We all know that feeling when some
person of strong personal convictions shares an opinion or outlook
that we disagree with, whether it be on a personal or realistic
level, and we feel compelled to respond, to exercise our shared right
to our opinions. What is often the breaking-point of such
interactions is the precise moment when one of you decides that
you’re not only entitled to your opinion, but that the rest of the
world should be obliged to agree with you or never speak on the
matter at all, because obviously it is not possible to have an
opinion if you don’t voice it and subsequently belittle another
person for not sharing said opinion. I do not often get involved in
such situations, mainly because I am a “get so mad you cry or just
can’t properly communicate” kind of person and know better than
to bite off more than I can chew. But some things I find impossible
to ignore.
In scrolling through social media
today, I came across an article detailing the upcoming Women’s
March for Equality being promoted by the Southern Poverty Law Center
in Montgomery, AL. Although I will not be attending for reasons that
are totally my own business, I support the cause and I support the
notion of freedom and equality in the modern day because, let’s
face it, as much as it seems our current president is trying to prove
otherwise, we are no longer living in medieval times. The problem
that we’re combating is the institutionalized abuse, suppression,
and unfair, unequal treatment of minorities. I say minorities because
oppression has never been, by any means, exclusive to women. It has,
however, been almost exclusively perpetuated by the same demographic
in modern times in our nation, and one would think that it would be
easy to draw a line in the sand: one group is entirely
underrepresented and mistreated, while the other is entirely
motivated by racism and sexism to oppress others. Unfortunately the
reality is not quite so simple.
I was motivated to write this after
coming across a comment on the post about this Women’s March.
Several (not many, mind you) women appeared to be disturbed by this
event, even outraged. Some went on to ask the purpose of the march.
Many women responded (condescendingly) that of course they
were marching for voting rights. I, like some of the women in the
comments, was a bit confused by this reasoning as the 19th
Amendment pretty much covered that in 1920. But I didn’t say
anything, because perhaps there were just a few people who were, not
inaccurate necessarily, but maybe a bit uninformed as to the purpose
of the march. But scroll down a bit more, and there were women openly
bashing this march, its purpose, its message, and anyone who
supported it, which I found to be a pretty extreme reaction to
something it was totally possible for them to ignore. And then I saw
it…someone brought up the wage gap, which is a valid, verifiable
difference in the treatment and pay of female and minority workers
versus their male or white counterparts.
One woman’s argument was that she
“works in a men’s field” and makes “the same, if not more
than,” her male counterparts, so to her, this whole wage gap thing
just “doesn’t hold water.” Though I said nothing, I had several
questions I would have liked pose to her. For instance, what “men’s
field” are you referring to? What evidence are you basing this on?
Have you actually seen your coworkers' checks or salaries? Does this
mean that you don't believe in rape, or in cancer, because those
things don't affect you and therefore can't exist? I was baffled.
This is 2018, so because we are not ashamed of our transparency on
the internet, I checked out her profile. It looked to me like this
woman did not work at all, but was married to an active-duty military
member. So strike one was that it was not apparent that what she was
saying was ever remotely true, though I will admit this was not
verifiable beyond doubt. Strike two, more importantly, was the fact
that she basically perpetuated a “Not all men!” moment, and saw
nothing wrong with it.
This is a common outlook, the idea
that an exception to the rule makes the rule invalid. This is the
same reasoning that has allowed powerful poeple to disregard
scientific facts and valid proof that things like climate change are
real and happening right now in favor of the view that “A bloated
carrot who happens to be our president just saw it snow, and has
decided on everyone’s behalf that this officially disproves
science. Weather over.” Why do people feel the need to be special?
Because what other reason could this nobody have for stating her
opinion which is not only not unique, but not insightful, based in
reason, or in any way helpful to anyone at all, not even to herself?
Why did this one person insist that her personal experience disproved
statistics, facts based on research and actual data? Why does Karen
think she’s the only person who comes in with expired coupons and
doesn’t get to use them?
It is common for
whatever generation is currently trying to drag us back to the Stone
Age to accuse “liberals” or “millennials” or “snowflakes”
or whatever other derogatory terms of being overly sensitive, of
wanting to be unique and special by having some sentimentality that
allows them to be offended by any and everything. But it appears to
me that the only “snowflakes” are the Karens of this world, those
so determined to have their outdated and misguided opinions heard
that they are willing to defend their oppressors and the oppression
they perpetuate. They use their very rare, very exceptional
experiences to demonize any other perspective but their own. And you
know the biggest problem with this? They have been encouraged to be
this way. And what happens when you feed into this kind of delusional
thinking? Well, for one, you begin to lose sight of what makes us all
people. If you have built up such a sense of entitlement that no one
else should be able to express their opinion until you’ve expressed
yours, and damn them to hell if their opinion is different, then you
obviously have lost touch with reality. If your “rights” are not
shared by everyone else without exception, they are not
rights. That, my friends, is privilege.
I have seen women
defend men for a long time. I’ve seen women make excuses for men
who physically and emotionally abuse them, make excuses for “boys
being boys,” and it has truly hurt me. These actions and statements
in defense of a world that has abused and oppressed so many people of
so many diverse groups and walks of life are, ultimately, deeply
selfish. I say this because there is almost no one who is in no way
affected by this injustice and abuse of power by what amounts to the
ruling class. If you are against equal rights for anyone at
all, you are merely stating your belief that you are more important
than anyone else. Ms. “Works in a Men’s Field” believes that
because she is not affected by unfair wage gaps, the problem doesn’t
exist and it is not worth anyone’s concern. She believes
that because she is not personally privy to such treatment, she must
be the golden standard for an entire industry, nay, an entire gender!
This is typical of a mindset that allowed rifts between groups of
people throughout history to grow in such extreme and unreasonable
measure that sometimes genocides ensued.
I am often
reminded, these days, of Martin Niemöller’s quote: “First they
came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not
a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not
speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for
the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then
they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Niemöller himself learned acceptance and eventually learned to
reject anti-Semitism, but only did so after spending the last seven
years of Nazi rule in concentration camps. The very real problem with
the attitude that anything not affecting you can’t possibly affect
anyone else, is that it is entirely baseless and ludicrous. No human
is unique, no struggle is singular. No oppression has definite
limits. If you are unwilling to fight for your fellow man, for your
fellow women and children, people of color and people of no color,
for the gendered and the genderless, what right do you have to be
fought for? Who are you to decide whose life is any more or less
important than another?
One truly
bothersome aspect of this entire situation is that religion has done
so much to amplify and to encourage this continuance of inequality
and hate for each other. How much do you want to bet that Ms. “Men’s
Field” considers herself a Christian? Many so-called Christians
claim to live by the Golden Rule and by the teachings of a loving
God, but will openly deny that Jesus was a middle-eastern man, and
for what? Simply for the sake of maintaining a toxic view of people
of different colors and creeds. There are so many groups of people
dedicated to maintaining their close-mindedness, whether it be with
regard to others’ races or political or religious values, that it
can be difficult to determine who is spreading fact and who is
spreading fiction. The fact that our social media platforms have had
to begin policing the information for which they provide an outlet is
a dead giveaway that we can’t necessarily trust everything we read.
But this doesn’t mean we can’t believe anything we read.
Most groups who operate and think this way are very much of the
all-or-nothing mindset. And to them I say “NOT ALL MEDIA!”
This kind of denial
of fact, this blatant disregard for each other and for reality, are
what make it hard for women and minorities to gain equality. One
idiotic person who felt the need to express their aggressive
rejection of a group’s attempt to gain equal footing has the
power to influence so many other, more ignorant or easily influenced
people. Add to this the fact that anyone who has no problem denying
verifiable facts will obviously have no problem believing various
other untruths, and you create an environment in which unfounded lies
can be circulated with little to no recourse. Eventually the belief
of the majority is so tainted by false information that we lose sight
of the reasons we do things like study the effects of drugs,
or study the workings of the world we live in with regard to climate
change, environmental impact, and the social repercussions of
virtually everything we can think of. As a species, we figured out
long ago that the earth wasn’t flat, that we weren’t the center
of the universe, that the way your skin reacts to sunlight makes you
about as different as you would have been based on your hair color or
shoe size. Yet suddenly, for some reason, we have begun to regress,
to sink back into the cave, and are having to discover these things
one by one all over again. Thanks, Karen.
In this age of the
internet, there has been an increasing lack of accountability by many
people who use these online platforms to tout their insistence that
we don’t need change, or social justice, or equality. But
can anyone tell me why? And I don’t mean “can anyone give
me their excuse for not pioneering justice,” I mean what actual
reason can you, as a fellow human, have for going out of your way to
make a stranger’s life more difficult? For example, what reasonable
argument could you possibly give me for defending, not men or the
male gender, because we all know that NOT ALL MEN, but for defending
the worst of men for the sake of reassuring emotionally needy and
insecure men that they are unique, that they aren’t like the
others? To me, it is similar in nature to “if you’re innocent you
have nothing to hide.” If you are so determined to convince someone
that their struggle is invalid or that their situation just isn’t
real, it makes you come across as someone who is trying to
relieve themselves of the guilt of being just as much a part of the
problem. And that’s really it, isn’t it?
I understand that “not all men” are awful in the same way that I
understand that no group can be generalized in this way, period.
So forget “all men,” because that statement is not insightful.
It’s a “no duh” statement, an obvious statement that is being
used in conjunction with many other phrases and tactics to silence
huge groups of people and to diminish the importance of their
experiences as they affect humanity as a whole. We simply cannot turn
a blind eye to the struggles of our fellow humans, people who still
don't have the rights to equal pay, equal treatment. There was a time
when each of us made the choice to live our lives the way we do, in
spite of oppression and struggles and persecution, despite knowing
that the way we live our lives may be in direct violation of various
things that are irrelevant to us. But those things are just that:
irrelevant. We each know that
we don't have to believe anything we don't want to, or at least we
know that no one can force us to change our minds or our beliefs. I
suppose some people think they're so special that such is true only
of themselves.
What
I'm really trying to say is that all people, regardless of color,
nationality, belief, age, gender, sexuality, or any other combination
of ridiculously unimportant factors that have no bearing on our
status as HUMANS, can benefit from kindness. All people can benefit
from the happiness and joy of a life supported by its community, not
tolerated and abused. All people deserve to be just as happy as you
do, as I do, as Ms. “Men's Field” does. Nothing about you will
ever make you different enough to deserve more, or less, than those
basic human rights that are essential to the survival of our species.
In the end, we all must understand without doubt that we are not
special. We are not unique and throughout the course of history there
have been millions of us and there will be millions more. Trying to
deny each other equal happiness will only hurt us all, and if it take
us another 500 years to understand that, we will probably regress
many more times than we advance. But that doesn't mean we give up and
accept regression.
So
to all the Karen's out there, and to Ms. “Men's Field”: we
understand that you're special. But so are we. So unless you're going
contribute something helpful, maybe your opinions and beliefs would
be better used in some other capacity besides belittling your fellow
women for fighting a battle you happened to miss. And for everyone
having to deal with Karens and Trumps and all other manner of
insistently ignorant, dangerous people, I hope that you have the
presence of mind to understand why fighting fire with fire is only
going to make it take longer to put out. If you believe there is
something worth marching for, worth pioneering, do it. But if your
goal is to harm your fellow man, to deprive and take from whatever
demographic because of whatever unacceptable reason, maybe its time
to visit the sidelines and reflect on what you really are. Because we
are all human, and we need each other. But we will go on without you,
and mankind will progress. Get with it or get ready to be left
behind.
