The arrogance of (not all) men
Peter Boghossian appears to think he knows better than female experts in the field about how to prevent and avoid male violence
Any old postering dudebro
If I were to accuse Billy Bragg and Owen Jones of being rank misogynists, I am pretty certain they could not successfully sue me for libel. I am, whatever the consequences, calling them both woman-haters. If anyone is uncertain of the definition, look at any proper feminist analysis of the phenomenon.
But these men are easy targets, as are their right-wing counterparts.
And then we have the men that consider themselves to be public intellectuals - far superior in wit and prose than the sheep that hold a party line. These men, who often but not always identify as philosophers, speak of free speech, and praise heterodoxy.
Since these creatures latched on to the gender wars, I have met a fair few. Prior to their involvement in such issues, we lived on different planets. They tend to be self-satisfied and arrogant, strutting around displaying a half-smile or bemused look.
Which brings me to my encounter with Peter Boghossian, the American philosopher who came in for some flak on social media following his conversation with the feminist author Kara Dansky.
Following a conversation about gender ideology and the threat to women’s rights, Boghossian turned to a topic that was clearly personal to him - self defence.
Saying that “we can cut all this” but that he simply wanted to understand something that seemed to keep him awake at night, he continued:
“Why do some women place themselves in positions of impotency in the world why they would not take steps…if you don’t like guns great pepper spray get a blue belt in jujitsu, like take some steps to not hope that you can get out of the bathroom so not hope that the manager will intervene to not hope that the Supreme Court will pass a law.
I’m trying to figure out for myself. You know that women are getting raped so why wouldn’t you? Why wouldn’t you take steps so that increase your confidence to decrease the likelihood if you found yourself in that situation for something untoward happening to you that’s my question to you.
The fact that you have not taken steps means that you must think that the problem is so insignificant is so unlikely to affect you that it’s not worth you taking the step to try to act…
This is what is so fascinating to me…I would wear a bulletproof if I thought the likelihood of me being shot was anything above non-trivial.”
His tone had changed from intellectual curiosity and a level playing field, to confrontation and a faux-fascination as to why on earth women didn’t protect and defend themselves.
I am not going to hit you over the head with why many women found his style of interrogation offensive and inappropriate. You can watch the video with Kara by clicking on the link above. And if you are interested in my conversation with him this week, prompted by me tweeting that he is “insufferable” following his remarks to Kara, see the link below.
The moral of this story is that sexists come in all shapes and sizes, political persuasions, and all it requires to fit the bill is to be a bloke who thinks he knows better than a woman who TRULY does.
I watched your conversation with him this morning Julie. It’s disheartening when such basic knowledge about the realities of how women have to navigate our environments is so far from most men’s understanding. Your discussion with him demonstrated that in spades.
I think you did exceptionally well to try and put it in simple terms and to educate him about the different tactics women use to delay/dissipate threat. But it was like you were talking to a brick wall.
And then his response to your final question about what he does to help women with this structural problem was predictable. Nothing really. What was it? He quietly intervened once years ago when he was in the presence of a man bullying a woman… good job, mate. Your silence at his response spoke volumes.
I watched both and also was taken aback by Peter's tone. So far I generally had been enjoying his interviews with people. What seems obvious to me is two things:
- Peter, like other men, fundamentally do not understand what it is like to be under constant threat of violence
- Peter myopically only would accept 'fight back' as the response to a threatening situation which doesn't align with any scientific data we know about psychology or male violence against women.
We already know that under threat, people respond in four basic ways: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. Any of the strategies can potentially work to help you survive. It just so happens that women both due to our biology and also due to how we're socialized will mostly respond with flight or fawn. We know that the vast majority of the time, we will not physically win against a man in a fight. We also know that if we try to use a tool, like a gun or pepper spray, it will most likely be turned against us. We also know that the vast majority of male violence against women are perpetrated by close intimate partners, so having a weapon in the home to defend ourselves isn't going to work. What are we going to do, hide it? What women actually do is hide a escape bag with cash and essentials in our homes just in case. What women do is go together in groups to the restroom when we can, which men make fun of but don't realize it's a safety tactic. What women do is talk down (fawn response) threatening men to buy ourselves time to get out. These are all legitimate and work. And none of this occurred to Peter because he's literally has never had to do it probably once in his life.