Sexism and the Nice Guy

Hot take: America is polarized! Okay wait no please don't stop reading I promise this isn't going to be one of those posts, or maybe it is but it also has gifs of Chris Pine so please stick around.

I know we're all sick of hearing about and/or experiencing sexism, so I promise I'll try to keep this entertaining and informative. I just want to talk a little bit about a phrase I've been hearing and seeing for years, a phrase that does a disservice to everyone on both sides of the issue of sexism:

"He can't be sexist! He's such a nice guy!"

The thesis of this post (, the English major stated upfront), is that both can be true, and often both are. The conclusion of this post is that if nice guys don't acknowledge that they're being sexist, and if feminists don't acknowledge that sexists can also be nice guys, nobody is going to get what they want. That's over-simplified (especially the feminist part, and I promise I'll unpack it more), but here we go anyway.

And let's start with Wonder Woman's boyfriend.

Let me explain... no, there is too much, let me sum up. We all know I love Wonder Woman (aka Diana Prince). But her perennial love interest, Steve Trevor, also holds a special place in my heart. Like Lois Lane to Superman, he is a staple in Wonder Woman's stories. Other love interests may come and go, but Steve is always going to be Diana Prince's guy. Their love is not perfect (especially in the early stages of the comic... yeesh), but it is compelling and important and sweet. Also like Lois Lane, Steve has a career that's helpful to much of what his super-boo does: he's a pilot. Naturally, Steve goes into battle with Diana a lot. This leads to moments like one from the trailer from her upcoming movie that I think many women have experienced in some form, a moment that every person who has access to a television has seen. This moment is what I will not-so-fondly dub the I Can't Let You Moment.

The I Can't Let You Moment (which TV Tropes calls "Stay in the Kitchen") happens any time a man tells a qualified, capable woman not to do something because she's a woman. TV Tropes's example quote is this one from Jurassic Park, featuring my hero Dr. Ellie Sattler and America's Grandpa John Hammond discussing who's going to help fight the dinosaurs that Man Created:

Hammond tries to tell Ellie to stay out of the fight. Everybody tries to tell Eowyn to stay out of the fight. Freaking Santa Claus tries to tell Susan and Lucy to stay out of the fight (even though he gives them weapons... sendin' some mixed messages there, Father Christmas). It doesn't even have to be a battle, per se. A NASA engineer named Paul or something tries to keep brilliant mathematician Katherine Goble out of vital briefings because she's a woman in Hidden Figures. Women get told where we should be (or suggested where we shouldn't be) all the time. When it's "for our own good," we call it the I Can't Let You Moment.

This version of the I Can't Let You Moment happens when Diana is going off to do something that we can safely assume is dangerous. She is a demi-goddess warrior, created by Zeus (in this iteration) and trained in battle since long before Steve Trevor took his first steps (age is just a number, baby) with magical weapons and an iron will. And yet, when she tells this sweet boy where she's headed off to, he responds in this familiar fashion:

Like I said, this moment has happened to just about every woman. Someone you adore looks you in the eyes and tells you that–for your own good–you can't. Such statements come with an impossible cocktail of feelings.

On the one hand: 

• You're grateful to have this sweet guy in your life to stand up for you,

• It can be nice to be protected by someone who you know has your back, and

• You know that this statement is out of a place of love.

On the other hand: 

• You also know that you can do this

• You don't want to be protected this time because when you're capable, you want to be the protector, and

• The best of intentions can't stop you, so

• You know you're going to hurt his feelings somehow when you do the thing anyway.

But either way, you are the best fighter (or mathematician or dinosaur scientist). It is in everyone's best interest-including Steve's- that you do the thing, so you basically have no choice but to answer as Diana does:

But then ugh look at his hurt little face. You think, he's just trying to help! But the way he's helping diminishes Diana's power and ability. He thinks that he can forbid her from doing something that she has already decided to do, and which she is presumably quite capable of doing. Would he try to stop one of his WWI pilot bros from going to fight for his country? I doubt it. That means that this behavior is, I'm sorry to tell you, sexist. 

That's right, friends. My darling Steve Trevor is being sexist.

But does this mean, by definition, that he is a sexist? 

Well, yeah.

But Diana Prince- the Wonder Woman- is in love with Steve Trevor. Can Wonder Woman be in love with a sexist? 

I say yes, and here's why.

I've been powering through episodes of this phenomenal (and so naturally cancelled) show called Braindead. On Braindead, alien bugs land in present-day Washington, D.C. and eat/control the brains of Democratic and Republican members of Congress. I cannot recommend it enough. If you're okay with a little guts-and-bugs, you should watch it on Amazon Prime. The bugs' strategy for taking over our government is simple: get each side to view the other as an absolute evil. Nuance is the soul of understanding. Remove it, and you achieve meltdown.

I think a similar thing, sans alien bugs, is happening with isms. As I am and will always be 1000% unqualified to speak on experiencing racism (just like all of us white people, please stop it with the reverse racism garbage, y'all know that's nothing), I'll talk about primarily about sexism.

For the most part, there are two sides to this. One side is being called sexist, but defends themselves by saying they're not being sexist. The other side sees sexist behavior, and seeks to stop it by calling it out. Both sides are treating sexism as on-off switches. The caller-outers say, "That behavior is sexist, therefore you are a sexist!" They deserve to be able to call out and correct sexism. The self-defenders reply, "I don't look down on women! I am not a sexist!" They deserve to find out why their behavior is sexist from a helpful source, and be given the opportunity to correct it. That is the only way that people who don't want to be sexist will learn to be less sexist! But when we do on-off switch, the alien bugs succeed in getting the nuance out. I think both sides would be better off if instead of an on-off switch, we treated sexism as a volume dial.

An uncomfortable example: I'm pretty sure no one would call me a racist. I really hope that's the case. Do I hate people based on their race? No. Do I only associate with white people? Of course not. Do I often make broad generalizations about people based on their race? No.

But. Have I acted on an implicit bias, an assumption that I didn't even know I was making? I'm certain I have. Have I said racially ignorant things in front of and to people of color? I know for a fact that I have.

Racially motivated hatred is a 10 on the Racism Dial, but every time I operate on subconscious assumptions that I've failed to notice, I'm still acting at a 2 or 3. But if we're looking at it as an on-off switch system, implicit bias means that my Racism Switch is on. My behavior is racist, even if my intent is not. (Side note: many of us white people do not understand that racism is like carelessly firing a gun: what you meant to do doesn't matter if what you did hurt someone. "That's not what I meant by it" is not a defense for actions that result in harm to someone because of their race.) The best I can do to combat racism in myself is be vigilant with my thoughts, surround myself with people who hold me accountable, humbly apologize and correct myself when I'm wrong, and work to turn that dial as close to zero as I can get it.

If Steve said, "You are not allowed to fight, Diana, because you are a woman," that's about an 8 on the Sexism Dial. But when he forbids Diana from going into danger because he loves her and he's freaked out, he's still somewhere between a 3 and a 6. Steve means well. Of course he does. He's a wonderful guy. But wonderful guys, just like awful guys, can still display behavior that registers on the Sexism Dial. Even the most vehement feminist may act on a sexist behavior now and then, just because we've all been in this world for so long that it gets under your skin and becomes implicit bias (the call is coming from inside the house!).

So if we're all somewhere on the Sexism Dial, what's the big deal? Apart from the fact that sexism is bad, the biggest deal is escalation. Here's an excerpt from an article I love called Mike and Dave Need a Gender Studies Course. In it, interviewer/sparkling Twitter personality Dana Schwartz describes her concerns in writing about Mike and Dave Stangle, the real life dudes between the book and movie Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. They seem like nice guys, but in their book they say stuff like "there are really only two things: boobs and butts" and "we’ll probably sneak a few looks at those boobies. Don’t be offended by this. Dogs aren’t offended when another dog sniffs their butt" and "don’t talk about how close your family is. Everyone is close with their family, or at least wants to be. If not, and you have daddy issues, Dave requests that you give him a call." Dana isn't sure what to do about that.

I was conflicted writing this article, too, because Mike and Dave were so pleasant and likeable in person. They make fun of each other, and compare notes on biking, and play with the equalizer screen on my recorder for the interview with such childlike enthusiasm it’s genuinely endearing. “In my experience, there’s not one mean person in Hollywood,” Dave said. “Everyone has just been so fabulous.” They are the human equivalent of golden retrievers.

Just about every third sentence of this article, I’ve turned to my editor and asked, “Is this too mean?”

“Have you ever heard that saying, ‘just enough rope to hang themselves?’” he answers.

Because here’s the thing: forgive the crimes of poor writing and grammar. Forgive the crime of a dull non-story. But this book is sexist in its most dangerous and insidious form: the subtle sexism of nice guys who treat their moms and their sisters and their girlfriends well. And Mike and Dave are really, really nice guys. And in person, they’re funny. But they’re nice, funny guys that have never gotten anonymous strangers calling them sluts on the internet, or had to deal with men twice their size making lewd comments when they’re just trying to walk through the city wearing shorts. They just can’t understand why more girls don’t just wear revealing clothing!—because they’ve never been groped, and then told they were asking for it.

The biggest problem with being on the dial at all is that unless you're actively striving for zero, it's really easy to smuggle sexist behavior in under good intentions. "I'm a nice guy who treats his mom/sister/girlfriend/supergirlfriend well! There's no way that I am sexist, even though I joke about women only being good for sandwiches, or pay the women in my office less than the men, or talk about pregnancy as an inconvenience to bosses." Treating people with respect isn't a points system where you win some for being nice and lose some for being rude, but as long as you stay above zero, you're nice. And it's your actions, not your intentions, that say who you are. Or, as Diana says when she meets Steve in this 2014 iteration:

And let me talk to my fellow caller-outers for a minute... I know. Sexism is exhausting. Calling it out and correcting it and fighting it when no one else in the room seems to care is like a full time job in itself. I'll always remember a conversation I had with a guy in undergrad whom I considered progressive. I told him that I thought a guy we both knew was kind of sexist.

"What? No." Progressive Guy laughed. "He's not sexist!" I recounted a few stories in which Other Guy ignored women when standing in a group and made a few jokes that made me feel out of place in higher education. Progressive Guy just laughed again and said, "that's just Other Guy being Other Guy." I remember making a mental note: Progressive Guy was not a person who would believe me about sexism, at least not if he already liked the person I was talking about. It's exhausting to be told, day in and day out, explicitly and implicitly, that what you're experiencing isn't real. I know.

But some of us have got to go out into that feminism mission field and win some souls. We've gotta be Feminissionaries.

I had a conversation with one of my favorite guys at Kanakuk one time in which he told me, "I was just telling someone the other day, 'Women aren't funny. But that Emily Eby? She's funny.'" My first thoughts were, "Come on, man! You don't win any points with me by insulting the vast majority of my friends. Women don't just sit in rooms in somber silence. We laugh all the time when men aren't around. If women aren't funny, explain that!" But I loved this guy. He'd done a lot for me over the years. So I thanked him for the compliment, and gently said I knew a lot of women who were at least as funny as I was, and then got out of the car and continued being both funny and his friend. Because for the rest of his life, when my buddy from kamp hears "women aren't funny," he'll always know at least one who is: his friend Emily. And she told him that she knows other funny women. Maybe she was right.

Of course, Steve Trevor doesn't keep thinking that Diana shouldn't go into battle. She proves that she should. Ellie Sattler, Eowyn, and Katherine Goble did the same thing. And so have I. And so can you.

The truth is infectious. If we stick around long enough for it to catch, it can spread to people and places we never thought it would. But if we evacuate areas where sexism runs rampant, women not being good enough becomes an argument without a counterpoint.

By all means, take care of yourselves. Make your closest confidants the ones who know what you're capable of, the ones who believe you and believe in you. And cut off the rampant sexism of people who are dangerous, of people who do not want to change. They will sap the energy that is best used on the people who do want to change, or are at least curious why it bothers you.

I'm feeling scattered and insecure about this post. This is less of me walking you through an eloquent argument and more of me opening my arms and spilling a lot of my thoughts and feelings out onto the table and seeing what it looks like. Basically, what I'm asking is this: if you're defending yourself from being called out on sexist behaviors, please gently ask the caller-outer to explain. If you find yourself wanting to call out someone's sexism, please try gently explaining why it bothers you to the self-defender. If the dial's too high to turn down by yourself, it's in your best interests to bow out. But if your audience is receptive, give them something to receive. And on both sides, please, patience patience patience.

It's the only way we're gonna make through the next four years. 

Well, that and the Wonder Woman movie.