On the face of it this campaign to discourage domestic violence is a good idea.
The billboard promotes a message that is hard to disagree with:
But then you get to the talking points, what to say to boys...
It's all so very touchy-feely.
The very man who is at risk to commit domestic violence will shut off as soon as he hears these messages.
Why? Because they don't respect his masculinity.
Sure, it says you can be strong. But it doesn't say you can be tough. It says you shouldn't be violent, but it doesn't say you can be physical and aggressive-- in the ways many young men like to be physical: playing football, pretend wrestling and horsing around.
It all feels very emasculating.
Even the campaign itself might need reconsidering. When I was in college, I took a youth psychology and we had a speaker come in to talk about violence in adolescent relationships. The speaker-- who worked for Quebec's Departement de la protection de la jeuness-- child protection-- said that they had a program to get teens to talk about such violence. But they never started off by saying "okay, we're going to talk about dating violence."
Otherwise, the boys would turn right off.
Instead, they started off generally about dating in general, and about appropriate behaviour in general, and eventually the subject would turn to violence.
Men in our society are constantly told they're the bad guys for being, well guys. I think the mass of people understand there's nothing wrong with being a guy-- liking monster trucks, wrestling, pro football, fixing stuff, taking stuff apart-- all the typical guy things.
But the politically correct elites constantly tell them they're wrong. Men must be sensitive and show their feelings (even if they don't WANT to). Men must shun the things they really like so they can be really enlightened and break gender stereotypes. Men have can't think the way they think because it's unenlightened; they can't feel the way they feel because it's unenlightened. It's all patriarchal and oppressive to women. They have to be something that is against their grain to fulfill some ideological role.
That's the impression I'm sure many men get when they read these kinds of messages.
And it's not that we shouldn't try to educate men about domestic violence. But I think we should think of the audience and what makes them tick.
Being a real man should be about respecting women. A man's strength should be used to protect those who are physically weaker, not to get one's way. The way to have a more fulfilling domestic life is to treat your woman like a lady, not a punching bag.
Those kinds of messages are far more appealing because they don't blame the man for being a guy-- I think they respect his ingrained masculinity.
And I know I'm going to get comments saying that I think all men should be big hulky brutes, and that's not what I'm saying at all. I am simply saying that men should be respected in their masculinity. Gender stereotypes exist for a reason. Many men are comfortable with being typical guys and they don't want to change in the name of an ideology, and they shouldn't have to. They like themselves exactly the way they are. And that's okay.
When they start getting the message that being a guy is not okay, that's when they shut down.
And that's all they get from the ambient politically correct culture of the elites.
And that's why most men don't take feminism too seriously.
UPDATE:
Just came across this:
How the church has emasculated men
What feminism has succeeded in doing is to convince both sexes that the only masculine identity that is valuable is an effeminate male. That in fact, the only way for equality to exist is for men to be like women, or simply not to exist.
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