The men vs women conversation(s) is such a tired and trite thing. It’s a solved problem. The solutions are already there and have been discussed. The intricacies and the nuances have already been worked out. So why do we incessantly have these already very flawed conversations? The surface level jousting of non-importance. They’re infinitely infinitesimal discussion. It’s dumb.
A lot of 20 dollar words and phrasing can’t get across how much I hate that specific discourse. It’s such a nothing burger talk that I tend to not even get involved but I’m finding myself more and more irritated by the dumbness of it all. I wanna move on to more important stuff. Something that actually influences something other than ad revenue and clicks. Something with heft.
In my last editorial I talked about Male Pity. I think that’s (of course) entirely more salient to the conversations that need to be had but nope. Dating, romantic relationships, etc. Das it. Good ole “men can’t be friends with women” “what is a date” and “and The problem with (insert gender here)” are becoming the bane of my existence.
I can’t talk about how trauma and the defensiveness that stems from that can turn toxic, specifically from marginalized people. Because predating is a conversation. I can’t talk about how we often we cede ground to bad faith actors and allow illuminating terminology and images to get appropriated. We have to talk about the importance of gender roles.
Now you may ask me, “why not just talk about those things?” And normally I would. The thing is, that like a lot of the stuff I talk about, it requires a general understanding that these things are on the border of meaninglessness. If folks put too much stock in them, then arguing about how men feel a very dangerous sense of pity rings hollow to the women who deal with them.
I can’t explain how women uphold patriarchy and explain that to men who think women are out to get them in the first place. It’s hard. Borderline impossible. There are conceits one must make before we can get into a lot of issues that ail our world but we can’t even get over the gender wars to get there.
Honestly though, this is privilege talking. I had the pleasure of not being too much in one corner. Hearing and having experiences, at one point I came to the conclusion that this is a bunch of hurt people hurting people and pointing to the easiest thing possible as a reason for that pain. Painting very understandable but broad strokes across a whole group of individuals that may or may not hit the mark. That’s the rub, it’s all very valid feelings. And that on its own is a very sobering realization of the state of things. No one is really wrong just pointing the wrong fingers.
All in all the finger is pointed at society as is. We never properly adapted to the expectations to the current day. Women being more self-sufficient means more men feeling inadequate when they were told they were THE financial provider even when that’s not going to be the case going forward. That instability causes more harm to women that was already occurring thanks to the unequal power dynamics at play. What’s just a result of existing inequity is the Gender Wars. Not to mention of folks existing outside of typical gender expression. Their issues are gonna go largely ignored because of the gender wars. Once again no one wins.
I’m not a full blooded cynic, I’m still going to do the topics I really wanna talk about. If I’m going to talk about the stuff I wanna talk about, it can’t be about only me. Hopefully someone out there in their journey is gonna find it, and hopefully it gets some gears moving. That’s the best I can hope for. However, until we get rid of some of the noise, a lot of what’s going out to actually improve society and not just from me, is going to fall on deaf ears.