Dear Brothers of the X and Y chromosomes,
It is with great heaviness of heart that I write to you. Because in an age where your sisters are finally being heard, finally finding their voices, many of you seem to have taken a dismissive posture, a condescending tone, you're talking over them, and some of you are even mocking their historic #metoo movement. I love you brothers, but I'm angry.
Let us avoid a protracted history here of the marginalization of women. Although it would do us all well to know that history, to take ownership of our complicity, to mourn it and repent. Let's just look at a few grotesque and urgently relevant facts about the genders.
1 in 3 women will be sexually assaulted in their lives. 1 in 10 will be raped. 91% of all rapes are committed by men. Let that sink in.
Overwhelmingly, in 80% of rape cases, the victim trusted her attacker. She trusted you, man, brother of mine. She, trusted, you.
The threat of violence, even death as retribution for speaking out, keeps rape as the number one underreported crime. Almost 2/3rds of sexual assaults go unreported! That amounts to tens if not hundreds of thousands of women who cannot point to their attackers, either from fear of violent repercussions or the very real issue of post-traumatic symptoms that can incapacitate victims.
We don't have time here to chronicle how the justice system has further marginalized women, slapped the wrists of violent rapists like Brock Turner, consistently blaming women, telling them to keep their legs together, to dress appropriately, to not be so careless. These malignant, misogynistic pronouncements from presiding judges are well documented and only further demonstrate the patriarchal system currently in place.
The statistical evidence that points to men being the vast majority of sexual predators and violators of women is mountainous and undeniable and yet it seems that some of us brothers want to make ourselves out to be the victims of some great conspiracy against males. With the suggestion recently made that "it's just not safe to be a man anymore". The truth is that there are those females who misrepresent their rapes, but that number is around 2% and certainly not justification for men to dismiss the greater, pandemic issues of male on female violence. Men are not at so great at risk here that we must co-opt the #metoo movement and try and make a moral equivalency. It's a non-starter guys, a false dichotomy, a futile narrative that seems whiney in light of our universal entitlement. And in our hearts we know it.
So let's address a few actual statements men have said, ignorant pronouncements that shouldn't even merit discussion but apparently still do.
1. "If women were more careful where they went, what they wore, what they drank, and how much they drank, they wouldn't be so prone to assault." Women being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, wearing the "wrong thing" is not an invitation to rape them. Brothers, no matter what, to be a real man means to control one's urges. You are not an animal. But when you make any excuse for your brother's violent behavior you erroneously attribute their perverted will to only animal urges. Should women walk alone, wear what they want, go wherever they want, even at night? The statistics say if they do they have very real chance of being brutalized by a man. So maybe until men quit acting like animals women will have to circle their wagons in self-protection. And so we have the #metoo movement. Brothers, for those of you who want to continue to paint a moral equivalency between women dressing "seductively" and rape shame on you. You merely reveal your own sexual objectification of women, your own deeply ingrained belief that a women's body is a function of your desire. "Modesty" or lack thereof is not the frontline of the battle against rape, the unbridled lust of men and male entitlement is. Brothers, do you know the rape crisis line number by heart? Your sisters do. Brothers can you leave your drink at the bar unattended? Your sisters can't. Brothers do you text your friend when you get home to let them know you are safe? Your sisters do. Brothers does it ever cross your mind that what you're wearing might so inflame the lusts of the opposite gender that you're in danger? It stays on your sisters mind. All. The. Time.
2. "What else did they expect would happen?" The #metoo movement started in Hollywood, a place known for its promiscuity and sexual permissibility, for objectifying the female body, and yet rape is still just as wrong and damaging to Hollywood females. Some of the men talking about this movement seem to be implying that because Hollywood portrays, even elevates a certain sexual lifestyle where anything goes, that this is the inevitable conclusion, the judgement if you will, the natural result of a permissive culture. But when we listen to the testimonies of Hollywood women, the abuse of power in a male dominated industry is what created the fertile environment in which hundreds if not thousands of women were sexually assaulted. Men, using the positions afforded them by a patriarchal system, abused their subordinates, leveraged their power to coerce women to acquiesce for their career's sake. Victim blaming is always wrong because it always implies that men cannot control themselves and shouldn't be accountable for their own actions. Brothers you are not animals. Your sisters are not your prey.
3. "This is a politically motivated agenda." Saying the #metoo movement is a political agenda cold-heartedly and ignorantly implies that women are using their sexual assaults as fuel for a political fire. Almost as if they waited for an opportune time to make these revelations known, for the greatest political impact and the most debilitating damage to their political opponents. Shame on you for even suggesting such a thing. Women who have been abused live every day in the dark shadow of their trauma. We don't get to decide when and where they speak. And if they are being emboldened to speak now, even years after the event, they must be honored, must be heard, must be respected. Furthermore, even if a women's testimony is "politically motivated" that doesn't excuse the indefensible behavior of any man. Recent hearings in the Judge Kavanaugh have magnified our inability as men to listen and to respectfully respond to women who have experienced sexual trauma. Whether Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was raped by the Judge or wasn't does not excuse the way she was talked about, the way she was grossly maligned. When we speak so viciously to a victim, we are speaking to all victims, past present and future. We are speaking to our mothers and wives, and maybe most heinously we are speaking to our daughters. Will they feel safe to speak up about their own attacks? Or will they be silenced as so many women in the past have been silenced, by fathers and brothers, presidents and judges, speaking so dismissively, so corrosively about women. By most accounts, Dr. Ford's reliability as a witness was never in question. Could she be mistaken of some of the facts, even who attacked her? Yes. Was she attacked by someone? I also believe yes. Was she treated with the decorum and compassion victims of sexual assault deserve? Not even close. But, let's assume for a second Dr. Ford was lying, was a political plant? Can a man act judiciously, empathetically, even when being falsely accused? I'd hope so. Especially when we are demanding women act a certain way to not find themselves victims of sexual assault. And yes, I always want the truth to come out. I always want an end to politically motivated attacks of any kind. And yet, once again I say, this is not the time. To conflate the greater #metoo movement with this one instance is to confine and redefine an epidemic by one symptom, real or imagined. No matter what the truth is in from the Kavanaugh hearings, millions of women have been brutalized by men. Let's not paint the Judge as a victim of character assassination at the expense of an entire movement of women who have had infinitely more than their character assassinated.
4. "Men are abused also, often by women." Yes, this is true, in 1 out of ten cases. And yet it is not our time to distract from the super majority of cases that are male on female assault. As with the #blacklivesmatter movement when some tried to co-opt the phrase by espousing #alllivesmatter, we must remember that these movements are about upsetting the status quo, confronting an imbalance of power, about certain voices finally being heard and not the silencing of other voices. No one, not once, said white lives don't matter. The movement was and is to say black lives are equal and haven't been treated that way. Such is this #metoo movement, not to disqualify male victims of sexual assault, but to say women's voices have long carried less weight and now there is finally a choir of female survivors saying if we put our voices together we will be heard. Sing my sisters.
5. "This is all just the consequences of sin, the reality of a fallen world." To my Christian brothers especially, to paint any issue so indiscriminately undermines both the validity of your message and the sincerity of your motives. To state something so unequivocally lacks all the intellectual nuance that communicating Truth about complex issues in a modern world requires. Yes, sin, the consequences of sin, the entropy of the universe that sin began, are all apropos to the larger discussion about any type of evil and injustice. And also this is not the time for that, we know that broken people break others, that is not in debate. What is at the forefront of the #metoo movement is the reality that men abuse their power, power afforded to them by institutions that have been built to both preserve male dominance and female subjugation. We as Christians must denounce the inequality of those systems. Christ came to bring equity to His church. We must repent where we have knowingly or unknowingly been party to the marginalization of women and the muting of their voices. We must remain defiant against the enemy who would deface the image of God by repressing women. We must also stand defiant against the very "consequences of sin" in our own hearts and minds. We must root out sexual entitlement from our thoughts, our actions, and even some of our doctrines. We must remember the charge to submit one to another in love. Christlikeness looks like gentleness, kindness, and longsuffering. Not brashness, defensiveness, and self-justification. This isn't about us men. Mainly because it always has been.
Brothers this is what you can do: Stop objectifying women. Stop using their bodies, whether by pornographic images or in your imagination, for sexual gratification. Stop telling jokes that are sexually perverse, or disparaging of women. Stop justifying the crude and cruel, debasement of women by our President, by musicians, by celebrities, by your friends as "just joking". Quit telling women to lighten up. Brothers remember women are the image bearers of God. When you debase that image you fight against God, you spit in His Holy face. Brothers listen to your sisters, tell your other brothers to shut up and listen too. Brothers you are the image bearers of God too, mimic Christ in His love for his bride by laying down your life for the women in your life. Brothers love all women like your daughters, respect all women like your mothers.
I waited to say these things until the political circus of the Kavanaugh hearings were over, until Harvey Weinstein wasn't the token face of the male violator allowing other men to hide in his very large shadow. And though there is a culture of rape, a culture of misogynism that must be urgently addressed by all of us, right now this is about a #metoo movement of sexual assault survivors, their stories, their demands. It's about shutting up and listening. It's not about men being heard, we've always been heard. Right now it is about our sisters speaking and men not speaking over them.
I wrote this to address my brothers, not to defend those men who support the #metoo movement. Brothers who love women, it is not our time to be acknowledged for being decent humans. Because brothers, once again, this isn't about us. If you want to help, hold a megaphone for your sisters to shout in. And only then if you are asked, and there is no available women to do the same.
And to my sisters. I am sorry, words cannot, will not suffice. But I hear you. And I am listening intently. And I want to be part of a culture shift where men no longer abuse their power to feed their sexual appetites. Where men no longer hold the power, where it is equitably distributed to the most capable, regardless of gender. I'm listening so let me know what I can do, or let me know if you want me to do anything at all. This is about you.
I love you my sisters. You hold up more than half of the sky. Xoxo
