How do we help men be sympathetic to feminism? (#metoo backlash, that kind of thing)

[QuentinSummers]

First of all, I post here loads, very feminist, not interested in getting mansplained about how to coddle men.

Recently I've talked to a few very decent, feminist sympathetic men who are feeling very alienated by the current discourse about diversity and how different groups are disadvantaged. I've heard them say they don't want to listen any more, they aren't like that and they feel like they are being blamed. They are buying into the trial by media/witch hunt narrative of #metoo and feeling scared and guilty by association.

So far so familiar, what is bothering me is these are men who have previously been very sympathetic to the cause.

How do I frame a conversation with them so they can understand this isn't about them, it's about us? And that women talking about what happens to them shouldn't be threatening to men who dont do these things?

Or should I not even bother and let them figure it out for themselves? Am I running the risk here of doing emotional work for men?

Very interested in opinions, have fire retardant clothes on

"men who have previously been very sympathetic to the cause."

Yeah, when the cause didn't challenge or inconvenience them in any way at all.

As usual, when it starts to impinge on them personally, their sympathy to the cause suddenly disappears.

Firstly, I am very uncomfortable with ‘class’ analysis when it comes to men and women. It really is not like racism or most other kind of ‘isms’ in that women choose freely to live with men, even when there is no advantage to them. I do not think this is mass Stockholm syndrome. For this reason I think you do need to be careful about the language you use around this if you want men to embrace ‘feminism’ (I use the inverted commas as feminism seems to mean so many things to so many different people). Sarcastically saying NAMALT kind of implies that most men are like this; I don’t believe this to be the case in Western democracies.

In addition, the class analysis seems to disappear when it comes to the trans issue and then it seems to be pure biology. Surely if men and women are classes and one physically appears as the oppressed class and tries to behave like one, one can consider oneself a member of that class?

I think shaming powerful men and certain industries where sexism is still prevalent is right and proper. However when it strays into witch hunt territory it becomes uncomfortable for many men (and women).

I think recognising that there is a spectrum of behaviour from misguided flirtation (a drunken hand on a knee in a different era) to sexual assault is important. Nuance is really important here because we all know (those of us that remember) that the culture around this has changed. I know women millionaires who were star bond saleswomen in the 80s/90s purely by exploiting their beauty (for want if a better word) and charm. They knew exactly what they were doing and I think it would be anti feminist and condescending to claim they were in any sense exploited. I started work in an office full of smokers. We all know how wrong that is now.

So calling out the real offenders is spot on and I wholeheartedly support. Trying to ask women if an MP made a drunken pass in a bar 30 years ago and trying to shame him for that will not get many men on board (and many women on here have also stated that plainly).

You don’t seem to understand the concept of class Larry. I can’t suddenly identify as a working class miner’s grand-daughter from Sheffield, if I’ve lived all my life as an upper middle class privileged daughter of a GP in Richmond. By all means I can move to Sheffield and live in a little terraced house that’s a third of the size of the one I grew up in and I can adopt the manners and politics of the people in the area and make friends with them and set myself up as a fellow traveller with them in terms of politics and lifestyle. But what I can’t do, is artificially adopt a Sheffield accent, claim that my earliest memories are of being taken to miner’s benefits concerts and that because I identify as a working class trade unionist, my upbringing, socialisation, experiences and expectations are the same as those of the people I now choose to live with. That would be appropriation, would it not?
In the same way, men who do exactly this vis a vis women, are appropriating women’s experiences and because they are a more powerful class than women, they get to have their appropriation named as victimhood. When you say feminist class analysis of the trans issue disappears as it’s all about biology, you reveal that either you know absolutely nothing about that class analysis, or you are pretending not to know it. Because you have been on this board for years, I’d guess the latter.

Also I think sensible women don't want men to embrace feminism, they know men won't. Men have had half a century to come to terms with the fact that women are full human beings just like them and cannot be treated as the helot class anymore without resistance. They still haven't come to terms with it. I think it's going to take a long time for them to do so, there's 6,000 years of male supremacist culture and thinking and psychology to overcome and it's going to take longer than a few decades. Women want it to happen sooner, but men will dig their heels in every step of the way; they've shown us that quite clearly.

The hand on the knee in a previous era was a punishment for daring to go into men's space. It was the price we were required to pay for infringing on the rights of men. We've woken up to that and we're not going to pay it any more and we also will not go along with the narrative, that it was a price that was acceptable and reasonable at the time. It never was.

Basil,

The ‘hand on the knee’, as much as it happened, was a codified way of asking for consent. The knee, I guess, was chosen because it is such a non erogenous zone.

Look at the amount of threads you see where women are worried that a man is ‘not into them’ because they have not ‘made a move’ yet. We still live in a society where men are generally expected to make the first move.

Ahh but this was work and not a date, you will respond. But, in the real world, lots of consensual relationships start in the work place and, more and more, as women become more senior, you are seeing women’s hands on men’s knees, metaphorically.

This is where the nuance comes in.

No.

You are bending over backwards to justify sexual harassment.

Putting a hand on a woman's knee in the workplace, was never an enquiry about consent. The normal way to see if a woman wanted a relationship outside of the workplace, was to casually invite her out to lunch or a coffee and if that went well, gradually to progress to other social occasions. Not to put your hand on her knee.

You are pretending that social mores existed, which simply didn't. Men didn't put their hands on women's knees as an overture to a sexual relationship, only a complete wierdo would have considered that was a conventional way to seek consent.

How old are you if you don't mind me asking, I'm just wondering why you think the workplace was ever like this?

Early 50s and mine was (not me, note, but my work place). I was in my 30s then and there were loads of sleazy middle age men asking much younger secretaries out.

And loads of young secretaries very happy to be wined and dined by senior middle aged men.

How old are you and what field were you in?

Meant to say 20s, not 30s

And how did these coffees/ drinks progress to a physical relationship? At some point someone had to make a physical move (a hand somewhere or a kiss).

My DH was sympathetic and is now more sympathetic.

I think those who now have lost sympathy were not much use to begin with. Saying they've lost sympathy smacks of trying to exert control no?

women choose freely to live with men, even when there is no advantage to them

Well this is just bullshit. Girls are born to fathers and often grow up in a house with brothers/a dad. They don't "freely choose" this. Most women are straight and want a sexual relationship and a family with a man. The advantage to the woman is they get those things.

I think sexism is different to racism because it's much harder for women to live separately to men than for white people to live separately to e.g. Asians.

And stop infantilising women. We've lived with sexual advances our whole lives. We know the difference between a drunken hand on the knee (icky but common and usually easy to extricate yourself from) and an actual sexual assault driven by power.

Maybe read some if the accounts of #metoo, start from a position of believing the women involved and seriously think about your male acquaintances. Who gains most from the incident being perceived either as completely inappropriate or misunderstood flirting? Why?

A hand on the knee, whilst not being located on an erogenous zone, is certainly gendered behaviour. Otherwise men would do it to other men.

It was the price we were required to pay for infringing on the rights of men. We've woken up to that and we're not going to pay it any more and we also will not go along with the narrative, that it was a price that was acceptable and reasonable at the time. It never was.

Perfect explanation. I lived through it. I know now and I knew then exactly how it was allowed to flourish and why.

larrygrylls wrote - "in the real world, lots of consensual relationships start in the work place"

How many of these consensual relationships, that start in the workplace, are started with nonconsensual body contact? I expect the number is almost zero, but I think you are intent on giving the impression that unless men's bad behaviour in the workplace is tolerated, the human race would die out.

larrygrylls wrote - "more and more, as women become more senior, you are seeing women’s hands on men’s knees, metaphorically."

I'm not seeing it. Show us.

larrygrylls wrote - "The ‘hand on the knee’, as much as it happened, was a codified way of asking for consent."

Between a man and woman in a work situation? No, it wasn't. If it was a codified way of doing anything, it was a codified way of carrying out an assault or a sexual assault.

larrygrylls wrote - "The knee, I guess, was chosen because it is such a non erogenous zone."

but the knee is an erogenous zone for some women. I suppose many men don't know or don't care but a man's ignorance or disinterest should not be valid excuses that a man could use when he tries to touch a woman without obtaining her consent.

Here is an article about the knee as an erogenous zone of women:

www.menshealth.com/sex-women/touch-knees-during-foreplay

There are lots of other articles out there reporting the same thing.

My workplace relationship with DH started because I asked him out. Using words. You know, those verbal things made with lips and tongue which humans use for communication.

I didn’t grab any of his body parts instead. Perhaps men could do the same?

You don't, it's the same psychology as Trump supporters, the more you show them they are wrong, the more they believe in their own story.

My best explanation for men who get defensive about things like #metoo is this:

It may only be a minority of men who are abusive, but a majority of situations (work, pub, etc) contain at least one abusive man. So when women say it is ubiquitous, that's what they mean. Wherever they go, whatever they do, there's an abusive man getting in the way of women leading a life that is normal for men. No, #notallmen, but yes, #allplacesmenare.

Larry I'm roughly the same age as you.

And I do not remember your characterisation of a hand on a knee as a searching about consent.

Even 25 years ago, even in the advertising industry, where everyone got drunk and took coke and fucked in meeting rooms after parties, it would not have been normal behaviour to put a hand on a woman's knee as an overture to a sexual relationship. It would have been seen as what it is: either an outrageously incompetent pass by someone who needed to get some socialisation skills, or a power play.

Why are you so invested in defending sexual harassment and pretending it isn't what women say it is?

And what LangCleg said: everywhere you go there is at least one abusive man.

What makes it possible for that abusive man to get away with it, is all the other men who insist that he's harmless, he doesn't mean it, he's a bit of a nob but it's not fair to hold him to account, women are over reacti-ng, it's only a hand on a knee, etc.

Men who say the sorts of things you're saying here, Larry.

That's always the killer isn't it - not the abuser himself, the bro code that protects him. The knowledge that all the decent men who know it's wrong, nevertheless, don't have enough solidarity with we women, to stand with us against abuse.

If all men refused to support the abusers, the abusers would stop. It's that simple.

But they won't. They'll keep saying till they're blue in the face, that we're overreacting and if we keep on whingeing about it, they might have to stop supporting feminism.

Meh.

IME men are feminists as long as it makes them look good and doesn't inconvenience them in any way. As soon it makes them in any way uncomfortable or costs them anything personally they're not interested any more.

But this is the same as: rich Western people support charity as long as it makes them look good and doesn't inconvenience them in any way. As soon as they have to volunteer by picking up injured animals/going to Africa for a year to live in a tent and help children/donating bone marrow, they're not interested anymore.

Just like people can bang on about being environmentally friendly and overpopulation, but few would not have kids, go vegan, shop organic only and not fly abroad because that's TOO inconvenient and they're comfortable as they are.

You can bang on about how awful it is for the UK to spend tax money on Middle Eastern wars, but are you really going to stop paying your tax or move abroad to avoid it? Nope, you'll just close your eyes and forget.

It's not just men, most people only have a superficial level support for causes that don't really affect them.

It only really affects men when it's "OMG, someone treated my woman/mum/sister like shit!"

Unfortunately, no-one gets too upset by (or can even visualise/believe) statistics if it's never happened to them.