What we call “workplace culture” or “a nice environment” can be said about society as a whole, and explains why we do not solely blame the individual for being cutthroat in Monopoly, corrupt in politics, or assertive on the subway. Social systems tend to bring out certain characteristics, and some social situations bring out the worst in people. Why is pure individualism a myth? The answer lies in the concept of “the path of least resistance.” In each social situation we encounter, there is always a path of least resistance governed by unwritten rules that turn everyday people into police officers. The term "socialization" used here refers to the inescapability that society will be like a police academy for those growing up in it.
Sort of like the movie Police Academy, except the academy is a state of mind acutely aware of peer pressure. But the cast of lovable, bumbling fools is still there
1. We Usually Follow the Path of Least Resistance
You are free to do whatever you want, right? Right? As sociologist Allan G. Johnson wryly notes, if you go into a movie theater, and wait till the lights dim, you have a range of possible choices in how you act which are seemingly endless. You could sit quietly, shout at the screen, undress, dribble a basketball up and down the aisle, take out a flashlight and start reading your summer book; you could practice your saxophone. However, in most of these cases, you will meet resistance, and be silenced.[1]
Unless you're this kid, and end up driving everyone else out. That's when the fun really begins.
Thus, in social situations, paths of least resistance are carved out for us before we even get there, meaning it is implied that there is lack of complete freedom. Our range of behavior shrinks and expands depending on where we are, and with whom.
Resistance comes in subtle ways as well. Try getting in an elevator and facing the back for the entire ride, with your back turned to everyone else (and not in one of those elevators with a door on each side, that’s cheating!). It’s easy, right? Just get in, walk to a corner, face it, and see if you don’t feel eyes burning you. See if you don’t feel an uncomfortable tension in the air. Maybe someone will try and break the tension with a joke, or a polite laugh masking concern, “Whaddya doin’ there?” See how comfortable it is to be the “odd man out,” and it might begin to get a sense of one of the reasons why many of the non-white kids at your high school tended to sit together in the lunch room.
Uncomfortable feelings are the most subtle forms of resistance, argues Johnson (that sociologist I mentioned earlier. You remember him, don’t you!?). It is the reason why tall white men who run companies tend to choose other tall white men as protégés to groom into the future C.E.O. If a white man chooses a black woman a mentor, there may be a sense of discomfort each feel in the presence of the other; that uncomfortable feeling, even if the people are not fully conscious of it, is resistance enough to cause this relationship to fall apart, and perpetuate a path of least resistance in which white men continue to hold power in our society. So, people continue to choose to associate with other people who resemble them in appearance, in background, in how they talk and how they act. [2]
"You know, I don't even see you as Black".
As a man, I sometimes feel a sense of discomfort permeating from others as I walk down the street holding my boyfriend’s hand. If I walk down the wrong block, resistance might take a stronger form. The logical extreme of resistance is murder.
So when we play Monopoly, we could try and play nice and let others catch up to us, but we never know if they will be cutthroat against us once they do. It’s best just to be greedy. And when we are in a movie theater or an elevator, it is best just to be still and stare in the “right” direction. If something is easier or safer, people tend to do it. [3]
And I don’t mean absolutely safe or absolutely easy. Sometimes the path of least resistance is hard- allow me to explain. It is not easy to hurt someone by firing them, but if the consequence of not firing them is losing your own job, you will “downsize." Likewise, worrying about ruining an experiment you signed up for is enough to compel you to “cooperate with the study-” even if the study involves hurting people. Safety and ease become relative when something greater - a job, a set of friends - is at risk of being lost. Based on your values, your path of least resistance will be unique, though almost every adult would put "not getting fired" at the top of their list.
To further explain this, try having the goal of belonging to and winning the respect of a group of extreme athletes. You might see that you feel socially safe (a sense of belonging) if you join them and immediately go surfing with them during a hurricane. The path of least resistance ironically may involve facing death when the acceptance of your peers is the greater goal.
A typical gang initiation in Orange County, California
2. Gender Has Its Rules
Not long ago, a beer company switched from bikini commercials to writing Man Laws, talking about something which many men already knew- there a rules governing their behavior (is being a self-made man, then, an ironic rule?). For example, it could be you a guy telling another guy to “man up” in order to coerce him into doing something, or conversely, tapping him on the shoulder with a disapproving look on your face to tell him to stop doing something ("cut it out, the only dance men can do is a fist pump or something else popularized in recent music videos").
In any case, every man knows that other man, and often a woman, will gladly step in to act as the police officer is their peer is not following the rules. Man Laws, and their counterpart, Woman Laws (conspicuously, these were written by men as well), tell us to restrict our range of available potential behaviors based on which sex organ we have or lack. An example of a Woman Law is to be cheerful, smiley and sociable, at all times, and to not be selfish. Violating this might get you in trouble at work at a supermarket, having a random guy on the street tell you "you should smile," or risk being called a "bitch."
In any case, every man knows that other man, and often a woman, will gladly step in to act as the police officer is their peer is not following the rules. Man Laws, and their counterpart, Woman Laws (conspicuously, these were written by men as well), tell us to restrict our range of available potential behaviors based on which sex organ we have or lack. An example of a Woman Law is to be cheerful, smiley and sociable, at all times, and to not be selfish. Violating this might get you in trouble at work at a supermarket, having a random guy on the street tell you "you should smile," or risk being called a "bitch."
Warning: This tear was not the result of a wedding, funeral, or sporting event
I wore a dashiki to high school once, and a guy who mistook it for a dress said, “What are you wearing a dress to school for, you fag?” (in other words, Why did you have to go and make me feel so damn uncomfortable by messing with the rules and make me enforce them, you provocative outlier!) (in other words, KiIIIiiiLLL Hiim!!!). The mere resemblance of a dress was enough to trigger his inner policeman. This effectively discouraged me from diverging from the path of least resistance in the future.
Furthermore, if a woman charges a man with rape, men often question which Woman “rule” she broke to contribute to their own victimization. Part of this could be straight up misogyny (clothes-policing: “She was asking for it with an outfit like that”), and part of this could be the idea that the rules of life dictate putting her character on trial to prevent the man hearing of her rape from feeling helpless (“The world is predictable and just and good things happen to good people; thus random acts of violence don’t just happen. She must have done something wrong"). But it’s all still sexism because victim-blaming keeps the game of Male Privilege up and running. This is because it says rape remains a woman’s responsibility to prevent, not a man’s responsibility. Instead of men standing up to other men who do questionable things with women, or checking men who spout rape myths, and instead of rewriting the rules so that women are not put on trial for the actions of a man, men simply sit back and feel the ease of their male privilege – not to have to worry about rape.
So we see, the victims of male privilege - women, LGBT people - are not the only ones hurt by this system. Men, to a lesser extent (I'd take getting beat up as a man breaking a rule than as a woman raped simply for having female parts or an LGBT person getting beat up for not being able to hide his soft features), are hurt by it too, as the following graphic depicts:
3. We Are All Police Officers
We cannot blame individuals alone for actions when they are following the path of least resistance. To summarize Johnson (stop forgetting him!), individuals aren’t Monopoly, and Monopoly is not us. To only blame the system would be to act as if people were mindless drones and had no choice and therefore no responsibility. We make systems happen, just as we Monopoly happen. It takes individuals. [5]
How about we don't hate either the player or the game, but instead, recognize that we each contribute to the game's survival by abdicating responsibility and not being the first few brave ones to break the path of least resistance that makes it easier for men to disrespect women. Wait, is there some way we can make what I just said catchier so it can fit on a bumper sticker?
In reality, we do have a choice. We could end half our problems now if we stopped being police officers.
Yep, we are police officers.
I'll reference a movie I never saw to drive the point home- The Manchurian Candidate, in which a guy gets brainwashed into being an assassin. He does not know he is an assassin. But he has been brainwashed into killing someone, and planted in the country of the target. Thus he is a sleeper cell, waiting for the right time to be activated by those controlling him. Likewise, we are all brainwashed (socialized) into being police officers, and when someone breaks a rule, we are activated into discouraging that person from doing that behavior. Anytime we tell someone "don't do that," about anything, or are simply giving them an uneasy look that makes them feel uncomfortable doing what they are doing, we are police.
In movie theaters and elevators, we act as police officers when people don’t act according to the rules. Our method of policing might be staring at people. Gawking at a gay couple walking down the street, burning holes in them with your eyes, is a passive form of control because of the discomfort it produces. (That look you sometimes see in a gay couple's eyes is “Fuck it, I’m going to try and not care what people think, I’m going to act like I don’t care they are all watching me.”)
It is better to let people know how they are affecting you and those around them (consequences of their actions), or, in a calm voice, help them see the logical conclusion (another kind of consequence) of their myths ("I know you're just thinking out loud, but let's roll with this. So if you believe some girls like to get raped because they have rape fantasies, how then are you making it like a fantasy by raping her, when fantasies can be controlled and you can't?") ("it seems like you called her a bitch after she walked away because she didn't go along with what you were trying to do.") - and thereby hold a mirror up to them. Please remember to do it privately if this is at all possible. Even though you are not trying to shame a person, the person you are talking to might be thinking about the bystanders who are listening, wondering how they are judging him or her. And of course, don't get cocky and self-righteously try to strip the gender police of their pride by making a situation where they leave without the empowerment of finding something out for themselves.
Remember, you can still be a “good person” while contributing to a system whose consequences hurt women as a group. A lot of “good Germans” worked in concentration camps, and a lot of “good people” inflicted pain on people in Stanley Milgram’s experiment on obedience to authority here in America. Not to mention, Philip Zambardo, in his famous prison experiment, got some long-haired California students from the 1970s to act as prison guards and prisoners for a few weeks. Before they knew it, the guys acting as the prison guards were becoming cruel and sadistic- drunk off the kind of power that being an authority figure brings when you are someone who has to figure out how to command control over others.
It is also our duty to call out our friends when they are being police officers of traditional notions of masculinity and femininity or perpetuating some kind of stereotype or myth. But the point is not to police the police, but to tell them the consequences of their actions. Here's why:
They did an experiment on this at the University of Toronto Scarborough, where they split subjects into three groups. One group was given an "autonomy brochure," which just stressed the positive effects of not being prejudiced, a second was given no brochure at all, and a third was given a brochure that explicitly ordered them not to be prejudiced.You can guess how that went if you've spent any time around, well, the general public. When they tested each group on how prejudiced they were, presumably by throwing a minority in front of them and yelling "Quick, call him a name!" the researchers found that the group with the "do what you want" pamphlet was less prejudiced than the group with no pamphlet. And yes, for the third group, being told to be politically correct actually made them more prejudiced than being told nothing at all. [6]
"Turn in your badge and your gun!": Emboldening vigilantism since the 70's
Remember, you can still be a “good person” while contributing to a system whose consequences hurt women as a group. A lot of “good Germans” worked in concentration camps, and a lot of “good people” inflicted pain on people in Stanley Milgram’s experiment on obedience to authority here in America. Not to mention, Philip Zambardo, in his famous prison experiment, got some long-haired California students from the 1970s to act as prison guards and prisoners for a few weeks. Before they knew it, the guys acting as the prison guards were becoming cruel and sadistic- drunk off the kind of power that being an authority figure brings when you are someone who has to figure out how to command control over others.
We cannot point a finger to a Steubenville rapist, a George Zimmerman, without also looking at the same myths, fears, and other internalized sexism and racism in us that was found to be more pronounced in these guys.
Despite my thirteen-year-old-self's hopes, this is not about looking for villains in racists, sexists, and homophones. If only it were that easy (and could lead to massive shoot-outs and explosions between the good guys and bad guys).
Most of this work will be self-work, with sensational media stories or the privileged or biased word of a neighbor acting as a tool for us to examine which part of them is in us.
Ah, our own inner police officer. This bad boy or girl is what we internalized from the rules society taught us, most likely when we were young and impressionable, and is not going to go away any time soon. The best tool I have discovered to liberating myself from this is doing a sort of 12-step recovery program for it- accepting the fact it will always be with me, because my self-control over my thoughts, heart rate/stress response, and emotions have limits; taking an inventory of past errors and working to correct them; and recognizing that I need something outside of me to guide me through all of this and support me in the lifelong process of change.
Recovery from the Dominant Culture (RDC) is a program that does just that. Beginning in Oakland, California and having a second group in Minneapolis, Minnesota - and now online - RDC connects our culture's sickness to our other addictions. For instance, the myth that I am an individual and nothing else might contribute to my refusal to seek help for a gambling addiction or mental illness, because I believe I am totally self-sufficient. Capitalism's Monopoly-like promotion of selfishness can be connected to problem behaviors like hoarding and overeating.
I inherited some of society's sickness. In my college years's need for acceptance, I have thrown gay people under the bus in order for me to appear as cool to straight guys. I did this by essentially saying to them, "I'm not that kind of gay; I don't like flamboyant gay people either." I was still keeping the rigid hierarchy of how men and women are supposed to act in line; I was perpetuating our sick system. Now I am hoping that I can help men and women, gay and straight, can embrace and express their full range of emotions and mannerism, and that begins with myself. My hope is that we will all make it harder for people to feel the need to be policing, and thus create a new path, but I believe this work starts with, and ends with, the only thing we can control: our selves.
Click here for part 1 in this series, "3 Reasons Men and White People are Supremacist Without Realizing It"
Click here for part 3 in this series, "5 Ways We Unintentionally Contribute to Rape Culture"
[1] Summary of Allan Johnson's Privilege, Power, Difference, and Us
[2] ibid
[3] ibid
[5] Summary of Allan Johnson's Privilege, Power, Difference, and Us
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