 |
| Source: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images
From left: Simone Biles, Gabrielle Douglas, Lauren Hernandez, Madison Kocian and Alexandra Raisman
|
As men, it's crucial that when stories of sexual violence are shared publicly and bravely, that we listen and learn. It's crucial that we clear our minds of doubts and previous understandings of how this crime works. "Bearing witness" is mostly associated with psychology, but it translates well into social justice. We must bear witness to stories of trauma to get a sense for what is on the line as we aim to be better men who break the silence in our social spheres as a way to hold ourselves and other men accountable for their words and actions.
Larry Nassar was convicted and sentenced to 175 years in prison for raping and assaulting girls and women for decades. There are plenty of sources to read about this story. I read the ones at Vox, Sports Illustrated, and ESPN. And there are a ton of directions to go and more updates to do as the investigation in to Michigan State continues. There's a couple of things that are connected but aren't linear that I want to talk about.
I can't stress enough that when major national events like this and #MeToo happen, they are gifts. We, as men and Men in the Movement, cannot allow these gifts to slide by us. These are gifts in the sense that if almost everyone has heard of it, then it's an easy entry point to talk about gender, gender-based violence, and masculinities with generally low risk to any friendships that you may have. You can simply ask someone, "yo, have you heard about this #MeToo thing? What do you think?" or "man, did you hear some of the stories from the Larry Nassar case? It's super powerful."
Here's the thing though. I think it's super easy to denounce the man that is Larry Nassar and put all of our energy, blame, and anger toward that one person. It's a little bit harder to look ourselves in the mirror and say, "I display behaviors that allow men like this to get away with crimes like this." It's much harder to see ourselves in Nassar, but we must if we're going to turn the tide against rape supportive culture. And I think powerful men like Magic Johnson speaking out is a good step. He says in one tweet, "As a Spartan, I love MSU and want to work with Coach Izzo, the administration, and the students to be a part of the solution in any way that I can." That's good, but what if part of the solution is admitting that you or your good friend Coach Izzo are part of the problem? In this particular situation, there are millions of dollars and a school's basketball reputation on the line. Like I said, it's easy to say "just fire Izzo cuz he let this go on" because the connection is clear. Coach Izzo and other administrators with tons of power literally swept this all under the rug so punish them by taking away their millions of dollars and reputation.
But for most of us, who don't have millions of dollars and barely our own reputation on the line, working with each other for a solution to prevent more Larry Nassar's can be a more difficult conceptual connection to make. We have to start interrogating our everyday attitudes and language to root out the ways in which we enable good men like Coach Izzo to enable shitheads like Larry Nassar to prosper. If we as men think of ourselves as a community that contributes to the health and well-being of the society we live in, we would be less likely to accept phrases like, "Dude I can't wait until she turns 18". We would live in a society that doesn't sexualize children, especially girls. We would generally have a better sense of what's right and wrong, what's can be unlearned, and what we need to seek help for (like being attracted to children).
Yes, obviously there should be consequences for men like Larry Nassar, and yes, we certainly should be asking the question, "how can this happen?" But if anyone in your life answers this question with, "There will always be men like Larry Nassar and there's nothing we can do about it," then you challenge that shit and say, "WE can do something every day to prevent men like Larry Nassar from getting to that position in the first place. And let's start right now by being comfortable challenging each other and working together to understand where this comes from and preventing it at the root, not after 160+ women have to come forward to get a conviction."
I can't stress enough that when major national events like this and #MeToo happen, they are gifts. We, as men and Men in the Movement, cannot allow these gifts to slide by us. These are gifts in the sense that if almost everyone has heard of it, then it's an easy entry point to talk about gender, gender-based violence, and masculinities with generally low risk to any friendships that you may have. You can simply ask someone, "yo, have you heard about this #MeToo thing? What do you think?" or "man, did you hear some of the stories from the Larry Nassar case? It's super powerful."
Here's the thing though. I think it's super easy to denounce the man that is Larry Nassar and put all of our energy, blame, and anger toward that one person. It's a little bit harder to look ourselves in the mirror and say, "I display behaviors that allow men like this to get away with crimes like this." It's much harder to see ourselves in Nassar, but we must if we're going to turn the tide against rape supportive culture. And I think powerful men like Magic Johnson speaking out is a good step. He says in one tweet, "As a Spartan, I love MSU and want to work with Coach Izzo, the administration, and the students to be a part of the solution in any way that I can." That's good, but what if part of the solution is admitting that you or your good friend Coach Izzo are part of the problem? In this particular situation, there are millions of dollars and a school's basketball reputation on the line. Like I said, it's easy to say "just fire Izzo cuz he let this go on" because the connection is clear. Coach Izzo and other administrators with tons of power literally swept this all under the rug so punish them by taking away their millions of dollars and reputation.
But for most of us, who don't have millions of dollars and barely our own reputation on the line, working with each other for a solution to prevent more Larry Nassar's can be a more difficult conceptual connection to make. We have to start interrogating our everyday attitudes and language to root out the ways in which we enable good men like Coach Izzo to enable shitheads like Larry Nassar to prosper. If we as men think of ourselves as a community that contributes to the health and well-being of the society we live in, we would be less likely to accept phrases like, "Dude I can't wait until she turns 18". We would live in a society that doesn't sexualize children, especially girls. We would generally have a better sense of what's right and wrong, what's can be unlearned, and what we need to seek help for (like being attracted to children).
Yes, obviously there should be consequences for men like Larry Nassar, and yes, we certainly should be asking the question, "how can this happen?" But if anyone in your life answers this question with, "There will always be men like Larry Nassar and there's nothing we can do about it," then you challenge that shit and say, "WE can do something every day to prevent men like Larry Nassar from getting to that position in the first place. And let's start right now by being comfortable challenging each other and working together to understand where this comes from and preventing it at the root, not after 160+ women have to come forward to get a conviction."
No comments:
Post a Comment