Guest Post by mhermitmom

“Do you hate men?”

That’s the question that stopped me in my tracks a few weeks ago and I keep ruminating on it, so time to get it out of my head.

Since the 2020 lock downs, I have read a a bit about systemic racism, patriarchy, the school to prison pipeline, trauma, sexual assault, church history and so much more I wasn’t very aware of before in my white LDS bubble. Since then I have wondered why it always seems to come back to … well, white men, and women too, and the things they do that make things worse for everybody. The current political climate is certainly not helping with opposite sides at each other’s throats.

In my frustration, I expressed concerns about all of this to a male family member. He has been very patient with my ramblings. When he asked me this question, it wasn’t with a tone of accusation, more like concerned curiosity. The question left me speechless and if my face had been on a computer screen, you would have seen a spinning, buffering animation right across my nose.

The first thing that popped into my stunned psyche was, “Not all men.” I knew I couldn’t say that out loud. Post menopausal brain fog had me buffering again. “Do you really hate men?”

I love my husband. I love my brother. I love my father. I love my sons. None of them are perfect, but none of them have intentionally, seriously, hurt anyone to my knowledge. I think of men that I have admired and then done something stupid to prompt me to not admire them anymore. These are usually the men in the news, in political office, in some position of power, but no one I know personally.

There have been bullies in middle school, but there have also been male teachers who put a stop to it. There have been a couple of dates, during my college years, that left me skittish around young men for a while, but there were kinder, older, church leaders that helped me through that, or at least tried to. Of course, the Savior is a man as well and while I can’t really understand why evil is allowed to run amok in this life, that’s on us, and I hope Christ will make justice and mercy come together in the right way eventually.

I finally replied to the person who had dropped the bomb with something along the lines of … I hate that we have a world that has been set up to allow evil people advantages over the rest of us.

It is easy to use the word “hate.” I know some folks who refuse to use the word because the last thing God wants is for us to hate each other. I don’t like to self-censor but I do want to avoid thinking in terms of hate, because it is easy to fall into, and I personally feel hate is addictive.

If you know the Star Wars movies, (showing my geekiness here) you may remember this: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” – The Phantom Menace.

There is also “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Matthew 22:37-39

The thing I try to remind myself: yes, evil must be resisted, but I cannot allow myself to get sucked into the hate. Do I hate men? No. Hard as it is, I try not to hate at all.

mhermitmom is a Gen X, not 100% straight, LDS woman trying to navigate career changes and “failure to launch” offspring.