One of the big lessons, so we’re told, to come out of the events in Stuebenville, OH, where young girls were allegedly sexually assaulted by members of the local high school’s locally prestigious football team, was the failure of Men to get involved. Feminist activists throughout the nation implored people – Men especially – to step up and be counted, to intervene if and when such circumstances happen again to an unfortunate young lady.
Around the same time, highly regarded British actor Patrick Stewart – best known for his roles as Capt. Jean-Luc Picard and Prof. Charles Xavier – exhorted Men to join him in stopping domestic violence.
And here locally, in my hometown of Philly, Feminist activists have been stepping up their efforts to heighten awareness around the purported scourge of our age – “street harassment” – by specifically appealing to Men to once again, intervene in ways big and small, in an effort to curtail the boorish actions on the part of their putative brothers out on the streets.
None of these efforts are particularly new — Feminists of varying stripe have been at turns appealing or cajoling, shaming, demanding and guilt-tripping Men into doing the grunt work of making social change in our society a reality for at least four solid decades now. But what does seem to be different is that these “appeals” seem to be occurring with increasing frequency and urgency, and by all accounts, fewer Men are heeding the call. Make of that what you will – the result of living in a more atomized age, or the predictions coming to pass by many within what is known as the Manosphere, who have long argued that as our society becomes more Feminized on the one side, and more punitive of everyday actions of everyday Men on the other, more and more Men will simply “go their own way”. And to be sure, for the mainstream voices in the media, of which the Femisphere now plays an inextricable part, such predictions and analyses have been mocked and dismissed as the blatherings of a bunch of Male Losers in Life who can’t or won’t adapt to our more supposedly enlightened world.
And then came Charles Ramsey.
By now, you know the name well: Mr. Ramsey is the unkempt, middle aged African-American Man who literally set Ms. Amanda Berry free after a decade of allegedly being held against her will by Ariel Castro on May 6th of this year. By all accounts, the Feminists – and Patrick Stewart – should be proud of the actions of Mr. Ramsey, right?
Not quite. Within mere days of Mr. Ramsey’s truly heroic actions, he was being pilloried and dragged through the mud by the very same media that routinely writes off the Manosphere, many of whom consider themselves staunch Feminists, or at the very least, Feminist-friendly. Ramsey’s own criminal past was brought to light, along with other personal and, quite frankly, wholly irrelevant details about his life, that only served to make a mockery not just out of him, but of the entire notion of “Men doing the right thing”. By the time a week had passed since the Ariel Castro case had broken open (due to Mr. Ramsey’s actions) what remained of his good name lay in tatters, torn limb from limb by the Mindless Digital Mob – the same mob that has demolished innocent Men before – and by those who side themselves with the very same mainstream media outlets who led the charge in taking potshots at Ramsey.
Given all that he’s been through, one simply must ask: What’s In It For ME, as a Man, to “do the right thing”? What’s the incentive? What’s the payoff?
You may think posing such questions is beyond the pale, or at the very least selfish. Nevertheless, there ARE real costs to being what some in the Manosphere community refer to as a “White Knight” — intervening in an assault taking place on the street, may very well result in YOU being assaulted or worse. Ramsey intervening on behalf of Ms. Berry could have landed him on a coroner’s slab. For all we know, Mr. Castro could have been on the premises, and could have blown off Mr. Ramsey’s head with a shotgun. And for those demanding why those young boys didn’t “do something” in Stuebenville? Uh, have you seen teenage football players lately? We’re not exactly talking about 90lb. weaklings here. Add lots of hormones and alcohol to the mix, and you could very well find yourself in a world of hurt for trying to be Capt. Save-A-Fill-In-The-Blank. Simply put, the prospect of finding oneself in the midst of a fistfight – or even a knife or firefight – is very, very real if you’re a guy coming to the aid of a damsel in distress. As good as it might feel to do so, it might feel a heck of a lot worse as you lay there in the ICU.
Sure, go ahead and charge me with hyperbole – after all, Ramsey wasn’t shot. But his reputation was killed in the days following May 6th, ripped to shreds in every way imaginable, instead of being honored for what he truly was that day – nothing short of a hero.
Say what you will, but for all the flowery talk we Americans love to speak about “doing the right thing”, in the real world where mere mortals must make their existence, incentives drive behavior. And in an age where it has become more and more costly for Men to “do the right thing” it makes all the rational sense in the world as to why Men are slowly but surely, pulling back from such heroic deeds. What happened in the days following May 6th is not likely to encourage more Men to step into the breach, either – and on this note, the ladies should be afraid. Very, very afraid –
Because if, on top of the prospect of facing potentially lethal violence for intervening on behalf of a Woman whom you will not know and have no connection to (i.e. not your wife, girlfriend, female relative, etc.), you also have to face the very real likelihood of having all the nooks and crannies of your life scrutinized and perhaps made into fodder for the cheap yuks of the public – which include Women! – then, it makes perfect sense to me that you would balk.
I know I would.
Which is truly sad, because it appears that, even taking the Castro case into account, Cleveland has a Missing Woman Problem – and it needs all hands on deck in order to solve it.
But so long as Men like Ramsey continue to be made a laughing stock and tsked-tsked for actions that occurred more than a decade ago, that he’s paid his debt to society for and has by all accounts lived a law-abiding life since, then please count me out of the White Knight Brigade…
…for Mr. Charles Ramsey’s actions prove, yet again, that No Good Deed, Goes Unpunished.
Enjoy the harvest, ladies.
Now adjourn your arses…
The Obsidian
