Why Does a Bad Day for a Man Lead to Deadly Days for Women?

I’m still reeling from what happened in Georgia. Like most millennials, I first got inklings of the news from Twitter, and then from an email or two from friends who were asking if I was okay. I was not okay. Nor were the women who were brutally murdered with no better reason than a man saying he was having a bad day.

The trauma was repeated today, as I saw people posting on Instagram that this wasn’t a hate crime perpetuating white supremacy, but a crime of passion against sex workers because the perpetrator has a sex addiction. As if that made it any better, as if that would make any woman feel safer or less in danger. We all have bad days. Does that mean that men are just one bad day away from murdering innocent women? And should we feel relieved every time they say they’ve had a bad day, but they’ve somehow found the strength to keep themselves from committing violence, from using women as an outlet?

Patriarchy is a system of oppression and violence that puts white, cis-gendered men at the top of a mountain, and keeps them there through misogyny, cruelty, subjugation and censorship. It harms women (women of color in particular) trans and queer folk, gay men, and anyone else who doesn’t fit the harmful stereotype of a ‘strong man.’ It also harms men by forcing them to conform to the idea that having emotions is a sign of weakness, and that being vulnerable is a terrible thing. It’s taught men to burrow their feelings and leaves them incapable of processing pain, trauma, frustration, love, attraction, and more. But that doesn’t mean they don’t cease to exist, it just means they get bottled up and then projected onto other things or people in the form of violence, aggression, sexual assault, jealousy, verbal abuse, physical rage, and more. Patriarchy means that men don’t process their emotions, it just makes women suffer them.

Growing up in America with a mom from Singapore was a special and tough experience. I internalized so many xenophobic notions; and would aggressively reject any sort of attempt by my mom to share her culture with me. I would ask her to make me American food to bring to lunch, and I would get angry and embarrassed with her when people confused her as my nanny, and not my mom. I would ask her to stay in the car, or I wouldn’t invite friends over. I refused to speak Chinese with her, and threw tantrums when Sunday came around, and she wanted me to go to Chinese language school. I rejected all notions that I was mixed, and mourned my slim, hooded eyes, my dark hair, the nose and mouth that would sometimes give me away. As an adult I’ve had to slowly and painfully undo all the internalized fear I had about being half-asian, while also learning more about the ways my mom had navigated a world that was not always kind to her. She’s been scammed because people exploited the fact that English was her second language, sexualized by people who told her they had yellow fever, questioned when she was angry by people who thought ‘Asian women are supposed to be more demure.’ For a year now, she’s had to endure being spit at, mocked, screamed at, and more by people who blamed her for Covid. I’ve heard her apologize to people for her race, for existing. Last summer when the BLM protests were at their highest, she would march proudly with little care packets of water and hand sanitizer to give away. When I asked her why she was marching, a woman who generally isn’t interested in social or political movements, she said “I know what it’s like to be hated for what you look like.”

My mom and I have been mourning for the 8 victims who were murdered while also trying to hold space for the questions that haven’t been answered, such as how was he able to murder more people over an hour after the first attack? How was he captured without harm, with a gun in his possession, when there have been so many POC who’ve been murdered during traffic stops? Why is it acceptable, and understandable to so many that he killed so many to ‘remove the temptation of sex’ from his life?

I am tired of people giving me excuses for the terrible behavior of men; of putting the blame of their actions onto the tired, hunched shoulders of women. Especially women who have done so much work in establishing themselves in places where they have been made to feel unwelcome. Women who have healed through sex work, through building intimacy and sharing healing touches with men who turn around and repay it with violence. I am tired of men having bad days, and instead of doing the work to heal, process trauma, or learn to engage with their emotions, they hurt and kill women. I am tired of the cultural narrative that being vulnerable, of connecting to your sexuality in safe and consensual spaces is a bad thing, and that somehow it’s more manly to take advantage of women, to extract sex from them instead of building the type of relationship in which it can be freely, and willingly, given. I am tired of men because a single bad day led to eight deaths, while for many of us women, almost every day is bad because of the daily interactions we have with men who grope us, catcall us, follow us home, minimize us at work, talk over us, ignore us, gaslight us, and more. I am tired, and I am sad. I’ve been sitting here for an hour trying to find the words to express myself in terms slightly more eloquent than these simple words, but I cannot. I do not have the energy, and I know that my mother, the members of the asian community, and women who’ve experienced violence, hate, or both combined, do not have the energy. We are just trying to make it by, because our bad days are so much worse.

Resources in light of this horrific tragedy:

Stop AAPI Hate

Stop AAPI Hate is responsible for researching and responding to racism and xenophobia. They are tracking the surge in violence and sharing information with the wider world.

Red Canary Song

Red Canary Song is a transnational grassroots collective of Asian and migrant sex workers. They are working against police raids and deportations and believe in mutual aid and labor rights regardless of immigration status.

Gofundme's #StopAsianHate Campaign

Gofundme has created a unified fundraiser that supports multiple organizations leading in the AAPI community, including Mekong NYC, Asian Health Services , Oakland Chinatown Ambassadors Program, AAPI Women Lead, and Khmer Girls in Action. You can also support individual victims of violence through Gofundme, such as Noel Quintana, Yong Zheng, and more.

Stop Saying ‘People’ When You Really Mean ‘Men’

“Humanity doesn’t have a violence problem, we have a male violence problem.”

Humanity doesn’t have a violence problem, we have a male violence problem. It sounds confronting when you hear it put in such clear terms, but denying reality won’t change reality, whereas accepting and discussing it might.

The numbers don’t lie.

Some women are violent, but that doesn’t alter the fact that the majority of violence, whether against women or men, is perpetrated by men.

For those few of you who’ve been living in an alternate universe, I’ve included links at the bottom citing what we already know. Men are a lot more violent than women, across the board. Men throughout all cultures, ethnicities, men of all colours, creeds, and religions are much more violent than women—to each other and to women.

Men are the main instigators of war, commit at least 90% of all violent crime, and behave as though raping women in wartime is an aperitif.

Allow me to pause here for a second to allow the ‘not-all-menners’ to step away from the keyboard. If you’re not a violent man, you’re not under discussion, nor are my fiance, my son, or my brothers. Just as you know when you read an article about scientists searching for a cure for cancer they don’t mean all scientists, you already know “men” doesn’t mean “all men.”

How did this happen?

Nobody knows.

You can posit whatever theories you like, and they are plentiful. All we truly know is that somewhere humanity took a wrong turn. Some men, at some point, decided that the simplest way to get what they wanted was to use violence to get it. And they did that because they could.

Somewhere, at some time, physically stronger men decided that it was okay to harm others if their immediate whims were satisfied. Somewhere, somewhen, men started suppressing the knowledge that women are human too. Other men quickly learned they had to be violent to have their whims satisfied, too.

Women began being taught that defending themselves could lead to being beaten raped and murdered. Of course, women not defending themselves leads to them being beaten raped and murdered too, so women being taught to be subservient just makes it easier for violent men to harm women. But when you live in a society shaped by the most violent men (and we do) that sort of clear thinking logic is difficult to apply.

“It’s tempting to assume male dominance is the natural state of human society. It isn’t.”

We can apply all the theories we want. But the truth is, it doesn’t really matter why we have ended up living in such a dangerous, violent world run by dangerous, violent men. The reality is, we unfortunately do.

Sugar and spice and all things nice—men just can’t help it.

If we all woke up tomorrow and women were just as physically strong as men, many of your cherished myths about what is “natural” female behaviour would be dispersed fast. I know I’ve never remotely resembled a submissive or placid little doll who’d be happy to let you stomp on her rights. But that’s irrelevant because we won’t wake up in that world tomorrow.

However, what is relevant is that violent men are, for the most part, choosing to be violent men.

How many times have you seen the man who just snapped and couldn’t help himself from assaulting or murdering a woman at the local supermarket, church, school run, PTA meeting—or even the local pub? You haven’t. And if you claim to have seen this, you’re in the tiny minority. Even in a place where alcohol is regularly consumed, it is almost unheard of for men to “just snap.”

They wait until the woman is unprotected and choose to assault her away from protective eyes.

On almost every occasion violence occurs, men are choosing that violence. It is a choice. It starts as a choice to use violent language and moves into violent behaviour which ends, a lot more often than it should, in the rape and death of women by men.

Make the link.

The Make The Link Organisation discusses the link between sexist jokes, speech, and behaviours, and more violent behaviours. Turning a blind eye to ugly slurs and insults means you are turning a blind eye to potentially dangerous men.

Please don’t pretend you don’t already know that men who speak in foul terms about women are dangerous men. There is a direct link between sexist or misogynistic behaviours and “jokes” and more dangerous behaviours.

Why It Matters.

Language shapes attitudes. Attitudes shape behaviour. We police ourselves.

Our ape brains accept what the society of other apes accepts as normality. The majority of the time we naked apes will go along with the majority consensus. Blame evolution. Only when we actually make the effort to remove a behaviour from society do we see real change.

Remember when women weren’t allowed the human right of voting? Remember when people smoked everywhere, planes trains and automobiles? Remember the hardened believers telling everyone they couldn’t change anything, it was just the way it was and always would be?

And yet change things we did.

The vast majority of behaviours complied with by societal agreement are not policed by any outside source. It would be an unmanageable system. Without being aware of it consciously, we agree to social terms when approved by the majority, and for the most part, as social apes do, we go along to get along.

And male violence is taught to children, normalised, accepted and winked at, at every level of society. From kindy to the grave we make excuses for and turn away from male violence. The why of that isn’t really the issue. The issue is that we can change this.

And one easy way to start that change is to remove the bubble wrap around speaking about male violence. Stop worrying about hurting men’s feelings. Start thinking about pushing back and changing things for the better.

When reporting the news, commenting on an article, writing a post on Facebook, or out in the real world, indeed anywhere at all, if discussing male violence and male crimes, say so.

Say men kill women. Say men kill men. Say men are responsible for at least 90% of all violent crime. Say men start wars. Say men murder one another in horrific amounts. Say the word men if you are talking about men.

Violence didn’t kill her. A man killed her. Do not use the word people if you mean men.

If you imagine we already do this, I’m afraid you’d be wrong. Really look at the words people use and the headlines. Read things critically. Then name the problem. Let “people” see the extent of the problem the world has with male violence.

A First Step

The first step to forcing those men responsible for most of the violence in the world is to actually speak about their violence as being unacceptable in a loud clear voice. If we make the effort, as “people” to state the facts about male violence clearly, if we call out men for their violent behaviour instead of hiding behind the word people, we drag the problem into the light.

We can only do that by naming the problem. The problem is not human violence. The problem is male violence.

Once in the light, the second step should be speaking up loudly, often and regularly (when safe to do so) on how it is totally unacceptable that these men are so violent. Never victim-blaming. Never pontificating. Simply stating that violent men are disgusting men, they are choosing to be violent, and we want them to stop it. Make it clear that these men should and must stop it.

Shame As A Societal Tool

Shame violent men into being less violent. Shame is a well-studied tool, and it works.

There will always be a small core of resistant psychopaths, those with cognitive issues, and anti-social deviants. But if you bother to make a behaviour unacceptable (as we have in no way done with male violence) over a relatively short time all but the most hardened recalcitrants will, at worst, minimise their behaviour, and at best, stop it.

“Through the lens of evolutionary biology, shame evolved to encourage adherence to beneficial social norms. This is backed up by the fact that shame is more prevalent in collectivist societies where people spend little to no time alone than it is in individualistic societies where people live more isolated lives.”

Not only don’t we shame violent men, but we also glorify them. We glorify them in the media, in our speech, in our leaders. And then we hide male violence behind the word “people.”

The third step—who knows what that might look like. If we can all, collectively, agree to steps one and two, we can collectively find a third step to move forward.

Make the first step. You can do one thing differently. One thing that matters.

Please stop saying people when you mean men. Because the truth, for some, could be a matter of life and death.

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Sources:

• https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23831740-400-the-origins-of-sexism-how-men-came-to-rule-12000-years-ago/

• https://makethelink.org.au/make-the-link/whymakethelink/

• https://fs.blog/2020/01/positive-side-of-shame/

• https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/violence-against-women

• https://www.ourwatch.org.au/quick-facts/

• https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2018001/article/54978/02-eng.htm

• https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/domestic-abuse-is-a-gendered-crime/

• https://ncadv.org/statistics

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4628110/

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Alison Tennent is Scottish by birth, bloodline and temperament, and Australian since 2002 by citizenship ceremony. She’s worked as a counsellor (Grief and Loss), and in disability and mental health for many years. She is an outspoken advocate for de-stigmatising mental health disorders and challenges, and resides in Queensland, Australia, where the weather offers sunshine one day, cyclones the next. You can find a link to her Medium work here: https://medium.com/@besomandbletherskite