Monday March 15, 2021; 12:20 PM EDT
- Why do I write so much about men, women and hate. Because I guess it's taboo, and my life was in many ways formed around dysfunction between genders, and I feel fear when I see a man taken down, fear that it's going to happen to me. I'm pretty sure many other men feel the same, because I've been in places where men can talk privately, and this is a big topic, the fear that our lives will be ruined. #
- Even so, I don't think I'm alone as a man who seeks the approval of women. This might be the single driving force in my life, probably going back to birth. I kid you not. #
- Anyway, I appreciate not being excoriated for touching this third rail. I tiptoe up to this topic, but then I'm getting older, with less at stake, and the world is crumbling anyway, so why not take a chance. I think there may be a resolution possible, maybe it'll come at the last minute, in time to get us focused on solving the problems we share, not just the ones that divide us. #
- Anyway, I wrote earlier...#
Just heard, on the BBC, about a book entitled Men Who Hate Women written by a woman. I don't doubt that there are men who do hate women. On the other hand, I also don't doubt that there are women who hate men. Maybe if we worked on all the hate, what an idea that would be. In the interview the author said that hate speech by men includes the statement that not all men hate women. We always have to be so careful because you never know what's going to be considered hateful. Not hating women and saying so is not hate, imho, it's more like pleading for mercy. To think it's hate is straight out of 1984. Further, it's exactly this kind of crap that makes people fear women, because they can ruin a man's life so easily. I've seen it happen. And when it does, it does not, imho, in any way help anyone. It's just more of what you hated about men being applied to men, and probably feeding more hate all around. You can't stop hate with fear. Also: every man had a mother, and early in life that little man was putty in that woman's hands. If you want to fix the problems, and make life better for women, you have to work on women's attitudes too, and help that little dude love himself. #- I watched Invictus on Netflix, a 2009 movie about Nelson Mandela and rugby in South Africa. It's not an incredibly great movie, but it's worth watching to learn how Mandela treated the whites who oppressed blacks during apartheid, which was ended, as Mandela became president. It's hard to summarize the whole philosophy in a short blog post, but I'll try. When you win, try to protect the dignity of the people you defeated, assuming you have to live with them. He would say the women's movement in 2021 is doing it wrong, by aiming to destroy the lives of men. It may make you feel good in the moment, but it's only going to perpetuate the problem, perhaps even make it worse, as the fear becames betrayal because some men who are charged really are innocent, and that turns into the hate we all want to try to overcome. Everyone suffers when people are abused. I know this first hand, from the experience of my parents and how that was passed down to my generation. The thing to do is to stop all abuse, learn where its roots are, and help people overcome the history that makes them view the world the way they do. #