Active Listening

For 8 years now, I have worked at a small, liberal arts college in the northeast part of the United States. If this is the first post of mine you are reading, you probably can make more than a few assumptions about me based entirely on that single sentence. It's even likely that at least a few of those assumptions would be more or less on the mark. Hopefully none of that cheapens what my next few paragraphs hold, but if it does, so be it. We all have our perspective, and we all have to make a choice as to whether we let that hold us back or not. Sometimes I choose the former, but not tonight. 

Paying less attention to sports has given me the time and space to process some of the heavier conversations that are taking place in the world. One such conversation popped up about 10 days ago and really jolted me. After a sad, sick person acted upon his darkest motivations, robbing us of our friends and family members, the news media and the internet initiated their standard operating procedures. Interviews with survivors and commentary on gun control and mental health care filled the cable news channels. Meanwhile, the social media titans and message boards of every kind debated the appropriate allocation of sorrow and blame as if there was a correct answer to arrive at. This debate intensified as links to videos and manifestos began to circulate, but the national conversation remained flat, basic, normal.

Slowly, organically, something remarkable then began to happen. It started with straightforward statements, connected around a common theme. Women telling stories of their own day to day struggles with objectification and marginalization. Some were intense, others not, but they were all tied together through the now familiar hashtag; #yesallwomen. Seeing these simple, short, devastating stories from strangers across the country all joined together in a stream of brutal honesty was staggering to me. 

Many people think that this wave of expression was disrespectful to the victims of the shooting. That the national focus should remain on them for some appropriate amount of time until the news tells us what to worry about next. To me, this kind of conversation is a utopian ideal and I am still not over the fact that it even happened. Imagine the clarity, compassion, and courage it takes to speak about vulnerability in the face of such hatred. To ignore the easy, empty reactions of blame and rage, and to offer up in their stead your own, personal fears to the nation, and the world. Healing is what comes from gestures like that. Healing for everyone.

Facebook and Twitter are not often breeding grounds for healthy, vibrant conversations, but this was a different moment. I've read story after story and post after post of people who spoke up after seeing that others had, and of people who had their entire perspective on gender relations changed for good as a result of this conversation. I'm certainly one of those people. I used to consider myself a pretty good guy for thinking about how women I was out with were getting home in the city, or for understanding when a female friend didn't want to walk to their car alone. It's easy now to see that simply acknowledging those situations isn't just not enough, it's nothing. It's certainly not going to lead to change, and in many ways, it's only going to further cement the status quo. 

In some ways, I feel I have really arrived in the social media world.  After I said on Twitter that the more men bristled at the #yesallwomen conversation, the more they should shut up and read, someone I didn't know called me an idiot. I'm looking forward to getting my badge. Later in the exchange, that same person threatened to rape someone who had tweeted in my defense if they didn't shut up. I suppose it was inevitable that a national conversation on social media would deteriorate, but I am truly sad to see it go. There are a lot of conversations that need to be had and Facebook and Twitter are such great opportunities, if only we could remain curious about other opinions, and stop being defensive about our own. 

I have no earthly idea what will finally fix the gender relation problems in this country, but I'm willing to say that I know how the journey to that solution starts: with a conversation. If we can simply take a moment to quiet down, focus up, and listen to one another, progress will come. It may feel slow, and the goal may seem impossible to reach, but the conversation is what will get us there, so let's not let it die. Let's keep this conversation going until every guy understands that #yesallwomen is not an accusation or an attack. It's a perspective, and you can use it to help make the world better by making yourself better. Besides, not attacking people, or not objectifying people, or not marginalizing people is nothing to be proud of. That's just paying the rent.

The college I work for has a motto that I have been inspired by and that I have believed in since I first saw it in print. That motto is, "Expression Necessary to Evolution", and it's what this whole thing is about. It's an idealistic notion and an optimistic belief. And any assumptions that you manage to get right about me based on all that, I'm more than happy to claim.