I don’t want to read those other newsletters because, well, been there. But I was also there (as I’m sure they were) long before social media. I keep having this idea for a newsletter essay about how being a woman pretty much anywhere in the world, online or off, is to have your potential, abilities, and full human-ness pre-cancelled to some degree. But then don’t want to because I’m too tired of it all and need that energy to teach my daughter to be stronger than the people who will inevitably say things to her.
Truth be told, I didn’t like Missoula very much. I don’t think it got enough editing! But I appreciated him doing it, and showing up in Missoula for a book launch event. But I appreciated Gwen’s reporting even more :)
1) Regarding the linked piece, it's been a while since I read something so real and so expertly written that I stopped breathing. Sheesh.
2) I read Missoula when it came out. I was somewhere on the Front Range, and I read it over the course of several sunsets. Hearing those comments from locals about how the town isn't like that reminds me of the old saying "if you're going to ask women about how heinous people are to them, get ready to hear about your friends." I think about that saying all the time.
thanks for writing this. I read Aubrey's experiences in Lyz's piece and felt a familiar sick to my stomach feeling. It's refreshing to hear a man write about this. There are too few men doing so. I can't help but think when all the stories came out during #METOO, how few stories of the actual male perpetrators of violence against women were ever heard. Though the data exists, and I can read memoir and essay after essay from female survivors, I never hear from the men who have done such things. Other than Jackson Katz's work around men's roll in ending domestic abuse/sexual assault. Where is the accountability? The vulnerability to admit wrong doing? And it's not just in the right... these types of women hating behaviors are rampant in the left as well... sometimes I think they are worse, b/c they are coded within this slippery emotionally intelligent "sensitive man" speak, that is actually, just as hateful of women as the incels posting anonymously on 4chan and Twitter. Thinking of yoga communities, life coaches, and the like.
Would love to hear if there are any books, podcasts, essays where men who have actually harassed, abuse, or raped women, and have admitted violence have come out and owned it and made repairs. I'd like to think, somewhere that is happening, but nothing comes to mind...
This is so real. Most of my harassment recently is catalyzed by University of Iowa sports message boards. Thank you so much for sharing. Aubrey is one of my favorite writers.
"a social gathering with whiskey and indignation" -- lol!! My kinda fiesta (but whisky is wasted on me. Coffee, perhaps.) I have followed all that misogyny and buillshit for years -- back when stupid Rush Limbaugh was slut-shaming and so on. "Men Explain Things to Me" and Gamergate and women getting their lives threatened for speaking aloud. Sick of it. Luckily, I'm in a position to say what I think when I feel like it (that is, I am self-employed and over 55 so I'm "unfuckable"/invisible/don't GAF). All this to say that yeah, I hear it, I've lived it, I cosign it.
PS I've been down and out the past several weeks because of core surgery but it's cool, I'm feeling better, no cancer or hernias, and one of these days I will walk around the block and touch my toes and sit up or cough without groaning. xx
It is appalling to me that there is so much viciousness in the air. It is disheartening and enraging. I am blessed to have had mostly wonderful, loving men in my life. But I have also witnessed the other side of the coin. It is ugly.
Sick to your stomach is right--I read Hirsch's post on Lyz' newsletter and sat with it all day. It's appalling. And scary. But I'm glad you're sharing it and calling out the assholes who perpetuate this kind of harassment.
It's awful, and until tech companies are held to task nothing will change. Reddit has moderators because they have to. Not that they are pristine. Social media takes in billions and does nothing. I just back a report today on an account that was spamming Jewish people with hatred. Same comment over and over. "not a breach of Twitter policy."
If you post "men are trash" on Facebook, they ban you. Pictures of nooses as threats are okay though.
Feb 5, 2022·edited Feb 5, 2022Liked by Chris La Tray
Ok, now I'm subscribed. I read Lyz every week. And I shut down my Twitter account last week because I AM afraid. I'm closing in on 70. A family friend was a victim of Ted Bundy. My mother would go hysterical when I drove home to Eastern Washington from college in Oregon because she was sure I'd be next. Now I'm old and sassy and I thought I didn't put up with a lot of BS until the Trumpies began their threats of mayhem and death to those of us protesting their crap. Now I'm afraid again. I have lovely snarky tees that I don't dare wear out of the house. I'm very cautious about where I park and I do not go out at night. All I follow on Facebook are cats and cat people. My last experience at the grocery store involved a troglodyte who unloaded a Bible-laden "greeting" (read: threat) to me and dogged me down the aisle until I shouted for the manager, at which point said troglodyte disappeared. But to be fair, I've had the women shouting at me for wearing my mask. God, I am so sick of it. I hate what the US has become and, frankly, I'm looking forward to dying. Tell me I'm wrong.
I subscribe to Lyz Lenz and read Aubrey Hirsch's essay and it was brutal and so important! Sigh... I feel so helpless, sad, demoralized by all of the misogyny in this country. Pandora's Box has definitely been cracked wide open.
You ask an important question... "Where do those men come from?" To find the answer, I would ask every man to do the impossible... "Survey every sexual thought you have ever had." I think every civilized man will find urges that, thankfully, he did not impulsively act upon. However, uncivilized men harbor anger with women who are unavailable and not interested... those men (the entitled, the brutes, the incels) are awash in dark impulses every day. They act impulsively. For many reasons, I am thankful for my father's example. He was extremely social and women who had known him since grade school loved him like a brother and a friend. Was your father a friend to women? Millions upon millions of American men feel sexually cheated. They are hiding a frustration and rage that has haunted them since they were teenagers. /// Today, I reviewed my highlighted notes from January. Perhaps this will help clarify where "those men" come from...
"The culture war is a fight between decent people and sociopaths."
"You can't play chess with someone who is willing to set the world on fire."
"Shamelessness is liberating. It leads to a reliable feeling of perfect freedom and perfect invincibility."
"Against stupidity, we have no defense. Reasoning is of no use. The fool is completely self-satisfied."
I don’t want to read those other newsletters because, well, been there. But I was also there (as I’m sure they were) long before social media. I keep having this idea for a newsletter essay about how being a woman pretty much anywhere in the world, online or off, is to have your potential, abilities, and full human-ness pre-cancelled to some degree. But then don’t want to because I’m too tired of it all and need that energy to teach my daughter to be stronger than the people who will inevitably say things to her.
Truth be told, I didn’t like Missoula very much. I don’t think it got enough editing! But I appreciated him doing it, and showing up in Missoula for a book launch event. But I appreciated Gwen’s reporting even more :)
1) Regarding the linked piece, it's been a while since I read something so real and so expertly written that I stopped breathing. Sheesh.
2) I read Missoula when it came out. I was somewhere on the Front Range, and I read it over the course of several sunsets. Hearing those comments from locals about how the town isn't like that reminds me of the old saying "if you're going to ask women about how heinous people are to them, get ready to hear about your friends." I think about that saying all the time.
You said it, "The freedom to be awful has been capitalized on by just about everyone."
thanks for writing this. I read Aubrey's experiences in Lyz's piece and felt a familiar sick to my stomach feeling. It's refreshing to hear a man write about this. There are too few men doing so. I can't help but think when all the stories came out during #METOO, how few stories of the actual male perpetrators of violence against women were ever heard. Though the data exists, and I can read memoir and essay after essay from female survivors, I never hear from the men who have done such things. Other than Jackson Katz's work around men's roll in ending domestic abuse/sexual assault. Where is the accountability? The vulnerability to admit wrong doing? And it's not just in the right... these types of women hating behaviors are rampant in the left as well... sometimes I think they are worse, b/c they are coded within this slippery emotionally intelligent "sensitive man" speak, that is actually, just as hateful of women as the incels posting anonymously on 4chan and Twitter. Thinking of yoga communities, life coaches, and the like.
Would love to hear if there are any books, podcasts, essays where men who have actually harassed, abuse, or raped women, and have admitted violence have come out and owned it and made repairs. I'd like to think, somewhere that is happening, but nothing comes to mind...
This is so real. Most of my harassment recently is catalyzed by University of Iowa sports message boards. Thank you so much for sharing. Aubrey is one of my favorite writers.
I’d like to respond with something witty and/or profound, but all I can mange is to shake my head and mutter, Jeesus.
"a social gathering with whiskey and indignation" -- lol!! My kinda fiesta (but whisky is wasted on me. Coffee, perhaps.) I have followed all that misogyny and buillshit for years -- back when stupid Rush Limbaugh was slut-shaming and so on. "Men Explain Things to Me" and Gamergate and women getting their lives threatened for speaking aloud. Sick of it. Luckily, I'm in a position to say what I think when I feel like it (that is, I am self-employed and over 55 so I'm "unfuckable"/invisible/don't GAF). All this to say that yeah, I hear it, I've lived it, I cosign it.
PS I've been down and out the past several weeks because of core surgery but it's cool, I'm feeling better, no cancer or hernias, and one of these days I will walk around the block and touch my toes and sit up or cough without groaning. xx
It is appalling to me that there is so much viciousness in the air. It is disheartening and enraging. I am blessed to have had mostly wonderful, loving men in my life. But I have also witnessed the other side of the coin. It is ugly.
Sick to your stomach is right--I read Hirsch's post on Lyz' newsletter and sat with it all day. It's appalling. And scary. But I'm glad you're sharing it and calling out the assholes who perpetuate this kind of harassment.
It's awful, and until tech companies are held to task nothing will change. Reddit has moderators because they have to. Not that they are pristine. Social media takes in billions and does nothing. I just back a report today on an account that was spamming Jewish people with hatred. Same comment over and over. "not a breach of Twitter policy."
If you post "men are trash" on Facebook, they ban you. Pictures of nooses as threats are okay though.
Ok, now I'm subscribed. I read Lyz every week. And I shut down my Twitter account last week because I AM afraid. I'm closing in on 70. A family friend was a victim of Ted Bundy. My mother would go hysterical when I drove home to Eastern Washington from college in Oregon because she was sure I'd be next. Now I'm old and sassy and I thought I didn't put up with a lot of BS until the Trumpies began their threats of mayhem and death to those of us protesting their crap. Now I'm afraid again. I have lovely snarky tees that I don't dare wear out of the house. I'm very cautious about where I park and I do not go out at night. All I follow on Facebook are cats and cat people. My last experience at the grocery store involved a troglodyte who unloaded a Bible-laden "greeting" (read: threat) to me and dogged me down the aisle until I shouted for the manager, at which point said troglodyte disappeared. But to be fair, I've had the women shouting at me for wearing my mask. God, I am so sick of it. I hate what the US has become and, frankly, I'm looking forward to dying. Tell me I'm wrong.
I subscribe to Lyz Lenz and read Aubrey Hirsch's essay and it was brutal and so important! Sigh... I feel so helpless, sad, demoralized by all of the misogyny in this country. Pandora's Box has definitely been cracked wide open.
You ask an important question... "Where do those men come from?" To find the answer, I would ask every man to do the impossible... "Survey every sexual thought you have ever had." I think every civilized man will find urges that, thankfully, he did not impulsively act upon. However, uncivilized men harbor anger with women who are unavailable and not interested... those men (the entitled, the brutes, the incels) are awash in dark impulses every day. They act impulsively. For many reasons, I am thankful for my father's example. He was extremely social and women who had known him since grade school loved him like a brother and a friend. Was your father a friend to women? Millions upon millions of American men feel sexually cheated. They are hiding a frustration and rage that has haunted them since they were teenagers. /// Today, I reviewed my highlighted notes from January. Perhaps this will help clarify where "those men" come from...
"The culture war is a fight between decent people and sociopaths."
"You can't play chess with someone who is willing to set the world on fire."
"Shamelessness is liberating. It leads to a reliable feeling of perfect freedom and perfect invincibility."
"Against stupidity, we have no defense. Reasoning is of no use. The fool is completely self-satisfied."