This Shouldn't Be So Hard

I've got a lot of friends who, like me, are feminists. Which is a great thing. And they like to share articles that move them, which is also a great thing. And so I get tons of articles popping up in my Facebook feed on feminist issues.

Which actually ends up being, all too often, a tremendously frustrating thing.

For instance, this article recently aggravated the hell out of me. It's called "The One Basic Thing Men Still Don't Seem To Understand About Women."

What is that one thing?

That women are human beings.

Seriously, the author makes the repeated claim that men don't comprehend the existence of a self-aware, individual, thinking person inside each woman that they meet. And she seems to have absolutely no inkling that her claim is wildly insulting to men as a group, or that it represents a disrespect just as vile as the kind she complains of men exhibiting toward women.

How exactly are we supposed to win over non-feminists with this kind of hypocritical, condescending, and genuinely offensive style of presenting our points?

Of course men realize women are human beings.

Look, there are three truths that have to be recognized if we're going to get anywhere:

1) Men want sex.
2) All men are obnoxious some of the time, and some men are obnoxious (or worse) most of the time.
3) Therefore, some men are obnoxious (or worse) about wanting sex.

None of these truths is in any way impacted by whether a man perceives a woman as a human being.

Men who want sex (i.e., men) generally want to have sex with a human being. Sex is a human activity, by definition an interpersonal interaction, and something that is a fundamental part of our biological nature. The notion that wanting to have sex with someone inherently demeans them is, frankly, puritanical. As an exercise to demonstrate this, let's play a game of "Complete the Sentence."

I don't want to get to know you or find out about your thoughts and dreams; I just want you to _____.

fix my car
give me directions to Fifth and Main
cut my hair
provide adequate lectures in this accounting class
have sex with me
tell me whether I have cancer
vote McGillicutty for Mayor
call the police because I've just been beaten and robbed

Why is "have sex with me" considered dehumanizing when none of the others is? We live our lives constantly interacting with others for the fulfillment of our own needs, constantly oblivious to the hopes and aspirations of the individuals with whom we engage. And if we fail to deal respectfully with anyone in one of the circumstances listed above, it's a black mark on us. But the fact of just wanting one thing from someone isn't inherently demeaning; it's a normal facet of the human ability to compartmentalize, and of the way modern living brings us into contact with other people in narrow, fleeting moments.

Which brings us to Truth #2. The thesis of that aggravating op-ed seems to be that if men would just own up to the fact that women are people, everything would be fine. But I don't find that a digestible idea. When a man parks his sports car or pickup truck across two parking spaces, is he unaware that other human beings might like to use one of those spaces to park their own automobiles in? When a man leaves the toilet seat down, gets pee on the rim, and doesn't wipe it up, is he ignorant of the possibility that other human beings might need to sit on that toilet later? When a man answers his cell phone or has a full-volume conversation with his neighbor in the middle of a movie, is he oblivious to the presence of other human beings in the theater? No, in each of those cases, the man simply doesn't care. It's not a uniform characteristic of all males, and it's not a characteristic that's restricted to males alone. It's called being an asshole, and it's not something you can correct by proving the humanity of the asshole's victims to him (or her).

If we agree that Truth #3 is a problem (and we should), there are two ways we can approach it. We can try to change Truth #1, or we can try to change Truth #2. By making a mighty social effort against Truth #1, we might eliminate a fraction of the sexually obnoxious behavior men currently engage in. But we would do so at the cost of forcing all decent men to repress their own sexuality, to view it as something dirty and wrong, and to live lives of constant guilt and shame -- because the wanting to have sex is not going to go away, nor is the desire to look at and talk to attractive women in public places. Meanwhile, the assholes from Truth #2 would continue to behave just as they always have, because they would never bother to internalize the societal message that spontaneous sexual desire is wrong.

On the other hand, although fixing Truth #2 is a very tall order, doing so would completely solve the entire problem. And improve society in general a thousandfold. And free all men to be honest and open about Truth #1, which would result in a lot more respect-centered sexual fulfillment for both men and women.

In other words, it doesn't come down to, "Let's make men understand that women are people too." It comes down to, "Let's all make it clear that people shouldn't act like dicks to each other."

And that includes op-ed writers just as much as it includes men who notice an attractive woman walking down the street.