Last week a proud feminist single mom posted a piece in The Washington
Post in which she shamed her 16- and 18-year-old sons for not taking a more
proactive stand to combat rape and misogyny. For anyone who needs a guide on How
Not to Turn Your Children Into the Social Justice Warriors You Desperately Want
Them to Be, “My Teen Boys Are Blind to Rape Culture” is it.
Jody Allard is a Seattle-based writer on issues related to feminism,
parenting, and social justice, who describes herself as a happily single mother
of seven. In previous articles she has had no compunction about sharing very
personal experiences such as surviving rape, her self-loathing over a malformed
hand, three failed marriages, a son’s suicidal depression, and a husband’s emotionally
lacerating infidelity. She also has no compunction about publicly embarrassing
her sons by declaring them “part of the problem” of rape culture and by labeling at least one of them a “rape apologist” over his reasonable belief
that accused rapists should be considered innocent until proven guilty.
In her most recent WaPo confessional,
Ms. Allard is disturbed and frustrated that her two teen sons aren’t more
active allies with her against what she insists is our rape culture. As I’ve
written elsewhere, America doesn’t have a rape culture; we have a culture in
which rape is considered a heinous crime and those convicted of it – and
sometimes those merely accused of it – are viewed as monsters. Does this mean
that rape is uncommon or that our legal system’s handling of such cases isn’t
sometimes problematic? Not at all. Does this mean that our pop culture isn’t
hyper-sexualized or that it doesn’t objectify women? Not at all. But if you
want to see a rape culture, travel to rural areas in Afghanistan or Iran or
India. There is no such equivalent here.
Jody Allard’s sons agree. They roll their eyes when she raises issues of
rape, consent, and sexism at the dinner table. “There’s no such thing as rape
culture,” one tells her. “You say everything is about rape culture or sexism.” Their
mother’s sense of betrayal is palpable:
My sons, who are good boys and who know all
about consent, do not speak out about consent. Not when it’s uncomfortable. Not
when it might jeopardize their social standing. My sons who hate hearing about
their own privilege nestle inside it like a blanket and accuse me of making up
its existence.
“I never imagined I would raise boys who would become men like these,”
she laments. “Men who deny rape culture, or who turn a blind eye to sexism.”
Apart from her disturbing willingness to disparage her sons in a national
newspaper, Allard also isn’t helping matters by pushing the boys away with
her obsessive cause. “They’ve been listening to me talk about consent, misogyny
and rape culture since they were tweens,” she explains, which is probably the
reason they argue and resist becoming the social justice warriors she wants
them to be: she’s been hectoring them for years about rape culture and they’re
sick of hearing about how they’re complicit in “toxic masculinity” unless
they’re also hectoring their male friends about it:
My sons are good boys... [but] when it comes
to speaking out against rape culture and questioning their own ideas and
behavior, they become angry and defensive. Not all men, they remind me, and my
guts wrench as my own sons mimic the vitriol of a thousand online trolls.
It’s not trolling to point out, as her sons rightly do, that not all men
are rapists or are enmeshed in some sort of patriarchal conspiracy against
women. It’s unnecessary for her to declare that “anyone who isn’t with us is
against us.” The vast majority of American men – your sons included – already are with you, Ms. Allard, in terms of finding
rape to be unconscionable behavior. Also, she conveniently neglects to mention
that many of today’s young women – girls, really – sadly are far from the
passive victims of male sexual aggression that she makes them out to be (cue
the cries of “Slut-shaming!”). Those young women must bear their share of
responsibility for the current confusion about sex, consent, and assault.
Despite her misgivings, Allard seems to have raised decent boys, and
that’s admirable. But she also seems to have no self-awareness about how her
relationship with her sons is in danger of being warped, if it isn’t already,
by her own issues with men, which become apparent as you examine some of her
other work. Instead of inspiring her boys to activism, her habits of substituting
a lecture on misogyny for dinner conversation and of discussing her disappointing
children with Washington Post readers
is obviously creating an awkward tension that may ultimately drive them away
from her.
What Allard’s boys and others like them need is not a troubled feminist determined
to enlist them in her social justice mission, but a good father or other close
masculine role model to serve as a living, breathing demonstration of how to be
a man who respects and protects women. Boys are far more likely to respond to a
strong, good man’s quiet example than to Mother scolding them about their participation
in the sexual victimization of women. Unfortunately there’s no indication in
her article that these boys have anyone like that in their lives.
Allard is correct that good men must be ready to come to the defense of
women, but guilt-tripping our sons about their male privilege, “culpability,”
and “toxic masculinity” is not the way to mold good, honorable, proudly
masculine young men who are respectful of women.
From Acculturated, 9/20/16
