How to believe the best in men while grappling with overwhelming rape statistics?
No, I'm asking you.
In an article entitled “Not all men, but how many?” (sidenote: serious title envy),
writes:“Most of the time I navigate the world feeling pretty secure that most of the male half of humanity does not actively despise me simply because I’m female. Are a lot of them unthinkingly sexist? Sure, but then again so are we all in one way or another…
But then a news story emerges that shakes this foundation of semi-security and finds me looking at the men around me and thinking, “would you do this to me?”
The news story Perez is referring to is Gisèle Pélicot’s.
Authorities in her hometown of Avignon, France told 72 year old Gisèle that they found over 20,000 pictures and videos on her husband Dominique’s computer of Gisèle being raped by men in her community. Made possible by her husband drugging her and filming the assaults. 92 rapes. 72 men.
I felt myself nodding along to Perez’s entire article, but especially the part where she talks about wanting to believe the best in people, to believe the best in men.
But sometimes believing the best in people makes you feel horribly naive. Unsafe even.
Just this month:
After a 36 hour shift, a medical resident in Kolkata, India was gang raped and killed by a group of doctors and hospital employees in the seminar hall of the hospital.
Just weeks after running in the Olympic Games in Paris, Uganda’s marathon runner Rebecca Cheptegei was killed by her ex boyfriend when he poured gasoline on her and set her on fire after a dispute about her house.
17 lawsuits and counting have been filed against Sean Diddy Combs for drugging, raping, sex trafficking and assaulting women.
Just. This. Month.
Hearing these stories does shake up your normal way of viewing the world. Leaves you wondering how many men you know would do something horrible to a woman if given the opportunity and the anonymity.
Those 72 men who raped Gisèle Pélicot were not criminal masterminds, they were normal men. Normal men in a small village in France with kids, wives, and normal jobs including “a local councillor, nurses, a journalist, a former police officer, a prison guard, soldier, firefighter and civil servant.”
Not all men, yes, but how many exactly? Can we get a head count?
Is it naive to go through life believing the percentage is small?
If the statistic that one in three women experience physical or sexual violence is to be believed, then it is naive to believe it is only a few men.
I believe that everyone at their core is innately good.
But how to integrate that belief with the reality that so many men behave so poorly so often?
How to walk through the world eyes wide open, while still believing the best in people?
In 1983, Andrea Dworkin was asked to give a speech at the Midwest Regional Conference of the National Organization for Changing Men held in St Paul, Minnesota. She decided to talk about rape.
Her speech was entitled “I want a 24 hour truce in which there is no rape.”
I highly recommend reading the whole thing, but here are a few highlights:
“We use statistics not to try to quantify the injuries, but to convince the world that those injuries even exist. Those statistics are not abstractions. It is easy to say, "Ah, the statistics, somebody writes them up one way and somebody writes them up another way." That's true. But I hear about the rapes one by one by one by one by one, which is also how they happen. Those statistics are not abstract to me. Every three minutes a woman is being raped. Every eighteen seconds a woman is being beaten. There is nothing abstract about it. It is happening right now as I am speaking…..
“It is not done 5000 miles away or 3000 miles away. It is done here and it is done now and it is done by the people in this room as well as by other contemporaries: our friends, our neighbors, people that we know…..
“I carry the rape of all the women I've talked to over the last ten years personally with me. As a woman, I carry my own rape with me. Do you remember pictures that you've seen of European cities during the plague, when there were wheelbarrows that would go along and people would just pick up corpses and throw them in? Well, that is what it is like knowing about rape. Piles and piles and piles of bodies that have whole lives and human names and human faces…..
“I came here today because I don't believe that rape is inevitable or natural…. Have you ever wondered why we are not just in armed combat against you? It's not because there's a shortage of kitchen knives in this country. It is because we believe in your humanity, against all the evidence.” - Andrea Dworkin
I felt such relief reading Andrea’s speech.
At last someone speaking plainly. Speaking honestly. Addressing the problem head on and saying “Enough!” No beating around the bush or making rape seem palatable or normal or excusing it or minimizing it.
And at the same time believing in men’s humanity.
I want to speak boldly and unapologetically against rape,
AND I want to believe the best in men. Both at the same time.
I don’t want to be naive about the realities of patriarchy and sexism
AND I want to believe change is possible. Both at the same time.
I desperately want to hold men accountable when they misbehave or keep quiet when other men misbehave
AND I want to love men. Both at the same time.
I’m left with a lot of questions in how to go about this both/and way of life:
How to hold men accountable for unacceptable behavior while leaving space for them to grow and improve?
How to make room for the very real pain of manhood, while making room for the very real pain of everyone who is a victim of manhood?
How to grieve the immense damage unhealthy masculinity has reaped and continues to reap on this world while holding on to hope?
How to thread the needle of these three intense pulls
so aptly describes:“As a feminist and a woman, it’s painful to have to thread the needle between my intense frustration with men, my desire to partner, and my deep compassion for the clear crisis men are obviously experiencing.” - Joy Sullivan
I don’t know the answer to these questions, but it’s a puzzle I am deeply devoted to trying to understand piece by piece.
Join me?
I’m so disheartened that never in high school or college was I assigned a book about patriarchy or the female experience or women’s history.
I have so many to catch up on, would you like to join me? I’m starting a quarterly book club for paying subscribers. I’ll change up the specific day of the week and time of day to accommodate different schedules, but here are the first three books we will be reading:
Wednesday October 23rd 11:00am Pacific Time: The Will to Change by bell hooks
Tuesday January 21st: The Chalice and The Blade by Rianne Eisler
Sunday April 13th: Hood Feminism by Mikki Kendall
I’ll open up a chat so we can share thoughts as we read, then the book club will be held on Zoom. If you are already a paying subscriber (or a member of Reconstruction Community) you’re already in! If not- join us by upgrading your subscription here:
Questions? Thoughts? Huzzahs?
I wept as I read this.
My very sensitive and equally strong 11 year old son immediately (from across our apartment, reading in his own room) noticed I was upset and came to my room to check on me. He looked me in the soul and asked if what I read had made me cry. I said yes. Then he just got into my bed and gave me a giant hug and told me he loves me so much.
And while I held him and felt the sincerity of his pure love, I knew I was holding my answer to your brutiful question, Celeste: my son is how I believe. I wish I could share the warmth of his simple, sincere hug with every woman holding this most brave question with us today. May all of our sons and daughters inherit the strength to hold Truth’s Loving paradox, exceedingly abundantly above all we could ask or think. Together, may we heal.
Thank you, Celeste.
I have so many thoughts and feelings about this. It amounts to a kind of collective cultural terrorism and trauma that women (and some men) live with every day. I was at a baseball game with my kids this summer and found myself looking at the players in the dugout, at their tall frames and strong arms, and wondering how many of them had raped women. Statistically speaking, there were some rapists on that field. I worked at a bookstore in college where one of my duties was to replace the daily newspapers on the stands and return the unsold copies. Every single day, there was a story of horrible violence or sexual assault against women or girls in those papers. I started an art project, cutting out and collaging the articles onto a female mannequin, then abandoned the project because it was too depressing. Not to be a downer, but after 14 years as a therapist, I no longer believe that everyone is innately good. I've sat in sessions with rapists and child molesters and they are not good. I've heard countless stories from women and men who have been assaulted. I think the default human setting is "selfish" and there is a spectrum of how far someone evolves beyond that. As my own therapist pointed out to me years ago when I was depressed about this, having empathy for others is actually pretty sophisticated developmentally and a lot of people never get there. (Lindsay Gibson's series of books about emotionally immature people is invaluable if you want to understand this better.) In a culture that teaches men that women are inferior objects that exist to serve them and satisfy their needs, it's not a big leap to casually rape a woman. I think about Hannah Arendt's ideas about the banality of evil, that these evil acts are sadly quite ordinary and commonplace. Sometimes all I can do is look at the boy I'm raising and reassure myself that this one, at least, has been hearing messages since he was a toddler about the importance of bodily autonomy and consent. This one, at least, shows empathy for others.