Unfortunately, here is yet another male responding to the listserve.
I'm not sure if Yancy's proclamation of "all men are sexist" is terribly helpful. Do all men engage in sexist behavior? I can absolutely agree with that and regret my own. Are all men "sexist?" That seems to cut closer to an identity statement, and just thinking about the tried-and-true lessons of cognitive dissonance, I can see such a claim leading to immediate defensiveness by the audience that would benefit most from that degree of introspection (men).
There seems to be a corollary here with many movements that try to highlight, examine, and mitigate the more problematic aspects of human behavior. My 30,000 ft view is that front-loading the conversation with identity statements tends to ultimately skew the conversation into us-vs-them narratives. Sexism is not an us-vs-them issue, but one inherent in all of human nature, from the psychological to our complex social and justification networks. Accordingly, at least in my opinion, any fruitful exploration of this that will lead to meaningful change should aim to get into the minds of men in an insidious fashion, largely bypassing any defense systems attuned to blame. For example, part of Yancy's article that I did appreciate was his personal sharing of how his specific behaviors recapitulated sexist attitudes and processes. Running a men's issues therapy group, I've found the most change seems to come when the guys can, in a non-judgmental way, openly discuss the connections between what they do/have done and the women they care most about.
(Side note: as I wrote the previous paragraph, I had the self-image of "man-splaining", which is yet another problem. Maybe all that I've written, which is largely in a matter-of-fact tone, discourages open discussion as it seems to invite conflict and challenge if others disagree. Perhaps all we men could do a little more to ask open-ended questions with actual curiosity about the differences of opinion rather than retreat into battles of the mind.)
Perhaps his Twitter tag should be #IDoSexistThingsTo ? Not as catchy, but maybe less threatening.
Thanks,
Jason
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Jason C. Stout, Psy.D. Licensed Clinical Psychologist Western State Hospital - 1 Pine (540) 332-8095 (Office) (540) 332-8202 (Fax)
DBHDS:A
life of possibilities for all Virginians
On Thu, Oct 25, 2018 at 12:30 PM Henriques, Gregg - henriqgx <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi List,
Steve Quackenbush and I are headed to a conference on Sartre this weekend at Mary Washington University. George Yancy will be giving the keynote. He has written quite a bit on racism in the US. He just wrote an op ed piece explaining
why he thinks all men, including himself, are sexist:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/opinion/men-sexism-me-too.html. I will be interested to hear him speak (which will be more focused on racism than sexism, I think). Perhaps I will get a chance to chat with him. Would be curious to see if others have reactions
to this.
When these kinds of conversations emerge, I like to bring them close to home, into the here and now. For example, in bringing this up, I can’t help but reflect on noticing how male dominated this list is, at least in terms of participation.
We are fairly equivalent in terms of actual numbers (~35 of each gender). Yet, my sense is that 95% or more of the posts have been made by men. This is the pattern of virtually every other list serve I have been on (i.e., heavily male dominated, much more
than the ratio of folks on the list). Interesting food for thought.