Amid the ‘manosphere’, have your male friends started saying the quiet parts out loud? Sarah Lang looks into it.
Jenny, 35, has been friends was Kevin since they were at high school. They don’t live in the same town anymore, but catch up as part of a group once or twice a year. They also message back and forth about every month or so.
Kevin’s comments about women sometimes rubbed Jenny the wrong way. “I pushed back but didn’t stop being friends with him, because he’d been a good friend in other ways over the years – 20 years, actually. But I did tell him I don’t appreciate him talking about women in those ways.”
It was in the lead-up to the U.S election last year that Kevin made Jenny very angry. “He kept saying he wanted Trump to become president, and that even though he had some negative personality traits, he was better than that ‘Kamala woman who talks in word salad’. He mainly couched his support by saying Trump would be an anti-war president, but his [Kevin’s] views were reeking of misogyny and the ‘manosphere’.”
“I knew Trump wasn’t going to be anti-war. Now, putting aside all his other disgusting acts, he bombed Iran. Plus the Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Gaza conflicts are ongoing, and you could very much argue that he’s made things worse. Obviously I would much rather have been wrong about this and that the wars had ended.”
Jenny hoped the friendship would fade away quietly of natural causes. However, recently their group of friends had a big catch-up. “When Kevin said he still supported Trump, I said something along the lines of ‘I’m disgusted with you and I don’t want to be friends with you anymore’.”
“He told me that I was being an overly emotional woman which enraged me because I felt I absolutely have a right to feel enraged about this.” (Which she absolutely does.) “At that point I said ‘screw you’ and left the party.” She hasn’t deleted him from Facebook but has blocked him from seeing her activity or sending her messages.
Jenny knows there could be some tension in the friend group when they meet up. She says she will be civil – “just barely civil” – but that she might skip some occasions.
“He also likes David Seymour.”
Ending toxic friendships
In an ideal world, a friendship that’s not working for you would just fade away gracefully. Perhaps you can be friendly if you see them in a group setting, but not pursue catching up with them yourself.
But if it’s a toxic friendship, cutting contact is likely for the best.
Counsellor and academic Dr Suzanne Degges-White has written a story for Psychology Today called ‘What’s the Best Way to End a Toxic Friendship?’.
She writes: “Make it about yourself and your needs, not their wrongs… avoid beginning any sentences with ‘fighting words’ such as ‘You made me…’ or ‘You should never have…’ or ‘You are such a…’ and so on.”
“It’s too late for that!” Jenny says. “But I didn’t call him any names. I can think of all sorts of names to call him though, but you probably can’t print those.”
Probably not!
Suzanne adds: “Shaming and blaming may provide a very temporary feeling of victory, but being open and honest about what you will and will not tolerate in relationships will yield a much longer sense of satisfaction.”
Jenny’s thoughts? “I had said at other times that I wasn’t willing to put up with these shit, borderline misogynistic takes, and that maybe he could just say them silently, but he just kept saying them out loud. So I definitely told him what I couldn’t tolerate. Sometimes I wondered if he was just doing it to rark me up, but is that actually better or worse?”
Suzanne also says “Shut down any “revenge fantasies” before they take hold.”
Jenny? “I’m not going to use the word fantasise in any way regarding this person! But no I don’t have any revenge fantasies.”
The Psychology Today story ends with this. “It is important to keep yourself from allowing your former friend to have further control of your thoughts and feelings once the ‘friendship expiry date,’ as it can be described, has passed.”
Jenny? “That’s a good call. I’ve had my rant and feel better for it but I’m hereby closing this case.”
We consider that gracious.
Male friends disappointing us
In the Reddit group r/feminism, there’s a post called “male friends end up disappointing me”.
“I’m just tired, I’m sick of seeing so much misogyny everywhere and I’m sick of being gaslit by men about its existence. I’m sick of finally finding male friends who appear to be, for lack of a better term, ‘enlightened’ and then [they] end up casually dropping misogynistic terms or comments, and sometimes they don’t even know they’re doing it. And when I call them out on it, they’ll either gaslight me, or they say they’ll take it on board, and end up dropping those terms or comments again. Truthfully, I am just fed up, and it’s getting harder and harder.”
Someone replies. “Oh my God, hard agree. The last male friend I had was casually misogynistic (called me emotional if I disagreed with him for one and got heated about misandry as if that even exists systematically). I no longer am open to male friends and for my own safety I will just assume they’re all bad until they prove otherwise. Obviously I’ll treat people with respect unless they disrespect me first, but I’m keeping them at an arm’s length. Considering the ratio of bad/mediocre men to good men I’ve encountered in my life, I have every right.”
Someone else adds “I have almost zero tolerance for this now. A close male friend who makes an inappropriate joke will get called out. Second offense they get cut. I am way too old and busy to have to teach adult humans how to behave.”
