The Devil Doesn’t Need an Advocate
Why we instinctual defend the ‘villain’ in the story, and how can we train ourselves to stop
Microaggression: brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioural or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative attitudes toward stigmatized or culturally marginalized groups. Sue DW (2010). Microaggressions in Everyday Life: Race, Gender, and Sexual Orientation.
I work on a team with more women than men, but with a male supervisor. Commonly, something like the following will occur: a man on the team will suggest a meeting, the supervisor will ask a woman on the team to send the invite.
When I tell people that women on my team are being treated like executive assistants (no disrespect meant to executive assistants), I am met with immediate resistance.
“Maybe it’s just because that guy is more senior.”
“You said this guy was older? Maybe your supervisor just doesn’t trust him to set up his own meetings.”
“It’s sort of a compliment. It means that the supervisor thinks you have better social skills than that guy.”
I know that this is a minor incident. I know it costs me almost nothing to just send the emails. I know that my supervisor is not being actively malicious and almost certainly doesn’t notice what he’s doing.
But I also know that this is sexist bullshit. Whether my supervisor knows it or not, he treats women on the team differently and worse than the men. It is demeaning to be ostensibly equal while also being asked to perform the administrative tasks of others. And, of course, the alternative is unthinkable. A man on the team would be never be asked to send emails on my behalf unless I seriously outranked him.
And when I tell people that this thing is happening at work, all I want them to do is agree that this is sexist bullshit. What I don’t need is for them to try to convince me that the thing I’m saying is happening isn’t wrong, or is maybe not even happening?
And yet, I can empathize with my friends. I know that I, too, am guilty of the same crimes. I read the news, or I hear a story about some victim of an ‘ism’ and my instincts are to defend the perpetrator. Sure, I rationalize, there might have been a hurtful outcome, but they couldn’t have meant it. Who means to be hurtful? It must be a misunderstanding.
However, we must acknowledge that our benevolent scepticism benefits the micro-aggressors and not the micro-aggressed. Our tendency to defend the villain allows inequalities to persist while also invalidating the experiences of victims. We are so eager to defend the intentions of strangers that we ignore the harmful outcomes felt by our loved ones.
But why? Why are kind and thoughtful people wired to defend microaggressions and microaggressors?
At first, I thought the problem was willful blindness. We would all like to believe that we live in a kind, safe world, despite all evidence to the contrary. Maybe we have this strong instinct to protect the people around us by convincing them that the world is a better place than it is. Maybe our brains refuse to accept that oppression affects the people we care about daily. These microaggressions are dissonant notes in an otherwise harmonious chord, and so they must be ignored or explained away.
But if this were true, why would it only apply to microaggressions? If I said someone cut me off in traffic, people would say, “what an asshole.” If I said someone’s dog pooped on my lawn, and the owner didn’t pick it up, people would sigh and say, “some people.” If I said my supervisor gives some people on the team preferential treatment, people would shake their heads and say, “that blows.” But as soon as I say someone treated me a certain way because I’m a woman, suddenly everyone starts playing devil’s advocate.
So there must be something deeper going on here. If we were all simply good people who wanted good things for one another, we would be outraged on behalf of those who are being treated poorly, not defending the perpetrator.
I think the truth is not that we assume that everyone is a good person acting with pure intent. It’s that we all worry that we are bad. And if we see even a shred of ourselves in the actions of micro-aggressors, we feel the need to leap to their defence. Because if that person is bad, if that person is hurting people, you care about, there’s a chance you are too. And that’s unacceptable. And so there must have actually been no microaggression. That person can’t have meant ill because if you had done that thing, you wouldn’t have meant ill. This reflex that we have is a self-defence mechanism, protecting our own sense of self at the expense of the person who has come to us for validation.
Maybe you agree with me, maybe you don’t. All I ask is that you start paying attention to your own emotional reactions. Next time you hear a story about some -ism, pay attention. Did you begin to instinctually defend the perpetrator? If so, why? Is it really because you believe that no harm was done? Or is it because you’re uncomfortable thinking about your own actions?
It can be painful to acknowledge that our own behaviours in the past or present might have hurt others, regardless of our intentions. It’s harder still because there is often no clear way to make amends for our past wrongs. However, the only way to improve is to put in that hard work. We have to be willing to understand ourselves as the villains in a story to prevent such behaviour in the future.
The alternative to doing this hard work is to continue the harms done to those we love, whether by making them doubt their own experiences or committing microaggressions ourselves.
