Content Warning: this article (and website) refers to male perpetrated violence. You can read more about the ethos and terms of this website.
This article was written due to a long-standing commentary that men’s “rights” are being “forgotten”, blaming the conversation about male violence we need to have and that “feminism” is harming men and boys. This article is aimed at those people.
For a long time now (not just since the release of Adolescence), there has been a recycled panic, wringing of hands and words like “crisis” and “epidemic” banded about, to centre men’s loneliness, rather than acknowledging – and even as a distraction from – the reality of men’s violence.
Some academics, some working in Men’s Health and some in the psychiatric/psychology world say we should “think of the men”. And you know what, they’re absolutely right.
Every conversation in The She Shout™ (and affiliated The She Course™) talks about men.
Because it recognises that because of Man Box Culture and male suprem*cy, men are being sucked into and kept so small by narrow ideas of masculinity, that some think power and control is more valuable than learning and connection.
In some cases, men are even the architect of their loneliness, if their beliefs insist that all women should meet their needs and are responsible for “keeping them happy”, rather than doing the work of being enough without the status of relationship.
It recognises that men are expected to perform – for other men – confined by restrictive ideas of what it means to be a “real man”, rather than an expansive idea of what it means to be fully human.
Some tell us it’s men that need justice from Feminism – even though it’s predominantly men harming other men too.
And they only ever seem to care about men’s safety, when women try having a conversation that asks violent men to stop. There’s a paradox when some men will stand in the streets and say they want to “protect our women”, even when 41% of those in one case had been perpetrators of domestic abuse.
All while apparently ignoring that men are also being harmed by violent men, just as sons and fathers are being bereaved of their mothers and daughters by violent men too.
They say “not all men are violent” even though no one is saying that all men are, but none of us can know which is which just by looking at them. It seems some would rather have an “either/or” discussion, choosing men over everyone else, than consider it “and/and” conversation that includes the harm being done to women, and everyone else.
There are those that simply want us to “soften the language” or ignore us altogether, instead of asking men to do the work of Upstandership, emotion regulation and holding violent men to account.
It leads us to wonder if maybe some people should just admit that they don’t really care about women, or men’s health at all, if they just think men should have it all.
The She Shout™ cares about men. Do you?
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