This election has sent a lot of us in the middle and on the left reeling. It’s also reminded me that we have different things at stake.
Nearly 60% percent of white men voted Trump. A lot of Black and Brown men moved in that direction too.
This year’s election results do not bode well for women or LGBTQ people of all races/ethnicities. Straight white men are going to be OK. Their bodies, marriages and rights were not on the ballot. And it’s not like they’ve ever particularly risked themselves for the rest of us anyway. They’ve always been able to hide behind their straight white privilege and avoid the risks and consequences others of us faced simply by walking into the room in the bodies we inhabit.
Susan Shaw
This piece, however, isn’t really about the 60% of white men who voted for Trump. It’s about the long, long history of progressive white Christian men who put little to nothing on the line to challenge misogyny, homophobia and racism even as they benefitted from their own whiteness, maleness and complicity with systems of sexism and racism.
In the Bible
Once, religious men brought a woman accused of adultery to Jesus, asking if she should be stoned as the law commanded. Jesus responded that the man without sin should be the one to throw the first stone. One by one, the accusers slinked away. One feminist interpreter reads this passage to argue Jesus is demonstrating his solidarity with the woman by demanding men stop proclaiming their own innocence in relation to women and instead join him in his countercultural mission of justice for all people. Rather than worrying about saving face in front of the bros, Jesus chose to side with the woman and challenged the other men to do the same.
“Rather than worrying about saving face in front of the bros, Jesus chose to side with the woman and challenged the other men to do the same.”
It’s time for progressive white Christian men to stop proclaiming themselves the good guys and declaring their innocence in relation to the everyday misogyny, racism, homophobia and transphobia many of us live with day in and day out. It’s time for progressive white Christian men to recognize their own complicity with these systems that have benefitted them even as they have harmed so many of the rest of us.
How many progressive white Christian men have been part of so-called locker room talk or at least haven’t disrupted it when other men around them have engaged in degrading women? How many have called boys “girls” to demean them into toughening up, playing harder, winning a game? How many have smirked at effeminate men or suggested lesbians just need a good man? How many have denounced abortion when they don’t ever have to worry about getting pregnant? How many have rolled their eyes about pronouns and “angry feminists” — like me?
Meanwhile, white men, including the progressive ones, more than any other group have profited from the identity politics that offer as a birthright to white men dominance over the rest of us. They get the best jobs, like, say, that of president of the United States. No one questions their right to be a pastor. They don’t have to walk to their cars at night, keys in hand to stave off an attack. They don’t have to worry their blind date might rape and kill them. And best of all, they don’t even have to know that they don’t have to worry about these things. They just get to assume this is the way the world is because, for them, it is.
Certainly, poor and working class white men do not benefit in the same way from their white maleness. Yet rather than identifying with and working in solidarity with women, queer folks and people of color, most still choose to identify with white male power, even as it oppresses them, because it still allows them power over women, queer folks and people of color.
“Donald Trump may not care about them, and his policies certainly will not help them, but he represents what they could and do aspire to be — powerful.”
Donald Trump may not care about them, and his policies certainly will not help them, but he represents what they could and do aspire to be — powerful. So they cling to their whiteness and maleness like a life preserver and lean into it to save them because, at least then, they are not women or queer or Black or brown.
At church
White men in church leadership have, in particular, been complicit with systems of oppression that reward whiteness and maleness. How many white men in church leadership have kept quiet about women’s issues or LGBTQ rights or police killings of Black people because they were afraid they’d lose their jobs or their standing?
How many turned a blind eye to the sexual abuse going on in their denomination and congregations because they didn’t take the accusations seriously or they worried more about the institution of the church than the people harmed by abusers?
How many never even considered that perhaps they got their jobs because of their gender and race and sexuality when equally or more qualified women, people of color and LGBTQ people never stood a chance at those positions?
Once a rich man came to Jesus asking what he needed to do to have eternal life. He told Jesus he’d always kept all the commandments. Jesus told him he needed to do only one thing — go and sell everything he had and give it to the poor. The man was shocked and went away grieving because he had many possessions.
It’s time for white Christian men to hear this story and realize they are the man in the story seeking to justify himself.
Following Jesus is costly.
It’s not enough to say you support women or people of color or LGBTQ people. Words without actions are nothing.
It’s time for progressive white Christian men to put something on the line.
What you can do
If progressive white Christian men really want to support minoritized and oppressed people in this moment, they need to do something about it, like . . .
Drive a woman across state lines to access abortion services she needs and can’t get in your state.
Go protest with every social justice movement you can find — but don’t try to go be a leader in everyone else’s movement. Take a back seat for a change. And don’t ask for gratitude or acknowledgement. Just do it because it’s the right thing to do. Part of white maleness is an unexamined sense of being on center. Don’t make this work about you. Learn to do the grunt work so other folks can lead in their own liberation.
“Don’t make this work about you. Learn to do the grunt work so other folks can lead in their own liberation.”
Call your local Planned Parenthood office and ask what you can do. Ditto PFLAG, the NAACP, the Urban League, GLAAD and a host of other organizations fighting for human rights and dignity for all of us. And give them money, as much money as you can.
Intervene when you hear something demeaning and harmful. Don’t just be a bro. Don’t worry about your dignity or your masculinity. If it’s your boss, your pastor, your father-in-law, your hunting-buddies, your former football teammates, speak up. If you don’t, you’re part of the problem.
Yes, I know it’s hard. It’s risky. There are things to be lost. The fact that you can choose whether to risk it or not is an indication of your privilege.
Why you should be angry too
If you’ve read this far, I’m sure you may be thinking I’m just another angry feminist. Yes, yes I am.
I’m angry because white Christian men have not shown up for women, queer folks and people of color.
I’m angry because so many white Christian men would still rather have an adjudicated rapist than a Black and brown woman in the White House.
I’m angry because my entire career has been consumed with arguing about my right to be who I am, where I am, doing what I am.
I’m angry because my women and queer and trans and Black and brown students are terrified right now about what may happen to them in the next four years.
I’m angry because so many progressive white Christian men kept silent while it all happened, used their whiteness and maleness to their advantage, and maybe even went into that voting booth secretly and a little ashamed and voted for a man who has promised to deport immigrants, “protect” women whether we “want it or not,” target trans people and turn our country into an autocracy.
“Even if you didn’t vote for Trump, I want to know, what have you done?”
Even if you didn’t vote for Trump, I want to know, what have you done? What have you risked? What will the next four years cost you on behalf of women, queer folks and people of color?
I know every time a feminist goes on a rant like this, someone inevitably shouts, “hashtag not all men.” What’s the point of that but to deny women their anger and protect men’s complicity?
I get the inclination to want to say, “But, wait, I’m one of the good ones.”
I think that myself every time I find myself in spaces where Black and brown women are calling out white women for our betrayals. But I’ve learned across my long career in women and gender studies that the right response is to listen to the anger, to learn from it, to examine what I have and have not done, and to take action to educate myself and work in solidarity across differences.
Black lesbian feminist poet and essayist Audre Lorde understood our silence will not save us. For her, the choice was to be fearful in silence or to be fearful in speaking out:
when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid
So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.
So, white Christian men, time’s up. What are you going to do? It’s time to get some skin in the game.
Susan M. Shaw is professor of women, gender and sexuality studies at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Ore. She also is an ordained Baptist minister and holds master’s and doctoral degrees from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Her most recent book is Intersectional Theology: An Introductory Guide, co-authored with Grace Ji-Sun Kim.
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