Why do cis-men love to play Devil’s Advocate?
A cis man is a man whose sex as assigned at birth (male) matches his gender identity as he experiences it (man).
TW: R*PE MENTION
Having had a lot of experience discussing feminism with my cis-male friends, I’ve encountered many self-proclaimed Devil’s Advocates. These are people who go against you “for the sake of argument” even if they agree with what you’re saying. This is all good until the topic of the argument is something that affects the lives of others. When it’s anything related to social justice, playing the Devil’s Advocate only derails the conversation and puts an end to any progress towards a productive interaction. It is especially harmful in the context of feminism when a man plays the Devil’s Advocate to a woman trying to discuss feminist issues; it becomes another way to silence women and disregard our experiences. Disagreeing with someone who is promoting equal rights just “for the sake of argument” ultimately trivialises the oppression that marginalised people face daily.
There are different ways one can play the Devil’s Advocate: the easiest is to throw out controversial statements like, “I think men are more oppressed than women nowadays” or “the wage gap doesn’t exist”. No matter how hard you try to prove them wrong and how much evidence you have to point to the contrary, they will stick to their false convictions and effectively kill the conversation. Arguing dictionary definitions on a complicated issue is also commonly used to brand women as misandrists. For instance, I got called a sexist and a misandrist once for saying, “men are trash”. Now, the dictionary generally defines sexism as “prejudice towards someone based on their sex”, and based on this, what I said should qualify as sexist, right? But it’s not that simple. Misogyny and misandry are not the same thing and should not be treated as such. A man being misogynistic comes from a place of privilege. He contributes to women’s systemic oppression, while a woman being a misandrist, while seen as problematic by some, does not do the same to men. So, if a woman says, “men are trash”, it is not the same thing as a man being derogatory towards women. One is an expression of anger and frustration towards men, and the other is born out of hatred towards women.
Even after I go through the trouble of explaining this concept, I will still get called a sexist and a misandrist, so anything I might say on the topic of feminism is discredited. Another common way to derail a conversation on feminism is to shift the focus on men’s issues. I was once in the middle of a discussion about rape culture when a cis-male classmate uttered the statement, “but men get raped too”. Funny how men’s issues only become relevant when the topic of discussion is women! I’m not saying we shouldn’t talk about men’s problems; we definitely should, but not at the expense of conversations about women. We can have both not one or the other. Furthermore, once I explained that, yes, men get raped too, but most victims of sexual violence are women, I got asked to present statistics to back up my argument. I pulled up stats from RAINN only to be told that they were probably biased and that I shouldn’t trust statistics. Go through dozens of conversations like this and tell me I shouldn’t say “men are trash” at every chance I get.
As you can see, no matter what you do or say, if a man wants to play Devil’s Advocate, he will do so against all logic and reason. This shows how for such men, playing Devil’s Advocate isn’t about the “sake of argument” but rather about discrediting and silencing women. I understand why certain men who don’t believe in feminism might act like this, but I’ve found that the problem is, even men who identify as feminists and agree with me would try to discredit my arguments. Hence, the million-dollar question: why do cis-men love to play Devil’s Advocate?
After a talk with one of my guy friends, I concluded that there could be three reasons why a man resorts to this tactic in a discussion: 1) he has an ego complex that results in the need to prove others wrong all the time, 2) he’s a secret misogynist who’s genuinely trying to discredit you, or 3) he thinks he’s a feminist and does agree with you, but he’s uncomfortable when faced with women being oppressed by his gender. He feels guilty, so he tries to shift the blame and prove “not all men” are bad.
The first two categories of men are simply assholes, and nothing we can do will change their minds, so it’s the third one I’m more concerned about. Cis-men who are feminists have the privilege of looking the other way and argue that not all men mistreat women; they do this to make themselves feel better. Meanwhile, we as women don’t have this luxury. The oppression we face is real and inescapable unless we ALL make an effort to change things on a grander scale. With this specific issue, we must start with having meaningful conversations about feminism without men trying to derail or silence us. So, I urge men to confront patriarchy instead of shifting away from it, to join discussions, and most importantly, to listen. Instead of the devil, advocate for equal rights.
By Eda S.
(she/her)
Eda is a General staff writer @ PARDON! read more about her on our TEAM! page.