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Serious Question: Are Men Being Silenced?
Yes and no
I write a fair amount of essays that are classified as “feminist,” even though they’re really just observations by me and every other female-presenting person I know about what it’s really like to function as female in daily American life.
Usually I get the typical knee-jerk hypersensitive response from men who think they’re under attack and live their lives on a hair-trigger, and most of those responses I take with a grain of salt. But one response I see over and over, to my own writing and to other feminist writers, are men screaming that men are being silenced.
I think about this one a lot, because I do think there’s a grain of truth in what these men are saying, but often I think they miss what that truth is.
First off, many men who tell me they are being silenced are not, in fact, being silenced. What’s happened is that other people have decided to stop being silent about systemic racism and sexism and are now openly screaming back about blatant unfairness, and you know what they say — equality (in this case of discourse) can feel like oppression.
Having said that, I do think men are silenced. I think men are often silenced when it comes to talking about their fears and worries and are expected to be strong and — silent. Men are silenced when…
