Quote:
Originally Posted by driveway
This is a false binary. It's also an opportunity to learn, and an opportunity to pracitce listening and empathy. Maybe you would group this under the category of "bonding."
Think of it similarly to making someone else's Mother's funeral about the loss of your own Mother. Yes, you're coming from a well-intentioned place. Yes your feeling and grief are valid. Yes there is quite obviously a place where you can come together and bond and through shared experience.
However, there is very clearly a line which can be crossed where you're taking someone else's "thing" and making it about yourself and that's not appropriate and is - in and of itself - divisive.
Considering the amount of discourse that has already taken place the challenges that women have had carving out spaces for themselves, and those spaces subsequently being appropriated by men, it is not at all suprising, nor should it be upsetting, that women are defensive of their space. They are deserving of their space and it is an opportunity for men to listen and learn when women declare a space 'theirs.'
The "Me Too" campagin is quite clearly a space for women. That men empathise and have shared experience is - tragically - good. You are right, it IS a way to bond. But the way to bond is not for men to try to enter the space on the same terms or in the same way women do, and it is right to call out men who do try to enter the space on those terms as being inappropriate.
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By "an opportunity to bond, or an opportunity to be divisive" I didn't mean 'either ... or..." It wasn't intended as a binary. I agree that it is an opportunity to learn and to practise listening and empathy. I would count those as bonding.
I do disagree with you though that men who "try to enter the #metoo space" through sharing their own experience should be called out. Again, that emphasises differences rather than recognising common ground. Bridges must be built, and they are better built by extending from both sides.