The Fog of Intimacy

For most of my adult life, I’ve lived in either New York or Los Angeles.  So it’s fair to say I travel in liberal circles.  Nearly all of the straight men with whom I come into contact are liberals.  We share an enthusiastic support for equal rights for all, regardless of race, religion, orientation, etc.  And yet, when it comes to feminism, I’ve noticed there’s often a subtle waning of enthusiasm, even defensiveness, among some of my liberal brethren.

Sure, they believe in equal pay for equal work.  Sure, they’re against rape and work place sexual harassment.  But who wouldn’t be against these crimes?   Even right-wingers will rally against rape.

Instead, I’ve noticed that conversations about the more complex and nuanced biases women face are often met by liberal straight men with resistance.  If I dare to recount an experience of bias that doesn’t sit squarely on the already agreed upon sexual-misconduct-spectrum, I find many liberal straight men are quick to shut down the conversation by injecting “but it’s getting better,” or “it’s not that bad,” or “but that only happened in the past.” Comments like these may seem innocuous but the message sent is clear:  “Enough already.”  I usually oblige, pull back, realizing a limit has been reached and there’s nothing to gain by persisting.  In other words, I’m silenced by the demands of polite conversation.

So what’s going on here?  Why do so many liberal straight men enthusiastically support, with zero equivocation, the equal rights struggle of every other marginalized group, but hedge, equivocate when it comes to women?

There are a whole slew of reasons but for right now I want to focus on only one:  Intimacy.

Being intimate, living together creates all sorts of emotional entanglements, power struggles that make it difficult to see the most normative realities of sexism.

Intimacy may be a place of succor, comfort, and pleasure but it also can turn into a place where monstrous pain is inflicted.   Hearts get broken.  Promises betrayed.  And we don’t forget.  There are wounds that burrow deep in the psyche.

It’s difficult to believe your wife is part of an oppressed group if she’s cheated on you.

It’s difficult to believe your mother is part of an oppressed group if she spent your childhood belittling you.

And then there are the minor irritations of intimacy.   Your partner refuses to put the milk back in the fridge…or she refuses to clean her hair out of the shower drain…or put away dirty dishes…or countless other annoyances that after years solidify into the belief that “if anything, she’s the one with the power.  Not me.”

Here’s a multiple choice sentence that illustrates my point.   Choose one option in each set.

“My [wife, girlfriend, mother], [drives me crazy, bosses me around, spends my money, criticizes me, cheats on me, denies me sex, runs everything, nags me, makes all of the big decisions] so there’s little legitimacy in the claim that women have less power than men.”

No advances for women have ever been secured without the support of liberal straight men.   So it’s crucial to start shedding light on how intimacy clouds perceptions of gender equality.

As a first step in finding a solution, I propose taking the same sentence as above but revising it:

“My [wife, girlfriend, mother], [drives me crazy, bosses me around, spends my money, criticizes me, cheats on me, denies me sex, runs everything, nags me, makes all of the big decisions] AND my [wife, girlfriend, mother] is a woman who lives in a sexist world that irrationally devalues her in ways I am both aware of, and in ways which I am not yet aware of, but which I do want to know about.”

This is a start based on the fact that liberal straight men are already allies, already on board with the values of equal rights.  It’s a small shift of awareness that could lead to a larger conversation, one not so easily shut down.