TOO MUCH TESTOSTERONE OR SOMETHING

By Ruth A. Sheets

Wow!  2022 is turning out to be another year of mostly white male abuse of power.  This year we have men working really hard to take away our right to vote; to put women even more under male control by banning abortion, criminalizing miscarriages and crossing state borders for reproductive care, and planning to ban contraception; invading and preparing to invade neighboring countries (Ukraine by Russia and Taiwan by China); continuing and accelerating greenhouse gas emissions; pouring guns into our communities; and using religion (Christianity in particular) to justify their moves to take away our rights. 

We seem to have tacitly agreed to let men decide that when they want something it is OK for them to kill, cheat, steal, lie, and commit atrocities of all kinds to get it.  Why did we women and men do that?

I suspect it is some men's big mouths, big size (even if just in their heads), and strength that let them get away with so much.  The rest of us are so busy with family, career or just survival to notice their bad behavior until it is too late.  I think this group of power-hungry men is hoping that banning abortion, suppressing voting, etc. will keep us in this country distracted indefinitely so they can take over, then do what, that is unclear, perhaps make themselves even richer and the rest of us poorer?

Here and in other countries too, it is not enough to control women and decent men, they have to recruit often vulnerable women who will follow their actions hoping to get a piece of the testosterone pie, big fish in a small pond.  These women can be even more misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, and racist than the mostly white men who direct them.  Their patriarchal intensity is their effort to prove their Bonafides.  After all, there were white women gazing in rapture at public lynchings too.

I believe there are some things we can and should do to end or move to end the patriarchal usurpation of power and violence that has scarred our world for millennia:

• We must raise our male children with less violence and less acceptance of pushy disrespectful behavior.  Significant community resources should be employed to help families and their boys who are struggling with their behavior and inability to be with other kids without bullying, before the problems get too bad.
• We need to raise our children to know their value and not accept coercive disrespectful male behavior from anyone.  Girls need to know that finding a man is not their primary goal in life.
• We must help our children grow into the gender (or lack of gender) that reflects who they are and rejoice with them when they truly know.
• We should finance research on safe medications for men that can tamp down or disperse the violent tendencies that keep getting people killed and women raped, just because, then administer it secretly if necessary to stop the violence.

-Seriously lower military budgets.  If the money and weapons aren’t there, war is made a bit harder.  This will be tough because war is like a team sport and we have a tendency to root for our team no matter what havoc it causes. 

- We will need to find safer ways for men to prove their manhood.  Sports work for some, but for those who need a more dangerous structure, the military has worked.  However, it is the military that caused a lot of the patriarchal problems over the years.  We need a different approach.

-Better regulations on corporations, their size, and practices and the amount CEOs can earn in relation to their median worker’s salary would help decrease the power the corporation and its usually male CEO holds. 

- Nationally requiring practices like automatic voter registration, vote by mail, ending gerrymandering, limiting financial donations to any candidate at all levels, a reasonable amount for the specific position would stop a lot of the male posturing and corruption. 

- Recommit ourselves to the First Amendment of our Constitution including freedom of religion, but also freedom from religion.  Men have ruled most religions of the world and religious power has given men all kinds of permission to act badly, often in the name of god.

- Reconfigure our understanding of police and law-enforcement in general:  what should it be and do, who should be employed in the work, what should they wear and how should they get around, what kind of training should they receive and how often?

It's time folks!  Efforts to stop global warming, to establish peace, to develop farming revolutions, to ensure educational opportunities will go only so far as long as men have too much control.  Too many men have never had to fully grow up, so these whining, lying, cheating, sneaking, bullying toddlers will keep us in constant conflict of all kinds.  Such bullies can't stand peace and people actually getting along, unless they are forcing it to happen and are sure there is no opposition to them and their power:  Myanmar, China, North Korea, and the other countries moving foolishly in their direction. 

OMG!  What will those immature men do if we limit their power!  People might notice that those dictators have no more skill, talent, or intelligence than women and that white dictators have no more of those than any other men.  That will be scary for them and problematic for the rest of us for a while. 

Mr. Putin and his unwarranted attack on Ukraine is just the latest in a long string of men in the past 50 years from Nixon to Reagan to Baby Bush and Dick Cheyney, to ISIS, the Taliban,  et al, to the Trump and Kump cult, to Hungary’s autocratic Orban and his Republican fans, to China’s Xi who is throwing a tantrum because a powerful American woman visited Taiwan, to Israel abusing the Palestinians, to The Syrian and Saudi leaders who kill anyone whom they don’t like, and on and on, all men throwing their political and physical weight around harming others for their own benefit. 

We raise bullies and permit them to have power, so we should expect bullying and a big portion of insanity, and that is what we get.  The wonder is that it seems more autocracies are popping up, not because people want them, but because the practitioners have access to media which can amplify their lies, and they can get financial support from huge corporations whose male CEOs believe they can get even more money and power by hitching themselves to the autocrats’ wagon.

So, the patriarchy will continue with its wars, attacks on women and women’s rights to bodily autonomy, keeping girls from attaining education or anything else in society, permitting (even encouraging) sexual harassment in the workplace and on the street, and not prosecuting physical abuse within autocracies until the people stand up to it and get support to end the insanity.  We don’t want autocracy here, but we are going to have to actively work to stop it.  There are a lot of desperate scared men.

My life has been blest because most of the men I have known personally have been really good people.  I think that is the case for a majority of us.  I suspect power is not on their bucket list.  They care about people, including women.  I have worked with men at their lowest point and highest and they treated me well and mostly respected my abilities and contributions.  When they didn’t, all but one just stopped interacting with me more than necessary for both of us to do our jobs.  I left 2 jobs because of male harassment but it was only one man on each job who disrespected the women and some of the men there, and both were disabled white men.  I can’t help but wonder if disability for white men can create a drive to prove superiority even stronger than most men.

In ministry, I had the most difficulty.  I was an Associate Pastor in a large church for 16 months and came to be resented by the Senior Pastor as well as the choir director.  A male church leader got me fired for personal reasons. (I didn’t learn the whole story for many years after I left.)  I was that church’s first woman in ministry, so I guess it was hard for them, and they made it impossible for me.

Perhaps my good fortune in knowing such terrific men had to do with the careers I have held:  working with people related to AIDS, assisting in a library, working in a low-level government job, work-study on college campuses, and teaching.  Perhaps those fields don’t call to so many men who need to wield power over others.  In any case, it frustrates me that more men like those I have worked with aren’t the type people choose to represent them in government or to lead corporate boardrooms.  We’d be better off if they did.