Revised version of a piece on Modern Sex Mag called “Empathising With Invisible Men.”

Giving a shit about people you instinctively look down on is really hard to do! Contempt is my default emotion when I encounter downtrodden men—the unemployed lads, the bros, the thuggish cluster of dudes in track pants, smoking, jeering, nowhere to go, their chests puffed out as they loudly utter barely coherent phrases, desperate to convince themselves and passers by that they matter. But their eyes betray how much their hearts aren’t in it. My guess is that they’d opt out of their lives and be someone else in a heartbeat if they could. Someone with a good job, status, their own home, a higher IQ, and people who respect, admire and depend on them. But they were never given the choice.

As I sit here writing this I’m wishing I could magically gift these men a better start and a greater sense of purpose in life. Yet when I encounter them in real life it’s a different story. The minute downtrodden men cease being abstractions and appear before me on the street, or in a bar, my charitable emotions evaporate. Without fail, a strong desire for segregation (out of sight, out of mind) kicks in—as does revulsion.

This is an ‘ugly truth’ story in which I lay bare the cruel underbelly of my middle class, educated (supposedly liberal) mind. Barring the homeless and the severely mentally ill, I focus on the lowest of the low here—men with almost nothing going for them in terms of looks, status, wealth, family, education, intelligence, or social skills. These people deserve empathy and help. But I don’t know how to help them and my honest answer to the question: will I give them a chance, hang out with them, get to know them, maybe date them? Is hell freaking no!

Yet the plight of the invisible man keeps troubling me, their sexual rejection by women especially (which is a by product of all the ways that their lives are already not going well). I think more women (and men) should at least try to imagine what it’s like to be a downtrodden guy—remember, not all men are privileged by default. In fact many more men than women are on society’s lowest rungs (in prison, or homeless and sleeping rough). This bothers me as an intellectual fact, yet I still cocoon myself in my educated bubble and from one day to the next I usually forget these men exist. Which is bad.

That’s why I’m putting down my honest confession of disgust here, alongside my imperfect attempt to reconcile it with empathy. Here’s my story.

“Wot are u bein such a stuck up bitch 4? I’m just tryna be friendly! You think you’re so much better than me???”

That’s a line I’ve heard a few times when I’ve ignored guys following me up the street trying to hit on me. Of course I’m ignoring them for very good reasons. For starters, because they’re exhibiting such low levels of social intelligence by employing a strategy that involves bestowing unwanted attention on someone who is clearly unreceptive. But also because it’s the simplest way to shut them down — don’t engage.

In these situations the guy tends to sidle up with a particularly irksome gait that combines the swagger of a pent up overdose of testosterone, with the darting-eyed look and hunched shoulders of someone with a deeply ingrained lack of self-esteem. For the record I don’t think there’s anything wrong with men hitting on a stranger and asking her out — as long as they take no for an answer. But the guys who persist, who keep asking you ‘why not?’ or keep pressing you to give them your number, well… they’re doing it wrong. And so yes, I ignore them until they go away.

There’s no question that I’m in the right here. Beyond a first failed attempt, these guys should not invade my personal space or pressure me to show interest in them. But here’s the thing, these are not smart men. That doesn’t excuse them from being, at best, pests, and at worst, sexual predators. But I really can understand why, in their minds, I seem like a stuck up bitch. I genuinely do think I’m better than them. These guys are pathetic losers to me.(Sorry! I know these are horrible thoughts, but they’re gut instincts, not feelings that I want to endorse). I think of them more like animals than equals or fully fledged people. They’re invisible men, which, I think, is one of the reasons they sometimes get invasive and agro.

Shouting after you, ‘you’re such a stuck up bitch,’ as you walk away from them with quiet contempt is not the kind of thing a man with any power says. It’s the kind of thing someone says when they’re sick of being invisible, don’t know what to do about it, and want to be heard. It’s not a strategy that will elicit sympathy or change how women view them — quite the opposite, it will solidify our aversion and make us feel even more justified in relegating them to an invisible zone because we can’t be sure they’re not actually violent or unhinged.

But this is not an intellectual strategy, it’s an emotional reflex — like screaming into a pillow when a loved one dies. It’s a release of a feeling of powerlessness and a ‘fuck you!’; the kind of fuck you we say or think when we really feel on the back foot and can’t seem to win a trick. It’s easier to blame someone else.

The worst kind of invisible man, the kind who would actually follow a woman home, harass her and shout at her for being a stuck up bitch… I’m making assumptions, but they’ve probably lost both the genetic and environmental lotteries. That makes life hard in just about every way and it makes them pretty undesirable humans to voluntarily interact with.

The trouble is, society gains nothing from ostracising people like this further and branding them as pariahs. I know I’ve admitted that my own gut instinct is one of revulsion, and I don’t know any way around that feeling. But the key, I think, although it’s against a lot of odds, is for society to provide as many avenues as possible for men like this to find a place of their own and a sense of worth in the world, and that won’t happen overnight, I think it will take several generations for things to improve.

No, it’s not ok for men to shout at women or harass them, and this behaviour should be condemned. But the humanity of a person should be nurtured, rather than completely written off, and people who struggle to behave appropriately in the world should be helped as best they can, even when they exhibit unacceptable behaviour. These men have reasons to feel disgruntled, they’re devalued by society and don’t know how to acquire value because they often don’t have the social/emotional intelligence or support to overcome their difficulties alone.

Unfortunately, there are weird social rules when it comes to helping people. If you have a disability, or belong to a minority, then interest groups and governments like to help you (or try, or at least pretend to). If you have a whole heap of problems, but you’re not technically disabled — low social intelligence and a shit upbringing is not considered to be a disability — then I guess you’re on your own.

I don’t have great answers about how to help men like this, and what I’m going to suggest is probably going to be very unpopular. But I think at least a part of the solution lies in trying to tackle root causes like intergenerational poverty and unplanned pregnancies in situations where the parents and community are not well equipped to raise the child well. No, I’m not suggesting we steal babies from poor people. But I am suggesting that we remove all monetary incentives to have a child, while promoting and de-stigmatising abortion. Oh, and for heaven’s sake, make the morning after pill free!

I’ve taken it a few times (in Australia) and been baffled each time by the $30 price tag. To me, $30 to ensure with ~99% certainty that I won’t get pregnant is money well spent. But for many women who might need to take the morning after pill, the $30 price tag and the fact that it’s not totally over the counter (you need to have a chit chat with the pharmacist first) would be a massive deterrent. It’s a damn safe drug! Just a high dose of progesterone, which most women have already taken at a lower dosage if they’ve been on the pill. Pop that shit in vending machines and slap a warning label on it! (Or don’t, but for heavens sake don’t let price stand as a deterrent for access).

Am I suggesting it might be better if some of the worst kinds of invisible men were never born? Maybe. My gut instinct says yes, but I genuinely don’t know and there might be plenty of better solutions out there (if yes, please let me know what they are, and don’t brand me a Nazi eugenicist for thought crime). I’m flying an intellectual kite here, trying to think through what seems like a difficult problem without a neat or pretty answer.

To look at this from another angle, how many of us would argue that poor families having more children than they can afford is a good thing? Policy analysts and academics are constantly talking about education and the emancipation of women as being the key to lowering the birth rate in developing countries and poor areas. Yet as soon as you mention the word ‘abortion’ the tenor of the conversation shifts from emancipation to annihilation. This isn’t fair framing.

Like birth control, abortion is an essential family planning tool and it’s a fantastic thing that it exists. Do we want women to be having abortions left, right and centre? No. We want them not to fall pregnant with unwanted children in the first place. But abortion should be a free, easily available and stigma free backup if birth control fails. If the cost is prohibitive, or a deterrent for poor women who can’t afford a child, this is a bad thing,

What about other solutions besides family planning? Well, it would be lovely to believe that the most troubled type of invisible man could be educated out of his current state, but how do you educate someone (and I’m talking about hefty gains here) out of a low IQ? Emotional issues and self-esteem can be worked on, but these men also need opportunities and responsibility. Where will those things come from, especially with the rising automation of unskilled jobs and male dominated, labour intensive occupations? And who will help them make the transition into a new way of life if the networks and communities of these men are equally broken?

There is one thing that I think individuals could do to help on a small scale. Adopt! There are way more kids in need of foster families and homes than there are families willing to take them in. I’m not hankering to have kids, but if I do, I will certainly adopt a child. In the State of NSW, Australia, there were around 18,000 kids in care in 2016 and only 68 were adopted. The number of kids in care is increasing, and though adoption laws have recently been changed to make the process easier for foster parents to adopt, it’s essential that enough people are willing to take on foster children and give them a better life.

In my experience, rich white folks love to talk about how much they care about social justice, the plight of refugees, the poor and other minorities, but when push comes to shove, they don’t want to actually interact with these people. Maybe they’ll get involved as part of a gap year experience that is ‘culturally enriching’ for them, which allows them to signal that they care about others to their white friends on social media, but in everyday life they don’t want to welcome ‘the other’ into their homes, their social circles, or their privileged worlds. The closest they usually get is hanging some aboriginal art on their walls, and again, that’s all about signalling.

In reality, one of the best things they could do to actually help bridge the social divide would be to adopt a child from a poor background and show them a better life. Adopt, instead of blithely breeding the next cohort of white elites — yet another generation of kids who will invariably out compete the many children who were never given the opportunity to experience a better life.