“I Love Chicks,” “Babe Alert,” and, “Schwing!” If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard (or said) these exclamatory phrases, well, I wouldn’t of needed to fundraise to be on the mission field. With the current and justified fervor around the treatment of women, I feel compelled to reflect upon my own experiences, with how I’ve treated and seen women treated, both at home and abroad.
In the interest of transparency, as a single, unemployed, 28-year-old dude who’s living out of a suitcase, I fully recognize that I am not exactly an expert on all things women. Nonetheless, I believe men, as often the source of degradation and objectification, have a regrettably important role to play in advancing this conversation, and hopefully in shifting the mental framework around this issue.
To address the elephant in the room, it is exceptionally frustrating that our President has a track record riddled with wildly misogynistic commentary and actions. But the cold reality exists that Trump simply typifies the problem. He is not its inventor and is far from its only peddler. While I completely agree that our elected leaders should be held to a higher standard, the easier thing for me as a male is to sit back, pass the buck, and chalk it up as Trump’s problem, Anthony Weiner’s problem, or John Edward’s problem (no relation).
The harder decision, which I’ve found is typically the correct decision, is for us as men to take ownership of the problem within ourself as well as our personal sphere of influence. The former is easier, and if you sincerely respect women as equals, you’re already there. The latter is more complicated, primarily because it almost guarantees social friction.
Something I’ve struggled to accept is that inaction is ultimately an action. Saying nothing during a large group conversation about a specific girl could be considered innocent enough. But what happens when that conversation gradually degenerates into a detailed analysis of various aspects of her anatomy, and how that aligns with everyone’s personal preferences? Then what happens when that girl’s your friend, your cousin, your sister, or your daughter?
For me, and I suspect for many men, standing by passively would not be an option, as this offers tacit condonement of what’s been said. Rather, in these situations we need to call bullshit on the hypocrisy at hand. Why should it be more easily rationalized to objectify or degrade a girl we don’t know, as opposed to when she’s a family-friend or our buddy’s little sister? The standard for how we respect women shouldn’t be our relational proximity to her, how “hot” she is, her social status or even the level at which she respects herself. I believe we as men have the honor and obligation to set the standard for how women are respected, and not adjust our standards to what we can get away with.
In his book The Way of the Wild Heart John Eldredge explains how loving women well creates a “great divide between between Men as Lovers, and men as Consumers”. Lovers, and Consumers. The glaring irony in such phrases like “I love chicks,” is that this mentality supports a life perspective that consumes women, and does not love, let alone like.
One of my biggest struggles from serving in other countries has been finding the balance between respecting other cultures, and upholding basic human decency. In Uganda, a common cultural practice is for women to kneel when a man enters their home. From personal experience, this is painfully awkward, but it is even more devastatingly to see how this overt sign of submission is ingrained as a perfunctory habit.
“But it’s their culture.” To be clear, I wholeheartedly agree that tolerance of others beliefs is fundamentally important for us advancing as a global society. But what happens when that requires you to be tolerant of intolerance? Luckily, back in America, the cultural divide isn’t quite this stark. Despite our many issues, the platform of our culture is that of equality. So ideally, the strains of prejudicial sexism should be more easily identified, and eventually eradicated. This will, however, require us all to take ownership of the problem, women and men alike. And just like someone who says they’re not going to vote, inaction is ultimately an action.
So my challenge for myself, and something I’d welcome all men into, is the next time we hear a friend talking about how much he loves chicks, tactfully and gracefully question how much he truly loves women. Does he love them enough to honor and uphold their internal and external beauty? Or does he like women just enough to play the game, to consume, to extract from them the attention and affirmation he lacks within himself.
The recent women’s marches have been an encouraging demonstration of one of our country’s founding principles – the right to peacefully protest and the ability to respectfully oppose lines of authority. As the brother to two sisters and uncle to four nieces, my hope is that these demonstrations are not remembered as a flash in the pan, but rather as the spark before the powder keg. In addition to staying power, I hope this movement produces specific agendas, action items, and ultimately, tangible accomplishments.
It’s easy to throw stones and point out the problems with situations, it’s inherently harder to lay bricks and build momentum towards progress. Regardless of who our president is or how our electoral college system works, let’s do more than throw stones at the White House, let’s lay bricks of love and respect to build a better foundation as a country.
