Author A.R. Moxon has recently invited all men to participate in an exercise of empathy. He reframed women's experiences with violence and sexual assault and presented it in a way that most guys should comprehend... getting kicked in the nuts. At first, it sounds silly, but it doesn't after you read the whole thing.
"Speaking on the societally-macro level, empathy has been largely a one-way street when it comes to gender roles and dynamics," Moxon told Bored Panda. "In my experience, women are empathetic toward men, while men tend not to be particularly empathetic toward women."
"Put another way, women have to think about what men are feeling as a matter of survival. Men aren't in a similar situation, and so, if they don't want to, they don't. And, by and large, we don't want to."
"When women tell their stories of living with danger and vulnerability in abusive relationships and of survival from assault, our first instinct appears to be to protect ourselves from personal culpability and accountability; we certainly saw that dynamic play out as the Kavanaugh story developed."
Moxon said that his analogy - like any other - is imperfect, and he has received a lot of feedback since he hit "send." Positive and negative. "I chose nut-kicking because there isn't a man alive that doesn't understand exactly what a nut-shot is, and, with very few exceptions, none who would ever want it or seek it out or go out 'asking' for it," he explained. "Most importantly, no man confuses getting kicked in the nuts with sex. It's very clearly violence, even though it involves sex organs. The idea of growing up in a society where getting hoofed in the balls is normalized behavior, systematically if tacitly allowed by a complicit society, and frequently confused with a pleasurable activity like sex, would rightfully be horrifying to any guy."
And he couldn't have come up with it at a better time. As Judge Brett Kavanaugh has just been confirmed to the US Supreme Court, the world has been hit by a huge wave of anger and protest, highlighting the problems that surround sexual abuse, assault and other social issues around it.
"I can't imagine women's rage today," Moxon wrote. "But this exercise, while abstract, helped me get nearer to it than I'd been."
"The Kavanaugh confirmation proves once again that one of the primary drivers of our society right now is normalized abuse and enablement of abuse," Moxon added. "In such a society, the telling of wrong is itself seen as the wrong. It's unutterably sad. It’s why the country has a bully with the mind of a cruel child as president, supported by power, cheered by crowds."
"I think you can see, if you want to, that there is a powerful political party that doesn't care about women at all, and thinks not caring is good. I dare hope more of us see this clearly now than we did before."
Continue scrolling to read the analogy and tell us your thoughts in the comments!
More info: armoxon.com | Twitter
As Judge Brett Kavanaugh has just been confirmed to the US Supreme Court, the world has been hit by a huge wave of anger and protest, regarding sexual abuse and assault
Image credits: Julius Ghost
So author A.R.Moxon described the situation in a way all men could understand
Here's how the people responded
