My dear fathers, brothers, and sons.
I love you and I want you to understand that I see your desire to be seen as “good” men.
I can only imagine how it feels to hear the women and girls around you as they speak of their daily reality as women in this culture. I can only imagine your grief, despair and maybe anger. However, when you seek to get recognition for your goodness in the midst of cries of grief…you run the risk of appearing insensitive. When you do this you , perhaps unintentionally are making the narrative about you, rather that on the wounds being stated by the women in your community. You are taking up bandwidth which is needed for deep healing and deflecting from the challenge these cries are giving to the dominate culture.
This happens so often when these oh so important subjects come up, subjects of sex race class sexual orientation and on and on.
If you have looked in you heart as a man, and you walk every day with the desire to be an ally to all human beings, if you are taking active steps to heal yourself from the anger and hatred of the “other” we are all pickled in in this society – then breathe deep and hold that truth about yourself close to your heart – and make space for the tears, fear, rage and anger of the women who need and deserve to be heard.
We all deserve this – and one day, women of good will will make the same space for you.
When we argue with each other, and dismiss each others’ realities… Toxic patriarchy wins, and in that paradigm there is no safety for any living thing, anywhere.
#notallmen
#yesallwomen
