Accountability- Come Get Your Man

[Strange anxieties befall on me Thursdays . Read on for Part 2 to get some personal goss.

Alternatively phrased as "come collect your man" Urban dictionary defines "Come Get Your Man" as a phrase said "When someone is acting badly (racist/sexist/generally shitty) and people from the group that they belong to are called upon to keep them in check." While it's comedic colloquial use is common, I think the meaning behind it is important, calling the people in one's community to hold them accountable. I think of accountability a lot and what that phrase looks like and means in a modern context. When hoards of internet teenagers, and and right wing zealots form crazed shame mobs holding up digital pitchforks in order to cancel whoever is the problematic flavor of the week, be it Big Bird or the Billie Eilish filter on Tik Tok, they often are doing so under the guise of "holding people accountable". While I respect the sentiment, I think we veer more into something that resembles a Before Christ-style stoning rather than concretely finding ways to engage in conversations where people are forced to acknowledge the gravity of their wrong doings, admit fault, make amends, and move forward (either in growth or mending the relationships they've harmed).

However, one part of the accountability conversation that I think of particularly is the "hold men accountable" bit. And I find that often times this one is the hardest to carry out. For those of you who read Not Me Too, a story about how one man / Demogorgon's cruelty and usage of me led me to being diagnosed with a psychological disorder (the best greatest plot twist of that year). Looking back, in the moment, I think I struggled to to hold them accountable. I struggled to understand what accountability looked like for repeated purposeful and careless wrongdoings and abuses because it did not line up with that I thought I knew of this person, what they had said about themselves, and because of my unfamiliarity with this kind of behavior. Yes, I'd stand up for myself(something that no woman should really have to do in a relationship, if ya think about it and the power dynamic that requires) , have conversations, accept what "seemed" like real apologies. But when the actions kept happening, I realized that the apologies I essentially asked for were not really a sign of accountability. I don't think I really held him accountable either, either because I fell in to a believing his weaponized incompetence, excessive empathy for dysfunction and trauma , or just love and a desire to make things better.

In real life, holding men accountable is VERY hard. It's easy to spew phrases like this at feminist rallies surrounded by women in pussy hats. But why is it so hard when presented with a real-life actual man? How do you hold your partner, your brother, your best friend, cousin, scene partner etc accountable? And the harder question is, do you really want to? While I'm not a fan of blaming women for men's actions. As I stated in Not Me Too, society has a funny way of judging women for men's actions and shaming women for their reactions rather than the actions of that man. I think we can take a look at some of the forces that cripple our ability to come get our mens.

Moral Police - Not My circus , Not my monkeys

Not my circus, not my monkies. In the time in which my brain has been made into alphabet soup (this is how I satisfy my millennial need to induce humor to make palatable a debilitating psychological disorder), I've talked to many friends about what they would do or say in my position. I have been met with several questions such as "Why didn't you leave" "How could he do these things to you/why would you want to be with someone who did these things" . In some ways these can feel like light judgments of me, their judgments of the then partner is almost a judgment on my ability to choose. But in other ways, this is how they hold me accountable, asking me to evaluate how and why I made the choices I made and not allowing me slide by with answers that allow me to feel comfortable. They push me to discomfort , push for such a deep analysis of self, relational patterns, attitudes about men, myself, love etc, that it is challenging. But in many ways, this is the deepest form of love. Even if it drives me to uncomfortable conclusions and revelations, questioning me without blame or judgment, but loving inquiry and challenge, is accountability. They help call attention to my own attitudes and point out the flaws, limitations, and misgivings that allowed me to stay in situation where I was regularly being harmed ). They force me to hold a mirror to myself.

Many people are uncomfortable doing this. It is uncomfortable to hold that mirror up. Who gave you the right? It is hard to cultivate a space in which we can encourage our friends to deeply analyze themselves without fear of being called judgmental or overstepping our bounds. Many of us will see it as not our place to step in and question someone's behavior, pushing for real answers. Not my Circus , not my monkeys. Sometimes when we see our friends engaging in harmful behavior, we mind our own business , allowing them to continue their destructive patterns, sometimes ignoring it if it doesn't impact us or even hurt the person directly. And in that case, we would rather maintain comfort than have to confront or engage with unfavorable truths about people we love. And it is human to want to do that. A duality of people we love, that finds both good and harmfulness as features, particularly men, is one that causes so much dissonance, that it is easier to reject the parts that would have us call in to question the people we love and trust. We want to maintain the images and relationships we have of them, unphased by the more uncouth parts of who they are. We love these people. We want to protect them, including our images of them, not hold them accountable.

"You must be mistaken. My ___ would Never"

If you've watched HBO's Barry, you know it follows a hitman turned aspiring actor trying to forge a new path in life. Barry has to be one of my favorite shows on network because it refuses to give the main character the simple and easy redemption arc he so desires. He gets the girl he wants, forms community and friendships for the first time in years, finds a passion that he loves. And yet, despite the public face he's able to wear, his darkness and destructiveness are never far from the surface. As a viewer, the writers never give us the chance to fully root for Barry, always reminding us that who he is on the inside is not who we want to see him as. In Season 2 and 3 , we see heavy regressions that see Barry making the exact sort of destructive choices that he claims to want to change.

Spoilers : He's aware of his harmfulness, but continues anyways, in order to prioritize his comfort. He destroys the life of his acting teacher by murdering his girlfriend/detective once she gets close to realizing that Barry is a murderer. He murders his army friend who has forged a new life for himself , finding a wife, becoming a father, out of pure self-preservation. He is afraid to be exposed and face REAL accountability for what he's done and murders people simply to protect himself and the life that he wants. And yet despite all this, we somehow want to keep rooting for Barry although his actions are just as cruel, violent, and destructive.

He hasn't actually demonstrated enough meaningful change. Despite feeling bad about it, he is still a cold-blooded killer who has destroyed countless lives. Yet, we want to see him as just a guy that's down on his luck and going through some challenges. We minimize the violent, warped psyche of him in order to maintain our love for his character. And we do this in real life all the time. If we can't hold a fictional man accountable, we're doomed when it comes to the real ones.

Many of us, myself included, struggle with this. As someone who grew up in a household , that I could easily undoubtedly label as abusive (in our cultural verbal and emotional abuse are staples of child-rearing), I struggle to do this, knowing that this term could hurt someone who holds this duality within them serving as both loving parent and abusive parent. It's hard to struggle with both, and so I understand how sometimes we reject the parts of them we find hard to swallow.

"My Brock would never. My OJ would never. My Ted Would Never". Not to compare most men to serial killers or rapists, but the point is that people who loved even the worst of men struggle to come to terms with the dual realities of the person they knew and their harmful behaviors and thus, could never hold them accountable. And stretching a bit here, but the extremes in harmfulness towards women start somewhere. Men will tell on themselves in mundane behaviors you may witness routinely. If you pay attention, they will reveal their attitudes towards women - perhaps the frequency in which they call women, crazy, anxious, emotional. Perhaps it's in their own weaponized incompetence which enables all women in their life to pick up the mantle for the labor emotionally and otherwise. These are small fragments of the patriarchy stuck in their teeth.

But it is hard to accept without ruining our conception of those we love. I know this well. But, good people can be bad people, can do bad things. The good guy that we root for, a la Barry, is also the bad guy. But we have to be honest with ourselves and the people we love if we ever hope to help them change. While many men are incompetent, and often purposefully so (I have a big piece in the works about how weaponized incompetence is a staple of the patriarchy next week) , we do no favors to ourselves, to society, to men, to women to continue to coddle men like little bitch babies offering unbridled empathy in the face of their wrongdoing.

Stay Tuned for Part 2

Pt 2 Coming Soon