Help me have this discussion with my father

Post date: 2017-12-13 12:24:01

As a 20 year-old woman, the growing conversation about sexual harassment and emotional labor has influenced me deeply. Conversations on Metafilter have expanded my perspective over the past few years, from the emotional labor thread to the #MeToo movement to Cat Person. Today my dad posted a link on Facebook to an article characterizing the #MeToo movement as an overreaction, and said it was a "viewpoint that deserves to be heard." I want to try to convince him otherwise.

Here is the article he linked. I feel like this article uses a strawman (I know Real Sexual Harassment is Very Bad, but MeToo is allowing women to destroy men's lives at a whim by accusing them! Women are silencing men!) and completely ignores the underlying imbalance of power that women have to deal with at all levels of their lives. I immediately thought of sending him @MenCatPerson, which shows how much more prevalent and awful the backlash against women standing up for themselves is than the reverse. I've sent him the emotional labor thread and articles about emotional labor before, but he never responded to them meaningfully and I never asked him about them further.

I'm too angry/upset at the moment to think clearly, so I want to take some time to gather a few resources and compose a meaningful response. I want to be able to create a counterargument to this article specifically, but I also want to point out why the movement matters to me and why he might not perceive the underlying power dynamics present in these conversations. It would help if you could link me to some comments on mefi that explain the problems with the backlash against MeToo and related discussions in a compelling and clear way. Articles about the topic would be useful too, as well as any experiences you're willing to share where you successfully changed a friend or relative's perspective.

I realize that writing a long letter to him will take a lot of emotional and mental effort without guaranteed change, but this matters enough to me that I want to at least try my best. I might not be able to get him to understand what being objectified is like, but I know that he values a solid argument and I have faith that he values our relationship enough to listen to what I have to say.

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