Discovering What We Can't See

What we call the culture war often begins with not seeing the full picture.

All of the posts I wrote last week started with a conversation with a 50-something female friend who reads Manhood Reimagined. She’s recently divorced and trying to find herself after twenty-five years of being who she thought she was supposed to be. Part of that is finding her voice and giving pushback when something doesn’t sit right.

I’ll admit, there was a time not that long ago when I would not have received her response well, and there have been a few moments where old me jumped up wanting to mansplain away her objections. Thankfully, I was able to keep that part of me at bay and I believe this newsletter is better because of it.

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If you are new here, welcome to Manhood Reimagined. I’m glad something caught your eye. If you want to make sense of this project as a whole, I’d suggest you start here. This page is continually updating and gives an overview of the project as a whole and how individual posts fit into a much bigger picture. If you want a bit more about me and why I write here, check this out.

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What’s even more important is that I am a better man because of it. A better partner to the woman I am dating and father to my 17-year-old. I will be a better coworker and friend.

I say all of this to drive home the simple point that we as men, especially if you are a man like me (straight and White), have a lot to learn from women and other marginalized groups.¹

I don’t say that to be harsh, but I get that it might sound that way, especially because our present political climate has stigmatized issues of gender and race to a point where all a bit on edge (and I believe this is purposeful, more on that later this week).

But first, let me try and reframe things so we can have a productive conversation. And if this happens to be a real hot-button issue for you, I’m definitely cool if you take a couple of deep breaths first.

Blindspots on the Freeway

Imagine yourself driving a rental car that is unfamiliar to you. You’re flying down the highway and need to change lanes. You do everything you’ve been taught to do. You look in your rearview mirror, signal, and glance over your shoulder. Everything looks clear so you start to go only to hear the sound of a horn blaring at you.

That’s right, the car has a blind spot you didn’t know about and another car had, unintentionally, positioned itself perfectly inside of it.

So what do you do? Hopefully, you move back into your lane, wave to apologize, and continue driving with greater awareness of that blind spot.

What does that have to do with listening to women or other historically marginalized folk?

That car horn is letting you know that what you are doing is about to have a negative impact. It’s not that you have negative intent, after all, you did everything you were taught to do, but even with all that you missed how your actions were about to affect someone else.

Now imagine that the other car’s horn is a voice talking about women’s rights, or is chanting, “Black Lives Matter,” or advocating for some other historically marginalized group.

It’s really easy to hear that horn as an attack on you. And honestly, many of those voices will talk about the evils of straight, White men because they respond from their experience. But ultimately, at the core of their objection, is that what you are doing is about to cause them harm and they are asking you to adapt accordingly. They are trying to make you aware of a blindspot, an awareness that will ultimately help you use your gifts to serve the world.

That last line is really important, so please read it again. Their critique is an opportunity to gain awareness that will ultimately help you use your gifts to serve the world.

But why does it never feel like that is what’s happening? Why does it feel like an attack? There are two reasons both flowing from our society has dubbed the culture war:

1. Identity-Washing

2. Status-Washing

But first, we need to acknowledge a simple reality: We don’t all experience the same America. More on that in the next post.

1. I will also be bold and say that White women have a lot to learn as well, especially from Black and Brown women, as feminism by and large did not (and does not) take the unique experiences of Black and Brown women into consideration.