Men Worry Women Will Laugh at Them; Women Worry Men Will Kill Them
Content note: this piece discusses sexual assault. Please do skip if this is a sensitive topic for you.
Since the recent Channel 4 broadcast which covered sexual assault allegations regarding a UK ‘personality’, there have been plenty of think-pieces floating around regarding that individual. I’m not here to specifically add another, but I would like to dig a bit deeper into a particular phenomenon that invariably rears its head whenever similar allegations are aired.
I call it the Shaggy Reaction. Honest, guv, it wasn’t me. Nuh-uh, I’m a nice guy, I would never, NOT ALL MEN, it wasn’t me. And so on, until my toes curl with second-hand embarrassment for them.
It might come as a surprise, lads, but we know it’s not all of you. We know that we can walk down the road, go out for drinks, be in a position at work where you have some authority over us, go to the church you lead, approach you for help as an officer of the law, come to your gig, offer you help in your volunteering role, and the vast majority of the time everything will be absolutely fine. No-one will be assaulted. We’ll all have a nice time.
But statistically, sexual assaults are increasing from an already unacceptable level (eg higher than 0), and almost every woman will have a story to tell you about the time when. It’s not only women who experience sexual violence, of course. It doesn’t happen as often to men, but it absolutely does happen. And 98% of those prosecuted for sexual offences are men.
So there’s a disconnect, somewhere. It’s definitely not you, you nice man, but it is also — definitely — someone.
I know a lot of excellent men. I’m very lucky. My dad, brother, husband, brother-in-law — all brilliant people. I’ve worked (and become friends) with some excellent men, too. Men who are funny and loyal and interesting; those who are keen to learn and grow. May we all know or be them.
However, I’ve also met men with whom I would never want to be alone in a room, who are walking red flags. Gut instinct, intuition: not infallible but should never be ignored. Men who will find a sexual innuendo to share about absolutely anything, who will comment on women’s appearance and equate it with their worth. Men who think it’s funny to run up behind a woman walking alone at night and frighten her (“I’d never DO anything to her, ffs, lighten up”), who equate women on a regular basis to inanimate objects (“I wouldn’t leave my car unlocked in a rough area and expect it still to be there the next day, so women shouldn’t wear abc and be surprised when xyz”). Men who divide all women into “those I would sleep with and those who I wouldn’t” and behave accordingly.
I know, I know, you’re a man reading this and you don’t do any of these things. That’s great, sincerely and truly. That’s part of why I like you. But when I’m walking alone at night, in a conversation I can’t escape at work, or just existing on the internet — I don’t know which kind of man you are. If I don’t know you, then for my own safety I may have to act as if you might be one of the red-flag ones.
I get why this feels hugely unfair to the good guys. The men who, genuinely, would never. The great news is I have a suggestion for something concrete that you can do that will make a real difference for women trying to exist safely in the world.
Call out your friends.
That’s it. If you are one of the good guys, then the single biggest thing you can start or continue to do is to call out your friends and colleagues when you catch them speaking or acting like numpties. The comedian Daniel Sloss talks about his friend who had acted out towards women for years, and who went on to rape another of their friends — and why he himself knows there were warning signs he’d ignored over the years before that happened.
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto
Not every man, not every person who makes dodgy jokes and is overly handsy in the pub will end up seriously sexually assaulting someone. But almost every single person who does commit serious sexual assault has a history of lower-level poor or criminal behaviour towards others.
The longer someone gets away with these behaviours, the more they can convince themselves it’s acceptable. So: peers who intervene, who call out their friends when they hear them using stigmatising language and attitudes that objectify, reduce and harm others is an enormous step towards interrupting the progressive harm.
The poet Miss PunnyPennie recently conducted an experiment based on comments left on some of her videos. From 20 sexually suggestive comments left on her content by men with open profiles, she found the following:
12 were married
6 others were in long-term or committed relationships with women
14 had children (10 of which are girls)
6 claimed to be feminists or supporters of women on their profiles
8 had bible verses in their bios
2 were doctors
1 was a lawyer
3 were teachers
4 were grandfathers
In their personal and professional lives, these men are likely respected, responsible, liked and loved. And yet, under their real names on the internet, they feel empowered to leave comments which are intimidating and sexually aggressive because they are so confident that nothing will happen to them as a result.
Not all of them would sexually assault a woman in person. Probably. But that lower-level behaviour, those red flags? Waving in the wind, baby. Just because someone doesn’t show you their bad behaviour, doesn’t mean it ain’t there.
Call them out. Don’t let it pass. When you see and hear other men say things that would make you uncomfortable if someone was saying it to you, your friend, your partner, your child? — don’t let it pass. Doesn’t need to be a big rant or standing on your soapbox — just a “not ok, pal”, and move the conversation on. They’ll get the message sooner or later. And if they don’t — are they really friends you want around you?
At the end of the day, if one person is going to assault another, that’s on the perpetrator and no-one else. It’s not up to their victim to outwit or avoid them, and it’s not up to their friends to predict who and what and where and when. But if you good guys want to stop feeling like men are getting the sh***y end of the stick all the time, then spending less time arguing with women about their experiences and more time calling out the men that are the problem is a really good place to start.
© Fiona McDerment, 2023. All rights reserved.
Article originally published via Medium - visit my profile here