, unfortunately, American men often CAN find women abroad who will date them because a lot of places lack any opportunity for economic stability, especially for women. And there are a lot of people who want to come to America, even by hanging on to a broke ass loser.
These men see it as confirmation that they are a catch and American/Western women are too picky. But these relationships are often toxic and exploitative. I always say a little prayer for their wives and girlfriends. May they find what they’re looking for and dump his ass as soon as they do.
I don't think I've ever heard of the term "passport bros" before, but I have seen a similar idea when watching 90 Day Fiance (it's a guilty pleasure). There's hardly a season that goes by without at least one guy proving to be a complete idiot with little to offer. While they don't outright say they consider American women to be undateable, it becomes fairly apparent that they don't have a chance going through the conventional dating pool.
Have you watched 'Match Me Abroad'? It's a hoot and a guilty pleasure. I've only watched a few episodes of 90 Day Fiance..maybe I should start watching it since it aires on the same channel as 'Sister Wives.'
I haven't seen "Match Me Abroad" but I'll have to check it out. I'd advise giving 90 Day Fiance a shot. Every now and then they bring on somebody who sounds exactly like your passport bros. Some of my personal favorites include Big Ed, Gino, and Colt.
Thank you! I will check it out. And, if you're on TikTok, I strongly suggest checking out the passport bros. Plus, TT has excellent cat/dog/horse/animal vids plus BAKING. Peace!
Passport bros exist in many countries, because "the system" exists in many countries. I was classmates (in language class in a Scandinavian country) with several women who married incredibly abusive men (not knowing this beforehand). Some were able to divorce and carry on. Others returned to their home countries. For all the true equality they have, Scandinavian countries have high rates of domestic violence.
As I read this I felt a sense of gratitude for the accident of my body and its obesity, shielding me from a lot of direct interaction with men like this. And also the weird discomfort that comes with wondering what it means to find/have this sort of invisibility work to my advantage.
I went out on one date with a man who later became big in the red pill world and also has his own classes and YouTube channels. It's the only time I ever considered walking out of a date. He has daughters and I wonder how his hate toward women will impact them down the line.
As an occasionally heterosexual man (Red flag!) of a certain age and extremely limited “sexual market value”, my ideal relationship was from Wodehouse. Specifically Jeeves and Bertie (as a young man I was convinced they were screwing, with Jeeves on top), but I’ve seen it in Wodehouse’s heterosexual relationships. Affection, snappy dialogue, and the general sense that the man in the relationship is a twit, even a parasite on society, albeit an entertaining one are what really come into play. Admittedly, these heterosexual relationships generally fall apart by the end of the story, leaving the young man bitter and scoffing at love, but Jeeves and Bertie roll on. So to the bereft men of today I say, find yourself a good and wise butler.
"(true! But it’s violence by other men, which is something men and women have in common — we are victims of male violence)"
Thank you so much for stating this explicitly. I would be a wealthy human if I had five bucks for every time a man told me this statistic without stating *who* commits the violence, very much hoping the assumption is that when men experience violence it must be from women, rather than other men.
It's what Rebecca Solnit calls the "case of the missing perpetrator" -- who is doing all of this? WHO IS HURTING YOU? And when you ask that question the answer is always depressingly obvious.
Your headline says it all. We are still socializing men this way. You're so right that it's a toxic world view that affects every aspect of society and affects all of us, women and men, who want to live in a world built on relationships not domination and transactions. I love all you write, but this hits it out of the park. Thank you.
I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of men using the 'jobs women don't do' also do not do jobs involving risk or requiring lots of upper body stregnth
Correct! Most of them do “sitting down in front of computer or mic and camera” jobs.
(Also, the reason women don’t have big numbers in these jobs is that when they DO enter these almost-entirely-male workplaces, they get . . . sexually harassed, which creates paperwork if they report and years of misery if they don’t, so they either can’t get hired because supervisors don’t want the hassle or they never try because *they* don’t want the hassle. It’s a vicious cycle.)
When my son came out as trans I had to admit that part of my own emotional response to the whole thing was a feeling that he had "gone over to the other team." That despite the fact I primarily sleep with men, I didn't really like or trust them. This was clearly a me problem which, though understandable given misogyny and my own personal experience with actual shitty, violent men, I had to grapple with in order to be unequivocal in my support of my son.
To my son's credit, when I owned up to some of my own response, my son's response was that he doesn't often like or trust cis-het men either. This made me feel like slightly less of an asshole.
I'm still working on this because, like you, my distrust and dislike has been inspired primarily by the inability of men in my life to be in loving relationship to me and other people. Now, however, I honestly like my current partner a lot as a person, which is new, and realizing that has helped me stay when the realities of maintaining a relationship confront me.
Part of me wants to write this dude off. Like, maybe you hate women because you're hateful and not because women deserve your bullshit? Dumbass. But because I have dealt with his level of misogyny all my life I can't discount the necessity to confront it. The trick, for me anyway, has been to do that while making sure that same hatefulness has no access to my daily, intimate life.
thanks for pointing this out, asha. there are a lot of us women who are sexually attracted to men but who don't actually like or trust most of them. it's sort of the flip side of the coin, isn't it? finding someone that you DO like and trust is the most important thing. i'm glad that you have that in your life!
I love this conversation and it's one I have with myself a lot. How do you love in a system where love is almost always used against you? How do you have relationship in a world where relationships are built on inequality. It's a personal question and a political one. And it's a reminder of how radical the bedroom can be and how hard it is to parse these things out in our daily lives.
Sharing your excellent work is never annoying! One of my first responses to this whole thing was just indignation as a writer. I’m over here sweating over the possibility of ever getting a book published, trying to build a following to support that dream, and this dull-ass tool has the ear of hundreds of thousands and is just publishing like it’s NBD?!? I hate this world.
Never apologize for providing a balance to that entitlement.
I was reading what you said regarding the thin membrane between you and Cooper, and that got me thinking about the similarities between me and him. As much as I’d like to brush him off as a hack and me as being one of the “good men”, I do think that me and Cooper share a desire for external validation. We both base our self worth on external factors, and I personally have a very bad habit of self pity and fishing for compliments. It makes me wonder if I’m really as far from the rabbit hole inhabited by Cooper as I’d like to think I am.
On a more positive note, thanks for posting that Medium review of the book. I’ve never had to try so hard to suppress a laugh ( I’m reading this at work) . I felt like a Roman centurion during the Biggus Dickus scene from Life of Brian
Yeah, I think it's so important to consider not how we are different, but our similarities because that's how the weirdness creeps in. Right? Like it's not useful to be like "At least I'm not that guy" when so much of "these guys" really run our world in insidious ways.
It's the system!
But yeah, that guys review was really funny and furious.
Another funny moment in the book is when he quotes himself as a pull quote and attributes himself. Almost as funny as when he quotes someone as "anon" but when I googled the quote the only time it ever shows up is when he's tweeted it. Amazing stuff.
A phrase popped into my head the other day -- "relying on the goodwill of a good man." And I think that's what so many women in hetero couples are forced to do. Instead of relying on the structural support of a good and equitable system.
Dang it, now I'm morbidly curious. I feel like this book has potential to undergo what I call the Room/Sharknado effect (something is so horrifically bad that it circles around into hilarity), but like you said, making this into a joke does obscure the very real impacts of this toxic ideology.
Another one of these grifters out to capitalize on male insecurity and loneliness and tell men what they want to hear. Ultimately men like this aren't interested in relationships, they're interested in property, status and power. They view women as property and tools to gain said status and power. On one level I have a little bit of empathy for some of these people, but on the other I can't help but shrug and say "Grow up and go to therapy."
I actually don't think it's so easy to dismiss men like this. It's actually a driving force in our politics and culture and affects more than just the men on the edge. I think it's a problem worth grappling with because it's killing us.
You're right, I was just firing off a quick knee jerk reaction based on individuals I've run into or guys I grew up with. As far as the deeper cultural implications, yes definitely. I don't know what the answer is.
As a white lady, I get it. We are often a part of the problem. But rather than me just insisting on my goodness, it's worth taking a long hard look at the system and understanding how it seeps into our culture and mindset and how we benefit.
And it's hard because so many people are well meaning but the lives they live could contain a more radical sense of equality and justice and love. But that doesn't happen if we are just using guys like cooper to say how we aren't like them.
One of the things I thought really hard about while writing my book was "am I just a feminist man hater?" or is there something good here I'm fighting for? And I hope the answer is clear. But that's how I really thought about these issues.
Right, and so much of this is systemic in how we're raised or how culture tells us our lives as men are supposed to be, and that makes it so much tougher to break through, especially when for so many men this behavior is ultimately a performance for other men. And I get it, I was raised that way too, and I grew up on Married...With Children and the heyday of pickup artist BS and alpha male grifters, so I try to empathize with other men I encounter that think like this and push back on it. That stuff can be so intoxicating sometimes, it preys on insecurities and fears the same way cults and hate groups do. And FWIW none of your writing I've ever read has come across as "feminist man hater."
One of the things that terrifies me about raising a boy is that I feel like there are so few good conversations about how to protect kids against falling into that trap. Just seeing how even the extreme ideas seep into the most well meaning humans....it sucks.
And I'll have to try harder on my man hating feminism 🫡🫡🫡
Raising a boy in this world is really hard. The corporate world is riddled with this stuff. People like this have made the rules so that people like them succeed. I left corporate life in 1990, but that can be precarious. That precarity is a feature, not a bug.
Honestly, the idea of me being a parent scares me because I'm afraid I won't be able to be a good father in the sense of supporting my hypothetical children through all of this toxic bs. And you're not so much a man hating feminist as a feminist willing to call out the carton of eggs on people's faces, mine included. Please keep up the good work!
I pulled up your substack because I was reflecting on a nightmare I had last night and needed some context and community to ground myself in. My former boss and mentor, someone I deeply admired and trusted, came THIS close to kissing me at his farewell party. Someone who is happily married and has daughters my age, but thought, “Hey, what the heck, nothing plundered, nothing gained.” I think about how I still doubt myself, the voice that says I read the situation wrong, and then the deep knowing in my bones that something was horribly off. Almost 6 years later, I dreamt I was stuck with him at some phantasmagorical work function, in which I was simultaneously in charge of hosting and pleasing scores of men, all while fending them off. It’s a pretty good metaphor for the eight years I spent in the wine industry, now that I think about it. “But nothing happened!” I tell myself to stop the worrying, stop the trauma of knowing it is always my fault and never a man’s for when things go too far. I took it too seriously. I was too flirtatious. It is so goddamnfucking exhausting that men are never responsible for men.
Thank you for this and for sharing the Melinda Wenner Moyer newsletter which I'm reading right now. I don't know how I can help other adult men deal with their loneliness, but it is validating to read what she wrote about the importance of rejecting gender stereotypes in general and rejecting the idea that men and boys should suppress their emotions in particular.
A couple of years back while sharing happy memories about my mom with him at bedtime I started to cry and he started to cry and he hugged me and said "we are the crying boys" which is the best boy group I've ever been in. I doubt that I'll get everything right with raising this kiddo, but I feel pretty good about the emotional stuff.
I love that. When I read Moyer's newsletter I was so struck by the fact that it's mothers reinforcing this emotional repression. It really made me think hard (and talk to my therapist) about strategies for being a better person in those situations for ALL the men in my life...son, father, brothers, friends.
I think what you just wrote about being a better person for all men is the way I can help the men in my sphere of influence and a way that I probably already am. Maybe not directly with their loneliness, but at least to model something different. When either of my kids is feeling hurt or scared or apprehensive I try to validate their feelings and support them. For example their grandfather (a good person, but was raised to suppress his emotions and has been doing so flawlessly for the 22+ years I've known him) will say shit to them like "you're okay" or "just eat it, it's delicious" or whatever which just isn't helpful. I don't expect to change him, but maybe it will influence how he interacts with my kids and his other grandkids.
I think also just being a good friend to other dudes helps. My friend was telling me the other day how his pal just texts to meet up for beers and how AMAZING that is. But how he's tried to do it with other friends and how hard it is to get them to reciprocate. And it made me realize how much I rely on that in my own friendships. And how often the answer to my isolation is to just ask people to show up. AND THEY DO. But it's the asking that is terrifying.
My closest friends locally are women, but I lucked into a close friendship with a guy who took it on himself to organize a dad group where he lives a few years ago. They get together every couple of months to drink and hang out and tell truly terrible dad jokes and vote on the most groanworthy one. He lives a little too far away for me to join, but I am going to ask him how he got the gumption to start this thing.
I really should steal his idea and try to replicate it here. I have been thinking a lot about how the experience of Relay Iowa started with me just putting an idea out there and it turned into something pretty great...but how come I haven't done something like that for myself where I live? I got way more out of it than I put in so I have little to lose, but like you said...the asking is terrifying.
You should. Please do that. I have organised a monthly meeting of queer women in the town I live in. At the moment there isn’t anything for queer women, and I asked somebody who owns my favorite café if we could meet there for a three-month trial period to see if people show up and just met each other. The first meeting is the last Friday of September. I really hope people show up and it’s not just me with my pride flag and my sad ass bisexual self sitting in a corner. I figure trying to build community in small or larger ways is worth the risk.
It might take me a while to get to it, but I think I will.
I hope your first meeting goes well and kudos to you for taking that initiative!
you are brave. wishing you well and hope that group gets off the ground with a bang!
YUP. I swear sports fandom's most redeeming quality is as a cover to say "hey bruddah, get a brew and watch us kick Shelbyville's teeth in? The bums."
awww. that is a very good boy group. we only had daughters but also only have grandsons. so we can relate to both sides. you sound as though you are definitely doing the right things.
“board adviser in a national financial services business, real estate investor, and I do my own private equity investing”.
Yeah, this woman hears, “unemployed”. But I went to Wharton, so not only do I know what these words mean...I know when they are meaningless. 🤪
Side note: this is why, much to my husband’s frustration, I don’t describe myself as a CEO or a Founder- to keep from sounding like this guy. I’m a small business owner, I love what I do, I’m proud we still exist after the pandemic, and it facilitates my ability to do Badass policy-oriented volunteer work that is meaningful and has impact.
Lol. “None of these are jobs” was exactly my first thought. Followed quickly by: “this guy probably lost money on crypto”
EXACTLY!!!! He might as well say that he day trades his own account 🤣🤣🤣
***This isn’t to say men aren’t suffering; it’s just that their suffering apparently merits a level of concern that women’s suffering never has.*** This. This right here. I had never heard of this mini Andrew Tate before and will do my best to forget him. It is impossible to forget the ways in which our sexist system encourages men like this to feel entitled and angry when they don't get what they want. This guy is one of the reasons I am so happy my grandchildren are growing up in Sweden. Don't worry, Sweden is anti-women in a variety of ways. Just not to the same extreme... yet.
Please tell me you wrote an Amazon review.
Apparently, I’m a 100% walking red flag 🤣🤣🤣
I love that you included a quote by bell hooks. Such an excellent piece.
The whole time I was like "damn she knew."
I'm sure you're well aware of 'passport bros'--men who find American women so undateable because we have jobs, advanced degrees, homes, cars and a strong sense of worth--that they feel the need to travel to other countries to get more submissive women (hence, the passport). Of course, very few of these 'bros' have little to offer and don't like being called out for their lack of preparation and life choices. So, they bitch, whine and complain, then show off their passports on TikTok with a 'that'll show them nasty feminists' bravado. Meanwhile, hardly any go overseas and the ones that do, rarely find women who want to hang out with broken (and sometimes broke) men. It's one helluva thing.
Oh wow. I was NOT aware of this subculture. Also, it's gotta suck for them because at least in more developed nations women have better access to pay equality, parental leave, and power. Like America is actually doing really poorly on those metrics. LoL damn.
I found it on TikTok, natch. A passport bros have run into trouble (why they documented it, IDK) overseas. One was practically run out of the country (somewhere in S. America I believe) by a woman's family because he was being aggressive and didn't have much money (quelle surprise). Another couldn't get back home because of a lack of funding, so he went on a TT live, begging for cash to leave. The best part, he was at the airport. 'I only need 50 more bucks to get on this *insert cheap airline here* flight!' Following this drama is my new go-to for entertainment since the writers and actors are on strike!
Well thank you very much for the entertainment recommendation! I'll have to check that out when I get back home!
serves 'em right.
Immigration is difficult in many countries, as well as the United States. Women who marry "passport bros" -- who are often abusive -- often face difficult choices of sticking things out for a certain time period (to meet immigration or job requirements) or leaving. Just because a nation is developed and has a better safety net, doesn't mean all that applies equally to everyone.
Oh boy have I known these men. I’ve travelled a lot and, unfortunately, American men often CAN find women abroad who will date them because a lot of places lack any opportunity for economic stability, especially for women. And there are a lot of people who want to come to America, even by hanging on to a broke ass loser.
These men see it as confirmation that they are a catch and American/Western women are too picky. But these relationships are often toxic and exploitative. I always say a little prayer for their wives and girlfriends. May they find what they’re looking for and dump his ass as soon as they do.
I don't think I've ever heard of the term "passport bros" before, but I have seen a similar idea when watching 90 Day Fiance (it's a guilty pleasure). There's hardly a season that goes by without at least one guy proving to be a complete idiot with little to offer. While they don't outright say they consider American women to be undateable, it becomes fairly apparent that they don't have a chance going through the conventional dating pool.
Have you watched 'Match Me Abroad'? It's a hoot and a guilty pleasure. I've only watched a few episodes of 90 Day Fiance..maybe I should start watching it since it aires on the same channel as 'Sister Wives.'
I haven't seen "Match Me Abroad" but I'll have to check it out. I'd advise giving 90 Day Fiance a shot. Every now and then they bring on somebody who sounds exactly like your passport bros. Some of my personal favorites include Big Ed, Gino, and Colt.
Thank you! I will check it out. And, if you're on TikTok, I strongly suggest checking out the passport bros. Plus, TT has excellent cat/dog/horse/animal vids plus BAKING. Peace!
oy. colt. aargh.
Yeah, Colt’s an…interesting individual.
Passport bros exist in many countries, because "the system" exists in many countries. I was classmates (in language class in a Scandinavian country) with several women who married incredibly abusive men (not knowing this beforehand). Some were able to divorce and carry on. Others returned to their home countries. For all the true equality they have, Scandinavian countries have high rates of domestic violence.
ugh. this sounds awful on so many levels. can't even.
As I read this I felt a sense of gratitude for the accident of my body and its obesity, shielding me from a lot of direct interaction with men like this. And also the weird discomfort that comes with wondering what it means to find/have this sort of invisibility work to my advantage.
If only these men didn't also apply this "logic" in the workplace. But amen!
I went out on one date with a man who later became big in the red pill world and also has his own classes and YouTube channels. It's the only time I ever considered walking out of a date. He has daughters and I wonder how his hate toward women will impact them down the line.
As an occasionally heterosexual man (Red flag!) of a certain age and extremely limited “sexual market value”, my ideal relationship was from Wodehouse. Specifically Jeeves and Bertie (as a young man I was convinced they were screwing, with Jeeves on top), but I’ve seen it in Wodehouse’s heterosexual relationships. Affection, snappy dialogue, and the general sense that the man in the relationship is a twit, even a parasite on society, albeit an entertaining one are what really come into play. Admittedly, these heterosexual relationships generally fall apart by the end of the story, leaving the young man bitter and scoffing at love, but Jeeves and Bertie roll on. So to the bereft men of today I say, find yourself a good and wise butler.
You can just have a friend! You don't have to hire a butler.
this is true but your friend might not swan in with your morning cup of tea the moment that your eyes pop open.
yeah, this is a great point. Honestly, my marker of a good relationship is someone who brings me coffee in the morning.
I'd love too, but I'm way too broke for a butler.
"(true! But it’s violence by other men, which is something men and women have in common — we are victims of male violence)"
Thank you so much for stating this explicitly. I would be a wealthy human if I had five bucks for every time a man told me this statistic without stating *who* commits the violence, very much hoping the assumption is that when men experience violence it must be from women, rather than other men.
It's what Rebecca Solnit calls the "case of the missing perpetrator" -- who is doing all of this? WHO IS HURTING YOU? And when you ask that question the answer is always depressingly obvious.
This is why active language is so important! "He/she/they were *insert act of violence, an attack etc."
BY WHOM? WHO DID THE THING?
"WHOMST?!"
WHOMST?!?!
lol :D
Your headline says it all. We are still socializing men this way. You're so right that it's a toxic world view that affects every aspect of society and affects all of us, women and men, who want to live in a world built on relationships not domination and transactions. I love all you write, but this hits it out of the park. Thank you.
I really hope his example of “jobs women don’t do” was coal mining because, sir…it’s 2023. No one should be encouraged to work in a coal mine
Right? I was like, damn I don't even want men to work in a coal mine that sounds terrible.
I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of men using the 'jobs women don't do' also do not do jobs involving risk or requiring lots of upper body stregnth
Correct! Most of them do “sitting down in front of computer or mic and camera” jobs.
(Also, the reason women don’t have big numbers in these jobs is that when they DO enter these almost-entirely-male workplaces, they get . . . sexually harassed, which creates paperwork if they report and years of misery if they don’t, so they either can’t get hired because supervisors don’t want the hassle or they never try because *they* don’t want the hassle. It’s a vicious cycle.)
When my son came out as trans I had to admit that part of my own emotional response to the whole thing was a feeling that he had "gone over to the other team." That despite the fact I primarily sleep with men, I didn't really like or trust them. This was clearly a me problem which, though understandable given misogyny and my own personal experience with actual shitty, violent men, I had to grapple with in order to be unequivocal in my support of my son.
To my son's credit, when I owned up to some of my own response, my son's response was that he doesn't often like or trust cis-het men either. This made me feel like slightly less of an asshole.
I'm still working on this because, like you, my distrust and dislike has been inspired primarily by the inability of men in my life to be in loving relationship to me and other people. Now, however, I honestly like my current partner a lot as a person, which is new, and realizing that has helped me stay when the realities of maintaining a relationship confront me.
Part of me wants to write this dude off. Like, maybe you hate women because you're hateful and not because women deserve your bullshit? Dumbass. But because I have dealt with his level of misogyny all my life I can't discount the necessity to confront it. The trick, for me anyway, has been to do that while making sure that same hatefulness has no access to my daily, intimate life.
thanks for pointing this out, asha. there are a lot of us women who are sexually attracted to men but who don't actually like or trust most of them. it's sort of the flip side of the coin, isn't it? finding someone that you DO like and trust is the most important thing. i'm glad that you have that in your life!
Thank you! Me, too. It took a long time and a lot of trial and error.
I love this conversation and it's one I have with myself a lot. How do you love in a system where love is almost always used against you? How do you have relationship in a world where relationships are built on inequality. It's a personal question and a political one. And it's a reminder of how radical the bedroom can be and how hard it is to parse these things out in our daily lives.
At the risk of being annoying as hell. I wrote this in 2019 and had to update it in the book that's coming out. https://www.glamour.com/story/how-to-fall-in-love-after-divorce-me-too
But I think, as my therapist says, is that we are still engaging and learning and trying?
Sharing your excellent work is never annoying! One of my first responses to this whole thing was just indignation as a writer. I’m over here sweating over the possibility of ever getting a book published, trying to build a following to support that dream, and this dull-ass tool has the ear of hundreds of thousands and is just publishing like it’s NBD?!? I hate this world.
Never apologize for providing a balance to that entitlement.
I was reading what you said regarding the thin membrane between you and Cooper, and that got me thinking about the similarities between me and him. As much as I’d like to brush him off as a hack and me as being one of the “good men”, I do think that me and Cooper share a desire for external validation. We both base our self worth on external factors, and I personally have a very bad habit of self pity and fishing for compliments. It makes me wonder if I’m really as far from the rabbit hole inhabited by Cooper as I’d like to think I am.
On a more positive note, thanks for posting that Medium review of the book. I’ve never had to try so hard to suppress a laugh ( I’m reading this at work) . I felt like a Roman centurion during the Biggus Dickus scene from Life of Brian
Yeah, I think it's so important to consider not how we are different, but our similarities because that's how the weirdness creeps in. Right? Like it's not useful to be like "At least I'm not that guy" when so much of "these guys" really run our world in insidious ways.
It's the system!
But yeah, that guys review was really funny and furious.
Another funny moment in the book is when he quotes himself as a pull quote and attributes himself. Almost as funny as when he quotes someone as "anon" but when I googled the quote the only time it ever shows up is when he's tweeted it. Amazing stuff.
A phrase popped into my head the other day -- "relying on the goodwill of a good man." And I think that's what so many women in hetero couples are forced to do. Instead of relying on the structural support of a good and equitable system.
Dang it, now I'm morbidly curious. I feel like this book has potential to undergo what I call the Room/Sharknado effect (something is so horrifically bad that it circles around into hilarity), but like you said, making this into a joke does obscure the very real impacts of this toxic ideology.
Another one of these grifters out to capitalize on male insecurity and loneliness and tell men what they want to hear. Ultimately men like this aren't interested in relationships, they're interested in property, status and power. They view women as property and tools to gain said status and power. On one level I have a little bit of empathy for some of these people, but on the other I can't help but shrug and say "Grow up and go to therapy."
I actually don't think it's so easy to dismiss men like this. It's actually a driving force in our politics and culture and affects more than just the men on the edge. I think it's a problem worth grappling with because it's killing us.
You're right, I was just firing off a quick knee jerk reaction based on individuals I've run into or guys I grew up with. As far as the deeper cultural implications, yes definitely. I don't know what the answer is.
As a white lady, I get it. We are often a part of the problem. But rather than me just insisting on my goodness, it's worth taking a long hard look at the system and understanding how it seeps into our culture and mindset and how we benefit.
And it's hard because so many people are well meaning but the lives they live could contain a more radical sense of equality and justice and love. But that doesn't happen if we are just using guys like cooper to say how we aren't like them.
One of the things I thought really hard about while writing my book was "am I just a feminist man hater?" or is there something good here I'm fighting for? And I hope the answer is clear. But that's how I really thought about these issues.
Thank you for your really thoughtful response.
Right, and so much of this is systemic in how we're raised or how culture tells us our lives as men are supposed to be, and that makes it so much tougher to break through, especially when for so many men this behavior is ultimately a performance for other men. And I get it, I was raised that way too, and I grew up on Married...With Children and the heyday of pickup artist BS and alpha male grifters, so I try to empathize with other men I encounter that think like this and push back on it. That stuff can be so intoxicating sometimes, it preys on insecurities and fears the same way cults and hate groups do. And FWIW none of your writing I've ever read has come across as "feminist man hater."
One of the things that terrifies me about raising a boy is that I feel like there are so few good conversations about how to protect kids against falling into that trap. Just seeing how even the extreme ideas seep into the most well meaning humans....it sucks.
And I'll have to try harder on my man hating feminism 🫡🫡🫡
Raising a boy in this world is really hard. The corporate world is riddled with this stuff. People like this have made the rules so that people like them succeed. I left corporate life in 1990, but that can be precarious. That precarity is a feature, not a bug.
Honestly, the idea of me being a parent scares me because I'm afraid I won't be able to be a good father in the sense of supporting my hypothetical children through all of this toxic bs. And you're not so much a man hating feminist as a feminist willing to call out the carton of eggs on people's faces, mine included. Please keep up the good work!
I hope you were able to get your money back
If four people subscribe because I bought this book, I'll earn back three times what that book cost me.
I pulled up your substack because I was reflecting on a nightmare I had last night and needed some context and community to ground myself in. My former boss and mentor, someone I deeply admired and trusted, came THIS close to kissing me at his farewell party. Someone who is happily married and has daughters my age, but thought, “Hey, what the heck, nothing plundered, nothing gained.” I think about how I still doubt myself, the voice that says I read the situation wrong, and then the deep knowing in my bones that something was horribly off. Almost 6 years later, I dreamt I was stuck with him at some phantasmagorical work function, in which I was simultaneously in charge of hosting and pleasing scores of men, all while fending them off. It’s a pretty good metaphor for the eight years I spent in the wine industry, now that I think about it. “But nothing happened!” I tell myself to stop the worrying, stop the trauma of knowing it is always my fault and never a man’s for when things go too far. I took it too seriously. I was too flirtatious. It is so goddamnfucking exhausting that men are never responsible for men.