> Although I absolutely support things like #MeToo -- support the idea that women should not be silenced about the bad things that have actually happened to them -- I am disturbed and concerned by the general trend that the world seems to think all heterosexual relationships are inherently abusive or something. We hear a great deal about the bad, the things gone wrong, the dark side and sometimes it seems like there are no good examples out there, no discourse on "This is what a good relationship look like."
Thanks for writing this. We need more women saying this.
There's a disturbing conversation I've seen numerous times (mostly on Reddit) that progresses something like this:
1. Someone (usually a woman) says, "It's a problem when men do ".
2. Someone (usually a man) says, "Not all men do ".
3. Someone (usually the original person) says some combination of "That's a derailing argument", "That's such a minor issue compared to the issues women deal with", and/or "We need to deal with the women's issue first".
What people need to realize here, is that this is validating the incel narrative that women just hate men. That is literally saying to men, "Eh, whether or not all men are rapists/abusers/etc. isn't important enough to talk about." There's nuance here, I understand it's not those peoples intention to accuse all men of these things. But by refusing to correct themselves when they make this overly-broad generalization, people who do this are making an accusation against all men, intentional or not. If people are going to put a "All men do X" narrative into the world, some men are going to react with "All women do X". That doesn't mean it's okay for those men to do that--it's men's responsibility to gain a nuanced understanding of the world as well. But we should also recognize that this IS going to be the natural result of making statements about an entire gender.
I'm in my 30s and I'm in some communities that put me in contact with men of a wide variety of ages, including men in their early 20s. It's absolutely heartbreaking to me to see how men who have come into age in recent years feel about themselves and about women. We can't continue to tell young men that they're inherently sexist. We can't continue to be surprised when telling young men that they're inherently sexist results in them giving up on treating women well. No one benefits from this.
And to be clear here, it's not just women (and not all women!) propagating these harmful narratives. This is something all of us can work on. I hope for my part that I've helped the men in my life to come to a healthy view of both themselves and women.