I've been thinking about mutual mistrust. This dynamic obtains between so many "groups" of people.
The one I'm thinking about right now is the group "Josh, and feminist women."
On my weekly show I talk a lot about what I see as today’s coddling of women who engage in abusive behaviors. Part of this, in my view, is the false notion that we live in a “patriarchy”. That “women don’t have political power.”
This is an article of faith for many feminists*. I mean that literally, even though the phrase is so common now that most people take it as a metaphor. It’s not a metaphor.
This set cannot accept that it’s possible for women to have political power unless they have absolute titular and numerical parity with men in the domains of being a lawmaker, a CEO, etc. They’re wrong. That’s not the only way to exercise power, and women are exercising plenty of power in its absence. They’ve feminized our public culture stem to stern.
Because such feminists hold this and other articles of faith, I am, by default, wary and guarded among any women who say they’re feminists.
Why? First, I lost nearly all my friends when my mind changed politically from leftism to Independent/Conservative. Most were women, but about 20 percent were men. These women decided that I had revealed myself as a misogynist, finally, as they always suspected. Several of my closest erstwhile friends called me a personality disordered woman-hater in public.
This is what I expect from feminists. Yes, including feminists who believe they are my friends. Because I have noticed that they don’t act very friendly at all when I disagree with their formulation that “male violence” or “special burdens handicapping women” are at fault for a woman’s misfortune (sometimes they are; I’m referring to those more numerous times when they are not).
This dynamic comes up sometimes in comments and responses to an episode of my show, Disaffected. Feminist-leaning women, who claim they like my show, or claim that they like me (or at least don’t actively dislike me), feel very free to respond to me with outrage and condescension. The tone is often “I can’t believe you don’t understand that women are specially oppressed this way, but being a man who benefits from patriarchy, how could you understand it?”
I react badly to this. Yes, I know that some think I over-react. Nearly all the women that I respond to make that claim.
To those women**: No. I’m not making up the tone you’re using. I’m not mind-reading something that isn’t there. You do, in actual fact, feel very free to condescend, patronize, and take a lot of liberties in how you dismissively react to my point of view. You may not know it, but you signal aloof bafflement or contempt, and specifically because I’m a man.
I’m not willing to take it. This is why I “overreact” (a convenient formulation when you don’t want to admit that you might be acting unfairly, or like a jerk).
I expect feminist women, including those who claim to be my online friend, to turn on a dime and instantly see me as a member of the patriarchy. I expect it because it’s happened repeatedly. It is a real pattern, not a fantasy. It is typical, not “unusual”, behavior for feminist women.
I don’t trust you.
I know these women mistrust me on some level that I suspect is similar to my wariness about them. I suspect that, as I see them as poised and waiting to bare their fangs at me, they may see me as poised and waiting to “take a shot at women because that’s what men do.”
What to do about this mutual mistrust? I don’t know. Perhaps there is nothing that can be done about it.
You have any ideas?
*I will not be caveating or qualifying, or saying “only some feminists,” and “not radical feminists, but liberal feminists.” Supply your own “not alls”.
**Do not personalize. If this doesn’t sound like you, then it’s not you.
Based on my observation, the inability to close the gap on disagreement is driven by dogmas. On the feminist side there are a few. One is indeed that any and every misfortune that affects women is driven by misogyny. When you look at everything through this lens, you fail to assume responsibility for your own actions as a woman and you fail to hold yourself accountable to work under the same standards as men.
Most people have some dogmatic blind spots and it is always worthwhile to examine this on a regular basis. For me, it often involves reading texts and books without knowing beforehand under what umbrella the writer falls. There are other ways to change perspective like exposing yourself safely to height when you know you are afraid of heights. As a feminist you need to do the same and look at what MRA actually are saying. If you do not allow yourself to think through every situation uniquely instead of applying rigorous dogmas you will limit your own thinking.
It is one of the reasons I cannot follow a religion. I just do not allow myself to follow dogmas.
What is also a huge exception is the fact that anyone who shows vulnerability is an easy target and will be targeted. People showing themselves vulnerable are not allowed to have boundaries often enough. It is as if people think: he cried yesterday about something, so he cannot have a firm position on something else today -- the weakness in one area is translated to another. Empathetic victims of Cluster B find their own boundaries broken very easily and very often. This is because people perceive them as weak and because of their own self doubt they often question their own firmness and wobble. This wobbling is then perceived as another invitation to break down any boundaries. You don't trust yourself, we do not trust you... kind of.
Another point is that we divide everything as black and white in this society. You are either on this side of the fence or the other. As a gay man, your opinion is often predefined for you and people cannot reconcile their own prejudice with what they are seeing. We have unlearned to see people as individuals and we have unlearned to to live with any disagreement. You either are 100% with me or you are 100% against what I stand for. Their is no Venn Diagram, it is only two separate circles of existence.
It should never be the standard assumption that their are people 100% agreeing on everything. Yet, we also qualify our assessment with "I like Josh, but that does not mean I agree with everything he says". This should not even be worth mentioning, it is standard. We like different foods, we like different politics, we have different boundaries.
And as a conclusion, we seem to mistrust anyone and everyone that is not firmly in a predefined box.
I do not know if common mistrust can be rectified. But I sure hope so.
Maybe we need to learn to disagree first.
Sigh.
Josh, I feel this on the DEEPEST level. It brings me back to Jordan Peterson's order and chaos example - masculinity being order, and femininity being chaos. They both play an important role. However, our society is being dominated by the feminine - the chaos - and it's out of place. Just like an overcorrection of masculinity can bring a sense of order that breeds chaos (hello, Kim Jong Un.), this overcorrection into femininity has brought us here. We're out of balance.
As you stated, you're not making up the tone of these women. It's real, and I can see it too. And don't even get me started about how our society treats men who are assaulted (sexually, physically, etc) by women. I somewhat speak from experience on that.