day 12 - 13/11/20 : gammon, gillette, tiktok

(Reposting this after editing out a section talking about a conversation w my mum) Hello folks. It's been a pretty enjoyable time the past two weeks going on rants and telling random stories and I'm really glad I have you there to listen and all my mates here writing and running along with me. We're just shy of $100 off our next goal. Hopefully we can keep up the enthusiasm for the next few weeks and surpass $2,000 in donations but for the time being, please consider donating at the link here. I'm a bit disappointed in myself for taking so long to talk about this so I suppose I'll give my two cents today.

Last week I came in from a walk to my mum giving my sister Helen some of her 'wisdom of age'. My mum, for clarity, has a habit of giving these cautionary tales for her kids, in classically Irish mummy fashion. These tales usually spring from absolutely nowhere, you'll get this advice about three of four times throughout the day and are more often than not something to do with what she's going through. For example, there now I asked her what's the word for advice you get from your elders (I couldn't remember the term wisdom of age) and she says, "ya know the terribly sad thing? When you get older you still make mistakes. Because the goal posts keep changing all the time and the scenarios keep changing all the time." So yea that's my mum - helpful, rarely relevant, charming and relentless. Back to this daughterly advice. As the conversation goes on, she says "You can't really be trusting men, a woman has to rely on herself." Helen then points out why is she not having this conversation with her sons? I also point out the last time I had a sit-down like this was 3 years ago when she noticed a condom on my bedside table and she starts saying to me about respecting women.

You're probably wondering where I'm going with this so I'll just power on through to my point here. I wanted to talk about why my mum had these concerns for her daughters, but didn't feel the need to address it with her sons. The present concern here of course is toxic masculinity. Did you wince when you read toxic masculinity? If you did, keep reading.

According to the American Psychological Association, Toxic Masculinity refers to the set of traits that encourage the suppression of emotions or masking distress, maintaining an appearance of hardness and using violence as a facet of power. My mum has evidently digested this understanding of toxic masculinity as standard and rather than limiting it with her sons, she teaches her daughters how to exist with this 'unpleasant but unavoidable' aspect of male society. This isn't me giving off about my mum mind you. Knowing the gammon that make up the >50s demographic in this country, I'd probably have the same mentality.

I'm having a bit of a hard time explaining my frustrations at people who inadvertently defend toxic masculinity and it's plainly because I'm not a girl and so, what I'm talking about has never affected me personally. I'm coming at this from a male perspective's of a woman's experience so I'm trying to be as sensitive as I can and not come across as painfully out of touch. I can walk home at night and feel perfectly safe, knowing I'm not being followed or at risk of being assaulted. I've never gone to a concert or a club and been groped. I've never received inappropriate comments about my appearance whilst in work or public. I've never been called a slut or a bitch when I turn someone down. I've never been gawked at or catcalled as I just do normal fucking human stuff. I've never had to justify my own existence or warn my kids about how they can be taken advantage of and discarded. This is something that doesn't enter my mind as an issue and yet dominates the lifescape of so many of of my female mates. This is namely why I feel that trends like #notallmen are just entirely redundant cause whilst simultaneously being sympathetic towards feminism, it misses the mark entirely and patronises it in a lot of ways. Obviously you're not following any women home at night, but that girl's always being followed by a man. You haven't made any inappropriate remarks to your female coworker, but everytime they go into work they're getting a remark from a male. Do you see the recurring theme yet?

There's a meme format going about TikTok at the minute. Someone duets someone else, asking them to take care of their drink while they go to the toilet at a club. It's supposed to be a meme but you're also wondering, why is this so casual? Why is this just taken as a given now? Aw sure I'm an ally and I've plenty of male friends that would describe themselves as feminists and that they would never do that, but every other person I know has been spiked at some point. Do you remember that Gillette ad? The one that had the mantra, "The Best Men Could Be"? It got a load of backlash after it came out and I'm genuinely trying to figure out why. The statement "Be the best man you could be" isn't problematic and oh my god how is that controversial. One male friend putting his arm out to stop another friend from hounding after a girl isn't problematic so I can't help but think that the need for an ad like it was proven by the backlash. Sure it's a bit corny but it's not that that's being attacked. It's the fact that it's addressed towards men. Often, criticisms of toxic masculinity are gaslighted, turned into, "the hate-all-men train".

I'm realising I've run out of words here so I'll leave you with this. Lots of fellas will stress how they believe in equality, just they wouldn't define themselves as a feminist. In my eyes, there seems to be a certain fear within the sphere of my male friends towards topic like this. It irks me when someone you call a friend laughs at a story of sexual harassment and in a lot of ways, I can't help but take some ownership over it. It's easy and cowardly to just claim you believe in equality as a default whilst continuing on with problematic habits. I'm sounding faffy, apologies. I hope my male friends can be on the right side of history and if you're not bothered to change, I won't shed a tear for you when you're left behind.

Alla best folks x