For my first blog of the New Year, I wanted to write about supporting women in theory vs. practice. I believe if you have a conversation with any random man on the street, he will most likely believe in supporting women. This is good! Most men are not misogynistic assholes. However, there is a difference between talking about equality in the abstract and taking these big "radical ideas" and implementing them into mainstream society.
Talking about equality in the abstract is much less unsettling and does not induce the same type of anxiety about the collective action of women that seems to accompany any tangible progress on equality and women's empowerment.
This anxiety has been most evident recently through Tucker Carlson's mindless rant about successful women ushering in the “decline of men”. He refers to present day as the "dark ages" and implies that feminism has destroyed civilization. The winding thought pattern he lays out is exactly what deters men from supporting women in practice. Because it means more than just supporting their mothers and daughters. Liberating the ladies is about radical social change and entails demolishing the nuclear family and deconstructing masculinity. Woah! Duck!
Most people dislike having their neat and tidy views disrupted. And those views are established quite early in life. It’s hard, painful work challenging yourself, confronting your own prejudices, thinking about how to accommodate your fellow citizens. Most people can’t or won’t do it. That's what makes supporting women in practice so tricky.
It is easier to sit back into the comfortable space of us vs. them, men vs. women. And Carlson does a good job of pitting men and women against each other. He uses basic talking points about false accusations, insecurity, censorship and free speech: incel porn, if you will. However, at the end of this dark tunnel, what I can see more than anything else is that he is afraid and backed into a corner. The patriarch is losing his power, congress is more diverse than ever before, and women don't give a shit about your paycheque because they have their own, and they might just even make more. Shock!
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