I Don't Want to Do This Either

I was listening to the Pod Save guys recently and they were talking about the blowback to NFL players taking a knee. They remarked that, of course, these players would rather just play football. It blew their minds how many people failed to understand that had any NFL player their druthers, black men wouldn't be so vulnerable to police violence and then they could just play some football (that's a lot of hyperlinks there, right? Do you see why they're kneeling?)

We'd all really rather just go on about our lives, wouldn't we? Calling people on their shit is a lot harder, a lot less fun, than just ignoring it or, magically, living in a place where you're not subjected to other people's shit.

Which is all to say: I don't want to do this either. I don't want to be the one telling you to stop calling the grown-ass women you work with "girls." I don't want to do that. I really wish you'd just, you know, not. But you do. And so many of you not only don't bother to interrogate how inherently demeaning this is, you get your feelings hurt when you get called on it.

(oh those delicate male feelings... you guys... ovary up!)

And I don't want to tell you that Hugh Hefner's death hasn't earned anyone's lachrymose lamentation. He was a bad man who did bad things. I don't want to interrupt your enjoyment of a tasteful nude or two. But you look away from the women he turned into things and talk about the good stuff he did for men and it's shitty and gross and you need to stop.

I don't want to police all the ways you casually allow and excuse misogyny. It's exhausting. Oooh... gif time:

But ignoring it and moving past it? Guys, this how we ended up with Donald Fucking Trump and Mike Fucking Pence who are two very different men, joined in their virulent (if differently expressed) loathing of women.

Today Ezra Klein, whom I'd count as one of the good guys, tweeted this:

Guys, there's not a woman alive who's even mildly surprised by this story. Of course Weinstein was a pig. The upper echelons of American society are comprised almost exclusively of pigs.

Ezra, poor guy, took it on the Twitter chin today for that post. I felt a little bad for him because he's not a sexist. But it's just so frustrating how many men live in easy, willful obtuseness about how much shitty shitty shit there is out there for women.

So, ladies, we have to continue being exhausted and being exhausting. We have to keep pointing out the constant, casual, cavalier sexism that is our everyday life.  Most men are good men. They're just a little ignorant (maybe on purpose?), having been inculcated in a system that rewards and excuses misogyny. If we make them see this (which is so exhausting), then they'll get better.

And, men, join us. Listen to the women in your life. Don't make excuses based on male intentionality: your intentions don't exist in a vacuum. And, men, I've been saying this for years, when you're in the motherfucking metaphorical locker room, don't keep your trap shut when the real hateful shits spew their real hateful shit. You might think they just talk that way, but I'll guaran-damn-tee you they do some violence on the women around them. When men talk about women like that, they treat them like that too - just not in front of anyone they're afraid of or want to impress.

In short, we all have to be exhausting and exhausted.  These are exhausting times. God I'm tired.

This is a good idea. I'm gonna go watch Parks and Rec and then go to sleep. And tomorrow? I'll fight another day.