On People and Objects

I'm really furious right now, guys. I just had a long debate with a former classmate of mine who I've known since sixth grade, and it left me with a very bitter taste in my mouth. I don't hate the guy. I just can't understand how it is he can believe what he does and still sleep at night.

American society is sitting at a tipping point right now, and the topic is human rights. The last blog post I made over a year ago was about this very subject, and things have gotten better since then, but they're still far from good. The big topic this year is women's rights, and my predominant focus is the "Yes All Women" thing that has been floating around. It's a hashtag topic that surrounds the idea that all women go through regularly terrifying and stressful experiences out of a taught and, in some cases, learned fear of men. I've been reading feminist articles and blog posts and posts from men defending themselves against Yes All Women with the "Not All Men" tag. This one claims innocence of part of men because not all of us are scumbags who want to rape you or sexually harass you or even intimidate you with our oppressive manliness.

I want to apologize now for not taking stuff like that seriously. I'm not insensitive. I've never been aware of the fact that maybe women don't want to talk to me because they're afraid of what I might do, because in all honesty I'm about as innocent as a seven year old boy when it comes to women. I've kissed all of two girls outside of a dating relationship in my life, and one of the two was someone I ended up dating seriously for two years. I don't think about how I might come across to women because I don't have a sexual intention in my interactions with them. I don't think about how they might perceive my actions or my presence because I have no ill will toward them and never have. It's never a thought that has ever passed through my mind. Because of that, I have fit into a category of men that has been part of the problem all along without realizing it.

We live in a society where women (and men, a parallel but not currently focal concern) are ruthlessly and intentionally sexualized for the point of marketing products. Whether they're selling perfume, soap, deodorant, music, sandwiches, clothes, jewelry, cars, tires, chairs, tables, carpets, etc, you can be pretty darn sure that women are going to be part of the method. Someone discovered that people are more likely to buy something if there's a picture of a pretty girl on it, and then they started putting pictures of more than just pretty girls on everything. Now there's an implication of sex in most if not all ads concerning women. Stage performances by female artists have become about as softcore pornographic as HBO television AS A RULE. You can tell which female artists are actually talented, because people rave about how great they are DESPITE their being 'unconventionally attractive'. The fact that people give a crap about how the musicians look at all tell you how deep this sickness runs in the people today.

So, society set a precedent. Great. Why is this a problem? Because people are impressionable. We took the example they set to heart and made it a part of us. Children of my generation were raised to understand that girls were supposed to be pretty and that guys had no greater goal in life than to date a pretty girl. Now, I was always a small, loud kid, and for most of my school career, I was younger than everyone in my grade by 12-18 months. As such, I missed out on a lot of that up and coming female attention in middle and high school, and I never learned how to play the 'boys chase girls' game. Girls went from being my friends in elementary school to being my friends in high school, and nothing really changed in between. I guess that's probably what set me up to be as much of an outlier as I feel I must be in all this.

Now, the problem here isn't that society raised boys to be a bunch of idiots who spend their time chasing girls and nothing else. Boys have always chased girls. The problem is that boys in our society have been raised to think that girls exist to be caught and won, like a prize. And that's all that they're here for. We were taught that if you chase a girl, eventually you will win her and she'll kiss you. The problem is that boys were taught this stuff, and parents didn't tell them otherwise. They let the boys of our generation be raised by movies and television that planted these lessons in their heads so deeply that men in our country today feel disenfranchised by the female gender as a whole when a girl won't date them. So disenfranchised in fact, that one man made a video about how he was going to punish women for not wanting to be with him, posted it on the internet, and then went on to murder six women and wound 13 others.

Part two of the problem isn't that the Win-yourself-a-woman mindset that we were all taught poisoned us forever. It's that absolutely no one in any of the insane number of rape, abuse, sexual harassment, and murder cases involving men assaulting women saw anything wrong with what they did. It's that the men got away with that mindset for so long that they finally started acting on it. It's that the general public tries to defend these men by demonizing the women they victimized. It's that so many women have grown up thinking that an object to be won is all they are, and so they end up in prostitution or abusive relationships because they believe they're truly happy there. It's that every single day, men walk around in this world, looking at women, unconsciously rating them on a ten point scale, seeing nothing but a potential girlfriend or sexual conquest. More than that even, it's that none of these men think there is anything wrong with those thoughts. They probably know it deep down, but they justify it because everyone acts that way. Everyone has those thoughts. It's not wrong. Those women are sexualizing themselves. It's only right of me to take advantage of that. Right?

The third part of the problem is that no one wants to stand up and change things. Everyone tries to cover over all these rape and abuse cases. Everyone wants to pretend that everything is okay, and that these are just isolated incidents. That's what infuriates me about Not All Men. That hashtag is being posted by men who are trying to proclaim innocence in all this. They're trying to disassociate from the problem by saying that they aren't causing it. They're trying to be neutral in a very major conflict that goes right down to the core morality of every man, woman, and child living in our country. And that disgusts me more than just about anything else.

This isn't something you get to cop out of. This isn't something you get to pretend isn't happening. Either you're intentionally fighting to stop men from sexualizing and objectifying women, to stop the media from being allowed to turn women into objects, to stop society from treating women as nothing more than a prize to be won, or you're letting it happen. If you don't spend every interaction with women throughout the day being intentionally kind and considerate for no reason other than that everyone deserves kindness, then you're allowing those women to have a shadow of a doubt in their minds that you might be a threat. The best way to make it known that you aren't a threat is to be so non-threatening that there's no way you could be mistaken for one.

Next on the list of things you can do to help is quit talking about the bloody friendzone. That's the disgusting child of the women-are-to-be-won mindset that's causing this whole mess. If you like a girl as more than a friend, tell her. The second you realize it, you tell her. Let her know where you stand. Don't let her assume that you're just being a good friend. And by all that is holy, DO NOT BE NICE AS A MEANS TO AN END. Be nice because it's the right bloody thing to do. If she's not into you, don't recant all the nice things you've done for her like you were paying for the right to date her. I don't want to hear a bloody word about chivalry, because chivalry was founded by a bunch of self-important clowns who tramped around shouting about honor and glory and spent most of their time knee deep in horse crap and filth and literally stabbed people to death for a living. They were mercenaries who tried to pretend they were righteous and wonderful.

I'm done talking about women specifically now. The feminism thing is big right now, but it's not the only thing that society is struggling with. Religion is another part. Race is another part. Nationality is another part. The honest truth is that people have trouble with other people in general. Whether or not we're different.

We walk around every day of our lives, seeing hundreds of other people and looking right through them. We look them straight in the eye and all we see is an obstacle, or a means to an end, or an annoyance. We don't see another person who lives and breathes and feels and laughs and cries and hurts the way we do inside. We don't see someone with their own family and job and stresses and fears and concerns and dreams and goals and hope for more than what they have now. We see bodies, sure. We see potential girlfriends, or potential competition. We see things we hate and despise, things we covet. But we don't see the person behind all of that. The person that wakes up every single day and lives their life the best that they can in hope of being happy someday.

The real problem with our society, and with our world, is that we cannot physically consider all of the other people on our planet as people all of the time. We just can't do it. We can't care about every single person every single moment of every single day. We do turn others into objects in our minds. Every one of us does it, and some of us more than others. I'm especially guilty of that. In order to make this world a better place, we have to stop looking at others like objects. We have to start actively remembering that every single person we meet is just that. A person. A human being. They're just like us. They want love and acceptance and happiness. They want their parents and their siblings to be proud of them. They want to do something that fulfills them inside. They want to live a life that they can look back on someday and smile. They want a family and kids, or a good career, or just a really good friend.

We have to remember that they're people too, and that everything we do or say to them will leave an impression on them, no  matter how small. We have to realize that one smile or one kind word can make a world of difference to them. We have to realize that all the things that we feel inside are mirrored in them, whether we agree with their lifestyle or not. Whether we like the same music or clothes or speak the same language. Whether they're as smart or as dumb as we are, whether they're ignorant of us or not. Whether they return our kindness and decency or not. We have to start giving everyone we meet the same common respect and decency, because it's what you do that defines who you are. I wish that every single time I did or said something to hurt or offend someone that the pain and hurt they felt was reflected back onto me. That I could feel the hurt I just caused them the same way that they feel it. I wish that everyone could feel that. Maybe then we'd start to realize just how much hurt we give out every single day of our lives. How much hurt we're pouring into this world. And then maybe, just maybe, we'd start to see each other as people.

Human Rights (A Vicious Rant)

Hello, audience. Normally, I try to keep my political/social opinions to a more private setting, meaning face-to-face conversations and intellectual discussions, but all the raging and whining about the LGBT community and their rights this last year (and specifically in the last month) really has me on edge, and I feel like I should broadcast this particular opinion.

I was raised by my mother and father to treat everyone equally. Period. Regardless of color, creed, background, political choices, religious standings, intelligence, everything. All people are to be treated with the same respect and decency because they are all humans, just like I am. Treat others how you wish to be treated with no exceptions.

Now, I'm all for supporting groups that you believe in and expressing political opinions. But I can not stand all the flag waving that comes along with it. It comes across as begging for attention and affirmation for believing whatever you believe. It's silly and unnecessary and it irks me. I don't know where this 'red equal sign' stuff came from, but it immediately crawled under my skin and started making me itch. Here's why.

You don't get a pat on the back for believing the right thing. You don't get medals or awards or any recognition at all for believing that all people deserve the same rights regardless of how different they are. You know why? Because that's what EVERYONE should believe. You don't get rewarded for doing what you're supposed to at work. You get to keep your job. If you do less, you get negative consequences. I believe that everyone is entitled to an opinion, and I believe that everyone has lips so they can keep their trap shut about their opinions until it's an appropriate time to express them.

I don't care how many friends you have in the LGBT community. You can support them and their beliefs without shouting all over facebook about it and changing your profile picture and posting articles and essentially shoving your beliefs in other people's faces. That doesn't make anyone want to pay serious attention to you. It makes them want to walk away and find someone less pushy to talk to. I will pay increasingly less attention to people on facebook as the amount of opinionated crap they post increases. 

News about LGBT related events or interesting articles is one thing. Posting inflammatory comments about people who disagree or telling everyone how wrong they are if they don't believe what you believe is entirely different. And changing your profile picture to the red equals sign turns your facebook from a place to interact socially into a political platform and lobbying scheme. It shows your support while alienating anyone who believes differently and instantly labeling you as 'one of those gay rights supporters'. 

Let me say that again. One of THOSE gay rights supporters. There's a way to support things without drawing immediate negative connotations about what you believe. You have to understand that people will ALWAYS throw you into a box with the SINGLE supporter of a movement who left the biggest impression on them.

And before anyone starts up about 'freedom of speech', let me say one thing. You are entitled to your opinions, and you are welcome to speak out about them. But that doesn't mean that you're letting yourself be oppressed if you decide not to paste red equals signs on everything you own and get it tattooed over your heart. I'd rather someone know how supportive I am of the LGBT crowd by watching how I interact with them than by seeing my t-shirt or profile picture. Actions speak louder than words, and that includes any amount of junk you put online for others to see. It's easy to support something when a hundred thousand other people on facebook do it too, but it's a lot harder to walk it out in everyday life when you're faced with actual people and situations.

So, at the end of this VERY in-your-face rant, I'd like to say that your opinions are as valid as mine and you're welcome to tell me exactly what you think about all this. I'd love to hear what you think about the broadcasting of opinions on facebook and via other social media. And for anyone who I may have violently offended, shake it off. My opinion has absolutely no bearing on your emotional state. Don't give me that power over you, because making you angry was not my intention, and you're wasting your time being mad at me because I disagree with you. Take a deep breath, agree to disagree, and walk away. 

And to anyone who says "If you don't like it, then don't go on facebook!", I say don't worry. I definitely won't be on facebook much for a while. I have better things to do than have people's opinions shoved down my throat for multiple hours a day.