Personal background: I strongly feel just about everyone grows up and has something shitty about them. I know growing up I definitely thought and said some less-than-ideal jokes about women, minorities, etc. And while some of that was the proverbial ‘the times’, and some was growing up in a sheltered hyper Christian southern American conservative situation, I regret my actions and am happy I grew past that. And I do think people, especially younger, can grow past their shittiness, especially with the help of others, which was true for me too… When I got my first W2 job a superior I looked up to helped mold me into a better person by calling me out on things and modeling a better behavior.
Current situation: I’m now the supervisor position, have been for a decade (retail is a trap) and I’ve taken that to heart, calling out jokes that aren’t funny, etc. But recently we hired a new kid who acts really incel-ish, and who apparently has attached himself to me instantly. I’ve had moderate success so far just telling him his ‘lol women dumb’ jokes aren’t funny, and modeling how working with women is… normal? Anyways, I don’t wanna screw this up so do y’all have any suggestions for me to help keep him from going down an unfortunate path? I know at the end of the day I’m not responsible for others’ routes in life, but I feel we should all do our parts.
This is such a lovely question. Thank you for being you.
I’d say that it would be important to talk positively about the women you know. If you have a female SO, for example, tell him how smart and curious and funny she is. Make a point to be open about the respect you feel for the contributions of your female co-workers. Tell him stories about when girlfriends were clever, and so on.
I don’t recommend talking about SOs. Incels may (appear to) be misogynistic but in the end, they turned out that way because they are (or feel) completely unwanted, for whatever reason they come up with, valid or not. Talking about your girlfriend or wife to them will probably remind them what they are missing, make them more envious and aggravate them more, despite claiming to hate women.
I definitely do some level of this but I can step it up for sure. I’m the only guy in my position and while I have about five years of experience on any of them I respect them all and give them the same deference they do me, we’re one big team and all in the same position, nobody’s anybody’s boss in any way.
I don’t talk about my wife enough though, I could do that and hopefully at the same time counter the “boomer humor” comic sorts of jokes
I mean it’s a good thing he’s found you as a helpful mentor.
One online personality who I know is fairly good at explaining things in terms even people caught in right-wing pipelines can understand: Beau of the Fifth Column on YouTube.
Take this video for example on the topic of masculinity. Here Beau talks about the current trend of projecting masculinity and “being manly” through things like posture, limiting yourself to specific hobbies, talking certain ways and making yourself appear stoic to attract girls. He says it’s not unlike how women were trained to behave in the 19th century in order to court a man.
His style is patient, and he speaks in a way that can resonate with a lot of people, including those who are confused about certain progressive people movements, and even those that are settled deep in the conservative tar pit.
You’ll want to avoid sounding too preachy all the time, and be sure you recognize and empathize with anything he might be struggling with.
Huh, that’s an interesting route to take. I worry it’ll become too similar to the trap of “pink isn’t a girl’s color, it’s actually a boy’s color and they switched in the XX’th century and it’s the color of blood so it’s manly” that I’ve seen a lot of people fall into (kicking myself because I was one of them). It’s not a bad step to be in, in that it helps normalize normally “feminine” actions/dress/etc. as things men can wear, but it’s also just… still gendered unnecessarily?
To be clear, I haven’t watched it yet and still intend to, I just worry about that from your description of it.
Yeah one of the big things that helped me snap out was male role models teaching me that all of that masculinity crap doesn’t matter. The BEST phrase I heard was when someone said something stupid like “real men don’t like Taylor Swift” my mentor responded “Real men don’t care”. That stuck with me.
Having a man I look up to tell me that real men do whatever they like and don’t let others dictate what they can or can’t so succinctly was just a game changer. No one had worded it like that to me. Real men don’t care.
I try to avoid directly saying the phrase “toxic masculinity” because some have incorrect preconceived notions about what that means, and it often invites a tangent into that side discussion, but I like to still reinforce the core idea there: that society expects men to be a certain way, including by enforcing norms of telling men what they’re not allowed to do or be. Gatekeeping what “real men” are and what manhood means is itself toxic, and has done lots of harm to men. And by explaining these concepts to men, and focusing the discussion on how these outdated gender norms are harmful and dangerous to men can help open up the dialogue about how gender norms are also harmful to women, too. And about how men who have been forcing themselves to fit a particular vision of manhood are also harmful to those around them (regardless of gender), as it affects their relationships with others, and their ability to regulate emotions.
real men do whatever they like and don’t let others dictate what they can or can’t
this might not be a good message to deliver to a member of a group so prolific in the mass-shooting community that they have a wikipedia article dedicated to that fact
Yeah that’s the kind of thing Beau is good at. I didn’t want to spoil too much of the video and kept the summary to two sentences, but that’s one of the points where Beau challenges the viewer with something unexpected, that gets them to open their mind up and think a little, even if for just a moment.
Just watched that Beau’s video, and it’s pretty good, in a non-preachy way. He only puts up some generic examples of what women were sold on in the 18th century, and how men are being sold on the same kind of stuff in the 21st century, to end with the real truth: anyone telling you how to be a man/woman, is just trying to sell you stuff. Plus a call to think by yourself.
pink isn’t a girl’s color, it’s actually a boy’s color
Related to that, I like the history of high heels: from something strictly practical, to a gender-neutral status symbol of non-working classes, to a patriarchal monarchy status symbol, back to a general status symbol with an extra twist of marking women as unable to do any work, to a sexualizing split into an extremely unpractical version for women and a practical looking version for men, with a late addition of a much more practical version for women while still retaining some of the sexualization… all the time being bad for the wearer’s health, with much healthier modern alternatives for the strictly practical uses.
another good one is knowing better on youtube. His videos are more focused on history stuff, but they sometimes cover a wide range of topics and mostly focus on debunking commonly held beliefs, and expanding on topics that many of us only touched on briefly during school (for example his video on Pearl Harbor is really deep). His videos are really long, but he also really goes in depth into stuff and cites a shitload of really interesting sources to boot.
Have sex with them, presto, incel no mo
Like others have said, not only is it good to model that his behavior is unacceptable, I think it’s better to try to teach him that not only can he act better, teach him how rewarding it is for him to act better. It’s so much of a nicer feeling to treat others as they’d like to be treated, instead of being mean and bitter about it all.
I think being clear that the behavior is wrong is good. I think framing it as a “you’re better than that” is better than just telling them it is unacceptable though. It helps to paint other people they hear that shit from as being pathetic and not who they should model their behavior after. Ok not sure how to do that in a practical sense but everytime someone has criticized my behavior with disappointment rather than anger it has left a stronger impact I think.
But I’ve never done this so I don’t know what’s best. Bare minimum is definitely not letting them get away with it. Make your disdain known. Don’t just distance yourself.
The disappointment approach is my jam! It’s what helped me turn things around, and it’s what has worked so far with this kid. I’m just calling it out here because this was way better worded than mine, and needs the ups so if anybody else is looking for ideas they know this one is great!
