Cancelled

Cancel Culture, let us discuss its positive aspects, because they do exist. Trust me. The other day, I was reflecting on the significant backlash against cancel culture. I acknowledge that it has sometimes been extreme, and in certain cases, the motives and outcomes of situations arising from it have been questionable. Often, the goal behind calling someone out is not genuinely about improving the victim’s life; rather, it is about the person raising the issue gaining notoriety and leveraging social media interactions for personal attention. This is one of the major problems I have observed: individuals becoming famous solely for being prominent voices in cancel culture, which tarnishes the movement’s reputation.

However, on a personal level, one significant benefit I have gained from cancel culture is knowledge, particularly about how other groups of people, those I do not belong to, experience life. As a man, I do not believe I will ever truly understand what it feels like to be a woman. Even if I were to transition today, I still would not fully experience what it is like to be a woman, because I grew up with a different sense of self and safety.

Growing up male, I always carried the belief that if I became strong enough or smart enough, I could handle any dispute or threat. If another man tried to threaten me, I believed that strength could always be an option, that if I worked out and trained, I could defend myself. Women generally don’t have that same avenue. It is a known fact that most men are physically stronger than most women, and many women are aware that if a physical threat arises, they are unlikely to win that encounter. That is something I have never had to live with and likely never will, regardless of what I do.

This realization struck me through cancel culture, especially when conversations around sexual harassment became more prominent. Behaviors that many men, myself included, had dismissed as harmless, like catcalling, started being viewed differently. For instance, when a woman walks past a group of men and someone catcalls her, we used to see it as just harmless teasing. Among men, we even recognized that those doing the catcalling were often too scared to approach women directly; if the woman actually stopped and confronted them, most cat-callers would back down because they were intimidated. So, we thought of it as a joke, harmless and meaningless.

But cancel culture amplified women’s voices, allowing them to explain how helpless and vulnerable such moments made them feel. Initially, when I tried to picture it from my perspective, it still seemed harmless: "It’s just noise; they’re not being threatening." However, the step I missed, and that many people miss, was truly putting myself in her shoes. Not imagining myself in that situation as me, but trying to imagine being her, seeing the world as she does.

It is challenging but necessary. When I considered it this way, as a woman, physically weaker, constantly aware of the high rates of gender-based violence, particularly in a country like South Africa, the perceived harmlessness vanished. Being catcalled is not just "noise"; it becomes a reminder of vulnerability, a signal that safety is not guaranteed. It is not about the specific words said, it is about the broader environment, the fear, the loss of control. Suddenly, it makes complete sense why catcalling is seen as harassment. And I understood this because women finally had the platform, through cancel culture, to raise their voices.

Cancel culture also highlighted similar dynamics concerning race. If you belong to a group with a history of oppression and walk into a room filled with members of the group that oppressed yours, you can feel small, scrutinized, diminished. Sometimes, someone says something that triggers those feelings, but if you ask people outside the group to evaluate the situation, they often cannot comprehend it. They assess it through their own experiences.

A white person might say, for example, "If I grew up in poverty, I would have avoided drugs, focused on education, and made something of myself." But that person is inserting their own mindset, formed in very different circumstances, into a life they have never lived. They are not seeing the world through the lens of someone who has been systematically disadvantaged, for whom opportunities seem distant, and for whom survival today matters more than distant goals like education.

If you are hungry today, you are not thinking about university; you are thinking about how to eat tonight. Crime and drugs sometimes offer immediate solutions that long-term plans like education simply do not.

The deeper problem is that when we encounter situations that do not make sense to us, we evaluate them by placing ourselves in them, not by putting ourselves in the other person’s place. We assume our mindset, upbringing, and resilience would apply. We judge based on how we would act, rather than imagining how someone living a different reality might feel or act.

To truly put yourself in someone else’s shoes, you have to remove yourself entirely, not just insert your mind into their life, but adopt their view of the world. You have to listen to how they see things, accept it, and then begin thinking from that perspective. Only then can you make sense of situations that once seemed irrational or exaggerated.