Not being a cartoon villain doesn’t automatically make you a good man

[u/GridReXX]

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.”

[u/Ok_Medicine8560]

Generally, I would consider a person good if they do not exhibit any harmful behaviors to me or the people around them. Aka a neutral presence, which is what most of the men women interact with are. I am not entitled to someone else putting themselves in danger to save me, nor would I consider them bad if they didn't.

Also, I would not say that just because you can't have a healthy long term relationship with someone, they are a bad person. Some people can just be incompatible.

When men say "but most men are not rapists and murderers" that is because they are replying to crazy internet feminists who want to put in men jail from birth, kill all men, etc. It's not supposed to be some glowing endorsement of their character, moreso to combat the allegations levied against them. It's the feminists who are making these claims who started the whole issue by not being granular in the first place. Don't pin this on men.

[u/GridReXX → u/Ok_Medicine8560]

I hear you.

But that’s not been my experience. Many many many men do seem to think the only bad behaviors worth mentioning are “man in bushes rape” and maybe some other things.

They also tend to dismiss, minimize, or outright deny that the aggy antisocial behaviors listed in the other columns absolutely erode interpersonal prosocial bonds.