A Man is a Loaded Gun
Recently, I was employed to do street casting for a TV show. It’s been proven that a boy and girl pairing creates the most success. If it’s two girls – they get harassed. If its two boys – no one takes them seriously. Boy/ girl – perfect match! The people that would harass the girl are scared off by the male presence and the people that wouldn’t take two men seriously are placated by a female presence. So, my gay male friend and I were stuck together for hours on end presenting the perfect mix of testosterone and estrogen. After a while, the small talk goes out the window. We hit upon the big questions “What does it all mean?” “Does your head hurt when you think about space for too long” and so on and so forth.
I think feminism has let everyone down. As a gay man, my colleague turned to me. “You know, I’ve always thought – as a gay guy – that I fall under the ‘not all men’ umbrella… But, I see the way some women talk about men – and I get why men feel victimized.”
I sighed. Next to me sat a guy I had openly discussed my rape and subsequent abusive relationship with. “It’s not all men. I don’t think that that has ever been made clear. All women must know that it’s not all men. But you have to look at it like this. Men are physicaly stronger than most women. Being a woman – it would be like if you walked into a room and knew that everyone was carrying a gun except you. You don’t know how they feel about their guns, but you know that they have them. Once you get to know them, some people will admit that they have guns but no bullets. They hate their guns. They would never ever use their guns unless they had to protect someone they loved. But, you have been shot at before… Sometimes, blanks are just fired at you – a random yell from a passing car. But sometimes you have been grazed by a bullet, or even shot. You wouldn’t ask a marine to trust a gun had no bullets – so don’t ask a woman to trust a man implicitly.
There was a woman raped a murdered in a park near where I live a few days ago. It is a park I have walked through many times. My friend walked into our breakroom almost hyperventilating. She had been in the same year as her in high school. When another woman I worked with asked if she could go home she was questioned ‘Did you know her personally?’ No. No. We knew this woman in the same way that we knew ourselves. I knew my confidence as a woman to walk home alone at 10.30 at night. I knew what it was to be 22 –waiting for my real life to begin. I knew what it meant to hope that someone bigger and stronger than I was would make it quick and let me go.
I imagined my father, three years younger than he is now – hearing the news of what had become of me if I had been that poor woman. I’ll happily wager that there are thousands of women in Melbourne tonight who are calling friends and relatives to let them know where they are. The question is, how do we move forward? I could manically insist that I will continue to walk home late at night – but I don’t really trust I can. I can’t trust that I won’t be shot at by someone who outweighs and has a bigger arsenal than me. I can’t hope that my bark is so loud that I won’t have to take a bite. I just think it is time for the ‘Not all men’ view to be understood. We understand that not all men would – but when we walk down the street – we think all men could.
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