Refusing the Victim Role

A Conversation between David Shackleton and Janice Fiamengo

I met David Shackleton about 10 years ago when I wrote a promotional blurb for his book The Hand That Rocks the World,​ a comprehensive analysis of gender dynamics. David has been involved with men's issues advocacy since the late 1980s, long before most people were aware of feminism's impacts on men. He edited the magazine Everyman: A Men's Journal,​ organized conferences, and ran the Ottawa-based Canadian Centre for Men and Families. From the first, David and I talked a lot about the psychology of effective advocacy, not only what works in the world but particularly what works for the individual advocate, how to stay sane and not be consumed by anger or hatred. Recently, we revisited that conversation in an extended email exchange, the first section reproduced here.

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Janice F: David, thank you for agreeing to have this dialogue.

I’ll start with a few general questions that you can take in any direction you want. 

You’ve been involved in the men’s issues movement from early days, back in the later 1980s when you began organizing  workshops and editing your magazine. It’s fair to say that, long before ‘the Red Pill’ became a shorthand for awareness of gender relations, you were seeing men and women with new eyes. 

Do you think that our society, by which I mean, in general, North American society, has changed much since your awakening to men’s situation over 30 years ago? Are things better, worse, or much the same for men? Are they better, worse, or much the same for men’s advocates?

David S: Janice, thank you for inviting me into this dialogue.

I became aware of and active in men’s issues in the late eighties, as you say. I have seen the movement go through various stages, which we can talk about if it seems to be of interest.  On the whole, I would say the trend has been negative; things have trended worse over the years on most dimensions one could name, for men in general as well as for men’s advocates.  On the broader front of identity politics, I think the trend has been the same.  In seeking to understand this, I will begin this dialogue by exploring one relatively unexamined aspect of social movement psychology.

In the late 1980s when I first became interested in men’s issues, I attended a number of men’s retreats.  At that time, a large number of gay men were part of the general men’s movement; they hadn’t yet joined the fledgling lesbian, gay and bisexual movement.  While there were some tensions from the mix of gay and straight men, I felt that the mix added strength to the movement, and their presence certainly enlivened the activities with flamboyant explorations of culture and sexuality.

Within a few years, however, the gay men left the general men’s movement and joined with the lesbian, gay and bisexual movement of the time (this was before the LGBTQ… acronym became common), and shifted their orientation to that of a victim group. It is this shift that I want to unpack and explore here, in search of insight into the nature of identity politics in general and the reason for the negative trends I described above.

What is the effect of identifying as a victim?  There are two that I think are significant.  The first is that you feel morally superior to the designated perpetrator group, the ones you identify as the victimizers.  You are clearly morally superior, because you are innocent and they are guilty.  This creates an “us and them” dichotomy, a moral inequality in your mind.

The second effect is that you feel unjustly deprived and therefore owed.  As long as you feel victimized, you will feel resentful of those you feel are unjustly advantaged, benefitting from what they stole from you.

Together, these effects create an ugly state of mind, a perpetual resentment and bitter anger directed at the designated oppressors and at the system that you believe protects them and keeps them in power over you.  This is indeed exactly what we see in identity politics; the moral superiority leads to self-righteousness and the resentment leads to perpetual calls for more retribution, more compensation, more programs to “level” the playing field and redistribute advantage.

This is not an argument that there are no victims and no oppression. These things exist, and calling for society to correct them, as much as possible, is completely legitimate.  It is an argument that identifying as a victim, individually or collectively, is inherently unhealthy and bad for you in multiple ways.

So what is the alternative?  It is contained in the statement, “It’s not your fault, but it IS your responsibility.”  All of the disadvantages that you started with are not your fault.  You are a victim, in that respect.  But they are your responsibility, no one else’s.  Set  yourself to overcoming them.  Think carefully about what you want to achieve, and then persevere.  Perseverance is what makes the difference.

For me, I had a seriously abusive mother and a weak father who couldn’t stand up to her.  It took me two failed marriages as a young man and a great deal of self-examination before I recovered from that poor start.  But there was a blessing in it.  When my first wife left me, saying she was afraid I would be violent, I discovered feminism – and I knew its story of powerful men and victimized women was wrong, or at least incomplete, because my childhood experience had been the opposite. That was what started me on my journey into men’s issues, a journey that has created the deepest meaning in my life.  If we take responsibility, we find blessings even in the ways that we were victimized.

When I need inspiration, I think of Helen Keller.  Born blind as well as deaf, it is hard to imagine a worse start to life.  Can you imagine how much perseverance it took her to learn to speak and write English when all she had to communicate with was touch?  But Helen wrote books.  Despite such a poor start, she found a way to contribute to the world, to give something back.  She took responsibility for her situation.  It wasn’t her fault, but she made it her responsibility.

This is what is wrong with identity politics and with feminism in particular.  It refuses to take responsibility.  It is easier to blame men and Western civilization, to claim systemic racism for failure to succeed.  But it is utterly dysfunctional, it is a poison pill that one consumes in place of responsibility, and even if you succeed in life, you are left feeling angry and resentful.

How should those of us who see the problems of feminism and identity politics proceed?  What should we do?  My answer is the same as Jordan Peterson’s.  Take responsibility.  Look carefully at your own life, choose what you want to achieve, how you wish to contribute, and set about it.  Persevere.

Above all, don’t fall into the victim trap. MRAs are angry and resentful at the way that feminism denigrates men and destroys their lives. It’s true, they’re right, but going to victimhood about it just undermines your own life, your own psychological health. Decide if you want to engage with feminism, with identity politics, and if you do, do it from responsibility. Feminism isn’t your fault, but it is your responsibility.  What will you do about it?  What is your vision?  How will you move towards it?  Persevere.

Well, that was a surprise.  I didn’t set out to write a sermon, but that’s what I seem to have done.  You invited me, Janice, to take it “in any direction I want.”  There is lots more I could say, but back to you.

Janice F: Wow, there’s a lot here to respond to.

I agree with you about the self-corroding dangers of the victim mentality, the way it eats out self-respect and the ability to be accountable for one’s life. We’re certainly on the same page there, though with some caveats (more on those later).

As a side note, victimhood tends not to be politically useful for men. Some years ago, a female professor of English studies whom I knew well by reputation, Dr. Avital Ronell, was publicly accused of sexual harassment by one of her male graduate students. His story of her emotional and sexual exploitation of him—by turns needy and controlling, flirtatious and threatening—included phoning him at all hours of the day and night, coercing him to flatter her and allow her to touch him, and threatening him that if he resisted or broke off their relationship, she would make sure he never had a career in academia, was quite astounding. If it had been a male professor doing it to a young woman, no one would have doubted that it was textbook sexual misconduct for which the professor would almost certainly have been fired from his position, and rightly so.

The response to Ronell, however, when it wasn’t a big collective yawn, was a rallying of feminist professors, including the doyenne of gender studies, Professor Judith Butler, to allege in a public letter that Ronell couldn’t possibly have done what she was being accused of doing, and shouldn’t be punished for it. In the end, Ronell was suspended from her institution for the academic year, but returned to teaching the following year. It never would have happened that way with a male professor.

As men’s advocates have been pointing out for years, almost nobody—not even many anti-feminist men—can bring themselves to care much, or rally around, men who have been abused, whether by individual women or by the family court system.

The advice to take responsibility for one’s life is sometimes difficult to distinguish from the demand for resignation, though I don’t think you mean it that way. We both know men who have struggled for years under outrageous injustice, fighting in court to be able to father their children, forced into penury by unjust rulings, denied the capacity to pursue their career dreams by a false accusation at college, fired from their jobs due to flimsy allegations never properly investigated. These things are not their responsibility. Would you not agree that to ask them not to be angry about it, not to believe themselves victimized, is in a way to diminish the enormity of what has been done to them, completely beyond their control and their ability to rectify?

The Helen Keller example is a good one. Keller seems not to have spent much time on self-pity in her life, for which she is rightly admired. But Keller had people around who recognized the significant disadvantages she labored under, sympathized with her, and sought to help her succeed. Imagine if, rather than that, she had been surrounded by people who did not recognize her disabilities, instead jeering at her for her failure to speak or read, telling her that it was her own fault. It’s doubtful that she would have been able to defy them. That’s what it feels like, I assume, for many men in today’s world.

Men’s problems today are not just personal, though they are certainly felt on a personal level. They are also, to use that tiresome word, systemic and fully enculturated. Men literally experience taxation without representation, paying disproportionately into a system that sees them, when it sees them at all, as perpetrators of injustice. Most people not only don’t recognize male disadvantages but jeer at any man who tries to point them out, berating him for his alleged misogyny. “Cry me a river, white boy,” as some of my grad student friends used to sneer.

I know young men who find the call to take responsibility a bitter joke. They have avidly followed Jordan Peterson’s advice: improved themselves, worked on perfecting their skills, worked out at the gym, conducted themselves well—and still they find themselves in a society that believes they should have to suffer in their own prospects and experiences in atonement for the alleged sins of their fathers.

One young man recently emailed me about having to sit through a formal workshop at his school on trauma-informed workplace practices, in which—surprise, surprise—the trauma was assumed to be experienced by women, and those responsible for the trauma were male. The message he was being given was stark: you are by your nature someone who causes women harm even if you haven’t done anything specific to hurt a woman; and you will have to make recompense for that throughout your life. Some or many men can shake it off; some can’t.

Some young men have accepted the gloomy possibility that they’ll never have a sexual relationship. Some men married and had children only to lose both. Some have decided to check out of society that evidently prefers women.

Are we not holding men to a far higher standard than we hold women in expecting them to take responsibility and not succumb to anger or—yes—self-pity? It is noteworthy, I think, that Jordan Peterson doesn’t tend to advise women to clean their rooms or be accountable. He rarely, if ever, speaks of what women owe to their society or specifically to men. He doesn’t tell women that if no one wants to marry them, it’s probably their fault. Isn’t there a distinction to be made between those who falsely believe they have been victimized—stolen from and therefore owed—and those who really have been stolen from and are owed? Is it not worth hammering away at that distinction, as some men’s advocates do?

I admit it. I do want reparation for men. I do want recognition of how men’s labor, tax money, good will, stoicism, and fair-mindedness have been misappropriated. I do want victimized men to be able to stand up and say “I was victimized! I am owed!” Am I wrong?

David S: What a delight it is, Janice, to dialogue with someone who is passionate but also reasonable rather than ideological.

I, too, want victimized men to be able to stand up and say, “I was victimized! I am owed!” And, in fact, such men can do that if they choose. But what do we advise? Is it wise for men to stand up and speak thus? Because, as you point out, the response from society is likely to be negative, shaming or worse.

However, if you mean that you want the response from society to be other than it is, to be positive and affirming – well, we are not there yet, and wanting that to be true right here and now is wanting something impossible, wanting reality to be other than it is, like wanting water not to be wet. I assume we both agree that that isn’t healthy, that psychological health is founded on accepting reality as it is, while holding a vision for the future. Working to make that vision a reality in the future is indeed healthy, provided that one does it well. But what does it mean to do it well? It’s a question I have wrestled with for thirty years. I have an answer that satisfies me, and I will attempt to describe it.

First let me acknowledge the truth of what you describe – the depth and scope of the prejudice against men and in favor of women. The injustice that men face is so severe in some cases that it wrecks their lives, destroys their hopes and dreams, usurps their legitimate roles, and trashes their reputations. That is the playing field; that is where we are now. Whatever we advise must be situated against that background. I take that as the context of your question to me; “Would you not agree that to ask them not to be angry about it, not to believe themselves victimized, is in a way to diminish the enormity of what has been done to them, completely beyond their control and their personal ability to rectify?”

I don’t ask either of those things. I don’t ask them not to be angry about it and I don’t ask them not to believe themselves victimized. They were victimized. I want them to feel the full enormity of what has been done to them. I ask them to work through their legitimate anger and not to take a victim identity.

Let me explain. The way that human beings come to terms with an undesired reality is through grief. Grieving is the process of letting go of our expectations about reality. If we imagined that a father or mother would continue in our lives, and then they die, then grieving is how we let go of that imagined future. It’s painful because the future we imagined was dear to us and letting it go means installing a diminished view of our future. Accepting such a loss hurts. But it’s the only healthy thing to do, because it (re)connects us to reality, while not grieving leaves us insulated from reality, which leads to pathologies.

Perhaps a personal story will illustrate what I mean. In late 2019, I was working as Executive Director of a men’s centre. A conflict arose between the national ED and the chair of the board, and the organization lined up behind the ED. The result was a kind of moral polarization in the organization, a demonizing of the chair and a valorizing of the ED. I spoke up about this, attempting to draw attention to the polarization and how it was damaging the organization. About April of 2020, I realized that the organization probably wasn’t going to hear me, that I was being judged as “toxic,” etc. myself. I was faced with a decision; continue speaking up and probably eventually be fired, or back down. I chose to continue to speak, largely for the sake of my own integrity and the learning that would come from enduring the process. As a result, for the next month I found myself grieving deeply the loss of my hopes and dreams for that organization and my role in it. I would go into the back office in the Centre and weep, sometimes for hours. If someone came, or if I needed to make phone calls or attend a meeting, I would wipe my eyes and come out and do the business. Grief, when it is welcomed and given space, is entirely manageable; it is only when it is repressed that it intrudes itself into other activities as involuntary anger or tears.

After about a month the grief subsided; the task was largely finished – I had let go of my attachment to a false personal future and a false picture of that organization. The men’s organization did indeed fire me, in October of that year, and I felt no anger and no sense of loss at that time – the grieving I had done in advance of the loss had reconciled me to that outcome.

This is the process that I recommend for men’s advocates. First, make a careful, conscious decision – do you want to advocate in the prejudiced environment of today? If you decide yes, then anticipate that you will often be misjudged and persecuted, and choose to welcome the anger and grief that is the appropriate, human response to that. But remember, anger and grief are for personal processing, not public politics. The injustice is real; you have a right to your anger, but not to inflict it upon others. If you find yourself becoming angry or resentful in your advocacy, acknowledge what is happening and apologize for it to those you were interacting with. Create personal, private space (alone or with trusted others) to revisit your decision (do you still want to do this?) and to continue processing your grief.

I have one more of your questions to answer, Janice. Am I holding men to a higher standard than women in offering this advice? I don’t think so. It’s just that I talk to men about these things much more than to women. I think that feminism is so dysfunctional because women didn’t follow this advice, because they went to a polarized, false-to-fact victim identity rather than pursuing healthy advocacy, and I speak just as plainly to women when I have an opportunity. In my first book, The Hand That Rocks the World, I included a chapter near the end entitled “A Message to Women.” In it, I wrote,

“Women must come to acknowledge that their first major foray into public policy, into practical politics [feminism], has been a disaster. It has been founded on lies and propagated through intimidation using a power that most women don’t consciously realize they possess. It has done and is still doing immense harm. It is ideologically evil. I know that it is harder for women to acknowledge such responsibility than it is for men, for women’s codependent moral power is built on a foundation of innocence. Acknowledging this responsibility means giving up moral power, moral superiority, and embracing guilt for a time. It will hurt a lot.” [p.307]

But whether or not I, or Jordan Peterson, are gender balanced in the advice we offer is of lesser import than whether the advice is good. And on this question, it seems to me that whether or not a man, or a woman, is leaning towards victimhood, what they need to hear, after the truth of their victimhood has been acknowledged, is a message of accountability; what they can do to make the best of their personal situation and, if they choose, their advocacy. The most succinct expression of that accountability that I know is to take responsibility for the world as it is the way a parent takes responsibility for the raising of their child – after all, it’s your work environment. Such a message needs to be well grounded in an accurate understanding of human nature so that it encourages the expression and resolution of grief and anger rather than their suppression or, worse, their employment as advocacy fuel. That is what I endeavor to do, both because it reduces frustration and leads to peace for the individual concerned and because I think it results in advocacy that is as powerful and effective as it can possibly be.

What do you think, Janice? It seems to me that this is pretty much how you do your own advocacy. Am I wrong?

Janice F: That was a good answer; I can’t disagree with it. Your point about the key discrepancy between wanting the world to acknowledge men’s victimization, and accepting the reality that men’s suffering is ignored or even cheered on, is irrefutable. It’s so difficult! Though I’ve witnessed the unfairness with my own eyes for many years, I seem to have a bottomless capacity to be shocked by it.

I agree also that rage and sorrow, though perfectly justified for many men—those who, through no fault of their own, have lost their reputations, health, livelihoods, and family as a result of false accusations and unjust laws—are best dealt with in private, away from public view. Men who vent are easily dismissed or stigmatized as dangerous, deserving of contempt and even surveillance and further punishment.

Women, on the other hand, have been venting and acting out for decades to general public sympathy and applause. Could the feminist movement have been any more successful? Feminists can advocate for the extermination of men or a radical reduction in male numbers, can boast about their elation at violence against men, and can advocate collective vigilantism without much pushback, and without the movement as a whole being tarnished. When I point out to pro-feminist advocates how many feminist leaders—not unhinged nobodies on the internet, but recognized leaders—have openly expressed female supremacism and anti-male hatred, it’s obvious that they don’t care and don’t have to. Women can get away with saying (and doing) nearly anything in the sacred cause of women’s rights and wrongs.

On that point, I’m not sure I do practice the ideal you’ve outlined. I’m often sarcastic and cutting in my comments. I’m not restrained or balanced. My sympathies are almost entirely with men as a group, and I feel disgust and dismay at the attitude of many women today (not all, of course—there are individual women whom I love and admire). I write mainly for men, to hearten them and support them. I write to bolster their arguments, to strengthen their certainties, to stiffen their backbones, if needed, and to validate their hunches. I enjoy that, including—I will admit—the digs I get in about the rhetoric of the damsel in distress, the false claims women continually make about how difficult women’s lives are. I do not advocate violence or express hatred, but I think women’s status as above criticism should be demolished.

And I’ve been able to get away with that because I am a woman and am not so easy to attack as a man. Whereas a man would be accused of misogyny, I am called a ‘pick-me’ or a self-hater, either over-eager to find favor with or a victim of internalized misogyny. Either way, the charge is hardly as damning as what gets lobbed at men who speak on behalf of men.

I appreciate your mentioning that men are better able than women to acknowledge responsibility for evil or wrongdoing. It’s one of the things I admire in the men’s movement generally, that no one tries to claim that there aren’t men who do wrong; no one tries to excuse male violence, as feminists continually excuse or deny women’s wrongdoing and violence. Society has never doubted the shadow side of masculinity, and men have had to learn self-control and rationality.  

But then the big question is: are those things enough)? I often hear grumblings in the men’s movement (not that it’s a single movement) that all of our best arguments, our rational rebuttals, our sympathetic acknowledgements of women’s issues, our citing of statistics and marshaling of stories, haven’t seemed to matter much. There is no more empathy for men’s situation in the public sphere at all—if anything, it seems that public discussions are even harsher, that men are blamed more (for not marrying, for example, for staying in their mothers’ basements, for watching pornography rather than trying to have a relationship, for not stepping up enthusiastically enough to create equity) and that a wider range of male behaviors (with terms like coercive control) are being stigmatized and criminalized. Women in general, even those who don’t call themselves feminist, don’t seem to take men’s side or to recognize the severity of men’s issues. And very few seem interested in giving up women’s privileges.

It sometimes seems as if the only thing that might stop the full-on elevation of feminist demands and the crushing of male freedoms would be some sort of societal crisis or collapse—but even that, perhaps, is a sour fantasy. When Covid came, there was a moment when I thought, ‘Ah, perhaps now men will be recognized for the crucial work they do during a crisis,’ but the recognition didn’t come. Men continued to carry on doing most of the dangerous work in society. But Covid was constantly discussed as a phenomenon that hit women harder, even when it was men who were getting sick and dying.

Is this simply the way things are, or do you see signs of hope? Do you have any suggestions as to how more women can be engaged in advocacy for men; or advice to women as to what they can do to assist men?

—TO BE CONTINUED—