You are steeped in masculine culture and masculine socialization. Even if you have never done a single thing wrong (highly unlikely) you have supported and maintained and allowed other men to do that. That makes you complicit - unless you are actively calling out other men, never laughing at misogynistic jokes, never watching dehumanizing or violent porn, never rating women's bodies, never disbelieving victim's stories out of hand, etc., etc., etc.
You are NOT an individual separate from your culture. You are NOT an island that stands alone. 90% of violence is perpetrated by men acting out mainstream norms of masculinity. They aren't aliens from another planet, they aren't "bad apples" - they are your friends, and your bothers, and your fathers, and your neighbors, and your teammates, and your uncles behaving on a continuum of how they have been taught to behave in this culture. Some are at the more extreme end of the continuum, but it’s still on the same scale.
Don't bring other cultures into this as a deflection. You either grapple with how normal masculine norms hurt women - and literally everyone else - including most men, or you stick your head in the sand and participate in the continuation of the harm and the madness. Stand up and help become part of the solution or continue whining "I didn't do it" when that IS very much a part of the problem - you haven't done anything to interrupt the madness.
Masculinity, then, becomes not only about what boys do say, but about what they don’t—or won’t, or can’t—even when they wish they could. It blocks them from considering women’s points of view, hardens them against compassion. Psychologist Michael Thompson has pointed out that silence in the face of cruelty or sexism is how boys become men. Charis Denison, a youth advocate and sex educator in the Bay Area, put it another way: “At one time or another, every young man will get a letter of admission to ‘dick school.’ The question is, will he drop out, graduate, or go for an advanced degree?”
Orenstein, Peggy. Boys & Sex (p. 34). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
Men’s violence against women is a pervasive social phenomenon with deep roots in existing personal, social, and institutional arrangements. In order for people to understand and ultimately work together to prevent it, it is first necessary for them to engage in a great deal of personal and collective introspection. This introspection can be especially threatening to men, because as perpetrators and bystanders, they are responsible for the bulk of the problem.
Katz, Jackson. The Macho Paradox (p. 24). Sourcebooks. Kindle Edition.
