Happy International Women’s Day! I am sharing a bonus blog post today with some exciting news!
I AM SELLING BUTTONS! – When “#notallmen” was trending on Twitter, I became alarmed and frustrated at the number of individuals who’d rather stay complacent in a patriarchal society that is damaging to women than rise against that. After reading several of these tweets, the simple phrase, and fitting response “Not all men, but definitely you” came into my mind and I loved it.
One afternoon, I was sharing this thought with family and nonchalantly stated, “I want those words on a button.” My brother Eli kind of chuckled and said he would design it and we could get it for ourselves. The more I shared the idea, the more people loved it. We decided to start selling them.
The phrase Not All Men does absolutely nothing to further the conversation or validate the women who have been victims of violence and sexual crimes. It shuts it down. When a woman bravely shares her story, this cannot be a man’s opportunity to demand praise for not physically hurting or assaulting women. We are setting the bar really low if that is all we expect from men. Declaring that not all men commit these crimes is an irritating detraction that robs the conversation of potential solutions.
According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 1 in 5 women will be raped within their lifetime. In eight out of ten cases the victim knew their abuser.¹
The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence reports that 1 in 4 women experience “severe intimate partner physical violence, intimate partner contact sexual violence, and/or intimate partner stalking with impacts such as injury, fearfulness, post-traumatic stress disorder, use of victim services, contraction of sexually transmitted diseases, etc.”²
So yes, we KNOW that not all men are responsible for this; not all men are violent; not all men are rapists. This is not the point, though. Not all men, but enough men. And guys, if you are willing to stand by and ignore these problems or disregard those statements, YOU are part of the problem. It cannot be just women fighting these problems. Speak up, guys. We need ya! We need male voices to join the conversation, be the odd one out, challenge sexist ideas. Your comfort is not more important than my sisters and my safety.
Are you interested in supporting these ideas? We are selling the buttons for $2 each or $3 for both colors! If you are interested in purchasing a button please contact me via email (abusybeas@gmail.com)
Sources :
¹https://ncadv.org/statistics
²https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc_factsheet_media-packet_statistics-about-sexual-violence_0.pdf