It has taken me 31 years of life as a woman on this planet, but I’ve reached a point where I no longer feel I owe badly-intentioned men a debate.

When I saw pictures of Steven Crowder sitting on campus smugly drinking coffee with a sign reading, “Male Privilege is a Myth: Change My Mind” all I could think of was the years when I would patiently sit with a man like that, explaining the ways we have, for instance, never had a female president or vice president, and also why American women keep dying in childbirth—a thing men rarely do.

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And to every younger version of me out there, I thought: run.

Like, literally, go for a run. A run will raise your heart rate and be healthy for you. Or eat a bag of potato chips. They’re delicious. Or read any book in the world. Twilight, Being and Nothingness, whatever, any book.

Anything would be more productive than trying to engage a man who is cheerfully demanding that you “change his mind” in debate.

Audre Lorde perhaps put this best when she wrote, “Black and Third World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade their responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future.”

That drain of energy might be worth it if it seemed even a tiny bit effective. But I have never seen it result in anything but a miserable game of Calvinball wherein the rules are constantly changed by the person who thinks it would be fun to make you try to change their mind. You end up with responses like this one:

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You misinterpreted my point by a mile and argued against your misinterpretation. We were never in the same debate apparently. — Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) March 3, 2018

I have rarely seen anyone’s mind be changed by even the most well-intentioned arguments. Because, let me assure you, men who sit down and issue these glib challenges in the name of debate do not actually want their minds changed. They want to argue with someone, because they think that arguing is fun.

To them, a debate about whether women can have abortions or whether guns should be allowed to be owned by domestic abusers is no more high stakes for them than a debate about whether Batman is better than Superman, or what vegetables would be best to grow on Mars (potatoes, obviously).

A debate about whether women can have abortions is no more high stakes for them than a debate about what vegetables would be best to grow on Mars



Those debates are very different to people who do experience the effects of them every day. As Cecilia Winterfox wrote in a piece on this very topic, “While they can play devil’s advocate and toss around hypotheticals that are utterly disconnected from their reality and then opt out at the end, for women these discussions require revelation and vulnerability; they are a sharing of our actual lived experience.”

But sure, we’ll keep pretending that debating these issues is just a peppy game we all enjoy playing.

You know what people who are generally interested in having their minds changed do? They pick up a book. They go to the library and they read a book on the topic written by an expert who has opposing views. They read a newspaper article. They watch a movie that features someone who does not look precisely like them.

They do not go on Twitter and say, “Abortion is a great social injustice, change my mind.”

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I believe that abortion is the greatest social injustice of our time. Change my mind. — Ben Bullinger (@benbull248) March 15, 2018

Or post pictures declaring “I’ve never met a 'peaceful' feminist who wasn’t a raging man hating demon. Prove me wrong?”

I admit, as a raging man-hating demon, I cannot. Though if I were to try, I would employ this approach.

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The easiest people to fuck with on this site are the Libertarian "Why won't you debate me??" bros. — Rob SCARE-idan Wears A Mask #BLM #ArtIsResistance (@rob_sheridan) March 18, 2018

Now, there are certainly some men who have seen some truth to opposing views, they simply differ on finer points of those views. If you feel they are generally interested in learning more after having read something, by all means, talk with them. They will probably not try to engage you on a public platform by declaring that you owe them a debate.

But it is almost impossible to argue against someone who admits no validity whatsoever to your fundamental truths. And it can be detrimental. I can’t help but recall the case of David Irving v Penguin Books and Deborah Lipstadt. The two ultimately went to trial because Irving felt libeled that Lipstadt called him a Holocaust denier in her book.

The Guardian describes an instance where, "in 1994 when Irving gatecrashes one of her university lectures, [he] waves $1,000 in the air and says he’ll give it to anyone who can produce written evidence that Hitler ordered the final solution. He then calls her a coward for refusing to debate."

She noted, “If I started debating with him it would suggest to students that there were two sides.” (The court eventually found in favor of Lipstadt.)

Men who issue these glib challenges in the name of debate do not actually want their minds changed



If you engage people who genuinely believe that feminists are demons in debate, then you’re admitting that there are just two different, equally valid opinions on that topic. The demon side and the not demon side.

There aren’t.

That’s especially important to remember in a “post-truth” age when asking anyone to read a book, or anything longer than a tweet, is seen as a sign that you’re some sort of high-minded, out of touch elite.

The people who are responsible for changing these men’s minds on an issue are not women who will walk them through issues in gentle baby steps. The person responsible for changing their minds—if they genuinely do, indeed, want to change their minds—is them. And it might take a little work on their part where they don’t get to show off and amuse themselves in public.

It might, again, take actually reading a few books on the topic they claim to be interested in.

Jennifer Wright Jennifer Wright is BAZAAR.com's Political Editor at Large.

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