Tag: feminism

Where I draw the line with the right

The city I live in is relatively progressive.  Not necessarily in a ‘leftist’ sorta way, but more so in a classic liberal sort of way.  In this landscape, it’s difficult for right-wing nonsense to get any kind of traction.  But that’s not to say that I don’t see it.  I have a close friend who has started following some of the center-right media like Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder.  He’s been testing me with some of his nonsense.  So perhaps it’s time to call it out here too.

Trans people are people.  I don’t think we’d be in this free speech mess around gender pronouns if we hadn’t collectively been giant assholes to transgender people.  Throughout history, we’ve treated those who we didn’t understand with contempt and history has never looked kindly upon it.  It happened with people from unfamiliar cultures, it happened with people with unfamiliar skin colors, it happened with people with an unfamiliar sexuality, and it happened with trans people.  Conservatism has never been on the right side of human rights because the role of conservatism is to avoid change.  If those who are different are understood, accepted, and appreciated, they don’t special protections.

Full-time work needs to pay a living wage.  There’s a suggestion that a minimum wage is a bad idea.  Apparently, by allowing businesses to pay wages lower than the current minimum wage, workers will make more money.  That open market model only works if two forces are firmly in play: A strong incentive to pay the workers as little as possible (to maximize company profits), and a strong incentive to pay the workers as much as possible (to maximize talent acquisition).  If the incentive to maximize company profits is stronger than the incentive to maximize talent acquisition, there is a strong downward pressure on wages.  That downward pressure can be so strong that someone working 40 hours a week may not make enough to make a living wage.  If we’re in an environment where the cost of living is rising quickly, it gets even worse.  And who benefits?  Clearly it’s not the worker.  The business will benefit from better margins, but for how long?  An underpaid workforce is more of a liability than an asset.  When business owners under pay their employees less, they rely more heavily on social assistance programs.  These programs are funded by tax payers, and not the ones who aren’t making enough money to pay any significant tax.  Paying your laborers less than what it costs them to live a middle class life is a terrible idea for any economy.

Racism still exists.  Racism exists, sexism exists, ageism exists… there’s no lack of ways in which we try to generalize others to their detriment.  I wish we could solve them all at once by understanding that prejudice leads to inaccurate understandings and bad decisions.. but we have to start somewhere.  And I’m not interested in addressing controversial racism like who got kicked out of a Starbucks or who’s modelling a black panther costume.  I’m talking about that KKK shit.  That sand n*gger shit.  That BUILD THE WALL shit.  That is some of the ugliest behavior I’ve seen in western society and the right needs to do a better job of standing up to it.  Everyone on the right wishes the moderate left would call out their more extreme counter-parts.  Well everyone on the left wants the same from the right.  It can’t be a, ‘sure, we all know that racism exists but it’s not the problem here.’  Without racism, we wouldn’t have Trump.  Without racism, we wouldn’t have a government shutdown right now.  Without racism, Fox News wouldn’t have been fear mongering around a migrant caravan.  It might not be at the center of all our problems, but it does seem to make most of our problems worse.  Identity politics exist on both sides, and both sides need to hold their crazies accountable.

Stop cherry picking your science.  Climate change is real.  Humans have contributed to it significantly.  The scientific consensus here is over 99%.  Why are you still arguing this?  I understand if you’re a stake holder in the fossil fuel industry, but otherwise you’re just being argumentative for the sake of being argumentative.  Even if it wasn’t man made, our window of opportunity for maintaining an ecosystem that’s habitable for humans is closing.  We should be all hands on deck, but the right is dragging their feet.  If you have no interest in listening to scientists on this, then you’re about as useful as those on the far left which ignore biology to advance their gender politics agenda.

Religion.  Religion exists across the political spectrum, but the right seems to have their own approach to it.  The evangelicals denounced a democratic president for having an immoral character, then celebrated Trump on the basis that moral character isn’t an important consideration.  The religious right also argues that abortion is a religious issue when the bible offers no such guidance beyond telling you how to do one.  They’re also quick to point out all the flaws of religions like Islam, while failing to acknowledging the dark history of western religions or the issues of today.  And to make it all worse, politicians are now abusing religion again, excusing their actions as some twisted act of god.  Next time you see a politician say “well that’s what I believe”, look closely.

Feminism is a big deal.  I’m not talking about the man-hating variety that seems to be pushing it’s way into the mainstream today.  I’m talking about a movement that started centuries ago.. maybe even millennia.  It’s about our species evolving to the point where men didn’t have to be hunters and gatherers, and women didn’t have to forage and care for the kids.  It’s about men no longer having to go out and do hard labor and women being able to join the work force.  It’s about moving past our traditional blueprints of what men and women were supposed to be, and exploring the freedom of what we can be within a modern society.  One of the smartest things western society ever did was bring women into the work force.  There’s still more ground to cover.

You overestimate your abilities.  I used to assume that people who were wealthy were naturally hardworking and very smart.  Then I started to meet some of them.  Many of them were smart and many of them were hard working, but what they were more likely to have in common was an inflated sense of ego.  They took responsibility for their actions, and since they were successful, they were responsible for their success.  But then I would look behind them and see an incredible amount of support.  More often than not, it included a good family, a private school, an ivy league education, connections, and an inheritance.  Bit of a stretch to say you’re responsible for all those factors too.  What I’ve noticed from the right is that tend to equate financial success with human value.  Those who find a path to financial success overestimate what their contribution was to that point, and underestimate what was already in motion.  And then they dismiss those who are less fortunate as lazy or uninspired.

You’re selfish.  Something else I’ve noticed about the right is their tendency to be selfish, after they’ve ‘made it’.  When I was younger, I wasn’t all that interested in helping my fellow human.  It was about being as successful as possible, as soon as possible, and then helping my fellow human.  I see a lot of people take a similar path, but when they arrive at success, they’re much less interested in helping others.  Now it’s about paying the least amount of tax possible, or doing away with social assistance programs that you don’t personally use, or avoiding giving money to the homeless ‘because they’re just gonna use it on drugs anyways’.  And what I find remarkable is that liberals do this too, just not when they’re poor.  The rich shouldn’t give to the poor out of sympathy.  The few should invest in the many, because none of us truly do anything on our own.

Your immigration policies suck.  Besides the fact that they’re currently rooted in racism, they’re also shortsighted.  Most people would be surprised to find that children of wealthy families make ill-equipped leaders.  But it’s not that hard to understand why.  When you go through adversity, you experience challenges that you wouldn’t otherwise have access to.  Parents who have fled to the US from a harsh environment provide a powerful and unique environment for children to grow up in.  That home is more likely to produce a world leader or Pulitzer prize winner than someone who was so rich that they didn’t need to bother learning the local language.  Written on the statue of liberty is, ““Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”  America is supposed to be the land of opportunity, where you escape from terrible conditions and are given the chance to make something of yourself.  This is the secret sauce of the American immigration policy. If we close the doors to all that have made us great, and only open our doors to those who are already ‘great’, I think we’re in trouble.

You can be an argumentative dick.  I know, because I used to be one too.  Back in university, everyone was for gay marriage but me.  I had no issues with gay people… or them getting married.. but I didn’t like that everyone was agreeing with one another on something they hadn’t really thought about.  So I said I was down with them being legally married, but wasn’t OK with them appropriating a ceremony from a religion which was expressly against gay marriage.  I may have had a point, but I was arguing for the sake of arguing.  I see this happen from the right so often.  You realize that your up against someone who hasn’t quite thought things through, and rather than help them get there, you pick them apart and try to make them feel like they don’t know what they’re talking about.  Meanwhile, it’s quite possible that they had a point and just weren’t able to argue it effectively.  Or maybe they had a good idea but didn’t quite know how to make it a reality.  Fantastic, you won that argument.. but at what cost?  At what point is the pursuit of truth more important to you than ‘winning’?

The relentless spin. If I were to guess, the right is more intelligent than the left.  It’s not that a ‘right-wing’ ideology produces smarter people, it’s that intelligence lends to success,, success lends to wanting to keep things as-is, and wanting to keep things as-is lends to conservatism.  You know, conserving the good life.  So when the less fortunate get together and say things aren’t fair, we need change… you say that things are fair, that you’re an example of how to be successful, and to just keep working hard.  But then the less fortunate notice that there are far more hardworking poor people than rich people.  At the end of the day, the left might not have the best idea for how to get things done, but they are often right about what needs to be done.  And no matter what they present you with, you’ll spin it to your favor.  If you were up against someone who could debate you properly, you’d look absolutely foolish.  But the mainstream media doesn’t provide that format so everyone’s left speaking into their echo chambers.  I can’t tell you how many times colleagues of mine have tried to spin the most ridiculous Trump lies into something reasonable.  Recently, they’ve started to give up.. suggesting that it’s not what he says but what he does.  Well he’s behaving like the most compromised or corrupt politician in modern American history.. and you’re still trying to spin it.

You don’t want a meritocracy.  I’m a big fan of equal opportunity over equal outcome.  So is the right.. it’s one of their primary arguments against social security programs.  The left hasn’t been able to wrap their head around the concept in a way that fits their ideology.  I think the political spectrum is generally clueless about what a meritocracy really entails.  For example, there’s a good chance that in a true meritocracy, most top CEOs would still be men.  But you know what else happens in a meritocracy?  Those responsible for educating future generations aren’t living paycheck to paycheck.  But perhaps the most powerful example, in a meritocracy, inheritance wouldn’t exist.  In a meritocracy, you receive resources in exchange for the creation of value.  The more value you produce, the more resources you have to work with.  In that model, someone like an Elon Musk would be one of the most well resourced individuals in the world while someone like Trump would be broke.  But in a world where Trump can leave billions in wealth to his children.. something’s not right.  In a world where future generations of your family can enjoy substantial resources despite having not created any value… something not right.  In a meritocracy, Harvard isn’t filled with legacy students and lucrative internships aren’t filled with people who’s parents know an executive at the company.  That whole idea of an inside track.. the powerful helping the powerful.. none of it exists.

 

If we could find a way to cast aside all the nonsense… from all sides of the political spectrum… and come together to be effective for the greater good… we could probably do something pretty darn special.

A Belated International Men’s Rights Day

This entry was originally inspired by me being banned from Reddit’s r/feminism community.  It made me sad.  It’s a community I had followed for some time and while I didn’t agree with some of what was being said, I was there to learn.  When I completed the entry, I left it in the draft pile instead of posting it.  I didn’t like the tone.  I don’t mind discussing things that I think are negative, but I prefer to connect them to something brighter.  There’s nothing wrong with a little darkness when you can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Without the light, I’m much less interested in painting the darkness.

Yesterday was international men’s day and besides it not being a statutory holiday, I suspect that this is one of the more controversial holidays of our time.  I saw it show up in two places in my news feed: on The_Donald and I think on Jordan Peterson’s sub-reddit.  The_Donald, a sub -Reddit for Trump fans and Russian bots, seem to be trolls first and foremost.  Their celebration of men’s rights likely have as much to do with antagonizing feminists as supporting men who are struggling.  They’re not the most compassionate crowd.  But the feminists aren’t shy to give them ammunition either so perhaps there’s a natural dynamic of ‘accountability’ here.  The Jordan Peterson community is certainly more supportive and compassionate in their stance, looking to actually recognize the challenges that men are up against.  I found some of the stats rather surprising.  This is from a graphic which was shared:

 

76% of suicides are men

85% of homeless are men

70% of homicide victims are men

40% of domestic abuse victims are men

Men are the majority of victims of violent crimes

Men on average serve more than 64% longer in prison

Men are 340% more likely than a women to be imprisoned for the same crime

 

Just like with any set of stats, they need to be understood within context.  But even with context, it’s hard to deny that men have their own challenges.  But is there room in today’s world to support both men’s rights and women’s rights?  The logic in me says yes.  In fact, this is the premise for real equality and from my perspective, the only real way forward.  My personal experiences seem to suggest otherwise though.

Over the last few years, I’ve noticed a rise in feminist rhetoric.  It didn’t concern me much as I had established myself as a feminist back in university.  I was teasing a friend for taking a women’s studies class after being egged on by his girlfriend.  He teased me right back and said, “you know you’re a feminist right?”.  I scoffed at him and said, that’s highly unlikely.   He asked if I thought that men and women were equal.  I said sure.  He pointed out that made me a feminist.  Really? What’s all this I hear about burning bras and a general hate towards men?  He told me that was just a misconception. Perhaps those individuals thought of themselves as feminists, but that wasn’t feminism.  Hmm… well alright then, I can definitely get on board with equality.

Fast forward to the present day, and perhaps we’ve lost sight of what feminism was supposed to be.  In it’s evolution, I think we’ve uncovered a rather destructive dynamic.  Classic feminists saw that there was a need for equality when it came to voting rights.  And equal opportunities for education.  And equal opportunities for employment.  And etc.  And etc.  They fought hard for their seat at the table and they’ve made tremendous contributions to our society as a result.  Modern feminists seem to have taken a different approach.

The current conversation seems to be one of power and oppression.  The argument has been made that all of society is dominated by a patriarchy which systematically oppresses women.  As a result of that power imbalance, women are at a disadvantage and the only way to remedy the situation is for women to become more powerful.  Generally speaking, we refer to the empowerment of women to be a positive thing.  But here’s the trick, power seems to be a zero-sum game.  Assuming that men are more powerful than women, in the interest of equality, it would seem sensible that we should make men less powerful and make women more powerful.   Yet throughout history, we’ve seen this dynamic play over and over again.  Power corrupts. Power becomes a means to an end.  At that point, it’s no longer about equality.

I don’t deny that there are powerful men.  But I also am quick to suggest that women are powerful too.  I think history would suggest that they have always been powerful in their own way.  If nothing else, the entire evolutionary course of humanity has been determined by their power to choose a mate.  In most cases, it’s rather easy to trace the actions of men back to the pursuit of approval from women.  But what if men no longer held on to the power than they leverage in their domains?  What if women did the same?  I think that’s the world we’re looking for.. but it’s not the world we’re pursuing today.

Earlier this year I was criticized for using Tinder by a woman in her 50s.  She told me that technology was destroying our ability to connect and that I should look to meet women in the real world.  I told her that in the age of #metoo, it’s hard to know when women in public want to be approached.  She suggested things like being in line at a coffee shop, or at a book store, etc.  Then one of her younger employees (20s) piped up and said something to the effect of “I don’t want men to approach me when I’m at <insert location> because when I’m there, I’m not looking to get hit on, I’m just looking to do <insert activity>.   It seemed like men were being criticized for not approaching women in a more traditional manner, while also being criticized for approaching women in a traditional manner.  As is often the case, there was this expectation that the man would just ‘know’, and if he didn’t, he was to blame.

The same woman who thought I should be approaching women in public also reprimanded me for calling a few young women girls.  It was something to the effect of I’ll see you girls at the conference tomorrow.  I was told that using this language was belittling, demeaning, oppressive, and etc.  Something about making them seem younger than they were.  On one side, I understood what she was saying but on the other, I was so confused.  I told her that I thought I was using it as a term of endearment, in the same manner a woman would refer to a group of men as boys.  And wasn’t girl-power a hall-mark of feminism?  There didn’t seem to be any logical basis for why she was upset with me, but I was made to feel like I had done something wrong regardless.

I was hanging out with my sisters earlier this year and talking about dating in the #metoo era and how I was generally trying to steer clear of it all.  At one point, we discussed how many decent men were being painted with the same brush as those who genuinely needed to adjust how they were treating women.  They both gave me the same analogy: If you have a bowl of skittles, and you know that just a few of them are poison, you don’t eat the skittles.  I didn’t say anything at the time because I was listening and trying to understand their perspectives, but it registered as a ‘does not compute’.  I thought about it more later and realized it was sexism 101.  Judging all men based on the actions of a few didn’t seem fair at all.  The first parallel that came to mind was demonizing all Muslims because a few are terrorists.  If we can recognize the flaw in that, why not here?

As I understood it, the bigger problem wasn’t going to be empowered women.  It was going to be what comes next.  I was talking to an older feminist and told her that as much as I appreciate equality and that side of feminism, I’m less appreciative of neo-feminism or radical-feminism.  She didn’t understand and took the stance that all feminism was good.  I asked her if there were any examples of feminism which she didn’t agree with, or at least thought was counter-productive.  She flatly said no.  I can’t help but think that if you’ve lost the ability to hold your tribe accountable for anything, you’ve lost site of virtues like equality and have been consumed by the pursuit of power.  I told her that I was concerned.  Not so much by the prospect of powerful women, but by what comes next.

There’s a pendulum dynamic that has operated throughout history.  We mobilize ourselves in one direction and once we’ve realized the extent of that direction, we tend to try the opposite.  This can be seen in things like fashion, politics, the stock market, and of course, major social movements.  So in the age of empowering women, where does the pendulum swing next?

I maintain that if this movement was about understanding and promoting equality between the sexes, the pendulum effect wouldn’t exist in the same way.  Instead, it seems to be about making women more powerful.  All that momentum and all that power that women are enjoying now, will swing back to men.  Not because they deserve it, but because that’s how the pendulum works.  The harder you swing it to one side, the more potential energy you’ve stored for it to swing in the opposite direction.

It seems as though things have begun to swing the other way.  It’s not pretty either.  Feminism grew in part because of how many women felt hurt and angry at the world for a raw deal.  Well it seems as though men are starting to arrive there as well.  It’s showing up in the communities of incels and men’s rights activists… and because it’s mostly people who are hurt and lashing out, they’re being dismissed by feminists. Or worse, they’re being demonized for providing resistance to the feminist movement.  And this is where we have to take a hard look at ourselves and ask, if equality is really the mission here.  Does it matter that 76% of suicides are men?  Because if so, we could use some of that support we hear so much about.

And this seems to be where we stand now.  With feminism approaching terminal velocity, it’s time to prepare for what’s next.  Is masculism next?  Must we send the pendulum back out in that direction to find what we should both recognize is in the middle?  I’m happy to say that I’m not the only one who thinks that the path forward isn’t about feminism or masculism, but rather about humanism.

The video that got me banned from r/feminism was a TED Talk from a female, award-winning, documentary film maker.  She had been a staunch feminist who was filming a documentary looking to expose men’s rights activists and their wicked ways.  After listening to these men and studying their answers, she started to realize just how much prejudice she was carrying against them.  Rather than listening to what the men were actually saying, she would look for reasons to be offended and use that emotional state to dismiss any valid point the man was making.   When she fact checked some of their concerns, like higher rates of suicide, or higher rates of death on the job, or higher rates of incarceration, she realized that civil rights and equality wasn’t just a woman’s issue.  She went on to say that she no longer identifies as a feminist, but with a clear conditions.: She is compassionate towards the struggles of both men and women, and supports the civil rights of each.

She was met with a standing ovation and had I been there, I would’ve been one of them.  Thank you for helping to lead the way Cassie Jaye.

Dating in 2018: WTF?

February, 2017 

That’s when my last relationship ended.  It didn’t officially end until the spring, but I was going through some things that made it tough for me to be in the right head-space for a relationship.  In January, I was fired from a career I had put my everything into.  A month later, I went snowboarding for the first time that season and ended up breaking my arm badly.  At that point, I wasn’t a boyfriend in any meaningful way.. I had too much that I needed to figure out.  Bless her heart, she was awesome and supportive the whole way through.  Probably the most amicable breakup I’ve ever had.

May, 2017

One of the relationships I kept reflecting on last year was with Max.  We had dated a couple years prior.  There was so much chemistry between us and so much that we had in common.  It seemed to work on every level.  Except she was bugging to go explore the world and I was committed to my career.  I was also too dominant in that relationship, more controlling than I would’ve liked to be.  There were times where her free-spirited nature was at odds with my career goals and I would try to convince her that my career goals were a higher priority than her being herself at all times.  I wish I hadn’t.

In understanding why I had been fired, I realized that it was a matter of fit.  In trying to understand where I would fit best, I realized that I needed to do a better job of understanding myself.  That journey mirrored so much of what Max had learned leaving a big 4 accounting firm and working for a start-up.  I wish I had done a better job of understanding that story.  She helped inspire a lot of growth on my part, and I thought she might appreciate knowing that.

December 2017

I wrote a blog post about her.  Flushed out every thought and emotion I had on the subject and realized a lot of things I still hadn’t considered.  It was a good experience.  At the end, I figured I would tell her about the ground that I had covered and thank her for her part in all of this.  I made a YouTube video and send it to her on Christmas.  I was clear that I wasn’t looking to get back together, but I’d be lying if I said a part of me wasn’t trying to plant a seed for the future.

January 2018

After about month of radio silence, she emailed.  She said some nice things and asked if I was up for a video call.  I said sure – and then proceeded to hear nothing from her for another month.  I knew she probably had a full plate so I eventually just emailed, “whats on your mind?”  Her reply was more direct this time.  Said she was busy, was happy for me, then questioned much of what I had said, and seemed to have forgotten about that video call.  I replied, tried to explain, but then said it would probably be easier over the phone.  No reply.

March 2018

Another month of radio silence.  All I wanted to do was let her know what I had gone through, and hoped that she would be happy for me.  Maybe I should send her a link to the blog post about her?  At least it would be the full story.  So I messaged her on WhatsApp but before the opportunity presented itself, it became a conversation.  She began to question who I had ‘become’, suggesting that I was still the same person.  It was tough trying to explain how and why over text.  But I tried.  At one point, she even ceded that it seemed like I was a whole new person.  Maybe she was just saying that hoping I would stop trying to argue my point.  Regardless, it was clear she lacked the motivation to invest the time into understanding that person.. and everything that I had felt towards her had shifted.  One of the things I appreciated about her most was that understanding me seemed effortless.  Now, not only was there effort involved, but she had no interest in putting the effort in.  A bummer at first, but it felt good to have clarity.

Right around that time, I was trying to go on a date with a girl named Mia.  Someone I dated for a bit a few years ago, and someone who I had a bunch of fun, nerdy stuff in common with.  She’s all kinds of cool, but she’s also working through some things.  When things get difficult or confusing, she hides.  She tried that with me before and I just walked away.. it’s why we stopped dating the last time.  This time, I was more interested in helping her rise above that.  So we tried to go on a date, but then she got busy.  We rescheduled, but then she got busy again.  I told her I knew this pattern, and I was happy to walk away if she wanted me to, but she didn’t – she was struggling with old habits.

April 2018

So we tried again, but work.  And again, but work.  I was on my way out this time, but did so with a link to a post I had written about her, so she would at least know what my honest feelings towards her were.  She was surprised.  She opened up to me more than she ever had, and seemed that much more motivated to see me.  Seemed like progress.  So we rescheduled.. and she ghosted again.  This time, it was because she had read the rest of my blog and found out about Max.  She was afraid that I was using her to fill a Max-shaped void.  I couldn’t hold it against her, it was a legitimate question that I also had to ask myself.  We talked it through, and agreed that we would make attempt number 6.

Had I been stood up 6 times with no difference in the context, I’d be worried about my mental health.. but that wasn’t the case.  With each time, progress was being made.  And I could tell that these were big steps for someone who didn’t have a lot of opportunities to take these steps.  Unfortunately, it was also creating an imbalance in the relationship which I knew was unhealthy.  She pleaded that work was being unfair, and that she wasn’t leading me on, and how interested she was… but she couldn’t get her actions to match her texts.  The outcome was disappointing, but I’m happy that I treated the situation with compassion and understanding instead of walking away at the first sign of getting hurt.

April 25th, 2018

The very next day, Max texts me.  Said she’s in-town, and would ‘love’ to get together.  Well then.  We book a late dinner for Sunday.  She also wants to smoke a joint together, so we plan to get together later in the week too.  Easy way to get my mind off Mia, I guess.

April 27th, 2018

Arrive to a 3-day self-help seminar on Friday.  Pretty skeptical about what I’m walking into, but doing it with an open mind and the best of intentions.  A girl catches my eye.  Was partnered up with her at the end of the day for an exercise where we’re asked to sit directly across from each other and tell a victim story while looking into each others eyes.  We spend most of that time looking at each other and cracking up, because neither one of us is any good at pretending to be a victim.  A fun introduction.  We shall call her..  Lulu.

On the way home, I text my buddy who invited me to the seminar, letting him know how it went.  He asks if I met anyone interesting.  I say everyone’s interesting if you ask the right questions (holding back from saying I met this really cute girl).  He tells me that he has another friend who’s there doing the seminar and he hopes that we have a chance to meet.. and that her name is Lulu.  As he puts it, we’re two of his closest friends and the ones he goes to for good conversation.  Wow.. that’s kinda cool.  I ask if he’s interested in her, or if she’s in a relationship.  Says he dated her for a bit way back, and he thinks she’s in a relationship with someone.  Well, never mind then…

April 28th, 2018

Saturday’s part of the seminar put me and Lelu back in close proximity.  I do my best to avoid creating interactions, but don’t avoid them either.  Our chemistry continues to build.  I text my buddy again that night, asking if he’s sure that she’s in a relationship.  He says yes.  I tell him that while my instincts around these things are a bit rusty, pretty sure this girl is into me.  He tells me a bit more about her and shows some enthusiasm around us connecting beyond this seminar.

April 29th, 2018

Lulu was definitely the best part of my Sunday seminar.  We sat beside each other a few times and ended up doing a couple of the 1 on 1 sessions together too.  I eventually asked if she knew we had both been invited by the same friend – she didn’t.  She was excited, especially because it meant that there was a good chance we’d see each other again. As the day went by, everything suggested more chemistry and more interest.  At the end of Sunday’s seminar, we were supposed to thank people who we had connected with and tell them what we appreciated about them.  She approached me and opened with “Thanks for being the best looking guy here, it gave me something to look at”, and followed with a few very thoughtful compliments.  I replied, telling her that she was the highlight of my weekend and that I hope to see her again.

Now to go directly from that self-help seminar to dinner with Max.  Along the way, I text my buddy and ask if he’s sure that Lelu is in a relationship because everything that happened that day would suggest otherwise.  He ended up taking her out for dinner and dug in.  Said she’s only been dating this guy a short while, but she doesn’t see it going anywhere.  Tells me not to worry, and he’ll connect the two of us before long.  I have no interest in being the guy that breaks up a healthy relationship, but if she’s already on her way out.. I can’t help but want to see her again.

So I arrive at dinner with Max – fancy sushi.  She gives me a big smile and a big, but not too big of a hug.    We get seated and start talking.  Eventually, she asks me about my aspirations.  I think I say something like creating the most significant positive impact I’m capable of.  She says that’s a bit vague and asks what the most significant positive impact I think I’m capable of.  I may have told her President of Mars.  She called bullshit.  That probably needed a little more explaining.

I guess for starters, I really do think that the upper-limit of the human mind is often well beyond the limits we place on ourselves.  Mars though?  I told her that the bigger the problem, the more motivated I am to solve it and I can’t help but want to find solutions to the big problems we as a species are facing today.  Ok, but why Mars?  Well, I’ve seen well-intentioned people come and go, only for their ideas to fall on the deaf ears of a system which is designed to protect itself from change.  I often think that what the world desperately needs today, is a blank canvas where a new government could be established with modern policies.  If we only had the opportunity to lead by example, how quick would the world be to adopt those good ideas?  Unless I’m missing something, Mars will most likely be our first opportunity to build something from scratch.

I think she made an attempt here to bring me back to reality and asked me to connect that to a real goal.  I told her that while I have these ideas, and they seem logical in my mind, I still need to prove that they can exist outside my head.  I need to take my personal philosophies, my ideas, and my ability to execute, and make something special.  If I could make something special, that something that people can understand as an expression of my mind and my vision, people would notice.  If people noticed, they might appreciate, and if people appreciated, they might just be willing to hear what I have to say.  While that something special can take on different shapes and forms, no form comes more naturally to me than building a business.  So I told her I was working on building a billion dollar company.

She said back up the “B”.  What?  Back up the “B” in billion.  What do you mean?  She asked if I knew how hard it was to build a billion dollar company or how rare they were.  She didn’t take kindly to what she thought were grandiose exaggerations of what I was really up to.  She knew that I was working for a cannabis retail start-up, but I don’t think she understood the potential behind it.  I told her about the awards, and the industry growth, how visible our founders were, and how ahead of the curve we were.  She didn’t seem to care.  I said that if you had to pick an early winner in cannabis retail, it would probably be us, and to say that wasn’t an opportunity to build a billion dollar company was untrue.  She still didn’t believe me.  Or maybe she didn’t believe that I would do it.

I did my best to ask her about what she was up to throughout the evening.  She sounded like she was dealing with a lot, but persisted that she was happy.  She certainly valued all that she had gone through in the last year. I asked her what her goals were and she said to land a job this fall.  It looked like she was lined up for a fancy title at a mid-sized private equity firm doing some level of analytics.  I asked if she had any big goals.  She seemed less sure about this… maybe something to the effect of using big data in driving HR policy, limiting inequality in the work place.  Sounds neat.

Despite all my efforts to guide things in a positive direction, we kept finding our way back to my aspirations, and her lack of confidence in my ability to accomplish them.  I wish I had been able to tell the story of how I got from being fired to wanting to set up camp on Mars.. pretty sure things would’ve made more sense that way.

The night largely seemed like an exercise in her trying to cut me down.  I was used to her being an optimist, a big thinker, open-minded, and supportive.  Now I wonder if it’s her that’s changed or if it was just my memory of her.  I was all but convinced that who I had become was a better fit for who she was.  But as soon as I realized that, I also knew that who I had become, might not be a fit to who she is today.  I think that’s what I was facing.  Somewhere between her big corporate gig in silicon valley and her MBA, her mindset seems to have changed.  Where she was once about possibilities, she was now about limitations.  There’s probably also an element of trying to stick it to your ex-boyfriend… and I probably deserved it.

At one point, I said, “This is unexpected, you’re usually more..”  I cut myself off, and apologized, saying that it wasn’t my place to say something like that.  It threw her off, she knew what I was getting at.

It was getting late, we asked for the bill.  We hugged again outside and she apologized for being less supportive than she used to be be.  We said goodbye.

April 30th, 2018

Knowing that we had made pseudo plans to hang out later in the week, I sent her a text.  I basically thanked her for dinner (she insisted on paying), then thanked her for challenging my goals.  I said that I’m steadfast in dreaming big, working relentlessly towards those goals, and being at peace with where that takes me (I’m all about shooting for the stars and landing on the moon).  I said I’m rarely challenged on these things and if nothing else, it was good exercise.  I also said that based on our conversation, I had the impression that there were probably other people in town she’d rather spend time with and that if I was right, it was all good with me.  No response.

The day before she left, I sent a text saying I hope I didn’t upset her with what I had said.  I told her I was happy for her, and wished her the best of luck.  She responded back saying she had been busy and yes, lots of people to see.

May 1st, 2018

Speaking of radio silence, Mia messages me the next day.  Apologizes for the incoming wall of text, and the proceeds to say some very nice things.  She talks about how strongly she feels about the potential between her and I.  Then talks about her struggles and the progress she’s made.  Then she talks about her feelings.  Then she says something to the effect of, ‘and I won’t hold it against you if you never want to talk to me again’.

I agreed with a lot of the things she said about the potential between her and I, and I appreciated that she recognized and appreciated the progress she had made.  So we get into a text conversation where I thank her for opening up to me and we get into the possibility of trying one more time.  I ask her what the difference this time would be, and she says a strong effort.  I ask if that means that the last 6 times weren’t strong efforts.  She says that this time, she’s just going to go for it – be less cerebral about it.  I told her it didn’t sound all that convincing.  She reminded me that she wasn’t very good at explaining this stuff over text.  The conversation kinda fizzled after that.

Went to bed, had a dream that she had made an effort the following day to make something happen between us and I was happy about it.  Woke up to no such effort.  Decided that I was being unfair.  Told her that if she wanted to explain things to me in person, I would make the time for that.  My ask was that it was on the weekend and at my office (so if she pulled a no-show, that I could just keep working).  She was receptive.  She planned to come by on Saturday but on Friday she asked if she could move it to Sunday.  This looked familiar.  She didn’t come by on Saturday or even get back to me about Sunday. And that was the last I heard from her.

May, 2018

A friend of mine cracked a joke a couple months ago saying that I should jump on Tinder with a bio that says something to the effect of, ‘Dating is confusing, anyone wanna blaze and hang out?’  Dude is sounding like a genius right about now.

Ironically, back in April, I was talking with a couple female friends about the challenges of dating and I suggested this was why dating apps had become so popular.  One friend was in her 50s and had been married for 27 years so she had zero interest Tinder.  She said that people need to get outside and engage each other in real life.  I asked where that might be appropriate these days given all the tension between men and women.  Every answer she gave was immediately turned down by my 20-something friend.  At the gym? Nope, don’t be gross, I’m just here to work out.  At a book store? Just because I’m here buying books doesn’t mean I wanna be hit on.  In-line at a cafe? Nope.  I told them I found it all very confusing and hoped they would find some empathy for the other men out there feeling the same way.

Only a few weeks ago, my sister and sister-in-law were in town.  I asked them about the dating scene and the tension between men and women.  I get that some men are shitty people.  I’ve even lost friendships over that kinda stuff.  But this general negativity towards men seemed unhealthy.  They responded with an analogy which they were quite eager to share: Think about men like a bowl full of skittles.  One of them is poison, but you don’t know which one.  Why would you risk it?  It wasn’t the right time to tell them that they’re using the same logic as those who avoid Muslims in fear of Muslim extremists.

My mind is searching for a connection between all these interactions.  Considering the rise of neo-feminism and the #metoo movement.  Considering the impact of social media.  Considering the heightened levels of anxiety, stress, and drug use.  I’m trying to see through it and to the other side… and I can’t.  I’m not saying we won’t get through it.  I would bet that we do.  I just don’t yet see how.  I think this gets worse before it gets better and that concerns me.

Some men have learned the advantages of identifying themselves as an ‘ally’.  Some have learned that you can improve your odds by dating multiple women at the same time.  Some have learned that it’s easier to get turned down if you turn into a giant asshole afterwards.  There’s even a sub-culture of men who are downright confused and losing hope of ever figuring it out.  Everyone’s dealing with it in their own way… but none of these are about how we make it better.

This is a big problem, and I have a swell of motivation to find a solution for everyone out there that’s struggling to find meaningful connections.  I think much of the solution is based in honesty and real communication.  Not just honesty with others, but honesty with ourselves as well. We’ve also romanced the concept of love since we could first tell stories, and it’s warped our expectations of what it is, where to find it, and how long it lasts.  If we would only make the effort to understand ourselves and then to understand one another, I can’t help but think that things would get better.  To get there, perhaps we need to be reminded of why we should be courageous when facing those we fear.  Or why we should be compassionate towards those who have hurt us.

… or sex robots for everyone?

Female Empowerment Vs. Equality

I grew up around feminists.  My mom, my sister, my sister-in-law… all very strong minded, outspoken, and ready to thrown down if you’ve crossed a line they think you shouldn’t have crossed.  Oddly enough, I didn’t find out that I was a feminist until university when I was teasing my friend about taking a women’s studies course.  He asked what my views on women were, so I told him that I thought men and women were equal.  He said that made me a feminist.  Oh? Sure, why not.

I’m now reflecting on why I didn’t understand feminism as a battle for equality when I was being raised by someone who considered herself to be a fierce feminist.  My mother spent a great deal of her life angry.  Angry at her father.  Angry at her brother.  Angry at my dad.  Angry at me.  There was also a lot of blame, and she placed very little of it on herself.  Men were the source of all her problems.  When I saw her brand of feminism, it wasn’t about raising women up, it was about putting men down.  It was about being hurt, being oppressed, and making sure that others knew about it.

Now I have a sister who thinks that a man is a rapist if a girl who has consented to  sex changes her mind mid-way, even if she doesn’t tell him to stop.  I also have a sister-in-law who condemned John Damore’s memo on social media, but said that she had done too much emotional labor around the topic to even discuss it.

I don’t think we’re still dealing with the pursuit of equality here.  This is about the empowerment of women, and those are two very different things.

I often joke around and say that men have had this coming for centuries and we’re just the unlucky bunch that have to deal with it, but sometimes it’s not a joke.  I’ve had women tell me more than a few times that because of what men have done around the world, and throughout history, women deserve to be more than equal.

More than equal.

Does that not suggest that women would be superior and men would be inferior?  Is that really the goal of feminism?  These dynamics have been interesting to observe because as I try to have these discussions and understand the rationale, I’ve found a lot of inconsistencies that demonstrate several different perspectives within feminism.  Some think that porn is the objectification and sexualization of the female body while others think that a women choosing to do porn is female empowerment.  Some feminists think that Caitlyn Jenner is a strong and beautiful woman, some think that she’s a shitty person.  When I see these inconsistencies, I try to focus on where everyone agrees and that usually illuminates what’s really connecting the movement.

When I think about this deeply, I see two separate movements: Female empowerment, and the pursuit of equality.

Female empowerment is defined by the collective hurt, frustration and powerlessness that women have been feeling for generations.  For them, powerlessness and inequality are the same problem.  To solve inequality, one must become more powerful.  With power comes the ability to right wrongs and protect those you care about.  It’s not the first time we’ve seen this dynamic in history and it’s probably not the last.  The problem with a virtuous  pursuit of power is that you start to think that any decision that makes you more powerful is a virtuous decision.  At that point, right and wrong no longer have any bearing.

The pursuit of equality has been my jam for most of my life.  It understands that there is a natural order to the universe and appreciates that we’ve just scratched the surface on understanding it.  It accepts that we’re all unique people with unique circumstances and this leads to the unique lives which we collectively call humanity.  If each of us lives a truly unique existence, then we should really only be judged on the merit of what’s in our soul.  In the pursuit of equality, eventually you understand that equality already exists, it’s simply our perspective on the matter which needs to change.

Perhaps I should be concerned.  There’s a lot of momentum behind female empowerment.  It’s especially interesting to hear men explain their affinity for it. Unfortunately, the problem with the pursuit of power over equality is that you’re more likely to end up with power than equality.  If the women of today are successful with that pursuit, what are they leaving for the next generation?  There’s a pendulum effect worth observing here.  If female empowerment leads to men being treated as the inferior sex, how long until male empowerment catches on?  If I was a feminist of today, that is not the future I’d be looking to create for my children.

The reason why I’m not concerned is because while fear is often louder, love is almost always stronger.  I suspect that while the majority of men and women today might not understand equality, they believe in it.  There’s something intrinsic about equality which resonates with people and it’s probably why we’ve been fighting for it throughout history.  Unfortunately, equality is the enemy of the powerful so the ruling class usually doesn’t take so well such things.  Fortunately for the rest of us, they’re on borrowed time.

A Brief Thought on Modern Feminism

So a good friend recently posted a comment to his Facebook account along the lines of, “Plenty of women only businesses, so why do men catch such flak when we try it?”  Now it’s important to know that he’s a good guy, happily married with daughters so what I suspect he was really doing was stirring up some interesting conversation.  This was my contribution to the conversation:

Consider this… men are the more physically dominant sex, which meant that until we got smart enough to realize that gender equality would double the workforce and lead to greater comparative advantage, we were calling most of the shots. As with many things in life, there’s a pendulum effect. Right now the middle is where most of us would like things to be, but when we’re way over on one side, the momentum of that change will often take us right through the middle and over to the other side. That’s what we’re seeing now.  For men as a sex -this is all long overdue. The problem with that is the vast majority of men I know who are dealing with this short end of the stick today are actually bonafide feminists.

Where things get interesting is that the further the pendulum swings to the benefit of women, the more that momentum gets stored up and the more likely it is to swing back to the side of men.  Even as I write this, men’s rights movements are gathering steam.  While I’m sure they have some valid points, I also have very little interest in seeing the pendulum swing back to where it’s been for the last 10,000 years.  Here’s to hoping we find that common ground but the balls are in your court ladies.