Thread by @_kruptos

1. The problem with women in politics, in the office, and entering into right wing political spaces is just this point:

It is perfectly acceptable for a man to be mean to a man, or a woman to be mean to a man, a woman to be mean to a woman.

But a man cannot be mean to a woman.

https://twitter.com/sargon_of_akkad/status/1784141354123039096

2. A is not supposed to bully a woman. He is not supposed to make her cry.

A man is expected to use his strength, his more forceful character and voice, his capacity for violence, to protect a woman.

3. In marriages these dynamics are navigated by love, sex, children and the man and woman fulfilling different roles. But a woman in marriage restrains his capacity for violence by means of her “feminine charms.” The mad gets sex. He gets children. He gets respect. He gains.

4. In the world of politics, business, public debates around policy and theory, these have been seen as spaces dominated by men because they are adversative and agonistic. They are often forms of ritual combat. Yes there is cooperation, but there can be a tension as well.

5. If a man cannot “punch back” in a public space he effectively becomes neutered. Women entering once male dominated space invariably neuter and emasculate men, often unintentionally simply by asking men not to be “mean.”

6. The woman says, “I want you to enter your space, but you have to change the rules. You can’t talk to me like you would a man. That would be ‘mean’.”

This very phrase, “That’s mean,” effectively neuters a man because it takes away his capacity for verbal violence.

7. This leaves men hamstrung, frustrated and generally emasculated. They may not even be aware of this consciously, nor the women. Some will feel it more acutely. Some women will use it intentionally. But for the most part it operates beneath the surface.

8. It is also why, because anonymity permits it, some guys feel the need to be hyper-aggressive and mean to women in these spaces. They are releasing the generalized frustrations they feel because the power that “don’t be mean to women” gives them in public mixed spaces.

9. The interesting thing is that there are clear social rules within marriage and mixed communal spaces. Only a bad guy is mean to his wife. Again, as her protector, there are unspoken rules which should limit her manipulation of this, one being the respect she has for him.

10. But if you welcome women into every public space, especially those spaces which were/are dominated by male behaviors including adversative and agonistic behaviors (i.e. men being “mean” to each other) and then say “don’t be mean to me” …

11. … you are essentially telling men that they can’t be men there. You are asking them to hand the space, this aspect of life over to the dominance of women. I know women see this differently. But that one phrase “don’t be mean to women” neuters and emasculates men.

12. If women want right wing political discourse to remain right wing political discourse, it has to be able to be “mean.” It has to be rough and tumble, agonistic and adversative.

13. The implication is that if women want to be here the cost for them is they have to be willing to accept that men with be “mean” and that they will experience anonymous men venting the bile of the emasculation they feel elsewhere in society.