The Atlantic has published a story called “The Men Who Don’t Want Women to Vote,” by Helen Lewis, in its June edition. I found it online. It’s thought-provoking. Where to start in processing those thoughts?
It was easy to reject the ideology of the right-wing figures Lewis interviews or describes. These are mostly men, like Douglas Wilson, Secretary of Defense Pete Hesgeth’s pastor, whom she quotes, saying that the country would be better off if voting was done “the same way we do it in our church… that is, we vote by household.” This translates to “one man, one vote,” in the most literal sense (provided one is married).
It is no secret that the ascendant voices on the right are those which say that power to make decisions should rest only in masculine hands, and the mere arrangement of chromosomes by itself does not signify. Masculine in this case refers to a frame of mind. Toxic masculinity is one name for it. Excluded from decision making would be anyone who doesn’t agree with their violent resistance to even the most modest notions on the liberal side of our social contract, especially those associated with the women’s movement.
Less easy to reject was one of their talking points concerning an aspect of the mindset with which they are finding fault. I don’t fully understand the need to be outraged over “microagressions” and hidden triggers and to sanitize all discourse in the name of what one of their writers calls “the cult of Safetyism.”
Perhaps my resistance to such ideas would dissolve in the wake of dialogue designed to find common ground instead of having them imposed by fiat and enforced by scolding. Absent a mutual understanding, these kinds of coded grievances, on both sides, only act as shibboleths for determining who is, or is not, part of its respective in-group.
And therein lies the heart of the problem. If I were an aspiring despot with the goal of asserting my control over a people, or an outside enemy wishing to subjugate them, one of the more successful ways to accomplish that would be to encourage them to separate into warring camps. I would look for the differences between them, no matter how benign, and exaggerate the gulf between those ideas, inspire their equal vilification and the creation of caricatures of these differences which emphasize the danger they pose to each opposing side. Then stir and let the toxic stew simmer to perfection. It’s much easier to sink your teeth into a society softened in this way.
Are we focusing on the wrong enemies? Why are we fighting as men vs. women, middle class vs. poor, rural vs. urban, college educated vs. not similarly educated, immigrant vs. native, dark vs. light skinned, etc? Could this be something that is being done to us rather than by us? Perhaps it’s not simply our biology or innate tendencies. Those elements can be manipulated to produce the effects we are experiencing. If we could learn the answer to these questions we could perhaps turn down the heat under that stew.
Or, maybe this is just the rambling of a conspiracy-theory-addled mind. The fact that this possibility occurs even to the one who is writing this, testifies to the extent of the confusion and doubt with which we are all afflicted.
Philip Lussier is a retired educator who lives in Ashfield.