This was an English Composition assignment. I decided to critique an article on how boys are affected by the femimist movement against assault. Because I feel the matter is interesting, and should be further contemplated, I wanted to share my critique on a larger board.
The article “The #MeToo Balancing Act in High School” by The New York Times journalist Andrew Reiner is discussing how the #MeToo movement is affecting young men in society. The movement is centered around young women speaking up about their experience with sexual assault and how it should be avoided, but in this article, Reiner reaches out to high school boys to see how they feel about the movement. I must admit, it was insightful despite its slightly mediocre format and language.
Reiner opens the article by explaining a guy named Chris’s experience with the movement. Chris talks about an event his all-boys high school co-hosted with an all-girls high school where the girls talked about the #MeToo movement and made a lot of the guys feel attacked. Chris made it clear that he does not stand for sexual assault, but the girls made the guys feel that their natural, and societal-taught instinct (such as making the first move when he has romantic feelings) is wrong.
The boys would later challenge the double standard of girls being able to hit guys, but guys cannot hit them back. Then girls shut them down and said they shouldn’t have to answer such questions. While even I have witnessed women growing tired of this always being the first come back, I find it to be a fair enough question. If they cannot hit us, then we cannot hit them. If they cannot sexualize us, then we cannot sexualize them. A double standard has developed; I cannot deny that.
Speaking to the younger generation of men was a good idea and seemed like great sources to get the information the article was searching for. He even reached out to some college women who are close friends with guys who must be too cautious to ensure they never accidentally touch a woman and offend them. These women helped even out the bias issue that I was noticing in the article before.
This is a very serious subject matter because it seems that as the feminist and #MeToo movements have grown and women’s voices have gotten louder, men and young boys don’t really have a voice to explain themselves. They are constantly being labeled negatively for accidents, or they have become too afraid to even call a girl pretty in fear of offending them. It is clear that Andrew Reiner wants his readers to look at this matter seriously and consider how it is affecting the opposing gender, but I feel like it is important for women to thing about as we move forward in the feminist movement. We want to be equal, right? As of now, I feel we have overpowered in many ways and things do need to eventually even out.