Roxane Gay: ‘Men don’t hold each other accountable’

Roxane Gay is a writer and cultural critic best known for being the author of Bad Feminist. Here, the 49-year-old shares her memories of her last serious relationship with a man, meeting her now-wife, and why the response to domestic violence needs to address the harm.

Men’s rage towards women begins with male entitlement, says Roxane Gay.Credit: Reginald Cunningham

My Haitian father, Michael, is an incredible man. He is a civil engineer, kind and intelligent and loves his three kids.

I am his only daughter. When I was about three, he used to hold me on his lap while he read the newspaper. One day I started reading out loud, which is how I learnt to read.

He was always an equal partner with my mother, Nicole, so I had healthy relationships modelled to me from a young age. This set me up to understand that you could absolutely have equitable relationships between a man and a woman and a woman and a woman.

My middle brother, Joel, was my best friend. He lived by his own rules. He understood that he had as much right to be in this world and to live loudly like everyone else, so he did. Joel died in 2021. It doesn’t seem real in some ways, but incredibly real in others.

I was 12 years old when I was gang raped in a cabin in the woods. The next day at school, the boys told everyone that I wanted it, so I ended up with the bad reputation. Nothing happened to them. I hope they are suffering but it doesn’t seem likely.

My father found out about my rape in 2014 from a Time magazine article I’d written about the experience. He wanted to know why I didn’t tell him and Mom. He said they would have gotten justice for me – he was really affected by it. But it clarified for him why one day I was this happy, outgoing girl and the next a completely different person.

I was shy and quiet at boarding school. I was really f---ed up and didn’t know how to say that I needed help. I spent a year writing backwards – it was deliberate, and I can’t tell you why, but the school allowed it because I completed the work correctly.

My most serious relationship with a man was probably my last. When I was at graduate school in Michigan I met Jon, a logger, at a poker table at the casino. Later on, he saw me at the gas station across from my apartment buying cigarettes. He was like, “Hey, Casino Girl.” We ended up dating for a couple of years.

After graduating, I got my first teaching job and wanted Jon to move to Illinois with me. He hadn’t lived anywhere but Michigan and wanted to stay. I was like, “I’m the first black woman to receive a PhD in this field at my institution. There aren’t many black professors, and you want me to give this up?”

I was disappointed he didn’t make the grand love gesture and follow me, but it worked out well, as several years later, in 2018, I met my wife, [writer and podcaster] Debbie Millman. Debbie and I are very different people but share the same values. We love crime procedurals, travel and our dog, Max. We are both ambitious and are workaholics.

I first visited Australia nine years ago. I remember Rosie Batty campaigning about domestic violence. I am saddened to hear that things haven’t gotten much better.

Men’s rage towards women begins with male entitlement. It allows some men to believe they are owed something. When they don’t feel they have the life they are owed, they take it out on anyone, especially people close to them, usually women and children.

There are prominent misogynists on social media spreading incredibly toxic messages to millions of men worldwide. Certain men feel empowered by these freaks.

Men don’t hold each other accountable. They don’t call each other out when they hear friends making degrading remarks or see them being rough with their partners. Until they do, we’re not going to see enough movement in this area.

The response to domestic violence is to remove women from harm, but let’s address the harm. There seems to be a reluctance to confront that. I find it to be incredibly defeating and so cyclical. It never seems to end.

Roxane Gay appears at Carriageworks, Sydney, as part of the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, August 24- 25, and at Melbourne Town Hall, August 27, presented by the Wheeler Centre and Now or Never.

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