Ego or Ally?

A few weeks ago, my daughter, who will soon be 13 years old, was invited to play sports with her friend and her friend's father. After the experience, she confided in us parents and told us that her friend's father had assaulted her by, among other things, slapping her on the bottom. My partner, my daughter's father, immediately became angry, but quickly turned his anger on her by questioning her perception. So at first I didn't have time to catch my daughter, but had to intervene sharply and put an end to this form of violence and point out this mistake to my partner. My partner now has an awareness of such misogynistic and patriarchal patterns, catches on quickly and has always been able to apologize and take responsibility for his mistakes. After that, it was a question of which of us would give the abusive father critical feedback on the leisure excursion. My partner wanted to do it himself. This process, from wanting to do it to doing it, took several days and required a lot of emotional work from me so that my partner dared to find a concise and clear response without trivializing or appeasing. The abusive father reacted indignantly, in denial and with a range of immaturity and defense mechanisms. My partner struggled for many days with what an appropriate response to this might look like. Always in the belief that he just had to find the right words, the right tone, the right moment to convince the other person that he had made a mistake. And of course he also struggled in the hope of a happy ending, that the other man would not reject and devalue him, that he would still acknowledge him.

My partner found good words, he also found a good time and an appropriate tone. In a lengthy text, he entered into a discourse, a dialog, a critical examination of masculinity, responsibility and privilege with the abusive father and courageously drew a line. The reaction to this was defensiveness and refusal to engage in dialog. In turn, my partner's reaction was: oh crap, it just wasn't the right way to address him, I should have said so and so and so ...

Unfortunately, my experience with such boundaries is very often that men go on the defensive even before they have blinked once, no matter what tone of voice, choice of words or timing I use. A man offended in his ego always reacts defensively, defensively, infantile and in denial - sooner or later. There is no right tone or moment for this. Someone who is not prepared to put their ego aside in the face of constructive criticism, to develop a sense of responsibility for their own actions and does not have a certain degree of emotional maturity to validate the sensitivities of others, cannot possibly acknowledge a contradiction, admit a mistake or remain in dialog in order to hold all the feelings or opinions that are there. And here I am already talking about the situation when there are different opinions and feelings that have their justification. It's all about a grown man slapping a 12-year-old's bottom and not only thinking it's completely normal, but also thinking it's outrageous that we as parents are criticizing it.

Why my partner found it so difficult to come to the realization that, despite all his efforts in his choice of words and tone, there was nothing to be gained from this abusive father is largely due to the fact that he is afraid of the ostracism he will face if, as a man, he stands in the way of other men in order to be an ally. After all, in order to succeed in the supreme discipline of ally, it is absolutely necessary as a man to risk his social capital by translating a sense of responsibility into concrete actions, which in consequence means making himself unpopular in the boys' club by contradicting, criticizing and enlightening others and, for example, having to forego advantages.

To add a note of complexity to the criticism of my partner, I dredged up a memory from my own ally existence as a mother. After all, things are not always so simple for all genders and certainly not black and white.

In my immediate environment, I have often stood up for myself, made myself unpopular, drawn boundaries and defended myself. The consequence of this is that I was able to create a new feminist environment for myself, but I also had to exclude many people and was rejected. So for me, drawing boundaries is an act of self-care. A cherished habit with a self-image that has been fought for. However, there are people with whom I find it particularly difficult to maintain these boundaries. Once, when we were eating out in a restaurant as a family, a male family member said to my daughter, with mock amusement and laughter, that there was a goat salad on the menu that would be something for her. My anger bubbled up in my mouth, grew into a Loch Ness and wanted to suck the man in and make him disappear into nothingness. Unfortunately, without intending to, I washed my anger down with the next sip of water and without the man in it. And instead of being the best role model for my daughter in terms of self-defense against toxic masculinity, I just bit my lips in dismay as our horrified gazes met. I left her helpless and at my mercy. And all because I felt sorry and indulgent towards an old, white, doddering man and was afraid of creating a bad atmosphere with my criticism of his behavior. Forbearance is a fine virtue and, for me, a gift in many ways when dealing with people, but when it puts your own safety and that of your loved ones at risk, it is the most unfortunate joke you can make. The fear of a bad mood is actually the fear of rejection, in my case from a loved one to whom I am emotionally dependent. Emotional dependencies, alongside economic and social dependencies, are therefore also a reason why we may not enter into allyships, or not unrestricted ones. My girlfriend criticized me for this situational failure, saying that I still had to do my homework. She was right. At the end of the day, everyone has to recognize for themselves where there is still homework to be done.

The most beautiful and confident allyship for me this week, you can watch here. I wish for a world full of such brave and steadfast men who use their anger to defend the freedom of FLINTA* people instead of passively keeping that anger to themselves, using it to be competitive in the boys club or as a last resort to kill FLINTA*. Such a world is possible. Let's make it happen.

Greetings, Christin