Banality

Date: 11-02-2026

I have a hypothetical question: Do all men need to experience sexual violence (and its ever-present fear women live in) to truly understand it?

The more men I meet, the more I am astounded by their disconnect and superficial empathy on the topic of gender-based or sexual violence. It is not just that they are completely isolated from how women experience this world on the daily, it is their intentional and chosen disconnect from it and our humanity.

As humans, we ignorantly justify many of our actions by saying “you can not truly understand it till you experience it yourself”.

It helps us continue to live in our “zone of interest”.

For example, it helps many not care about how most developed economies are setup by exploiting resources and people in less developed parts of the world (who are forced and kept in that state because some developed countries want to keep that power dynamic).

So I have more of a hypothetical and theoretical question for fellow women:

Do you think it is the same for men and our power dynamic with them? Are there fundamental and unworkable limitations to human understanding then? Can they truly never understand what sexual violence can do to a woman? Can they never humanly connect with it, its complexity and its myriad of emotions, pain, trauma and loss? Do they need to experience something equivalent to do so…which is not possible in reality because women are physically weaker and unless that changes in future human evolution, a man might possibly never experience some of the fears (with their historic and social contexts) that we do?

We dont have to look at the current Epstein case, where even men of great “intellect” were ok with destroying children’s and women’s lives, felt a comradery in it to their peers, understood their peers entitlement to do so, or were at least silent and unbothered about it. They continue to do so to this day. Even if they were not participating in the violence themselves, are they guilty? Or is it just being part of the social order?

You see this behavior from many men to various degrees, at all socioeconomic levels…

So let us narrow down to the best of them, who try to listen to us and say “ah, sorry that happened to you” and try to show compassion….but even these men then quietly go back to the same social system and never actually do anything. Isn’t that also evidence of “ah, too bad. Anyway, it is not my problem and I will never need to worry about this problem”…? I would say that is still intentional, no? It is a choice they make: to not learn, to not do anything. Are they malicious for doing so? Or is it just being part of the social order?

Philosopher Hannah Arendt brilliantly talked about the “banality of evil”: the normalized and invisible harm that comes from ordinary people’s unquestioned complacency to the social order.

The next natural question is: is it ok for us women to accept that or is it more that it is our only choice?

PS: I know some men also experience sexual violence, and that is also extremely terrible and awful. My post is about women specifically (on average, more than 90% of sexual violence victims are women).