Men, Don't Be Jaded Into Silence

Are you feeling jaded?

You know, I used to think the term came from the rather beautiful green stone, but it doesn't. The stone's name came into English through French from the Spanish expression piedra de ijada, which translates literally to "stone of the flank" or "loin stone" as people believed jade would cure colic and pain in the flank.

But, to be jaded? Well, in the 1600s, the verb jade meant to wear out or make dull, and jaded entered vernacular around the same time. Earlier than that? A jade is a worn-out horse, recorded from the late 1300s and with no known origin.

It was only a couple weeks ago, on September 14th, when a former Cornell student sued the university and seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity. The 101-page complaint alleges she was drugged and assaulted at the fraternity house on the night of October 19, 2024, and that Cornell did not protect her or punish the men. The Cornell Daily Sun broke the story after a reporter spent nearly two years on the case.

Are you feeling jaded? By the school shootings, the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the ceaseless rape culture of college campuses, and the hemorrhaging extremism? By the end of the world? You still have to go to work, pay rent, and buy yourself food. Getting tired is not a decision. The news repeats just as your schedule does.

Half a year ago, I wrote about how we as men must do more, and we must do better. What's changed? Better question, what have I done since then?

Studies show misogynistic peer norms make men less likely to intervene and slower to do it. But a program for 600 college men that combined social norms and bystander education changed self-reported sexual aggression, and changed what men expected their peers to do (Gidycz, Orchowski, and Berkowitz, 2011).

Men change what other men think is normal.

Cases like this keep breaking, over and over. And women continue to have to explain, to defend themselves, and absorb replies from men who refuse to listen or try to understand.

I am not jaded by the violence women continue to consistently face. The violence that is consistently minimized and normalized and downplayed. How could I be jaded by something I have the privilege and luxury to not experience myself?

I am jaded by the arguments, the whataboutisms, the laundering within the discourse. I am jaded by how we manage to have the same bad-faith hair-splitting and rumination over semantics disguised as moral debates, over and over again.

Girl on the Net asks us what we are doing, right now? What am I doing? The answer is not enough.

I am not a man that is in group chats with other men, I am not a man that goes fishing or hunting, or fires up a barbecue over a couple beers with other men. I am not afraid of being annoying, though. I will happily argue—to debunk myths, or dissect harmful ideologies—with people online indefinitely. I wear my heart and politics on my sleeve and never hesitate to be vocal about what I think is important and worth talking about.

And I've noticed how, in reality, that completely diminishes my social currency in some circles—for as soon as you care about a particular topic too loudly, some people will gladly write you off entirely. And I get really mad at myself for not being more clever about that, and I feel so powerless to change what's important. Because I've cultivated a good audience of good people, and that means I'm going to be preaching to the choir.

There is such a thin, narrow avenue between those who will listen to you that agree and those who will not listen to you that disagree. In ways, I've devoted my life to trying to figure out how to make people listen that disagree. I am trying to perform the alchemy required to unjade the horse, to change not just a mind but to prevent real, tangible harm.

And in order to do that, you have to rein it in. You have to—somehow—be less angry. And you have to care less about the injustice and brutality. And you have to be more reasonable and measured in your rhetoric. And you have to be more neutral in your word choice.

Only then, do you have a chance to have someone that disagrees with you actually begin to listen.

It is so cruel, isn't it? Especially for survivors.

I have failed at this. I have stayed silent when I should have spoken. I have laughed nervously at a joke that wasn't funny. I have watched a woman shrink and told myself it wasn't my business. I have been a coward. And I am trying to be less of a coward and start doing the right thing, by asking other men to do the right thing with me.

What do I ask of other men? Well, before anything else, I would need you to acknowledge that this is actual, ongoing violence we are perpetuating. How do we stop perpetuating it? I'm sure you know the answer, but I'm going to be direct and specific about it anyways: Speak the fuck up. Do the hard and awkward work of going against the grain of social norms. Make this choice over and over again. We must choose to prioritize the well-being of those more vulnerable than us over our own comfort and status quo. This is the case for every difficult-yet-moral stance.

Do not let bad jokes slide. Instead, ask uncomfortable questions. Talk about how consent is an ongoing conversation. Talk about how to read discomfort, how to check in, how to accept "no" gracefully, and how persistence is not romance.

We must stand up for Black women, Indigenous women, trans women, disabled women, and sex workers. Marginalized women face higher rates of violence and are ignored, dismissed, or criminalized when seeking help. We cannot only care about the stories that make the news and headlines.

Understand that "Am I one of the good ones?" is a useless question. The question you need to be asking is "What am I personally doing to change the conditions that have allowed the normalized ongoing violence against women?" That is a question that doesn't go away because you personally have never assaulted anybody, and it doesn't go away because you respect women, or have a daughter or sister or mother you love deeply. It is a question that will always be one you ask yourself.

Individual action is not enough. We need systemic change, and universities that take complaints seriously, and fraternities that aren't breeding grounds for assault, and workplaces that believe women, and courts that convict. Systemic change is made of individual actions. You cannot just hand this off to policy. YOU are the culture.

Your silence is not neutral. Silence is a choice. If you have a blog yourself (which I know a lot of my readers do), write about this yourself.

I know, I know. The jade horse is used past the point of tiring, and yet it is nonetheless still harnessed the next morning.