Hi Men in My Life! Can You Stop Preaching Feminism & Listen First?

Dear boyfriend/best friend: When I tell you something’s sexist, DO NOT assert that you know better because you don’t

A bunch of male feminists walk into a bar. Some get distracted by the very large widescreen television set at a corner and shout “X raped Y with that kick” so many times over that they’re never heard of in feminist circles again. Some manage to dodge that bullet with practice and engage with female feminists. Inevitably, however, one will say “What do you mean what I just said was sexist? I don’t think so, and considering I deigned to join you and do you a favour, I must be right.” Feminists are still debating whether Boy, Bye was ever said quicker in recorded history. A few make it past all of that and we’re still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

The question that women are beginning to ask today, is: Will the real woke man please stand up?

Also Read: Stop Telling Me to Shut Up: Kalki’s Powerful Rant on Feminism

I spent much of last Saturday night chugging down a few beers with an old friend I used to date. Despite having known the guy five years now, I’d never really brought up the F word before. I’m not sure why. He’d never said anything sexist to me during the course of our relationship – and our one major fight on that score had been the time he made a jibe about women drivers. We didn’t speak for days after. When we ultimately did and I called him out on it, he protested: “But my mother and sister both drive, and I’d never have said it intentionally. It was, of course, a joke.”

We talked about it now. He understood what I meant when I said it was a rather un-feminist thing to say. “In hindsight it probably was,” he squirmed uncomfortably, and I beamed at him with the pride of a thousand headlights. “Maybe next time, lose the probably?” I suggested, and we spat and shook on it.

Where Are the Supposed Allies?

I’m not sure what makes a truly woke man anymore. Now that feminism’s become a far more fashionable thing to say than it used to be, say five years ago, anybody you innocently meet hanging over the partition to your workplace cubicle or at the next friend’s birthday party could identify himself as a feminist. The most woke man I’d met in many years sexually harassed me at a party. By day, he’d bond with me over a shared love for Shah Rukh Khan, arguing how he wasn’t doing enough feminist cinema. “But look at that TATA Tea ad where he promised to make sure his name appeared second to the female lead’s!” I’d argue, while he dismissed it all as fluff and false propaganda. That, of course, must be what makes a feminist man, I was sure. What I wasn’t sure about was where lines of consent had blurred for said feminist man. After a particularly drunken night and refusing to take no for an answer, said feminist man attempted to force himself on me before I threw him out. It was a long time ago and I have since occluded the memory post the incident, but it has made me far warier than ever before of men who talked too much and put out too soon.

Also Read: Felt up, Ogled at, Scorned: ‘Pink’ Is for the Woman Still Standing

But the feminist man with a sexual harasser for an alter ego is arguably easier to identify. What of the men we know in our daily to-dos? Ones who would balk at the thought of overt misogyny, but seem frustratingly oblivious to casual sexism – something that they’ll nonchalantly perpetrate themselves?

When I began writing this story, I sent out feelers to those “well-heeled, well-groomed” male friends of mine – you know, the ones couched on any given Saturday watching Orange is the New Black and forming fantasy female Doctor Who leagues on Twitter – and asked them where they stood on feminism. While one argued he was “alright with it, as long as women didn’t get too aggressive”, another typed in vague whatabouteries along the lines of not-all-men. I was shell shocked. Where were the platitudes of support – the kinds I had seen on Facebook posts that called Lipstick Under My Burkha the greatest thing since sliced bread? Where were the men who were supposed to be allies no matter what? Who, if they understood the horrors of streetside harassment and marital rape, were also supposed to get systemic oppression every single second?

Also Read: #NotAllMen Are Molesters; But That’s NOT the Point

It hit me almost instantaneously. They had no idea. They didn’t know about the systemic oppression because they weren’t attuned to it beyond the amount we tell them. Does my best male friend or my boyfriend know, for instance, that each time I chide them for a sexist joke, I am also thinking of the pervert on the metro who’d be capable of making the same joke and then making good on it? Do they know that when I take offence at a particular character in a movie for something sexist he did, I am also automatically replaying every Saturday night after the bar closes and I am pretending to look brave in front of the auto stand? When the well-meaning men in my life are taken aback at my suspicions of seemingly-okay strangers I am also thinking of the nights I thought I could have been raped? Of the large group meetings at Majnu Ka Tila with college friends when the boys talked over the girls’ ability to drink as much? Of the indignation, the anger that swells with each little hurt, not so little, after all?

So yes, the well-meaning men in your life and mine may not know, sure. But it doesn’t hurt to know NOW. To make a start. And to listen. Dear boyfriend/best friend/old college drinking buddy: when I do tell you that something’s sexist, DO NOT assert that you know better, because you don’t. It isn’t possible for you to, sure, but you could, now. Just listen.

It’s really the least you should do.

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