Having a Penis Doesn't Equal Misogyny

Alright, this is TheBlaze. The word "penis" is generally not seen too often here, I get it.

But you clicked on the article and I'm glad that you did, so please allow me to explain. It's about time to grill up prime USDA steaks, courtesy of this week's sacred cow.

#YesAllWomen. It’s been all the rage these past weeks. Ugly twitter wars have run amuck and many a friend has been blocked on Facebook.

Propelled by the awful Santa Barbara tragedy and the predictable, distasteful media circus that inevitably followed, people were looking for yet another underlying motive to politicize tragedy… because you know, a deeply disturbed, mentally twisted psycho is never quite enough.

Image source: Facebook 

Of course, instead of blaming the individual, we cycled through the usual suspects. Guns, the good old inanimate standby was blamed by some. Then filmmakers (specifically Judd Apatow and Seth Rogan).

That created a nice little segue for some leftists to shift focus to sexism and misogyny. Hold onto your butts.

Listen, both of those things are bad. Sexism, bad. Misogyny, bad. Always bad. Neither of those things however, put six innocent people in the ground (no, I do not include the murderer’s suicide in that tragic number). An evil person did. An evil person first and foremost, who secondarily may have happened to be a sexist jackass.

One very evil man took the lives of six innocent people, and all good people are deeply saddened. Can we just leave it at that? Do we really need to start politicizing a cause before the bodies even assume room temperature?

For many, the answer is no. Like many nestled in their political echo chambers, Amanda Hess over at Slate saw this as the perfect opportunity to pivot the unthinkable tragedy into her cultural wheelhouse. Aha! The real problem we need to be discussing here is… sexism!

More importantly, the kind of sexism that only women can experience, therefore the kind of sexism on which only women are allowed to have an opinion. If you have a penis, you mustn’t think about these things because… privilege.

So keep in mind that everything I’m about to express has pre-emptively been determined to be wrong… because I have a penis.

Now make no mistake, I’m not saying that there aren’t certain advantages I’ve enjoyed through being a man. Mainly pull-ups.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock. 

I’m also not saying that active discrimination doesn’t occur toward women and that by and large, many men will never fully appreciate the baggage that comes with that.

I’m simply saying three things.

1.) This is not the time or the place to try and attach a political/cultural motive to an unrelated tragedy. It’s a lot healthier to call it what it is. A bad man killed people because he was bad and sick. Institutionalized misogyny had nothing to do with it.

2.) Sexism: that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

This Slate column makes a couple of assertions in relation to misogyny. The one of course that all men are on some level misogynists, even if they don’t recognize it.

You know… because we have a penis.

She then goes on to mention a much more sinister form of “misogyny” by writing:

“Men who objectify and threaten women often strategically obscure their actions from other men, taking care to harass women when other men aren’t around.”

Hmmm… First thing that pops out – and keep in mind that I’m an unknowing, penis-wielding misogynist by birth– is that “objectify” and “threaten” are not at all the same thing and in no way interchangeable.

Especially if we so broadly define “objectification.” Groping a woman, speaking to a lady profanely, yelling at her from across the street would all certainly count as objectification and the men who engage in such activities deserve to be slapped by greater men to have come before them. Nearly every rapper in the country deserves a swollen orbital, no doubt.

But noticing a physically attractive woman, commenting on her prettiness or “hitting on her” as Amanda goes on to so disgustedly describe:

“The guy had asked for her phone number, and she had declined, informing him that she was married and, by the way, her husband was at the party…”

… does that really qualify as “objectification”?

If so, every single man since the beginning of time has objectified his eventual wife. Heck, I’ve been objectified by many a cougar. Though men supposedly can’t be objectified…. I think it’s a penis thing.

The idea of female empowerment through the “sexual revolution” really isn’t all that powerful unless one is deemed sexually attractive. Free birth control parties aren’t any fun when you’re the only one showing up.

The point here is that by so broadly defining “objectification,” neo-feminists can cast the very wide net over all men who’ve ever made sexually motivated advances toward women, no matter how appropriate they may be.

So we’ve now indicted all men while simultaneously linking that word “objectification” to the word “threaten” which brings me to my next point.

3.) Nobody, and I mean nobody with any kind of a voice in mainstream America, condones the threatening of women. It’s a horrible, cowardly thing to do and should be treated as such. Good thing that it already is.

More importantly if a man threatens a woman, we’re not dealing with a misogyny problem. Amanda writes:

“a man sitting at a bus stop across the street from me began yelling obscene comments about my body.”

Okay, now we’re dealing with a character problem. Here’s the big idea: rather than simply divide men vs. women, we need to get back to focusing on right vs. wrong.

If a man kills six innocent people, that’s wrong. If a man threatens a woman, that’s wrong. If a woman wrongfully accuses an innocent man of being sexist, that’s wrong.

But the same neo-feminists, like Amanda, who are so quick to blame all men for their woes are oh-so apprehensive to condemn people’s actions based on purely moral grounds. Afterall, telling somebody that they’re “wrong” sounds incredibly judgmental. We all know how bad it is to be one of those people, right?

Women, if you aren’t judging men harshly and consistently (and the same for men to women), you are letting them off the hook. Even worse, you’re letting the bad ones off the hook and lumping them in with the good men out there who love and respect women.

A man who threatens you isn’t a sexist or a misogynist. He’s a bad person. He’s a low-life, scummy human being (just like Elliott Roger) who would ideally have been weeded out of the pack long before he ever had the opportunity to threaten you.

Let’s use an example from Amanda’s very own column!

“Another young woman was alone at the bar when an older man scooted next to her. He was aggressive, wasted, and sitting too close, but she smiled curtly at his ramblings and laughed softly at his jokes as she patiently downed her drink.”

Okay, let’s put on our evil “judgmental” goggles for a second.

Right off the bat, is this guy the kind of guy who goes alone to a bar? Judgment.

Is he the kind of man who gets drunk at said bar? Judgment.

Is he the kind of man with little respect for personal boundaries? Judgment.

Is he drinking an awful light, American macro-lager? Extra judgment.

Get out of there. He’s a bad guy. I wouldn’t want to be near him, and misogyny has nothing to do with it. He’s just as likely to sexually accost you, a woman, as he is to be aggressive with me, a man, due to inflated beer muscles and a poor character. The fact that this man may make some sexist comments is incidental to the fact that he is likely a bad person.

We’re at a point in our country where it’s okay to call somebody a misogynist – or a sexist or a racist or weightist, whatever the buzz word of the current news cycle may be – but not to indict somebody on the oh-so judgmental grounds of their moral character. How far off the plot can you get?!

I’m not saying that sexism doesn’t exist. It does. I’m not saying that there aren’t plenty of ignorant people out there. There are.

But if we spent half as much time in this country trying to raise more morally upstanding, well-spined young men as we do playing identity politics, a good portion of these problems would solve themselves. Instead of dividing us, ultimately both men and women would be better off. But don’t take my word for it.

You know… the whole penis ownership thing.

Hate me? Tweet me @scrowder

–

TheBlaze contributor channel supports an open discourse on a range of views. The opinions expressed in this channel are solely those of each individual author..