Listen and support. Those are two things that men can do to further equality for women. Those who don’t believe women’s equality is even an issue only further prove the need for it.
Listening means men not interrupting, belittling or discrediting women when they share their knowledge and experience. Supporting means helping, but not taking over or usurping women’s ideas.
Men play an integral role in feminism and women’s rights. The problem is the majority of men either don’t realize this or waste their energy and time denying their role in equality.
Megalomaniacal misogynists lording over nations that have, through the centuries, kept women in inferior, subservient roles and threatened their basic human rights is not a thing of the distant past: it is happening right now on every news channel in the United States, seeping into more “progressive” nations such as ours.
Sexism, misogyny and rape culture are not problems that are going away anytime soon, but it is the responsibility of men to ensure they are not perpetuated, and to speak up and act against them, not only in everyday interactions, but on a larger, global scale.
Men are the problem. That may sound harsh, but it’s the unfortunate truth. The sooner we admit that, the sooner we can begin to change our actions and heal past wounds.
Women are forgiving, perhaps to a fault sometimes, but that forgiveness they hold in their hearts will enable the healing that is needed.
It won’t be easy. Men have an inherit superiority complex that prickles to the surface every time they open their mouths in anger or fear, puff up their chests or have their vulnerability exposed.
This manifests itself in micro-aggressions, verbal outbursts and, even worse, violence that chisels away at the profound strength of women.
Men need to stop this cycle and support women to lead, inspire and create.
There is a campaign with the slogan “the future is female” that has bruised the ego of many men since it was launched by a women’s bookstore in 1972. What men don’t realize is these kinds of slogans are not a threat, but the communication of equality.
We are all human. In order for us to truly celebrate that humanity, we all need to stand together in equality.
I am calling on all men to celebrate International Women’s Day in the warm glow of that realization. See you at the march.
Jason Schreurs, publisher/editor
