One post every guy should read

Tonight, for the first time in my life, I was frustrated beyond words that I am not physically big enough to get into a bar fight with a grown man.

It's not that I am a proponent of bar fights. Far from it. But you, men-- and this post is for you, all of you-- at least know that, if it came down to it-- if at some point you really needed to-- at least you could. You could stand up for yourself. Your friends would be able to come to your aid. More likely, it wouldn't have to come down to that point, because the belligerent drunk talking all kinds of obscene and derogatory shit to you would know-- because he wouldn't know that maybe you aren't that kind of guy, and don't really want to go around socking people-- he would know that you could, and might, and so it maybe wouldn't even get that far.

When your parking spaces are eliminated at your downtown job because of budget cuts, you will not have to strategize for hours and days on end with your co-workers to figure out an elaborate schedule and plans so none of you have to be walking alone downtown or waiting at a dark bus stop for too long.

You do not have to carry mace for your walk home from church.

You do not have to leave an amazing worship service and immediately have vulgar comments made about your genitalia while crossing Colfax.

You do not think twice about it when you are alone on an elevator and then a man gets on.

You do not have to dread the onset of winter, not because of the cold, but because it will limit your evening activities. The streets do not become more dangerous for you just because of the earlier setting of the sun.

You do not have to know that, if someone wanted to hurt you, there is really very little you can do about it.

You are not taught, from the very earliest years of your childhood, that the world is a dangerous and hostile place for you, to be constantly vigilant and afraid.

Because you see, in 99% of practical ways we are not really the "weaker sex." We are just as intelligent, and as motivated, and capable, as any of you.

But, more often than not, we are physically at your mercy. In that sense, we are weaker. We cannot physically intimidate the drunk, the mentally ill, or the just plain jerks into leaving us alone. If they will not back down from our verbal retorts and our threats, there is nothing we can do. They can call our bluff, and we have very little power at our command.

In this advanced age, in 2011, it still comes down to this primal concept: you are bigger than us, you are stronger than us.

And I am fucking sick of it.

Do not sit there and exonerate yourself because you yourself are not the belligerent drunk at the bar, or the pointless jerk on the street with the power to totally change a woman's evening, because you yourself would never physically harm someone less strong than you.

Why are you not doing something about it?

Do not excuse yourself by the fact that maybe you are doing something. Maybe you went to a "take back the night" march once. Maybe you donate to some anti-violence organization. Maybe you have some sort of t-shirt indicating that real men don't beat women. Whatever. That's all good.

But do more.

You are BIGGER THAN US. I don't know how much more simple, and how much more endlessly frustrating, that could be. So DO SOMETHING.

Stand up for us when you hear somebody being rude or derogatory or aggressive to women. Them being drunk or an idiot or mentally ill is not an excuse: the effect on us is the same.

Fight to make us feel safe every moment of the day. You just do not get it. You are rarely if ever nervous to walk to your car alone, you do not think twice about traipsing around late in the evening, you do not check your locks before you go to bed at night.

And we can get as mad as we can about it-- so furiously angry that all we can do is sob tears of rage over our own literal powerlessness-- but it is never going to end until you all stand up with us and make it STOP.

I'm mad as hell and I'm not-- oh wait, yes, I am going to take it anymore, because I can't punch that guy at the bar in the face. And he knows that. And I don't actually want to punch him in the face, and I don't actually want you to punch him in the face, because those kind of guys aren't in any way, shape or form worth it. But I do want someone who could punch him in the face, to stand up to him. To say: NO, dude, shut your face. That's not ok.

So where are you? Where are the guys who are just as mad as I am? Do you not care that your friends, your mothers, your girlfriends and wives, your sisters, your daughters, live in this kind of world? Or do you just not understand that it is this way?

Why are you not every ounce as angry as I am?

...well??