yes. we can.

a moment of clarity.

words.

"In the aftermath of the weekend’s ghastly events at UC Santa Barbara, there’s been plenty of discussion about our pervasive culture of misogyny, and the myriad destructive ways in which it manifests. A large part of the narrative has been that men need to shut up and listen to women’s voices on this topic, which is certainly true. But men also need to talk, honestly and amongst ourselves, about the nature of masculinity, and acknowledge our own destructive impulses. This is a problem that men need to be discussing precisely because it’s a problem with men. And it’s only men who are going to fix it.

The most important thing we need to realize is that potential to be the problem lies within all of us — and because only by acknowledging this can we start to look to a solution. I’m not saying we all have the potential to be killers, but we all have the capacity to to be unthinkingly misogynistic, to refuse to examine our behavior and our assumptions, to subscribe to the sentiments that fuel the “men’s rights” movement and its ilk.

 .... Men don’t talk about violence against them because our culture, shaped by millennia of male dominance, tells them not to, because to do so is unmanly. Men are denied access to children because of gender roles imposed by patriarchy — that the man is the provider, and the woman the carer. And so on.

...Understand that your actions don’t exist in a vacuum. They exist in the context of a society where literally every woman you will ever meet has a similar story to tell, if she feels safe enough to do so. Understand that society is a large-scale representation of this. Understand that you are owed nothing.

You don’t get a gold star for being a good person. It’s the minimum standard of human decency that anyone should be able to expect. You don’t get taught this stuff. But you can work it out for yourself. Pay attention. Recognize misogyny when you see it. Don’t be an asshole. Listen to women. Believe them. And most of all, understand that they are your fellow humans and deserve to be treated as exactly that: people who share this planet with you. We’re not going to fix society’s ingrained misogyny overnight. It will take generations. But we won’t make any progress until we acknowledge that it exists."

FLAVORWIRE: Yes, All Men: Every Man Needs to Understand Internalized Misogyny and Male Violence