Everyone thinks he’s the only one
Why rules almost nobody still wants stay standing anyway, and what happens when one person opens his mouth. Almost nobody thinks this is okay. And still almost nobody says a word.
Four out of five laugh along.
Picture a locker room after football. Someone makes a crude remark about a woman. The whole room laughs. You laugh too, while you don’t actually find it funny.
And here is the strange part: of the men laughing along, almost none of them actually find it funny. They laugh because they think the rest do find it funny or normal. Nobody says anything, for fear of being the only one who kills the mood. That’s how a norm stays standing that almost nobody in that room personally supports. And that’s what happens everywhere.
If this system works for nobody, why don’t we all walk out of it?
We’re fooling each other.
The strongest lock on that prison is a misunderstanding. Ask men what they think themselves, and most are for respect and for stepping in. Ask them what they think other men think, and the picture suddenly looks completely different. And it’s on that false picture that you decide whether to speak up or keep quiet.
That has been measured. In the largest study of this, among more than 3,500 men, one in four personally endorsed the strictest rules. Three in four did not. But 36 per cent did feel the pressure to live up to them. More men feel the norm than believe in it, and that gap is exactly what keeps it standing.
This study was carried out in Australia, among men aged 18 to 45. A Dutch measurement does not yet exist; commissioning one is the first thing we want to do.
A room full of men. Everyone watching everyone else. And every one of them concludes that the rest see it differently than he does.
What would you do?
You only notice those invisible rules at the moment you have to follow them. Below are six situations where that happens: in the group chat, on the touchline, at home after a bad day.
Choose what you really would do, not the polite answer.
A teammate sends a photo of a woman with a remark about her body. Three of the lads reply with a laughing emoji.
Suppose you were the first to say something. Chances are you won’t turn out to be the only one.
One voice is enough.
If almost no one really backs the norm, only one thing is needed to tip it: someone who speaks up first. See what happens then.
What happens if you say something?
Everyone in this group stays silent. Not because they agree, but because each of them thinks he is the only one who doesn’t.
These are habits.
Not laws.
Everything in this chapter is a habit. The joke nobody corrects. Laughing along when you don’t actually find it funny. The silence in the locker room. Nobody invented it and almost nobody really wants it.
That’s better news than it sounds. A law has to be repealed. A habit you can simply unlearn. It already makes a difference if in one room, one time, nobody laughs along.
And you’re less alone in this than it feels. Most of the people around you think the same as you, they just don’t say it. One voice is enough to make that visible.
But change only works if the world around you allows it. Start doing things differently and at home, at work and everywhere else you’ll still run into the old expectations. Those people and systems are a product of the same culture too. Nobody does it deliberately, and most of them want that change. But as long as those old expectations stay standing, every step takes a lot of courage and strength.
Read chapter 4 for the world around you, and why we have to tackle this together.