Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/10/10/john-legend-calls-out-men-who.html
…
14 Likes
I get where Legend is coming from, and he’s not wrong. It’s a pretty reflexive reaction for a parent, though. Trump represents just one more type of threat that my daughter will face in life. I feel a lot of fear and anger about the unfair challenges she will face.
11 Likes
The appeal to wives and mothers and daughters is naturally more visceral. I get the mild objection to the framing, but everyone had a mother, and not everyone has had female bosses or coworkers, and of those who have, maybe those bosses and coworkers aren’t the most sympathetic characters to reference.
If I were putting together an anti-war effort, I’d use “your sons and daughters” rather than “your paperboys and babysitters.”
10 Likes
But all the other women and girls in your life would appreciate if all the men in their lives would take action, make change, and “be woke” even if they aren’t a father-of-a-daughter.
Then your daughter wouldn’t be facing those unfair challenges.
EDIT: I don’t mean to make it about you as a father or person, but more about the framing that many men only care when they are paternally (specifically patriarchally) invested, when everyone should be invested on the basis of being a human being. The challenge of changing the idea from “this doesn’t affect me” to “this is something that everyone should care about.”
14 Likes
The problem with the “wives and daughters” tack is that it carries with it a galling hint that a woman who is not properly owned is fair game. That idea is out there, although I’m pretty sure these politicians aren’t deliberately evoking it.
32 Likes
He’s so very right.
These scumbags tolerated and even endorsed a vile id-monster while he advocated torture, mass-murder, summary execution, elimination of due process, and all manner of other atrocities.
They’re already carrying the demon-child. If they want a choice about what happens next, they’d better be willing to share that privilege with America’s women!
9 Likes
Ah, yes, nailed it. “Wives and daughters” is speaking directly to men. They wouldn’t use that approach if they were talking directly to said wives and daughters and single ladies in the house and so forth. I think Clinton’s “Mirrors” ad is a good example of how to speak to both men and women without implying patriarchal ownership or feminine helplessness.
8 Likes
Making it about kids is code for talking about reactions that, as adults, we’re not supposed to have on our own behalf (even though of course we do). Which is the very thing that lets monsters like Trump walk among us in the first place.
Bullying relies on victims who can’t call on people’s sympathy. Women can’t say how Trump makes them feel because that’d make them shrill frigid feminazis. Jeb Bush can’t complain about Trump bullying him because that’s not manly. Jeb Bush can complain on his daughter’s behalf, but that doesn’t get to the root of the problem. We have all these “suck it up” social norms created by and for gross old fat fucks like Trump, and he’ll thrive until we change those norms.
13 Likes
I saw a couple memes about this on Facebook. Something to the tune of “We aren’t just wives and daughters, we are women.”
Which is technically correct. But at the same time when you are wanting someone to empathize with others, especially groups of people you don’t belong to, it helps to relate to something you are familiar with.
No one really cares about anonymous people. The bigger the group of those people, the less they care. Making these anonymous people into relatable human beings is the first step in humanizing, empathy, and understanding.
2 Likes
I never used to care about Men’s Rights until I had a son.
10 Likes
To clarify, it isn’t that no one cared about women or women’s rights before hand. It is that in this situation for maximum effect and to drive home the point, you use the women you are most likely closest and most protective of as examples.
No one is using “Jane from accounting who reheats fish in the microwave every day.” as a rally point to encourage empathy and outrage.
ETA - I find it frustrating when people are trying to do the right thing, but people still call out that they are doing it wrong.
Heck, I could call out BB for quoting John Legend. According to my FB feed, several women on Twitter made this same observation, but I guess someone famous and male has more weight?
3 Likes
My wife can look after herself. But my girls are 2 and 4 and I am just hard-wired into worrying about them and their future. I don’t own them. They own me.
1 Like
Why was this this straw that broke the camel’s back for Kelly Ayotte?
I supect those who have observed it was because the woman in question was married are right.
4 Likes
I have no idea how people delude themselves for so long, nor what makes them finally wake up. Possibly because they know and care about some women vs not knowing or caring about illegal immigrants or others Trump disparaged.
I assume it is like sleeping in a car, where the radio or conversation doesn’t bother you, but as soon as you get off the highway and stop at a stop sign, you wake up.
4 Likes
Maybe I should be like this when Republicans realize how awful Trump is? 
16 Likes
Well to the point of post and the use of “Imagine wives and daughters…”, I saw that being said by many Hillary supporters as well. So it isn’t like it was just Republicans making that comment or sharing it.
ETA - but yes, the cognitive disconnect on this election is unusually high. On both sides.
Honestly, I am very surprised how many left wing people are vocally anti-Hillary. (Though not pro-Trump)
2 Likes
It’s the more famous part: millions of people will read it, and at least some will digest the message for the first time, because of his fame.
10 Likes
Why? It’s not difficult at all to be to the left of her. There’s a lot of room to the left of her.
24 Likes
Fair enough to be concerned for your daughters. However, the comments we’re discussing do tend to be about female members of the immediate family. If they stuck to daughters, I wouldn’t have quite the same reaction.
2 Likes
Yes, but in the past they seem to still support the Democratic nominee. I can’t recall the farther left denouncing Obama in the last two elections, though I do recall the Hillary supporters sore about it for awhile.
Though it’s possible I am miremembering or just was not aware.
3 Likes
