Thanks - I've had some good conversations with him recently as well, and thought we had some good dialogue going on, but although I do believe he sincerely wants things to be better for women, my impression from other things I've read from him (in conjunction with this) is that he is quite defensive about women being angry at men (even though a part of him understands why they are). He keeps saying things that convey that we can't expect to go too far too fast, and that women need to be less angry and nicer. Up until now, I've been quite civil but also very clear about why this is not a reasonable request.

It's perfectly fine to hold a discussion over whether white people who ostensibly believe in equality are truly engaged in that as relates to everyone and not just them. But it is not OK to bring that up in the context of whether or not women have a right to feel hated by men, or to hate them/be angry at them. For the record, I don't think that most women really do hate men - they hate what they have to deal with at the hands of men - and that's something that I've conveyed to Tony before, but he's still emotionally poked at the thought that he might be part of a hated class even though he's trying to work for equality. The fact that he's making any of this related to women's experiences about him is another issue I have.

As we discussed yesterday (or whenever it was), these really are men's issues because these things are byproducts of masculine culture and a history of patriarchy. We need guys to be engaged in grappling with that and leading the way in getting other men on board with that. We need them to be taking responsibility for continuing to uphold these structures, whether intentionally or not - by action or inaction.

Redirecting the focus back to whether or not women are truly deserving of sympathy if they haven't acted "perfectly" is very clearly a way to keep from having to do the other work, which is a lot harder.