Why Is Fixing Sexism Women’s Work? – The New York Times (via brutereason)

And a reminder that this means you, too, men who are following me and actually reading this. I say this acknowledging that you’re some of the most progressive men I know.

Most of the progressive men I know (and you know I don’t tolerate non-progressive men very well) shy away from this stuff more than you do. So I appreciate it, I really do. You choose to follow me here, which is the place I go to blog with minimal holds barred. I say stuff here I don’t say on Twitter and I don’t say on the proper blog. I say uncomfortable stuff. And you haven’t unfollowed me. You choose to expose yourself and learn more and I know I can be pretty unyielding here. So I want to acknowledge that you’re doing more than most of the good men I know.

But you’re not doing more than the women I know. Not even a little tiny bit. The vast majority of the women I know are either risking themselves to speak out on these things and reaping personal and professional costs by doing so, or they’re suffering as quietly as they can in an attempt to minimise the attacks on their personhoods that they are still going to face anyway.

I know women who do more than me and those who do less. I’m proud and relieved that there are many more female voices joining mine to speak up than there were ten years ago – infinitely more than there were when I was a teenager or girl – but that takes a toll on us.

We need your solidarity.

We need concrete efforts. Not just reblogging and listening.

Talk to Other Men (but don’t talk over women – this doesn’t mean making Talking About Sexism your brand).

Challenge them when they say something sexist.

Challenge them when they express sexist views when no women are present.

Be more aware of how much you are speaking in comparison to your female friends and colleagues.

Try to interrupt less.

Be aware of when your male friends and colleagues interrupt women, and practice the phrase, “Let her finish,” or work out less combative phrases like, “Sorry, can we come back to that in a moment? I wanted to hear what [interrupted woman] was saying.”

Don’t just check people once or twice, but show up again and again.

Be a pain in the arse. Accept the responsibility for the social discomfort that arises when people point this stuff out and learn to understand that the discomfort was there anyway, women were just being asked to bear the sole brunt of it, and to hide its existence from everyone else.

Women don’t make situations uncomfortable by pointing out sexism. Sexism makes situations uncomfortable. Step in and point this out.

Don’t let your female friends get ostracised as ‘buzz kills’.

Challenge the idea that doing this is a buzz kill.

The buzz was already killed.

Take a hit for us.

And then take it again.

This is how change happens. It’s not just how you ally, but how  what’s considered socially acceptable shifts.

Conventions are set when behaving in undesirable ways becomes not worth the effort for ordinary people.

There will always be willful arseholes. But a lot of people don’t realise they’re being arseholes. They don’t like being told.

Tell them.

(via redshoesnblueskies)