Viewpoints Editor Katy Mayfield sees young men tolerating their friends’ misogynistic jokes and comments, and asks them to step up to do their part to combat rape culture by calling out sexism and coercion. Cartoon by Ashley Lawrence.
Viewpoints Editor Katy Mayfield urges guys who genuinely care about women to use their access in exclusively male spaces to steer their friends away from coercion and assault.
Every time another sexual assault hits the headlines (or Clarke County School District administrative emails), my female friends and I sit down and try to fathom, for the millionth time, what could bring someone to do something so terrible.
But the other shoe drops when we get to the next part of the discussion: what now?
We’ve been brainstorming for years, and we haven’t come up with anything.
Sure, sex ed will help clarify consent for many, but for many others, the problem isn’t not knowing what consent is, but not caring. For those guys and girls, but primarily guys, a teacher is too removed from the situation to have any real impact.
And he won’t listen to girls: that’s the problem.
Whether we’re pushing away and declining in the moment, or openly explaining why his actions hurt during discussion, he doesn’t care about our feelings.
And so for the millionth time after the millionth catcall, unwanted advance or assault horror story, we turn to the same solution: you.
You, my male friends, are in dugouts, classrooms and living rooms with the very guys we would give anything to be able to educate. In the same way everyone has that one racist relative, every guy in high school has that one, and probably many more, sexist friend.
You know the warning signs because they’re uncomfortable for you, as someone who cares about women, to hear. Maybe he refers to girls as sluts or whores, humorously or not. Maybe he suggests you “get her drunk.” Maybe he’s full of tips on convincing girls to have sex.
Your strategy is usually to awkwardly chuckle and move on. Maybe you even recount the episode to a female friend later, full of disbelief that he’d say such a creepy thing.
But what’s creepy and mildly amusing for you is terrifying for us.
Next time, don’t shake your head and ignore your gut feeling. Tell him what he’s saying is really, really messed up. That it’s not normal. That if he really has to convince a girl to want to have sex with him, she definitely doesn’t. That if he has to get a girl drunk to have sex with him, he’s committing rape.
It’s no silver bullet, but it’s a step, and we’ve been standing still too long.
We know you might seem less chill, or uptight, or not as masculine. But what’s more important to you: your reputation or our safety?
