Can I have a new (non-male) gender identity, please?

When a man killed 14 women and then committed suicide (another one who got the sequence wrong) at the École Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989, I joined in the outrage and said that I was glad that no man I knew would have done such a thing.

When the allegations about the sexual abuses by priests in the Catholic church became common knowledge, I joined in the general condemnation and was appalled that the organization had such a slack and idle attitude towards those in its care.

When TV reality show host Donald Trump bragged into a live microphone that his fame allowed him to do pretty much anything he wanted to any women he wanted, I was inclined to think that it was just a case of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off gone seriously wrong.

But now that, perhaps catalyzed by now-President Trump’s indiscrete confession, the list of perps, rapists and sexual predators is becoming disgustingly and increasingly mind-numbingly long and star-studded, I’m finding myself wanting to take on another identity entirely. Apparently, men are pigs.

Many people do take on other personas from time to time. Americans who don Canadian flag pins to avoid uncomfortable conversations while travelling, for example. Or Muslims from Arab countries who sometimes adopt another religious identity – ‘I’m a Palestinian Christian,’ they say, ‘nothing to do with me’ – when yet another Jihadi-inspired terrorist attack takes place.

Because, come on, let’s face it…the ‘man’ brand has lost a lot of its luster in recent days. To the degree that it ever had any, of course. Women have had a hate-love relationship with the gender for a long time, and for exactly this reason. They always had to be aware of and alert to the possibility of inappropriate sexual behavior up to and including criminal sexual assault.

From.every.male.person.they.knew.

Which annoyed those of us who do not behave in that way, leading to defensive protestations that ‘not everyone is like that, you know’ and similar bromides.

That may be true, but it is entirely beside the point. It would be folly for women to act as if it weren’t the case that they could be attacked while going about their normal activities. And the evolutionary biologists tell us that overreacting to false threat positives has been a major factor in our success as a species. A rustle of leaves could be the wind, or it could be a predator waiting in the bushes to grab you for lunch. Better to assume it’s a predator until proven otherwise.

So, too, with men. Assume that they are predators until evidence to the contrary is produced.

And even then, given that most rapes and sexual assaults are committed by men known to the victim, caution is called for.

So, yes, the ‘man’ brand has taken some hits. But now even the men see it. We are now, or should be, looking at ourselves the way women have been looking at us for years. And it ain’t pretty.

So, if it’s alright with you, I’d like to take on a new identity please. Something that I can use to pass. To disguise my maleness, just for a while.

But I can’t. Short of surgery or a massive expenditure on wardrobe and makeup, there is no way that I can hide my maleness. I can’t simply claim to not be a man, like some embarrassed Catholic. I’ve tried. I’ve made the not entirely false claim that I am, in fact, a Divine Spark in a Male Shell. But nobody’s buying.

All the arguments for multiple genders notwithstanding, I will always be identified by those who don’t know me as a man. And if they are women, they will take the necessary precautions.

So, if I can’t change me, is there anything I can change?

On my own, probably not. But in concert with others…other men…I probably can. Together, we can change the ‘man’ brand….what it means to be a man…what is acceptable for a man...what is worthy of emulation….how to ‘man’.

This is possible, as the fact that many men are raised to not rape and not assault sexually attests. But now, we have to take it out of the home and the raising of our own children. We have to make a conscious effort to change the brand nationally and internationally. To focus on ‘first, do no harm’ as the prime directive of maleness…to teach respect for others and self-control.

And to look carefully at how what we do contributes to the current state of affairs.

In the Netherlands, where I live and work, it is common in business situations for men to kiss women colleagues on the cheek at workplace birthday gatherings, for example, but not to kiss men colleagues. Why are we kissing anyone at all? This seems to me to be a strange sexualisation or over-intimization of a non-sexual, non-intimate situation.

And why do we continue to allow our legal systems to provide cover for sexual crimes that they wouldn’t allow for any other offences. If rape were treated in a court the same way as theft by menaces is, many more convictions would be obtained. Because past behavior or current behavior of a robbery victim has never been used to excuse the robbery. So let’s try that.

And why do we continue to give support to storylines such as The Beauty and the Beast or The Phantom of the Opera, both of which involve imprisoning women to satisfy the desires of men, not unlike the case of Joseph Fritzl in Austria, who held his own daughter captive and used her as a sexual slave for 34 years.

The litany of similar incongruences is long and confusing. It’s time we started correcting them.

And as long as we can’t hide our identities, it really is the least we can do.