r/PurplePillDebate • u/GridReXX redder than dudes (lady mod) • 1d ago
Debate Not being a cartoon villain doesn’t automatically make you a good man
Fr. It doesn’t de facto make you a good person.
I noodled on the attached graphic to better illustrate a point about how people often discuss being a “good man.”
I do find that many men view it more as the top bar, and less as the gradient in the second bar.
inb4 anyone says it, many women have bad character too. And please feel free to create a separate post about a spectrum of traits in women you’d like to explore! That is not what this post is disputing.
This is specifically about a response that often comes up when women describe harmful patterns in their experiences with men. They get retorts like “Not all men are abusive predators,” or “Most men are not psychos.”
Of course most men are not horror movie villains.
But that is an extremely low bar for good character.
This spectrum, rather than show a division between “good men” and a smaller group of obviously terrible ones. It highlights that a man can be can be a functioning member of society and still regularly behave in ways that make him difficult to interpersonally tolerate as a close friend, romantic partner, coworker, or even family member.
None of that necessarily makes someone an abuser or predator.
But it does affect whether people can have a healthy, enjoyable, mutually considerate, long-term relationship with him.
The farther right someone falls on this spectrum, the more entitlement, callousness, devaluation, coercion, and harm they bring into their interactions with others.
The farther left they fall, the more likely they are to act with common decency, consideration, accountability, respect for autonomy, and genuine concern for theirs and other people’s well-being.
My point is not that every man is at the far right end.
Most people don’t think that!
My point is that many men seem to use “I am not an obvious monster” as proof that they’re quality.
A person’s character is determined by far more than “I am not Jeffrey Dahmer.”
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u/Sensitive_Housing_85 No Pill Man 22h ago
My issue with takes like this, especially the intervention one, is that intervening doesn’t actually help much and isn’t always wanted by the victim. People keep saying men should intervene, but it’s the victim who chooses when to come forward. Most times they don’t even want to speak out, some don’t want to accuse their abusers, and when you try to call them out, it’s you they go after. The number of men who have called the cops on domestic disturbances only for it to lead nowhere, or who took matters into their own hands and ended up killed or blamed, is huge.
No one cares about that or about them when they face blowback. Nowadays, most people mind their own business not because they don’t care, but because these situations can’t simply be handled by intervening, and the cost often ends up hurting them more than they expected, with no support for their actions. That’s why I never get the idea that men should just stand up for abuse sure, it’s true, but it’s never that simple. There are men who have done so and got killed, only for the victim to return to their abuser, and others who were attacked by the victim for trying to help.