|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Class solidarity is a phrase that has emerged from academic texts and entered social discourses. While I am careful with always theorising or conceptualising people’s actions or attributing them to some form of abstract, non-human mechanics, it is undeniable that theories have their place. They are simply processes for understanding our world better. What you name, you can address, and language is a core part of human development—so there’s that.
‘Class solidarity’ does describe something real and impressive in our society today, even when people, in their day-to-day lives, don’t pause to come to that realisation. It’s really social, but it can appear instinctual.
“Oh, they are dragging X? Don’t let me talk. He has the same material possessions as me. We’re the same. So people don’t focus on me too… or even if it’s my turn, so I can have other people who will defend me too.”
The phenomenon is neutral in itself, but its application is another matter thereof.
There is no instance in which class solidarity is more apparent than in men’s collective behaviours. I will not meander with highlighting examples of this. There is enough to base an academic research on, rather, there is (should I say novel?) a strain of such solidarity that became apparent to me in the last couple of days, where the debacle of a husband (Lawrence) arresting a troll over cyberbullying his wife (Omotara) played out on. . . you guessed right, Twitter: the 21st-century digital townsquare.
Now, there is a whole lot of context to this issue, and I am debating which is necessary to share. However, there is a pertinent context I must share: I am a feminist, and as such, I will analyse this issue in this article from a gender lens.
A woman is being mocked as a ‘barren’
There is no misogyny to ever misogyny-ed as the subject matter above; in fact, the most misogynistic strongholds of our culture have barrenness in arms.
Calling a woman barren is as primitive as it gets. Same tradition, different periods, diverse channels. As it was in the dark ages, so it is in our modern world. The issue might have metamorphosed into an internet-enabled stupidity or just base humans humaning, but that it stems from misogyny is indisputable.
Stay with me – this is not the culmination of my point.
So misogyny is as old as time, and without meaning to diminish the gravity of the issue, especially for the couple in question, I am the least surprised by it. It gets less shocking the more you are aware of it (or so it seems), no, what is uniquely befuddling to me is the man’s purported offence.
Men love to impugn worth to themselves:
- I am manly
- I am logical
- We used to build empires, we built the world, advanced civilisation
- Bla bla bla…
All such lofty, masculine ideals they appropriate, and chief of all, a code of brotherhood. I witnessed in real time how the husband in question was dragged (again, this is not to say he got more attacks than the wife), and I have been genuinely confused.
A woman being hated on, I “understand”, but where are the so-called values of respect and honour and nobility accorded to a fellow man? This is someone who you can arguably describe as one of them. I am not speaking to the extremity of his views, but he is obviously traditional-coded. He’s not your ‘timeline simp,’ he’s not a ‘woke bro’… all he’s been experiencing, to me, is reminiscent of a pick-me woman who has always cosplayed being one of the boys, until she went out of line and the guys turned on her.
Only in this case, a man is on the receiving end: misogyny-by-proxy.
His wife is detested so much so that “one of their own” is being ridiculed with almost as much vim.
Note: He is being what they say a man should be: protecting in honour of a good woman (his wife).
Again, this couple are not the poster figures for liberalism or Twitter activism, so what exactly is the cause for the witch-hunt?
However, an important lession is that social norms are not cast in stone, as we can evidently see, men set up and demolish these values at will.
I can bet all of my savings that we would be having a totally different conversation if women were at the centre of this drama.
Imagine if a woman called another woman barren? We would not hear the end of it about how women hate each other and how feminism is a farce.
He aggravated the attacks with the arrest.
It’s barely been three months since a male celebrity arrested a woman for calling him a rapist.
If a lady were the troll, the judgment on her would have been different; no, the man is being hounded for breaking ranks.
A man arrested another man, and other men are trolling him in response: not once has anyone called into question the nature of men or the quality of men’s relationships with one another.
Another lesson is that men are willing to punish and ostracise one of theirs to prove that they don’t call out an erring member in defence of a woman. Even when you’re married, they still expect the ‘brotherhood’ to take precedence.
While I acknowledge that such a punitive action may not translate well for women’s liberation, it bears mentioning that we should be more gracious, empathetic, and slow to condemn whenever a woman is in a difficult spotlight. But most importantly, we women must also learn class solidarity and project it in our endeavours.
