Lawrence, what an eye-opening article. You blew me away with this one. I have fought against the woman's place argument my whole life. I am older than you graduating college in 1971 with a BS in chemistry, the only female in my major. I didn't set out to fight anyone, I just loved math and science as untraditional as that was. I also experienced sexual assault. Unlike you, I was 18, but completely naive and unprepared, I might as well have been a babe in the woods. I had no one to even talk to and going to the police was out of the question in those days. Having experienced life before, during and after Roe v Wade, I've seen firsthand how women's rights shaped our country. Now with the push to push those rights back to "before", it really is shaping our country in ways that are pretty ugly. Thank you for showing what these trends mean. I sure don't want to be pushed back to those times again.
I am so grateful for what you have published. Putting this all together into such a cohesive framework has really helped me to see how to inform my grandsons. I am so concerned about what is happening on social media and how they are capturing and grooming young men to be women haters.
Wow. I don't have words to articulate my thoughts fully except to say your article stopped me in my tracks. Made me put everything down. I will sit with this and hopefully have something more articulate to say but for now I can say as a writer, as woman, and as a human — bravo and thank you.
Excellent piece, and I am very sorry to hear about the trauma you suffered at the hands of a predator. As women, we know this is ubiquitous, but I know there are men who remain silent about it happening to them, indoctrinated with misplaced shame. I do wonder whether society would collectively take sexual assault and rape more seriously if we knew the full scope of male victimhood - just as police brutality gets attention when it happens to white people, just as health problems affecting men get more funding for research, just as average salaries rise when men enter a field ... Maybe it will be deemed unacceptable if the victims suddenly "matter" because they are male. A sad, superficial approach, but something to consider nonetheless.
Thanks for writing this. I will just note that while this misogynist and anti democracy wave is global, the US is in the lead among "developed" countries. At the individual scale, as women trying to live our lives, place does matter.
If the women are not free, their sons are slaves as well. If a woman doesn’t have the freedom to protect and control her own life, she doesn’t have the freedom to protect her children. They want to own your children. And they will take their mother, to have them. Your sons are an army and your daughters will breed more sons. They want your sons angry and afraid and ashamed, so they obey the orders of them. They don’t want free men, so they cannot have free mothers.
I know that it is important for men (including trans men like me) to engage in this cultural reckoning, and that it is certainly our fight for a more just world. Masculinity is not inherently harmful, but the harm caused in the name of masculinity is a cycle. Not to mention the attacks on queer and trans people are often made to deflect from predators. The work to dismantle this belongs to all of us.
Thank you for this unflinching analysis. You are spot on. I’ve never seen a more comprehensive, clear explanation of the dangers of misogyny. Well done!
Your article is absolutely gob-smacking. I applaud you for having the courage to share your story, and for connecting the dots to illustrate how we progressives are being silenced by a theocratic regime that will not be satisfied until we are all subjugated.
I will need to come back to this piece again, and share it far and wide, so we can plan and prepare for the fight ahead. Make no mistake, I am not going down without a fight!
Lawrence, you connected some dots I originally thought were aberrations. I really thought the “Young Republicans” chat was a current cultural abnormality, out of the norm. Now it seems to me that they were in the flow of their conditioning - or rather I should say normalization. They were simply acting out the culture of their mentors, who probably carried it on from their parents and mentors, and so on.
And it goes back.
I was in the Metro one day, and two “Expensive Suit” white guys were complaining about the hoops they had to jump through to get their “boys” into Georgetown Prep. They referred to the woman who was causing their grief as a “Jap.” I later had to ask my friend what they meant by that. She replied, “Jewish American Princess.” It was not a compliment. What shocked me was their confidence - their sense of entitlement. They didn’t care who heard them in a crowded subway car. Of course, it was during Bush 1.
Well done, Lawrence. The analysis showing the correlation between authoritarian, male dominated, religious cults and what is happening right before our eyes is very insightful and well supported. Thank you.
An eye opening article. I will have to watch what my 14yo grandson does online. This is so well researched and I don't know how anyone can read it and not agree with everything you said. The part about women's freedom being tied to a successful democracy is especially truthful. I recently read an article about a study on the cause of men raping women. The conclusion is: The Patriarchy. Your article just reinforces that study. We have to fight against the Patriarchy with all our passion and power. A feminist style movement such as we had in the 60's and 70's. The kind that brought us Roe v Wade. The kind that gave us financial freedom and so many wonderful women's rights. I am 70 so I have lived through all those changes. With each decade I was so glad to be a woman of that time period. I am still glad to be a woman, but I see what they are trying to do and I am so angry. We need to restart that Womens Rights Movement and remove the Patriarchy. Thank you for this article.
Lawrence, what an eye-opening article. You blew me away with this one. I have fought against the woman's place argument my whole life. I am older than you graduating college in 1971 with a BS in chemistry, the only female in my major. I didn't set out to fight anyone, I just loved math and science as untraditional as that was. I also experienced sexual assault. Unlike you, I was 18, but completely naive and unprepared, I might as well have been a babe in the woods. I had no one to even talk to and going to the police was out of the question in those days. Having experienced life before, during and after Roe v Wade, I've seen firsthand how women's rights shaped our country. Now with the push to push those rights back to "before", it really is shaping our country in ways that are pretty ugly. Thank you for showing what these trends mean. I sure don't want to be pushed back to those times again.
I am so grateful for what you have published. Putting this all together into such a cohesive framework has really helped me to see how to inform my grandsons. I am so concerned about what is happening on social media and how they are capturing and grooming young men to be women haters.
Wow. I don't have words to articulate my thoughts fully except to say your article stopped me in my tracks. Made me put everything down. I will sit with this and hopefully have something more articulate to say but for now I can say as a writer, as woman, and as a human — bravo and thank you.
Excellent piece, and I am very sorry to hear about the trauma you suffered at the hands of a predator. As women, we know this is ubiquitous, but I know there are men who remain silent about it happening to them, indoctrinated with misplaced shame. I do wonder whether society would collectively take sexual assault and rape more seriously if we knew the full scope of male victimhood - just as police brutality gets attention when it happens to white people, just as health problems affecting men get more funding for research, just as average salaries rise when men enter a field ... Maybe it will be deemed unacceptable if the victims suddenly "matter" because they are male. A sad, superficial approach, but something to consider nonetheless.
Thanks for writing this. I will just note that while this misogynist and anti democracy wave is global, the US is in the lead among "developed" countries. At the individual scale, as women trying to live our lives, place does matter.
Thank you, Elizabeth!
Gut-wrenchingly spot on, my very brave Friend.
If the women are not free, their sons are slaves as well. If a woman doesn’t have the freedom to protect and control her own life, she doesn’t have the freedom to protect her children. They want to own your children. And they will take their mother, to have them. Your sons are an army and your daughters will breed more sons. They want your sons angry and afraid and ashamed, so they obey the orders of them. They don’t want free men, so they cannot have free mothers.
What a gift! Thank you for sharing these hard-won insights and righteous fire.
Wow. Powerful truth. Thank you. You are an awakened male and I am grateful for your existence. ✊🏼
I wanted to restack every quote from your article!
I know that it is important for men (including trans men like me) to engage in this cultural reckoning, and that it is certainly our fight for a more just world. Masculinity is not inherently harmful, but the harm caused in the name of masculinity is a cycle. Not to mention the attacks on queer and trans people are often made to deflect from predators. The work to dismantle this belongs to all of us.
Thank you 👃
Thank you for this unflinching analysis. You are spot on. I’ve never seen a more comprehensive, clear explanation of the dangers of misogyny. Well done!
Your article is absolutely gob-smacking. I applaud you for having the courage to share your story, and for connecting the dots to illustrate how we progressives are being silenced by a theocratic regime that will not be satisfied until we are all subjugated.
I will need to come back to this piece again, and share it far and wide, so we can plan and prepare for the fight ahead. Make no mistake, I am not going down without a fight!
Lawrence, you connected some dots I originally thought were aberrations. I really thought the “Young Republicans” chat was a current cultural abnormality, out of the norm. Now it seems to me that they were in the flow of their conditioning - or rather I should say normalization. They were simply acting out the culture of their mentors, who probably carried it on from their parents and mentors, and so on.
And it goes back.
I was in the Metro one day, and two “Expensive Suit” white guys were complaining about the hoops they had to jump through to get their “boys” into Georgetown Prep. They referred to the woman who was causing their grief as a “Jap.” I later had to ask my friend what they meant by that. She replied, “Jewish American Princess.” It was not a compliment. What shocked me was their confidence - their sense of entitlement. They didn’t care who heard them in a crowded subway car. Of course, it was during Bush 1.
Well done, Lawrence. The analysis showing the correlation between authoritarian, male dominated, religious cults and what is happening right before our eyes is very insightful and well supported. Thank you.
An eye opening article. I will have to watch what my 14yo grandson does online. This is so well researched and I don't know how anyone can read it and not agree with everything you said. The part about women's freedom being tied to a successful democracy is especially truthful. I recently read an article about a study on the cause of men raping women. The conclusion is: The Patriarchy. Your article just reinforces that study. We have to fight against the Patriarchy with all our passion and power. A feminist style movement such as we had in the 60's and 70's. The kind that brought us Roe v Wade. The kind that gave us financial freedom and so many wonderful women's rights. I am 70 so I have lived through all those changes. With each decade I was so glad to be a woman of that time period. I am still glad to be a woman, but I see what they are trying to do and I am so angry. We need to restart that Womens Rights Movement and remove the Patriarchy. Thank you for this article.
#takedownthepatriarchy
Absolutely brilliant and powerful essay.
It's not often that the truth is presented in such unvarnished, meticulously documented, unflinchingly honest, and urgent terms.
We have all been warned...there is zero excuse not to act.