Man-hating

I have been wanting to write about male violence within activist scenes for a number of weeks. I haven't known where to start. So I thought I'd talk a little bit about my personal experience

I feel very hesitant about these snapshots. This blog is semi-anonymous, but I am not - most people in my life know about this blog. There would be few left-wing activists in the country who couldn't find out who I was if really they wanted to. If I wrote seriously about my experience of male violence against women within the activist scenes then a lot of other people would be identifiable as well.

I'm anonyminising this up as best as I can.

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New Zealand is small - travel is easy - you can have a national weekend or conference for almost anything - and we do. This weekend was one of many that I've spent in similar circumstances, speeches, workshops, and all the most interesting conversations happening in their corridors.

I was hosting a whole bunch of people in my house, because I had some space. I was working on my thesis at the time, so I didn't go out with them on the Saturday night.

I knew before I woke up that something was wrong - the house had been noisy at the wrong times and quiet at the wrong times. A man had told one of the women who was staying with me that he had no place to stay. He did have a place to stay, and he'd deliberately not been billeted with any women - but I didn't know that, and neither did the woman who invited him back. When back at my house he had tried to rape a woman who had already gone to bed.

One man heard her, got up and beat the shit out of the rapist - I've never felt more grateful to anyone in my entire life.

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A friend wanted me to come to a feminist meeting, I didn't really know the people so I didn't want to come, but I did. It was being held in a woman's house - I couldn't put a face to the woman's name, but when I met her I knew that I'd seen her around.

She had two black eyes - her boyfriend had hit her. She said that they'd been play fighting and he didn't know his own strength. She said he felt terrible.

She hadn't left the house since it happened. She wanted to spend the meeting talking about the abuse we'd suffered at the hands of men.

Whenver I think of this story, often when I think of him, I feel my failure like a weight. We did what she asked that night, we talked about male violence against women. But I didn't offer her anything more. It's a kind of arrogance, to think it would have made a difference - that something I said could changed her reality.

Still I wonder what else I could have done.

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Right at the time I met that woman, her boyfriend was busy using his position within the political scene to defend a rapist.

I wish I could say the two stories I have told are the only times I have had to deal with a male violence and abuse within activist scenes, but they're not. I have known too many men who claim to be fighting oppression, but exclude the women they're abusing from that fight.

I think it's fantastic whenever a woman can talk about the abuse she has experienced. But whenever it does happen a bit inside of my sinks, and feels a lot like a bowl of petunias. Because I've seen too much to expect anything, but to be disappointed by the reactions of men.

It's not the rapists, abusers, or men, that make you despair of men as a group. I know that violent men exist, and they're not all cops, or other unsavory types. I've learned, I guess every woman learns, that they may be people I know.

What leads me to despair, is the men who support, cover up, minimise and defend abusive and violent men. I've known so many men who have choosen an abusive man over the woman he abused.

I'm left with this deep sense of disease and distrust. Because too many men hear tales of abuse and rape and automatically put themselves in the place of the abuser. Everytime a man does that I feel a little bit less safe around him, I wonder a little more about his past.

Our standards are so ridiculously low, but men fail again and again. If a man who has been abusive acknowledged what he did was wrong (ideally before he was outted, but I'm beyond hoping for that), took action to change that, and didn't talk trash about the woman involved, then I'd be so shocked I'd probably stop being angry.

From men who have never abused a woman all I want right now is that they will choose a woman who has been abused over a man who abused her.

It doesn't seem like asking much, but it seems impossible to get, and what little we do get needs to be constantly fought for. So while hate is too strong, I do distrust men. I wish I didn't have to, but there's only so many times you can be surprised.

I am probably going to try and write more posts inspired by my recent experiences. It's difficult to do so without being too vague to be useful, but I've got some things to say.

Comment Moderating: If I doubt your sincere commitment to eliminating male violence against women and creating a free and equal society then I will delete your post and ban you from my blog.