It’s a Conspiracy Of Men Holding Women Down

No, it’s not, but that doesn’t mean that it’s OK

Why do men think this — that women believe there is a conscious secret society type conspiracy designed to disempower and undermine women? If only it were that simple, it would be a lot easier to deal with.

I’ve met men who don’t believe there is an actual patriarchy. I’ve met men who don’t think sexual harassment is primarily about power. I’ve met men who think there is actually a secret society of women trying to undermine men and society as a whole so that they can bring on the matriarchy — the dreaded flipside of the may-not-even-exist patriarchy.

Not one of them takes into consideration how automatically most of us go through our lives, unconsciously living out our childhood programming, gender expectations, and the general swarm of our society as a whole. This can apply to women as well. We all get bombarded with stories from an early age about who and how we ought to be, from media, from religion, from parents, from culture. It takes a certain amount of intention to wake up and notice what’s otherwise taking place automatically.

I’m quite sure that there is no overt conspiracy against women, but ten thousand years of expectations and entitlements might be worse because it’s all surreptitious and under the radar. For me, that was the point of #MeToo — we got to see just how prevalent sexual harassment and general bad behavior against women actually is. We couldn’t sweep it under the rug any longer. We all needed to start recognizing and dealing with the systems that led us to this point.

And although there are naysayers and apologists, the vast majority of people get that we need a better system. But that is less likely to occur if a certain percentage of potential allies are hung up on “there’s no conscious conspiracy.” Of course, there isn’t — but that doesn’t make it any more acceptable that 50% of hotel housekeepers have been groped, greeted by naked men or propositioned. It doesn’t erase the 223 women in national security who signed an open letter talking about how harassment affects ambassadors as well as cleaners. It doesn’t lessen the sting for women driven out of companies like Pixar, Nike, CBS, and or Miramax.

It matters not at all how overt or conscious any of this was. What counts is that women suffered! Women were driven from their jobs, shut down, and censored because of this kind of atmosphere. It deprived society of their creative output and it traumatized people needlessly.

Let me be clear — I love men! No, really, I fucking love men. I have an adored husband, another male partner, and a son. I am all for men showing up and being allies. I want to live in a world where everyone gets a fair shake and is treated like a person. But there doesn’t need to be an overt conspiracy for there to be a problem.

© Copyright Elle Beau 2020 Elle Beau writes on Medium about sex, life, relationships, society, anthropology, spirituality, and love. If this story is appearing anywhere other than Medium.com, it appears without my consent and has been stolen.