It feels a bit vulnerable to express this but in the spirit of answering an invitation to speak on this subject I can write these thoughts: I read the article a couple of days ago and was moved, and filled with an incredible sense of hopefulness that it was possible for someone … a man in this case … to understand … the lived experience of the Other.. The article struck me in a different way than most newspaper articles that I like do, in that it seemed to speak more directly to my heart and personal self, and this came from more than the words by themselves (ex. words such as sexist, patriarchy, etc.) but from the author's sense of humility and use of examples that demonstrated a real understanding, again of the perspective and lived experience of being female. Yet I know that if he had just said “men do sexist things” while not acknowledging the pervasiveness of the whole mindset that we all live under, it would not have felt as powerful to me.  I was also struck with how vulnerable the author was being with his words and found myself wondering about how other men might view him … Before that I actually had the thought that this was probably written by a woman who at the end would say, “these are words we wish to hear”. Once I realized though that he was indeed a man who had not had the lived experience of being female, I felt a deep appreciation and even awe at his courage for writing such a piece and thought he must be someone who truly is in tune with himself to be able to take such a risk.

One additional note: I had not shared the article with friends, as I often do, but when Gregg’s post came through about him speaking at Mary Washington I shared with my daughter, who just graduated from Mary Washington and who works there, about the Sartre event and she wrote back that that was awesome about the event and then added “and that article looks amazing”. I am guessing that the article struck her in a similar way that it struck me. Thank you Jason, Gregg, and others for this discussion and the invitation to write a response.    Patrice

Patrice A. Alvarado, Ph.D.
Licensed Clinical Psychologist
9246-B Mosby St.
Manassas, VA 20110
571-248-2145
www.mindful-psychotherapy.net

On Oct 25, 2018, at 4:36 PM, nysa71 <[log in to unmask]> wrote:


I would like to read the thoughts of women on this listserve on that NYT article. I hope they feel they can without the fear of being mansplained to. Emoji

~ Jason 
On Thursday, October 25, 2018, 12:32:25 PM EDT, 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.

 

I will be heading out and back Monday.

 

Best,

Gregg

 

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