Too Close to Being the Enemy

Yesterday, I managed to stumble directly upon the single most horrible, misogynistic, violent thing I have ever seen upon the internet. How and why is a bit complicated to explain; and in the end, it doesn't matter. For exactly the same reasons it doesn't matter if the woman was tipsy in a short red dress; it makes her vulnerable, but it excuses nothing the perpetrator does.

I'd thought I was braced for misogyny. And I was; the crude words were just so much buzz. Even the first images I came upon, while horribly offensive, mostly just made me grit my teeth.

Then I came face to face with something that was so hideous I cracked. At first I had a hard time believing what i was seeing; this meant I started at it too long to shake it out of my head. I fled the site. I tried to find something to deal with until I'd recovered enough that I could go to bed without nightmares. And I mean it; they would have made the one where Colin murdered me look... butterflies.

I cried.

I don't cry at real things often. Books, sure, music, cheesy movies... there are some movies and things I can't NOT cry at. Even if I try.

The words "Those were photographs. That means it was real." rang in me.

Of course, the person who dared to post such an image - the person who dared to do such a thing - would be glad I reacted that way. Look at the poor fat feminist cry. The bitch can't take it.

I'm glad I reacted that way, too. Because it means I am human.

I have met clueless assholes in my time. I have met men for whom women are of no worth if they won't put out. I've met them mostly in passing -- or chosen to keep my distance.

I have never, even face to face with someone who was demeaning women or committing sexual harrassment, ever imagined there were people out there who hated 50% of the population That hard.

I'm not naive. I'm occasionally idealistic. I know that in large parts of the world, women are still almost chattel, or else no almost about it. I know the North American rape statistics, and the fact that they're low compared to almost any third world country. I've grown furious at no end of reports of crimes - an assaulted woman fighting back, only to have a second man, seeing her strike his friend, assault her himself. I understood the anger, and I know why I grit my teeth when people mock the extreme end of feminism, even though I agree that the extreme end is as bad as any other extreme group. I know why I refuse to stop using the word feminist to describe my politics.

I remember being assaulted when I was twelve. I mostly think of the boys who did that as dangerously unthinking, clueless to what they did, not malicious. Not evil.

But I never imagined there could be a gulf that big between men and women, a hate that hateful, an action that hurtful. This was evil.

So I cried, and I knew the person who posted that - not hidden, but in mid-forum, midstream, where it could be come across by someone expecting no worse than words - would gloat.

I tried to pray. I may be Christian, but prayer has never come easy to me. It doesn't soothe me, it doesn't feel like it's heard. The times I feel myself reach to the divine, or the divine reach to me, come by other routes. But I tried. I tried to pray for peace in me, but more, I prayed that the person on the other side would, even for a moment, imagine the reaction of those who came across that image - and would feel the slightest, remotest spark of empathy.

It still felt unheard, unsent, but I repeat it here.

Because the thing I loathe second-most, after knowing those pictures was real, is what it did to me.

For the first long stretch of today, I had a hard time looking at any man. I've been having to remind myself that the most insensitive and doltish of all my male friends would all of them, as a whole, rally around their female friends, would defend one if for some reason she couldn't defend herself. Are willing to respect brains and self-confidence. Even the most body-judgmental still see and consider women as people. But I was exceedingly glad that my workplace has 70-odd X chromosomes and one Y.

I could deal with Colin, though for some reason, I was glad he wasn't in the mood tonight either. I trust him utterly, so i was glad to cuddle up to him, talk to him, look at him and be happy and open around him. But.

Last night when i went to bed, late enough and long enough that i was both exhausted and not likely to have a nightmare, he rolled over to face me. I was facing the wall.

I couldn't take it. I had to get him to turn the other way. because my regular brain knew, "Colin. Familiar and warm sleeping lump. Kinda furry, good to cuddle."

My lizard brain was saying "Something bigger than you and more dangerous than you is right behind you and you're totally exposed."

Also, I was physically incapable of fleeing to him to hold me when I found what i found. Not because he was asleep; because at that moment, I couldn't have borne it.

That's why I'm angry. because while I am as guilty as the next person for saying "Men!" in mock amusement (deeper and even more sincere than usual apologies to all my male friends and relatives) I have never, in my life, come remotely close to being hateful towards, or afraid of, men as a whole. Specific people, of course. But not the whole gender.

Hatred towards one whole gender was why I was so outraged in the first place.

I wish I had never, once, seen the capacity for it within myself. Even at a low grade level, even as a passing reaction.

May they gain the spark of empathy I nearly lost.