Life of Mack Random thoughts & anecdotes from indie RPG nerd Ryan Macklin

I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the last few months.

I grew up in a house of women, run by my Southern grandmother for a long time before I just lived with my mom & my two sisters. It took me a couple years in college to actually get used to male socialization, because much of my communication has been very feminine.

You know that thing where dudes insult each other all the time? That was weird to get used to.

Anyway, I’m still very much in that world. Many of my close friends are women. My sisters have grown up and have daughters of their own. And I’ve found myself in the company of many sexual assault victims.

Which, as one as a child, I can empathize with.

I listen to their stories, and I think about what it’s like to live in a world where you’re afraid. Where you feel like prey, or like you’re vulnerable. Which, as someone who came form a battered home before growing up in said loving home above, I can also understand. I have violence triggers. I know what it’s like to have shakes when the panic-laced adrenaline at a sudden loud noise happens — not just any loud noise, but certain ones.

And I would really, really like my nieces to not grow up in that world. I worry for them, because the world is hard and it batters gentle souls. I look at sexist toys and see that chipping away and self-esteem in girls. I look at male gaze and see that become expectant to the point of predatory. I look at a lot of shit, and I worry about the safety of my nieces, and their ability to choose their lives rather than it being inflicted upon them by a male-dominated culture.

I’m no fucking angel, no crusader fighting to make the world better, so I don’t think of myself by any stretch of the imagination as a feminist. I have seen feminist men, and I think I know what that looks like enough to know that’s not me. I don’t go far enough. I’m generally apolitical when it comes to what I vocalize. I don’t rally. I don’t boycott. I don’t go around trying to educate. There’s something in the word “feminist” that communicates a responsibility to act that I do not claim.

But I am a family man. Nieces. Sisters. Loved ones I’m not related to. Family.

And I want a better world for the women in my family. By extension, all women.