“Don’t put your faith in men, they almost always let you down.” –Me (#10)

Men, this post is for you, so listen up. And I know I am going to come off as ‘holier than thou,’ so let me be clear: I am just as sexist as every last one of you.

I was invited to become a member of a resurrected organization at my school: Men of Westlake. I had my first meeting with them last Wednesday. The meeting consisted of male students, male parent volunteers, and male faculty/staff. We went around the room introducing ourselves to each other. We also had to answer a question, “Who was the most influential male in my life?” The answer for me was, of course, my wonderful father. But I got to thinking, if not him then who else? The truth was that a lot of us had trouble answering that question, didn’t matter whether it was a teacher, student or parent. That’s kind of scary no? The fact that we struggled to come up with someone who taught us what it means to be a man (and a Black man in these students’ cases) in this world is troubling.

But, was it really that surprising? It seems that every time I have looked to an older male to serve in some kind of advisory role I have been disappointed. I know that we are humans and we are bound to fail, but there’s a huge difference between messing up and not understanding what messing up means. I don’t have an issue necessarily with men that are not faithful, like I said we are not perfect. I do, however, have an issue with the mindset behind being unfaithful. And what ignites and perpetuates that mindset? Our sexist ideas and thoughts do. And those sexist ideas and thoughts eventually become our sexist actions.

Here’s one big difference between men and women, for the most part, a difference that illustrates this male ‘mindset’ that I am speaking about. Let’s say we have a couple, Gina and Roy. Gina and Roy are in love. Both know and understand that they are the best person that they have ever been in a relationship with. The difference is that Gina, in the back of her mind, fears that she will never find anyone better than Roy. Gina will do everything in her power to make sure that she puts in her part to make things work. She just cannot bear the thought of living without Roy. Roy adores Gina, but in the back of his mind, he knows that if it doesn’t work out with Gina he will find another someone, somewhere. He doesn’t carry that same fear that Gina does.

I think this is not necessarily a fault of either men or women. This stems from how we are socialized. Women get those messages from Day 1. Wait for your Prince Charming, and once you find him you better make him happy. Men, on the other hand, are socialized to be more independent. “There are plenty of fish in the sea,” is one thing we hear over and over, and we believe it.

Again, we cannot blame men because of how they were socialized, but we can hold men accountable for their actions. Just because we are socialized to believe that men are superior doesn’t mean that we have to perpetuate that belief. At some point in your life, you began to question things. Maybe when you were 10 you wondered why a child always takes their father’s last name and why a wife takes their husband’s name. Maybe when you were 15 you wondered why everyone called that girl a ‘ho’ yet no one bothered your boy who had definitely fucked way more people than she had (in fact he was seen as some kind of baller). Maybe when you were 24 you started to notice that your boss paid more attention to you than your more qualified female counterparts. The point is that we cannot act oblivious to sexism, and if we do, we are doing this world a disservice. Every man has noticed a red flag at some point in his life. The question is: why aren’t more men doing anything about it?

So my charge to all of us is to check ourselves every day. Change can happen, but it requires those in power (in the realm of gender, let’s be real, it’s men. And if you argue against that, you’re dumb) to relinquish some of that power. Maybe it means that you think twice about labeling a young woman who has had (or perceived to have had) multiple sexual partners. Maybe it means you stop frequenting one of the greatest perpetuators of sexism, strip clubs. Maybe it just means that you start acting like a MAN, so that one day when your son (or nephew, or cousin, or little brother, or student, or mentee) gets asked, “Who was the most influential male in your life,” they’ll know exactly how to respond.