The noted poet, rapper and businessman “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man!” Sean Carter once asked ‘Is Pious pious cause God loves pious? Socrates asked whose bias do yall seek?’ A question on whether actions are inherently good of themselves or because God or another divine being has labelled it as good. This has always popped into my head after every gendered or alleged gendered violence act in Saint Lucia when they ask ‘doesn’t he have a mother, a sister, a daughter’ to question the vile and disgusting action.
I find that line of questioning rather egregious, because why does a man need to have any of those for him to deal with a woman in a manner that is kind, generous and lacks danger to her life and mental wellbeing? The concept of empathy only when it happens to people they know is a rather psychotic and disturbing way to live life.
The rush of some to say “not all men” anytime women echo their lack of safety and channel their anger towards the patriarchal chokehold of the society, is peculiar on the face of it. To appoint yourself as the counsel of all males, especially in a situation where we are addressing their deficits of emotional and social control, is telling. Why are you feeling kinship with men who are being denounced and society seeks to keep out lest they infect others with their actions.
Men need to realize that there is no blanket denunciation of us as a gender as inherently violent and or abusive rather it is the realization that there is a problem within our ranks. Men often accuse women of lacking accountability yet males appear to have the audacity. The audacity to want to control women’s bodies, their movements, their actions as if they belonged to us. Men have become slowly warped into a cycle of social isolation, lack of true genuine friendships and being raised by red-pilled podcasters instead of actual role models. The lack of healthy models of masculinity means that we are developing a society at risk before they fully form.
The continued misconception that logic and emotion are at odds and that we are more logical beings whilst women are emotional beings is being dismantled by our actions towards women. Having seen myself during a Manchester United game, I know I am plenty emotional and that we have ascribed certain actions to being logical just because a male did it rather than a woman. Now this off course doesn’t dispute the idea or reality that women can be dangerous and manipulative and violent themselves. Far from it. But if the only time we care about such situations or bring them up is when we feel under attack by women for the heinous attacks against them then it is farcical.
Merissa Auguste isn’t the first, nor sadly will she be the last victim of gender-based violence. The question lies in what are we as a society going to do to ensure that justice is served in her case? For far too many hope has gone lost whether it is in the courts, the police, the government or even in the other gender. We need to come face to face with the reality that monsters walk among us and debate whether it is all men, they’re not men they’re boys, as if our boys are deserving of being labelled in the same breath we deem for those who seek to perpetuate harm.
Now our society may become more violent and more bodies may be found, but they may be males who could find themselves at the end of a gun or taser or other improvised weapon a woman has secured in order to protect themselves.