Polly Vernon
TIME’S UP, METOO, Weinstein, etc, have made a lot of men reassess their sexual histories
. How much of the stuff they did – the seduction tactics they used, the games they played – was cool, part of the push and pull of jolly, sexy male/female interaction? And how much was sleazy, skeezy, borderline gross? How clueless were they really about the behaviour of friends more obviously predatory than they? Should they have done more about that colleague who seemed so keen on ‘mentoring’ interns, or the mate who gazed so hard at girls in the gym?
Such self-reckoning is inevitable. While some factions of the feminist movement insist that sexual impropriety is always clear cut, that the difference between an innocent-yet-inept come-on and a bullying abuse of power is obvious, I don’t think it always is. I think we’re talking shades of grey a-go-go here, and so, if some men are rehashing the specifics of old behaviours for clues, then, fair play. Only… I wish they’d stop rehashing them on me. Bending my ear over that one time in 2012 when they slid into the DMS of the girl at work because they honestly thought she was interested, yeah? Telling me they’re on a mission to track down and apologise to every last woman they never texted back. I suppose it’s sweet, but I’m getting bored. Bored of their pearl clutching, self-flagellating, self-analysis and emotional forensics.
I call this lot the Too Woke Baes, after the meme ‘ Woke Baes’, which celebrated famous men not on the grounds of their physical hotness, but rather, their enlightened politics (and which – forgive me for not toeing the received feminist line here – seriously missed the point of fancying people).
When they’re not asking for my opinion on whether they inadvertently Metoo’d some poor girl a decade ago, the Too Woke Baes are peppering my feeds with posts designed to demonstrate how newly conscious they are of the female struggle. They smile at me compassionately (never lecherously!) across yoga classes; they ask if it’s OK before complimenting me on my dress. They filibuster dinner parties about the gender pay gap. They love how comedian Richard Herring goes on Twitter each and every International Women’s Day to correct those legions of men who ask, disgruntledly, why there’s no International Men’s Day (there is. It’s 19 November). They are more painfully, rigidly feminist than I could ever be. I get it. They’re trying. Trying to work out if they’ve been wrong in ways they didn’t fully understand. Trying to be better. And of course, that’s good. It’s just that it’s also a new way for them to talk about themselves a lot, and – oh god, I am going to hell for this, I know – but… it’s not very sexy, is it?