Bushmaster took things a step further by creating the Man Card Online promotion, which consisted of an online quiz in which test-takers were asked a series of complex and Mensa-level questions meant to gauge their manhood and ultimately determine if they were truly worthy of possessing the much-sought-after Man Card. It was (so originally) called “The Man Test,” and the copy read as follows: “It’s game time, Sunshine. The simple man test that follows is all that stands between you and a return to man glory. Search your soul. Answer honestly. And let the truth decide your fate.” Men taking this test know upfront that Bushmaster isn’t messing around, because their “man glory” is at stake.
What are the questions, you ask? “Do you think tofu is an acceptable meat?” Holy shit. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like tofu, either, but not because eating it chips away at my fragile male ego and renders me unworthy of man glory. God help you if you answered yes to that question, because real men wouldn’t be caught dead eating a healthier meat substitute that’s better for your long-term health instead of a raw, bloody cow (even though I think tofu tastes like sadness).
The next question is multiple choice: “A carload of rival fans deliberately cuts you off in traffic on the way to the championship game. What do you do?” Your choices are: “A: I slump down in my seat and change the music on the stereo, hoping the guys with me in my car don’t notice the slight. B: I start singing the fight song of my own team in a high, merry voice. C: I skip the game, find the other car in the parking lot, and render it unrecognizable with a conflagration of shoe polish and empty food containers. D: I ignore their rudeness, assuming it’s just a mistake, despite the team flags flying from my car windows.” There’s a lot to unpack in this one. As you might imagine, ignoring the unforgivable travesty of being cut off in traffic and calming down with music or turning the other cheek isn’t going to get you to Man Glory anytime soon. No sir. And singing the fight song—especially in a high, merry voice, which is feminine and therefore unacceptable—is no good, either. Clearly the only Man-Card-level solution is to go after the bastards and commit vandalism.
Let’s not forget this is a gun company that’s part of the gun industry with a goal of having as many people as possible own as many guns as possible in as many places as possible. And surely the fine folks at Bushmaster know road rage is a very real, very dangerous thing, especially where guns are involved. Yet, there they are, a gun company telling men that a real man would risk starting a confrontation with potentially armed parties all because they were cut off in traffic. That shit is flat-out disgusting and morally repugnant in every way. It’s also wildly irresponsible as it dares men to commit crimes.
I don’t have to tell you that it keeps going. “What of these best expresses your inner light?” The choices were between a very cute kitten, an AR-15, and a lovely votive candle. (Obviously you can’t pick the cat; the candle is slightly confusing because fire is wicked masculine, but it’s a clear fuck-no-bro to chick candles; the choice here is clear—nothing expresses a man’s inner light like the flashes from the muzzle when you’re shooting shit.) “You blow a tire on the highway. Do you know where to look for your jack and your spare?” Bushmaster might as well ask if you know where to look to find your balls, because if you answer no to this question, you won’t need them anyway. (This might be a good time to mention that I don’t know shit about cars; meanwhile, my wife embarrassed me on our first date when she successfully restarted her brother’s broken-down jeep when I panicked and misdiagnosed the problem as having to do with “an engine rotator splint” in hopes of impressing her. The good news is today, I’ve freed myself from the unnecessary shame and guilt that toxic masculinity demands men have when it comes to automotive repair knowledge—I give zero fucks that I don’t know a thing because I know my wife can handle it.)
Finally, if you “pass” Bushmaster’s Man Test, it reads, “You’ve redeemed your man priveleges [sic]” (because spelling is for wimps who haven’t mastered the intricacies of the AR-15). “Now prove it! Print, send or post your Man Card!” After all, you’re not truly a man until you’ve whipped it out and shown it to everyone, right? Also, just in case you needed an ignorant cherry on top of this toxic sundae, Bushmaster had a way for dudes to call for the revocation of someone else’s Man Card. It’s hard to believe the surely peer-reviewed and scientifically sound theory behind Bushmaster’s Man Test could possibly be wrong, but just in case, they allowed men to enter the information of other men whose manliness they wanted to call into question. Under the “What’s the problem?” field, men could choose from “Crybaby,” “Cupcake,” “Short Leash,” “Coward,” and “Just Unmanly.” In the next field, you could get into the specifics of why this man should be served a revocation notice: “Actually ordered an appletini with other men present”; “Does Pilates regularly”; “Has a dog so small it can fit in his wallet”; “Gets haircuts that cost more than eight bucks”; “Decries the eating of red meat while extolling the virtues of soy-based substitutes for pretty much everything else on Earth”; “Has a bumper sticker on his car complaining about ‘mean people’”; “Avoids eye contact with tough looking fifth-graders”; and “Wears hemp clothing with no sense of embarrassment.”
To me, Bushmaster’s test is a clear indication of the link between seemingly innocuous “jokes” that perpetuate gender stereotypes and the reality of gun culture and the violence it creates. Even though some will say this was just an advertising campaign, it really went beyond that—it took all the anger and violence involved in being male and weaponized it with the sole purpose of shaming men into owning guns to be more “manly.” And it did so at the expense of women, not only because “feminine” traits and activities were treated as bad things to be avoided at all costs in the test, but also because women have long been on the receiving end of male gun violence (and domestic violence in general).
In an article in the May/June 2019 issue of Crime & Justice in MotherJones titled “Armed and Misogynist: How Toxic Masculinity Fuels Mass Shootings,” author Mark Follman examined mass shootings since 2011 and found “a stark pattern of misogyny and domestic violence among many attackers” and “a strong overlap between toxic masculinity and public mass shootings.” He wrote, “Based on case documents, media reports, and interviews with mental health and law enforcement experts, we found that in at least 22 mass shootings since 2011—more than a third of the public attacks over the past eight years—the perpetrators had a history of domestic violence, specifically targeted women, or had stalked and harassed women. These cases included the large-scale massacres at an Orlando nightclub in 2016 and a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in 2017. In total, they account for 175 victims killed and 158 others injured. Two of the shooters bore the hallmarks of so-called ‘incels’—a subculture of virulent misogynists who self-identify as ‘involuntarily celibate’ and voice their rage and revenge fantasies against women online. A man who recently planned to carry out a mass shooting in Utah and another who opened fire outside a courthouse in Dallas also appeared to be influenced by incel ideas.”51
Let me make one thing very clear from the outset—none of this is an excuse for men who target and kill women. It is just vital that we consider the societal factors that lead to these incidents so we can learn more about how to prevent them. From the research, a laundry list of examples demonstrates it’s a certain kind of misogynistic, angry, bigoted, and toxic man who becomes a shooter. Furthermore, they often leave behind furious manifestos and display copious warning signs before taking the extreme step of murdering people in cold blood, because they either couldn’t deal with their anger or felt that the taking of life was the only way to truly feel powerful in a world that never saw them as the masculine ideal—which is sadly ironic since the “masculine ideal” is a cultural construct that lies to us in the first place.
The most notorious example of an incel who turned deadly is Elliot Rodger. In May 2014, Rodger killed six people on the University of California, Santa Barbara campus and injured fourteen others before turning the gun on himself. Rodger self-identified as an incel, leaving behind a 137-page manifesto along with YouTube videos calling for revenge on all the women who had rejected him (even though he never talked to most of them). Rodger was a bullied boy who believed wealth was inexorably tied to acceptance, and he grew to despise happy couples and loathed other boys who could be easily social and attract attention from the “hot blondes” he coveted. Because he had no idea how to cope with these feelings, he’d simply withdraw, skipping school to lose himself in World of Warcraft for weeks rather than deal with real life. The two things that he believed made a man a man—sex and money—were elusive to him. When he couldn’t gain attention from women, he turned to the pursuit of riches, spending thousands of dollars on lottery tickets, believing that if he were suddenly rich, he’d be drowning in women. Each time he lost, he sunk deeper into a tailspin of depression and toxicity, until he tried unsuccessfully to break in to a sorority house and settled for shooting women outside the house instead. The rantings from his manifesto reveal his warped reasoning for the shooting, the hate he was harboring for women, and the pain he felt at not fitting into the traditional model of masculinity—he resolved to destroy everything he believed he couldn’t have.52
And he’s far from alone in feeling this way.
In October 2015, Chris Harper-Mercer killed nine people and injured eight others before killing himself in a shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon. In his manifesto left for police at the scene, he looked up to other incel shooters like Rodger but criticized them for not killing more people. Like Rodger, he thought of himself as a loser who had nothing to live for and believed that he had failed to achieve the successes in life that he considered masculine. “My whole life has been one lonely enterprise. One loss after another. And here I am, 26, with no friends, no job, no girlfriend, a virgin,” he wrote.53
Scott Beierle killed two women in a yoga studio and injured four more in November 2018 after mentioning Rodger in videos on YouTube. An admitted member of the incel community, Beierle was also a military veteran and a substitute teacher who was fired from one job for allegedly asking a female student if she was ticklish and then touching her just below her bra line. He also had a history of arrests for grabbing women by their posteriors. In a familiar fit of irony, he would routinely talk of his intense hatred for women, but then in the next breath lament the fact that he didn’t have a girlfriend.54 Likewise, in December 2017, William Atchison killed two people before killing himself in New Mexico in a shooting at Aztec High School, where he had previously been a student. He had used the pseudonym “Elliot Rodger” and “Adam Lanza” (the Newtown, Connecticut, shooter) on several online forums, talked glowingly about the Columbine school shooting and praised Rodger and the incel community.55 Even Nikolas Cruz, the Parkland school shooter in Florida who killed seventeen people at Stoneman Douglas High School had previously written an online post saying “Elliot Rodger will not be forgotten.”56
Our current society is set up for men (especially white men) to thrive—because that’s who built the system. Men are set up to be the kings of the universe, who make $500,000 a year and are rolling in women. So our boys see what society expects from them, and it’s not surprising that when boys start to struggle socially as they try to meet these unrealistic standards, they are shocked when they can’t meet that bar. And because they’re also supposed to be emotional islands unto themselves who never ask for help and who must remain tough at all costs, they are unable to work through their isolation and emotional toxicity to learn healthy coping mechanisms. Therefore, when confronted with any kind of failure that threatens their fragile male ego, they resort to the only thing they know and have been taught— intense anger. Then anger turns to violence.
Shortly before writing this chapter, my oldest son started dating his first girlfriend. It did not go well, and in true sixth grade fashion, it was over before it even started and she broke up with him. So, I checked in on him to gauge how he was feeling and to teach him healthy ways to deal with his feelings. I told him people break up for all kinds of reasons, and that while it can be painful, it’s also a part of life. I reminded him that there would also be times in the future when he might need to break up with people, and that he should do so with respect while valuing the other person’s dignity (even if the people in your past don’t extend you the same courtesy). We talked about how even though he wanted her back, it was important to respect her decision and to not stalk her on social media or in real life because boundaries are essential. It all sounds like simple common sense, but how many parents actually have these conversations with their sons? I’ll bet it’s a shockingly low percentage, and as these boys grow into men, we’ll see a society that reflects this lack of vital communication.
Look, I’m not against responsible gun ownership, and I don’t believe in banning all guns; I have friends who hunt and who have taken me to the gun range, and it’s been fun. Groups like the National Rifle Association want to turn this into a Second Amendment debate, but parents need to know that’s separate from what we’re talking about here. Please talk to your sons about learning to deal with rejection in a healthy way. Talk to them about self-reflection and not blaming women for all of their woes. Discuss how vapid and superficial society’s norms are for men and point them in the direction of healthier alternatives. And if they really need it, get them counseling. If not, angry boys turn into angry men who still can’t deal with rejection—but who can meet the requirements to legally carry. I believe the most effective way we can battle gun violence is for parents of boys to start talking with them at an early age and help them avoid the rigid, harmful constraints of toxic masculinity that lead to a nearly all-male cast of mass shooters. Because that statistic is not a coincidence, and it cannot be ignored any longer.
PARENTING TIP #26: Embrace politics and discuss them with your kids
Just as height, hair color, and eye color are determined by genetics, so is politics, at least when your kids are still young—you have a very high chance of passing on your political views to your children. Kids are sponges and parents are their heroes, so they’re going to believe what you believe and they’re going to parrot your viewpoints in public and at school. You need to truly sit down and understand the ramifications of little people having outsized opinions that they don’t yet fully comprehend and that they may shout over the playground, because I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that it doesn’t just affect you; it impacts all of us. Once you’re aware of this, you can act accordingly.
Case in point, Will was seven years old and in the second grade when the 2016 presidential election kicked into high gear. Trump had kicked off his presidential bid by calling some Mexicans rapists and promising to build a border wall that Mexico would magically pay for, which began the intense and frequent vilification of immigrants and the day Will came home from school and said something that floored us. “Mom, Dad . . . you know how you told me about Trump and the Wall and people coming across the border? I think it’s fine if they get in line and ask permission to come in, but if they try to sneak in, then Trump has to shoot them to protect us, right?” My wife and I were stunned, and the horrified looks on our faces spooked him because he immediately started to get upset and backtrack. “I mean, I’m not talking about shooting the good ones. Just the ones trying to sneak in because those are the terrorists.”
We had told him most immigrants are hard workers who come here for a better life but through TV and friends he had absorbed “people crossing the border illegally are terrorists who have to be shot to protect the USA.” How did Will make this stunning 180-degree turn? It turned out a couple of other kids in his class—and let me remind you that we’re talking about kids in second grade—had told him those very words because they had heard it from their dads.
We sat a very upset and confused Will down (again) and talked to him about how important it is to understand that immigrants are not terrorists and that they do not deserve to be shot. This experience was a sobering one for me because it taught me a few important things about kids, parenting, and politics. First, kids will take whatever their parents say and use it in the way that makes the most sense to them. Second, an alarming amount of good parenting can be undone in a terrifyingly short amount of time by classmates and friends. And finally, the things we say as parents, even in the privacy of our own homes, will find an audience outside of those walls. If you’re a parent who is a xenophobic proponent of walls, it doesn’t matter if you don’t express that viewpoint publicly. If you do it in front of your kid, you must acknowledge that your views will be shared with the world one way or another. That is an awesome responsibility, and it’s one I wish parents would think about more often.
I’m also not ashamed to tell you that I’ve made a decision as a parent to disallow my children from hanging out with kids whose parents I know hold hateful views. This is a very sore issue in the parenting community, and many people believe I’m the one who is discriminating based on political views. But what we need to remember is these are not ordinary times. This isn’t a case of simply having opposing political views or policy differences. I disagreed on many, many issues when it came to past Republican nominees like John McCain and Mitt Romney, but even if they had won the presidency, I wouldn’t have been worried about the state of America. I wouldn’t be having a constant concern that our society is falling apart at the seams. I wouldn’t cringe every time I get on Twitter, out of fear of seeing the President of the United States tell a US citizen and Congresswoman of color to go back to Africa, while his pack of sycophantic “patriots” cheer and chant, “lock her up” and “send her back.” I wouldn’t be preventing my kids from hanging out with other kids whose parents do not share my politics. But the fact of the matter is we’re very much in uncharted territory, and I have a responsibility to bring my kids up in a healthy, safe environment that is about love, not hate. My kids and their values are too important for me to knowingly expose them to the dangerous and unhealthy toxicity of our times.
Some people will say, “Well, aren’t you just brainwashing your son with liberal ideas?” As I’ve mentioned, my kids will likely inherit my political views on the world anyway, and they’ll always have the chance to decide for themselves as they grow up and face the world. What’s important to me now is making sure I bring up my kids to be respectful, supportive, and compassionate. And by my definition, that means teaching them to fully support the rights for gay people to marry, as well as to be ardent supporters of trans rights. It means teaching them that while open borders aren’t the answer, a path to citizenship and humane treatment shouldn’t involve families separated and putting kids in cages. It means teaching them to advocate for equal pay for women and supporting common-sense gun laws. If my kids understand the simple concepts of consent and bodily autonomy for women to make their own reproductive health decisions, then I know I’m also bringing them up to be compassionate members of society. And my hope is that kids like mine will rub off on kids like the ones in Will’s second-grade classroom, instead of the other way around.
Not to mention these “political” discussions strike at the very heart of who people are and even how they identify. For example, the proper use of gendered pronouns have become a political hot button, and if you’re a parent who thinks you can whistle by the graveyard on this issue, you’ve got another thing coming. We now know that human sexuality is fluid, and kids are identifying in a variety of ways beyond he/him and she/her. While there are those who think political correctness and “PC culture” is nothing more than thought-policing people with more conservative viewpoints, why not teach your kids that respecting someone enough to identify them the way they feel most comfortable is simply common courtesy? Just as it’s no longer respectful to call Asian people orientals or use the word retard when talking about developmentally disabled people, it costs nothing to be kind to someone who wishes to be referred to as they/them.
Instead of desperately trying to avoid these “political” issues simply because they’re sensitive and they make you uncomfortable, it’s vital to get past that. Tackle these truly important topics head on because your kids will have to do the same very soon. Plus, if you don’t discuss it with your kids, trust me, they’ll hear it from someone else, and that gets real messy real fast.
PARENTING TIP #27: Teach boys (especially white boys) about privilege
I was in my early twenties when I first heard the phrase white privilege, and I didn’t like it one bit. Same for male privilege. As a straight white man, it made me feel like I couldn’t have a say in things or that I should feel guilty for the sins of my forefathers, with which I had nothing to do. So, I did what many other heterosexual, white males do when confronted with this topic—I dismissed it and made fun of the person delivering the message. It took the internet and joining a community of fathers from around the world who look very different from me and who talk openly and honestly about their experiences to turn me around on this important topic. Which, again, was not an easy thing. I despise having to admit I’m wrong, and holy hell, did I have to eat a ton of crow when it came to admitting the existence of privilege and coming to grips with the fact that I benefit from it daily. I’m perpetually grateful to the men in my life who (judiciously) told me what a blind idiot I was, because that lesson came just in time for me to teach my own boys about privilege.
What is white male privilege? The best way I have ever seen this explained is from a 2012 essay by John Scalzi titled “Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is,” in which he compares life to a video game everyone is playing, except straight white males are playing on the easiest setting. “This means that the default behaviors for almost all the non-player characters in the game are easier on you than they would be otherwise. The default barriers for completions of quests are lower. Your leveling-up thresholds come more quickly. You automatically gain entry to some parts of the map that others have to work for. The game is easier to play, automatically, and when you need help, by default it’s easier to get.”57
And make no mistake, you can still lose while playing on the “straight white male” setting, just like people who play on more difficult settings can win. But just because you lost on the “straight while male” setting doesn’t mean the game wasn’t easier for you to play. And if you did win, it doesn’t diminish your accomplishments or insinuate that you didn’t work as hard or play as well. All it means is you had built-in advantages, most of which you would have never even noticed if you weren’t looking for them, because the game was set up to benefit you from the start. And the first step toward confronting white male privilege, if you are a white male person, is to recognize that fact. This explanation of privilege went over extremely well with my oldest, who is a devoted gamer, and he grasped what I was saying right away.
When I shared this to members of my family and my friends, some of them shook their heads and told me it wasn’t appropriate to have that conversation with a young kid who had done nothing wrong in the first place. Their argument was that he didn’t have a racist or misogynistic bone in his body, and the best thing we can do for our kids is to teach them to be colorblind and genderblind. They firmly believe, most of them with the best of intentions, that teaching kids not to see racial or gender differences is the way to go and the path to a truly enlightened society.
I understand where they’re coming from, but I disagree with that completely and vehemently.
It’s important to talk to boys about privilege because they need to understand our society’s problems before they can fix them. My boys need to know they will be paid more for doing the same job as women simply because they are men. They also need to know they are thirty percent more likely to be interviewed for that job in the first place because they have white-sounding names.58 I’m going to teach them about systemic racism and inherent gender bias because I need them to see and understand that differences in ethnicity and sex matter in this world, even though we wish they didn’t. Teaching white boys to be colorblind or blind to gender differences might be well-intentioned, but unfortunately it will lead to them being blind to the real-life disparities that will occur specifically because of these differences. Also, awareness of these discrepancies means parents can teach kids to advocate for marginalized peoples in a variety of ways. Whether it’s recognizing and calling out microaggressions; standing up to bullies who benefit from a systemic power structure; or even making the decision to purchase books, art, and cinematic entertainment created by underrepresented minorities, the recognition of privilege is a stepping stone to actions that directly benefit these communities.
Some people today will argue that there is no such thing as white male privilege, that the gender wage gap is a myth, and that we live in a post-racial society where meritocracy rules the day and everyone is on a level-playing field. They’ll also tell you that the entire concept of privilege is political correctness run amok, and they’ll point to #MeToo and all the famous white men brought down by recent scandals to flip the script and say it’s actually really difficult to be a white, straight man in society today, who is constantly under attack. Don’t listen to them, and don’t let your children be affected by these beliefs, because that is bullshit. The people who claim they are under attack are those who have finally been uncomfortably awoken to the fact that they can no longer continue getting away with getting away with things, like sexual harassment. And while these people are upset about a loss of privilege and having to reckon with their behaviors, the truth is black people were only granted the right to vote 150 years ago, while women earned the vote just 100 years ago. People of color didn’t truly earn anything resembling equal status until just more than 50 years ago with the Civil Rights Movement. In the span of human history, that is akin to yesterday. The effects of slavery still reverberate to this day, and women are still playing catch-up as well. Heterosexual white men have always enjoyed the systemic advantages set up and maintained by their straight white peers in power, and they will likely continue to do so well into the future. Our boys need to know this reality if they’re going to be able to help change things for the better. It’s common sense and essential to teach children while they are young, so we can begin to change the system from its roots.
Parents of white, straight boys can have these difficult conversations in gentle ways that doesn’t make them feel ashamed of being any of those things, while helping them understand they’re the beneficiaries of certain societal advantages not everyone else enjoys. Without that knowledge, they risk growing up and becoming people who feel like they’re losing equality simply because other people are gaining theirs.
PARENTING TIP #28: Talk to boys about bodily autonomy and boundaries
As parents, do you make your kids give people hugs? Grandparents, aunts, uncles—they all want hugs and kisses from little kids, and many aren’t shy about demanding them. I understand there’s a tendency to give in and tell your children to go over and provide adults with physical affection. I sure as hell didn’t think about any potential negative repercussions—not when I was a kid and not when I first became a parent. I was made to hug and kiss my relatives, even when I didn’t feel like it, so I carried on with that mindset with my own children.
But forcing children to provide physical affection to adults on-demand is not a good idea, says Dr. Jack Levine, an executive committee member on developmental and behavioral pediatrics at the American Academy of Pediatrics, because you’re taking away a child’s say in who they give affection to.59 And it makes sense— adults aren’t made to hug one another if they don’t want to, so why should kids not be extended the same courtesy? Granted, this can make things awkward at family gatherings if your kids decide they don’t want to give someone a hug, and some of your relatives might not take kindly to a perceived snub. But that discomfort pales in comparison to upholding bodily autonomy for your kids and allowing them to maintain their boundaries.
In fact, this is a precursor to future conversations with your child about the importance of consent, and it dovetails with the conversations you should already be having, even with young kids, about not letting anyone touch them if they’re not comfortable with it. Looking back, I felt foolish for telling my kids that no one could touch them if they didn’t want to be touched but then getting angry and forcing them to hug and kiss people when they really didn’t want to. For someone who values consistency, I was sending out quite the mixed message. It also sets up for a possibly problematic future scenario if a loved one or an authority figure ultimately becomes abusive in some way—if you’ve told your kids they have to hug and kiss someone, and that same person begins an abusive relationship, you’ve left that child at a decided disadvantage because they already feel they lack the agency to say no. It’s the same reason we have a rule at our house about tickling—if someone says “stop,” then it stops right then and there. I know it seems very mundane, and some might assume we have absolutely no fun at our house, but the fact of the matter is I can’t have more serious conversations with my kids about bodily autonomy and consent if I’m forcing them to give physical affection to other people against their will.
It’s also something boys can easily internalize and take in an unfortunate direction. If they see little girls being forced to provide people with physical affection even when they’ve said no, that becomes a baseline and a norm that can carry over into how they view romantic relationships later on in life—even on a subconscious level. It reinforces the mistaken belief that even if girls don’t want to provide intimacy, they have to if they’re told. And frankly, I believe it’s one of the factors in play regarding male politicians and how they seek to restrict bodily autonomy for women in the form of abortion legislation.
I should admit, right off the bat, that this is a very personal topic for me. In 2010, my wife MJ and I were trying for our second child, and we endured three miscarriages. When we got one that stuck, we anxiously sat on the news until the traditional twelve-week mark when the risks of loss plummet dramatically. I remember weeping tears of joy during the ultrasound and squeezing MJ’s hand because we had finally made it through all that loss, and soon we’d give Will the brother or sister he so desperately wanted. And we were due on New Year’s Eve, no less. Then came the dreaded call from the radiologist, telling us he’d like us to come in for one more “precautionary” ultrasound because he had noticed something about the baby’s legs.
At sixteen weeks, we found out our baby had Sirenomelia, also known as Mermaid Syndrome, where the legs are fused together. Worse than that, the baby was missing vital organs needed for survival outside the womb, such as kidneys, an anus, and a bladder. Doctors told us the condition occurs in 1 out of every 100,000 pregnancies. While our baby was still alive and had a remote chance of living until birth, we were told there was “zero chance” for survival outside the womb. In an instant, we went from our plans of being a family of four to having to choose between waiting two weeks until they could get us into the hospital in Boston, at which point we ran the risk of MJ having to deliver a stillborn, or going to an affiliated clinic for an abortion.
We took a day to consider which of the two impossibly heartbreaking options we wanted to run with, as if it were the worst Choose Your Own Adventure Book on the planet. In the end, MJ and I opted for what we believe was the most merciful option for our baby—the abortion. The thought of waiting another two weeks with a dying baby inside of her and then potentially having to deliver said baby stillborn was too much for MJ to bear. On the day of the procedure we pulled into the Brookline clinic, and there they were—religious anti-choice zealots set up on the perimeter of the property, holding up signs featuring unborn children and screaming at people entering the clinic. These people, who didn’t know us or our situation, woke up that day and decided the best use of their time was to shame perfect strangers on one of the toughest days of their lives for making a perfectly legal and safe reproductive health decision. A decision, by the way, that was absolutely none of their business. I wrapped my arm around MJ and whispered, “Ignore these ignorant fucks,” but even with the thirty-five-foot buffer zone that was in place at the time (and has since been declared unconstitutional) across busy Harvard Avenue, we heard them. The last thing we heard as we entered the clinic was how we were murdering our unborn baby.
As soon as we got in the door through security, MJ lost it. She broke. And let me tell you, despite not believing in the version of Hell with Satan and pitchforks, I discovered that day that hell is actually real. Not only that, it’s right here on Earth. Spend twenty minutes watching the love of your life moan and wail and convulse with sobs right before she goes in to literally have a life taken out of her, and you’ll come to the same conclusion. I stood there, helpless, as she was further tortured by informed consent laws that stipulate doctors are legally obligated to describe the procedure in excruciating detail even if you’ve already read up on it. Even if you tearfully beg them to stop talking. I felt my heart break into a million pieces as I watched her taken away to a surgery room where I couldn’t accompany her to comfort her. So yes, there’s a hell. And the people outside that clinic inexplicably help make it a reality by unnecessarily and cruelly shaming women.
I was a newspaper reporter at the time, and I knew my rights inside and out. I knew they were on a public sidewalk and absolutely had the right to say whatever they wanted. But I knew I could peacefully exercise my First Amendment rights as well. So, I took out my phone and started recording as I walked up to them and asked why they were doing what they were doing. I explained our situation and watched them flounder around for some kind of rationale for their terrible behavior. I listened to them babble on about suicide rates for women who get abortions. And then, in an amazing fit of irony, I watched as they threatened to call the police on me for recording them on a public sidewalk, as if their free speech was the only speech that is protected.
By the time I picked MJ up, the police were there, though the protesters had gone. MJ groggily asked, “What did you do?” with a wry, tired smile. Later that day (with MJ’s permission), I uploaded the video on YouTube and my website, where it soon garnered more than a million views and was picked up by news outlets all over the world. The reaction was swift and overwhelming, as I began hearing responses from all sides. The religious fanatics and anti-choice folks came out in droves to tell me I was a baby killer, accusing us of faking the whole thing and wishing death upon us via emails and online comments. They found my parents’ phone number and called them, too, screaming at my mom and dad for raising a murderer. But on the flip side—and the reason I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat—was when I started hearing from women all across the world. Women who had had abortions in the past and who had also been viciously harassed by people who think tormenting strangers is doing God’s work. Young women who couldn’t tell their parents and who had to walk that gauntlet alone. Older women who had had abortions twenty, thirty, and forty years ago, but who still remember the sting of shame and guilt from their verbal assailants. No matter their age, ethnicity, or location, they all said they wish they had been strong enough to fight back that day, or that they had had someone in their lives willing to be an advocate for them against that onslaught of judgment. And while the two people I had confronted that day were female, the women who had abortions and took the time to write me all expressed bewilderment and anger over the fact that so many of their detractors had been men.
Men whose bodies are unaffected by pregnancy. Men who will never have to make that difficult decision. Men who like the idea of a baby, but who will never have to push one out of his body. Let me tell you right now—any man who actively attempts to control a woman’s body by working to outlaw abortion is a misogynist.
Our boys need to know if you’re a man who wants to make abortion illegal, then you’re someone who wants to punish women for maintaining control of her own body. Look, no one likes abortion. Despite what the religious right would have you believe, women who get abortions and the men who support them are not throwing abortion parties and doling out free coat hangers on every street corner. What I’m teaching my boys is while you don’t have to like abortion, you do have to value choice and bodily autonomy. Because the minute you advocate for making abortion illegal, you become an advocate for stripping women of the basic right to control their own bodies and to make the reproductive health decisions that are best for them. And if abortion becomes illegal, which means it’s a crime with punishments, that means you’re in favor of punishing women for making decisions about their own bodies. That’s not okay. A woman’s right (and really, every human’s right) to control her own body should be sacrosanct, and boys and men should know they never have the right to dictate what someone else does with their own body.
I’ve talked about this topic with my oldest. He’s rightly uncomfortable about getting behind an idea that ends a pregnancy, which is understandable. But I explained to him that while it’s fine to be personally against abortion, it’s wrong to let your personal views restrict what someone else of the opposite sex does with her body, and he understands that now. More boys need to know that a girl’s body is not his to control, whether it’s about reproductive decisions or even the clothes she chooses to wear.
That last point, in particular, is difficult to convey thanks to Draconian dress codes still in effect at many schools across the nation, where bare shoulders, shorts or skirts above the knee, and even leggings are outlawed. Girls are routinely singled out and forced to either change into “appropriate” clothes or leave school altogether, and the reason often given is that their outfits create a distracting environment for boys.
Parents—and I can’t stress this enough—please push back against those dress codes and that mindset. When this occurs, the message we’re conveying is that girls are not only responsible for their actions, but they’re also responsible for the actions of boys as well. Did a boy sexually harass a girl in his class? Well, what was she wearing? As if her bare shoulders are an invitation or an excuse for boys to harass girls in any way, shape, or form. On the flip side, boys will continue to learn that they are not responsible for their actions because they are simply lust-fueled hormone monsters with no restraint once girls reveal even the most non-sexual parts of their bodies. Parents of boys need to hammer home the fact that boys and boys alone are responsible for their own actions. They need to know it doesn’t matter if a girl comes to class naked; that still doesn’t give anyone the right to assault or harass her. Boys are responsible for their own behaviors, and if they can’t focus in class because they’re distracted by a girl’s appearance, that’s on them. By making girls cover up, we are telling boys that they have the power to influence the appearance of girls, and it tells girls that their body isn’t just theirs, it’s subject to the whim of the male gaze.
Talk to your boys and instill in them personal accountability and the importance of boundaries and autonomy at all levels, even if it means refusing Aunt Mary for a hug.
PARENTING TIP #29: Teach boys about consent and how not to contribute to rape culture
If we want to teach our sons how to respect our daughters, we first have to talk about rape culture. Because rape culture is not just about the act of rape; it’s about the culture and codes of behavior that lead men to rape, that normalize sexual violence, and that blame victims while pardoning perpetrators.
History in general has not been kind to women who have come forward with allegations of sexual impropriety by men, especially powerful men. According to a June 2019 report from ABC News, “at least 17 women have accused Donald Trump of varying inappropriate behavior, including allegations of sexual harassment or sexual assault, all but one coming forward with their accusations before or during his bid for the White House.”60 But instead of putting the full force of the law behind investigating Trump and these disturbing allegations, society has placed the spotlight and burden of responsibility on Trump’s accusers. Why didn’t they come forward sooner? What were they wearing at the time? What’s their dating history look like?
Perhaps that shouldn’t come as a surprise since former President Bill Clinton famously abused the power of his office two decades ago when he conducted an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Although Clinton went on to be impeached (but not removed from office), it was Lewinsky who endured the brunt of the shaming despite being on the wrong end of a power differential—for tempting Clinton and engaging in a relationship with a married man. But it was Trump’s infamous Access Hollywood tape, released shortly before the election, that was most jarring: “You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful . . . I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.” The reaction from the American public was to elect him president less than a month later and excuse his remarks as simple “locker room talk.”61
Perhaps the ugliest display of blame-the-victim rape culture occurred in the fall of 2018, just prior to the start of the confirmation hearings for Trump’s nominee for the United States Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh. Reports surfaced that a Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a professor of psychology at Palo Alto University and research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine, had accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault during a Maryland house party when the pair were both teenagers in 1982. This set up a showdown and dueling testimony in front of the Senate, in which Blasey Ford tearfully and fearfully recounted her memories of being assaulted that day by an inebriated teenage Kavanaugh, while Kavanaugh denied every allegation. It was painful watching Blasey Ford on television, clearly on public trial to defend her truth, only to be interrogated about what and how much she drank that day, her prior sexual partners, and whether she had political motivations to sabotage Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court chances. Kavanaugh, who came off angry and annoyed at the audacity of even being questioned on the topic, spent the day yelling at the people whose job it is to question the character of potential justices who serve for life. Kavanaugh’s nomination was eventually approved, and he now sits on the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Blasey Ford’s life has been upended by the ordeal, requiring her to move residences and engage months of security detail to protect herself from the people angry at her for simply speaking up against her alleged assailant.62
According to statistics from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, one in five women will be raped during their lifetimes. Just as troubling is the fact that 63 percent of sexual assaults—with both men and women victims—are not reported to police.63 And when you look at the troubling cases of women accusing powerful men of sexual impropriety, it’s not difficult to understand why so many victims choose not to come forward with their stories when the pattern is for society to blame and punish them.
Are there instances of women who lie about being sexually assaulted? Yes. But while we should always maintain the standard of innocent until proven guilty, that doesn’t mean we should demonize accusers from the outset. If your first instinct is to ask a victim what they were wearing or why they were wherever they were when they were raped, as if their wardrobe or geographic location were in any way their fault, then you should dig a little deeper to ponder why you’ve not asked the perpetrator instead why they decided to rape and commit a crime.
This is rape culture—not just the reprehensible behavior of presidents, but the attitudes that everyday people hold that can reflect back onto your kids.
So, how can parents of boys combat this deeply engrained rape culture? For starters, it can begin with educating them about the concept of consent—something far more complex and nuanced than most parents convey to their sons. As I’m writing these words, I’m dealing with my oldest son having his first girlfriend. We’ve always been a family who talks about everything out in the open and without shame—correct anatomical names for body parts, homosexuality, the basics of sex, where babies come from, etc.—but it’s different when it goes from an abstract idea to an actual person with a name and a face and a personality. Things got very real very quickly, and suddenly I felt I had so much to share with Will and absolutely no time to do it all because there he was, entering middle school, with a girlfriend. Granted, as far as I can tell, having a girlfriend at this age mostly means awkward Instagram posts and being embarrassed when your friends bring it up while hardly ever seeing in the other person, but still—my kid is dating!
That begged the question: where do I start? As a father, this is a seminal moment, and I knew that how I handled it would set the foundation for all our future discussions on the topic. While I knew I couldn’t just make him drink from the fire hose when it comes to dating advice, I also felt that there was just so much he needed to know. So one night, just before bed, I asked Will if I could talk to him because I thought it was important that we have a chat now that he’s a big shot with a girlfriend. As I sat on the edge of his bed, he wore the same look on his face that I did when I knew my parents were about to have “The Talk” with me. It was equal parts awkwardness, anxiety, and revulsion.
Thoughts of that talk from twenty-five years ago raced through my head as I searched for just the right words and approach to be effective with Will. My dad was (and still is) a wonderful father who imparted many important lessons, which led to me being a (mostly) good person, but I have to admit that his lessons on relationships were a little lacking. One of his messages stuck with me in particular. It was about consent: “Don’t do anything with a girl unless she says yes first.” Surely that’s a good message, if a tad simplistic. Heterosexual men should absolutely not engage in any sexual activity with a woman if she hasn’t given her consent, right? Except my still-forming teenage brain took that to mean: “As long as she says yes, we’re good.” And it took me more than a decade to realize that’s a problem. First of all, it sets men up as the automatic initiators and women as the gatekeepers, and it ignores the fact that women can initiate and that men, too, do not automatically consent every time.
Second, it created an unhealthy mindset in me: I spent my later teens and college years doing everything possible to “get to yes” with girls. I knew I couldn’t do anything without consent, because that meant it would be rape. But you don’t have to rape someone to contribute to rape culture, and I absolutely did exactly that in my quest for yes. If I was dating a girl who was on the fence about having sex, I did everything I could to persuade her to consent. I’d buy her flowers, write her poems, and use those nice gestures as proof that I deserved sex. I begged, I pleaded, I cajoled, I manipulated, and I guilted my way to yes with more of my girlfriends than I care to admit, without ever realizing how problematic my actions were at the time. I was so used to the men I’d see on TV and the men I knew in my social circles who would talk about all the things they were doing to get girls to “put out” that I just assumed that was how it was done and conformed to the hive mentality without examining my actions. It wasn’t until shortly after MJ and I were dating that I overheard her talking with some girlfriends about the pathetic guys in their lives who begged for sex—these men were so annoying and persistent in their pursuits that the women finally just gave in and slept with them just to get these guys off their backs. I remember breaking in to that conversation to ask how often that happened, and each and every one of them said it was entirely commonplace.
It stunned me for several reasons. First of all, I realized I was that guy. I was the obnoxious clown begging and angling for sex at every turn, the pathetically sad man they were referring to at that very moment. Secondly, it dawned on me that women were having sex not because they really wanted to, but because they had decided it was easier to do that than to deal with persistent nagging from guys like me. I vividly recall feeling, in that moment, how sad the situation was and how utterly clueless and stupid I had been. Because every time I had to negotiate with a woman to say yes, I celebrated in my head, and what I had been celebrating was actually a woman I had worn down to the point of her half-heartedly agreeing to have sex just so I’d shut up. It never dawned on me that consent shouldn’t be the only goal. I was missing enthusiasm and eagerness. I had been looking solely for permission instead of making myself the type of person with whom women actually wanted to have sex with, freely and without reservation.
All this time I had fancied myself a good guy, simply because I had never raped anyone. As if not raping someone is a bragging point or badge of honor for men! That’s how low we have stooped. And the entire time, I had been contributing to toxic masculinity by not understanding the complexities of consent and how men constantly put women in no-win positions that breed negativity and resentment. And I wondered why my relationships never went anywhere, and why sex had always been about conquests and tally marks as opposed to caring about the experience of the other person. Let me tell you, it is beyond jarring to realize you’re a central part of the problem you always thought you were fighting against. Even though it was embarrassingly late in my life when I realized all this, it’s now my mission to impart these lessons as early as possible to my boys so they’re not as humiliatingly behind the curve as I was.
So, with all those thoughts swirling in my head as I perched on the edge of my oldest son’s bed, my mind raced to find a way to convey that to him in a manner an eleven-year-old could comprehend. The conversation didn’t begin so well as I stumbled around to find the words, and his cocked head and raised eyebrows told me I was failing to land my main points. He started to lose interest and began playing with our Maine Coon out of boredom. As I tried to forge on, the cat grew increasingly uncomfortable and tried to jump off the bed, but Will held it there because he loves Bruno’s soft fur.
Then the lightbulb went off.
“Will, the cat doesn’t want you to pet it right now. Are you noticing his body language? The fact that he’s trying to get away? The meowing that lets you know he’s unhappy? He’s staying there for now because he loves you and doesn’t want to hurt you, but he’s clearly giving you multiple signs that he’d rather be somewhere else at the moment, and you’re ignoring those signs. You’re being selfish and you’re not respecting the cat, who is clearly conveying that he wants to leave. Do you think it’s right that just because you’re bigger and stronger than he is that you get to decide what he does and where he can go? Buddy, this is what consent is. Think about if the cat were your girlfriend right now.”
The look on his face told me everything I needed to know. It had landed.
“Oh,” he said thoughtfully, his eyes going wide. “Oh wow! I totally get what you’re saying now. That actually makes a lot of sense.”
The irony here is that I hate cats. Detest them in a very primal way, actually. I’ve been trying to make my house cat-free for as long as I’ve been dating MJ, and this particular cat used to crap in my shoes (only my shoes, never anyone else’s). It served as my personal nemesis. But that night, he was exactly what I needed to teach my kid a very important lesson I personally didn’t learn until I was in my twenties.
The lesson about consent that I hope to impart to the parents reading this book is to talk to your kids about it early, often, and completely. Every kid is different, and you know your kids best, but I urge you not to put it off too long. If you do, you risk ending up with a boy who hopefully knows not to rape but who also has no clue he’s contributing to toxic and harmful behavior that doesn’t benefit him, women, or society in general. More than that, you’re sentencing him to a sex life that consists of keeping score instead of scoring a point for the fulfillment of both parties. Besides, there’s no reason enthusiastic consent shouldn’t be sexy and wonderful. After all, if the other person says yes, then that’s terrific!
Not letting your boys succumb to rape culture doesn’t just end with a conversation about consent. It’s also about being cognizant of the movies they watch, the music they listen to, and the video games they’re playing. It’s about telling them, in no uncertain terms, that “locker room talk” should never include kissing women against their will, grabbing their genitalia, and joking about sexual assault. It’s about showing them the Brock Turners of the world and how wrong it is for the media narrative to focus on the loss of his swimming scholarship at Stanford instead of how he had raped an unconscious woman, and it’s about how wrong it is for Turner’s father to claim his son shouldn’t go to prison just for “twenty minutes of action,” when that action was rape.
