No, I'm not talking about the TV show. (Except I am, sorta.)
I'm talking about (and to) men who are mad. Mad like Howard Beale was mad. Mad at (or about) women. Women who talk about women-stuff. And women who talk about men. Also, too, women who don't talk about men. In short, I'm addressing men who get mad, indignant, or defensive when women sometimes presume to speak as women. Women who claim authority to speak as members of a particular social group.
After the squiggle, I propose that you -- man who gets mad when women speak about women, or speak about men, or don't speak about men -- you can learn something from your anger. I mean that. And women -- by making you impatient, arousing your indignation or making you squirm -- women can teach you something.
Socrates (the Greek dude) compared himself to a "gadfly" that "stung" his fellow citizens into thinking about things they didn't want to think about. Nobody likes that. So they yelled at him and said, "Leave us alone!" Socrates said, "I'm not going to leave you alone!" So they convicted him of heresy and corrupting the youth and sentenced him to death. Socrates took it all in stride. But he told them: "You guys are pissed at me [and they were all guys -- only men were citizens] but what you don't realize is that I'm your benefactor. Not only should you not be mad at me -- you should be thanking me!"
Any man who gets mad when women speak as women about women's concerns and interests (which are neither identical to nor in conflict with men's concerns), that man should pause and consider whether his anger isn't misplaced. When we, we men, least want to hear something is perhaps when we most ought to listen.
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