As the Ebola outbreak grows and panic in the US increases, I am struck by the similarities and lessons to be drawn in our handling of “sexual violence” and perhaps other men’s issues. Both Ebola and rape are greatly feared, the cause largely invisible, with even the number of victims uncertain. Both are subject to a wide range of beliefs, some superstitious, some more scientific or “reality-based.” Many varied responses offer some illusion of knowledge, but in fact great uncertainty remains. The mind craves certainty in the presence of threat and fear. Everyone you meet today could be carrying the deadly Ebola virus. Every man (or woman?) is a potential rapist. We have an epidemic of campus rape. Or it’s a judgment from God. Or spread by Western healthcare workers or witchcraft. Or … not. It’s all a hoax. Fear and uncertainty are the only certainty.
Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, in a New York Times op-ed piece and a talk at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, shockingly said, “Ebola has the potential to alter history as much as any plague has ever done.” Wow. He also made some key points in how to stay credible and effective in this environment: admit what you don’t know, avoid dogma, and prepare for and expect the unexpected. He remarks that the greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the Earth was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge. He quotes and paraphrases the famous physicist Richard Feynman to say that an effective public health response requires that reality must take precedence over public relations because nature cannot be fooled.
He argues that this is very different from saying, “We know nothing, we can do nothing, we … can’t.”
A lot of men’s issues have this same invisibility to them. Men’s pain is invisible. Men’s pain is even taboo. We never see this pain, nor Ebola virus for that matter, but a lot of people are going to die anyway. Is men’s pain even “real”? You might say both are a question of training.
I came to AVfM three years back attempting to understand the extreme hypocrisy, ignorance, and hostility of mental health professionals I encountered during three years studying, advocating for, and speaking about male survivors of childhood and adult sexual abuse and assault. They are there in plain sight, but it seems to require an electron microscope for some to see them. I found male survivors themselves really seemed to need and benefit from simply having a place to consider their experiences on their own terms. Advocates for homeless youth gave me a shocked double-take, grateful somebody was talking about what their homeless boys could not. Feminists and mental health professionals told me male victimization “doesn’t happen” and all male survivors are sex offenders.
I’ve come to understand this situation as part of a larger problem of “misandry” and our mutually degrading feminist-inspired gender politics that repeats with similarities in problems such as parental alienation; paternity fraud; gendered prosecution and sentencing disparities; ignored male domestic violence victims; police violence; educational failures with boys and the “boy crisis”; falling male college enrollment; fatherless families; missing male role models/missing male childcare, elementary, and secondary teachers; male suicide, alcohol, chemical dependency, depression, and many other mental health problems; men’s physical health and longevity disparities (five years less); male workplace deaths (92%) and injuries; male unemployment and homelessness; divorce, child support, and family court corruption; pervasive negative media depictions of males; medication of boys for normal boy behavior … it’s a long list. A VERY long list. With little awareness and active suppression. (US statistics cited)
This is very much the story Paul Elam tells of how he watched feminist ideology supplant reality in a clinical chemical dependency environment.
Workplace deaths like the 100 men who fell to their deaths climbing cell towers since 2003 so Jessica Valenti can tweet about bathing in male tears.
Like the invisible Ebola virus, I learned that a LOT of men have past experiences of sexual abuse and assault. I learned to see many and sometimes deadly serious effects that are largely invisible as effects of abuse. Instead it’s just seen as the way men are: violent, alcoholics, sex-addicted, solitary, suicidal, emotionally distant … This is not about a “victim culture.” It’s about assessing what can be done to help the wounded. I do wonder how DO you respond effectively to male sexual victimization when the politics is so crazy, the facts so uncertain, people are so afraid and misinformed, and professionals so incompetent, ineffective, and territorial while volunteer male survivors with first-hand knowledge are so hatefully silenced and attacked? Men are wise to stay silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.
Or perhaps it’s a hoax and I’m just captive to the victim culture. Or a false memory syndrome. Or whining for attention. Or testosterone damaged my brain. Or just need to man up. I’ve heard all that a lot too.
What lessons can we take from this? In his speech, Michael Osterholm spoke of:
Credibility is greater if you admit what you don’t know and don’t find yourself explaining huge discrepancies and failures. People are, in fact, less afraid of hearing that you don’t know than if you are wrong. I can only comment on sexual violence issues, but I wonder if there aren’t lessons in each of the other men’s issues I mentioned. That would be another hundred articles. For sexual violence issues, we really need choices to respond that don’t require certainty or even any knowledge about who is the victim and perpetrator when that is unknown. Is it a false accusation or truthful? Lacking clear evidence like an uncoerced confession, forcing legal solutions without legal evidence simply destroys the credibility of the justice system. What would that look like? I believe there are helpful responses just like when we don’t know exactly who has Ebola, whether a vaccine works, exactly how it’s transmitted, etc.
Dogma is the enemy. This is very different from staying with the science, the facts, the real evidence. Listening at length to actual men talk about sexual victimization has taught me things I never hear publicly—way, way beyond dismissive “men can be victims too” or even Spetsnaz’s fine video (about society’s dismissive view though, not men’s actual experiences). Feminist dogma, yes, is the enemy. So I would just say, it’s just extremely rare that men actually talk of their first-hand experiences of this, and if you are so lucky to hear of it, just try to listen and perhaps you will know a little more. Knowledge can be helpful if you don’t already know “the truth” of dogma, the silly notion of invisible “germs.” Never seen them!
Focus on if responses are effective without distorting the facts, often when the fact is that we don’t know what’s effective. Suffice it to say, there is very little help currently for suffering men when you cannot see or speak of suffering. What would evidence of help be? Less suffering! Fewer effects, like lower male suicide rates, less alcoholism in men, less depression, risky behavior, injuries and death of men, all unfortunately difficult to distinguish from many other effects, causes, and conditions. For three years I ran a male survivor group centered around asking men to ask themselves what would help and be in charge of getting that. Talk of suicide was very common, though usually as an expression of their hopeless isolation and not their intent to act (an important distinction). A lot of AVfM’s content is about gender politics and attacking who and what’s wrong. I would just say, this alone is not help. “Ebola is real,” say the public health announcements. Rape is rape (except when it’s not). Even detailed knowledge that Ebola is a virus is not sufficient to stop the likely deaths of I fear up to a million next year. Politics like AVfM’s may eventually lead to help, but that is very unclear. Politics is the mind killer, full of irrational, cognitive distortions, and a theory even suggests we reason only to look for arguments that support a given conclusion having little to do with “truth.” Truth seems to run way behind in the scheme of things. That is perhaps why dogma is the enemy because truth doesn’t stand a chance against dogma.
I have benefited from AVfM and a wider understanding of the many ways men are invisibly suffering in this culture, the similarities and differences between many issues besides the ones I personally have experience with. I am still at a loss on what response would be truly effective. Perhaps just making …. “media noise” about them will lead to help. In the meantime …
Africa has an epidemic of Ebola, and America has an epidemic of rape. Or not. Personally, I think it’s all a hoax.
