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Beware of Males in Female-Centered & Female-Only Spaces: The Case of Predator Lundy Bancroft
Reason #1,284,343,698,999 women need female separatism and female-only spaces away from ALL MALES!
I’m not concerned with what names a male calls himself or what titles he holds; if he is a male, then he is a potential threat until proven otherwise. No explanations needed sisters! The day males wipe out their myth of male supremacy is the day women and girls can consider giving any male the benefit of the doubt.
📚 Resources to Explore:
A post shared by @makemyburdenlight
I’ve never read any of Lundy Bancroft’s books, but I’ve seen his quotes floating around the internet and even liked some of them. Recently, I’ve realized the importance of knowing this man’s name, and more importantly, his work. There’s more to the story of why he knows so much about the thoughts of violent males.
Lundy Bancroft violated several women, and they have been courageously coming out with their stories. Because of his power and positionality versus that of his victims, these stories haven’t entered any mainstream news networks that I’ve seen. So far, this is what I’ve been able to gather on the story of Lundy Bancroft’s non-sexualized and sexualized psychological and physical violations, which I first learned about on @makemyburdenlight’s Instagram page and website.
Once I learned about the women who have bravely shared their stories, I was depressed by my lack of surprise that a male who built his career on female-centered issues is a predator. Violent males are parasitic and build their entire life around increasing their proximity to their ideal targets. We see this in the men who are child rapists and pick careers around girls and boys so they can easily access and groom their targets—from religious institutions to schools to sports leagues.
We see this in the male rapists who pick careers that give them access to disenfranchised women, such as male prison guards, male drug rehabilitation counselors, male aides to disabled women and girls, and male police officers.
We see this in male abusers who pick careers that give them emotional power and control over women, such as male entertainers, male therapists, male doctors, and male self-help content creators…the gurus, the prophets, the con artists.
This last group can reach celebrity status, which can make them untouchable by the law and justice. This is the space where Lundy Bancroft exists. Since entertainers—content creators or “gurus”—are charismatic and persuasive enough to amass a cult following, their god-like status becomes impossible to question. Women and men begin to take in the guru’s word as pure genius, even when their words are all smoke and mirrors, routinely contradictory, superficially parroting someone else’s analysis, and lacking any critical thinking (cough, cough Alan Watts, cough, cough). Gurus become gurus because of how their persona makes us feel. Back in my guru-worshipping moments, I waited in a line for 4 hours to hug Amma ji (Sri Mātā Amritānandamayī Devi). Now, did that hug actually do anything to address my root problems? No. Ironically, I usually detest hugs, particularly from strangers. But I was at a desperate place and was looking for anyone or anything to believe in. I just needed a hug, with no ulterior motives and without anyone in my life knowing how low I was. I also wanted an excuse to escape to New York City (considered my peaceful place back then). Some Hindus do believe Amma ji has the divine healing touch. It’s amazing the lies you’ll tell yourself when you’re hanging on by a thread. We do transmit energy, but it’s not like some Tesla supercharger; our energy transfer moves slowly and methodically. But the salesmen need you to believe that energy can be picked up like a run to the corner store. That way, you’ll show up to their events, you’ll drop money in their coffers, you’ll absorb their bullshit. I’m just lucky that the cult leader I was following was female and not looking to sexually violate her followers. She had no interest in exploiting me for anything but my money. And there wasn’t a major hard sell at the event. It really was a line of all us broken people, waiting for a hug. I was poor at that time, so there was nothing I could give. I also didn’t have the specific life experiences that might have led me into following this guru closely and giving money when I eventually did get back on my feet. I was in the middle of another chronic health struggle flare-up and not in my usual stable state of mind; I was temporarily susceptible to a false prophet. I went for the one event, got my hug, and then stabilized enough to return to therapy and access professional care and guidance. I got actual self-care, and remembered that I can’t fucking stand gurus.
I can credit my specific, personal experiences as an Indian and Hindu for my weariness of gurus or prophets. I’m a former Hindu and I went to Catholic School for ten+ years, so I got my education on the bullshit of gurus-prophets-cults in childhood. BUT, even with all my knowledge and ability to see through bullshit, whenever I was deeply desperate, all my protections fell apart. When Sadhguru became popular during the pandemic, I laughed my ass off at foolish friends telling me to watch him because every desi knows a guru like him; they’re a dime a dozen. Just like the Christian evangelist gurus, these males are easier to spot because they love the flamboyant performance of it all. Even when I attempted to burst the bubbles of Sadhguru fanatics, many chose to ignore me. They, too, needed desperately to believe in someone or something at that time, so they gave in. Denial isn’t rational; it’s a reactive trigger response. Even when I urged my then-girlfriend to look into his con artist past, into the allegations that he abused and murdered his wife, none of that mattered to her. In fact, she fetishized my Indianness and was so proud of herself for knowing about Sadhguru and telling me about him. Since she was a fellow melanin-rich woman, I gave her a pass. An illogical rationalization to avoid calling her out and to guarantee not to fuck with my prospects of sleeping with her that night. But I thought to myself how her exact flavor of American ignorance is what made her the perfect target for Sadhguru and the likes of “foreign” males like him. Since no mainstream media sources were calling him out, and many celebrities were uplifting him, no one I knew believed my warnings. I’m often labeled the “angry feminist” amongst those in my life, so after a while, I become easy to tune out due to my repetitive warnings about male supremacy. That’s what’s so terrifying about our woman-hating culture mixed with these types of parasitic males. They amass a blind following, they live within a male supremacy so they get away with anti-female crimes easily, and their followers are many times disenfranchised in some way, so they become easier to gaslight and turn into foot soldiers-men and women alike. Then any dissenting women are called witches and b#*ches who must be silenced and burned. This is the same old story of all mysticism/religion/spirituality - to control the thoughts and behaviors of the most desperate among us and call dissenters and the female sex-class blasphemous so that society fears women, girls, and truth tellers. At one point or another, we’ve all been desperate, we’ve all been in denial, we’ve all raged against a dissenter. For women and girls, these responses are induced by male culture and then punished severely. There is a correlation between males as the gaslighting mystic con artist perpetrators and women and girls as their targets, victims, and scapegoats. This is only possible under the well-oiled machine of sexism, misogyny, and patriarchy. Male parasitism must manufacture conditions to guarantee female desperation. Take away a woman’s social, political, and economic rights and you effectively cut her at the mouth, hands and knees.
This is exactly why a male like Lundy Bancroft went down the career path he did. He chose to become an advocate for the female victims of male violence precisely because he’s a violent male. He was just trying to get closer to his desired targets: women in crisis. Males like this elicit enjoyment in committing such extreme boundary violations. Just think of Tony Robbins, Mr. Murdha, or the countless other examples of abusive males infiltrating female-centered or female-only spaces. While the brave female survivors speak out against the perpetrator Lundy Bancroft, they have to sit back and witness a world unaware of the truth. Or worse, a world unwilling to face the truth. Or even worse yet, a world that knows the truth and remains indifferent, more comfortable blaming the victims instead of naming, shaming, and prosecuting the perpetrator. Lundy Bancroft has been beloved for his direct naming of male violence. It’s discombobulating to have a man of his pop culture fame be a misogynist in sheep’s clothing. But this isn’t a new story, and we can get through the pain of another fallen male “leader”, particularly if we learn the lesson from it. This is a wakeup call to not only beware of false prophets, but specifically to stay clear of males and their analysis. Stick to surrounding yourself with and listening to women, and you decrease the chances of finding out one day that your guru is a fraud. Or better yet, divorce yourself from guru ideology altogether, and take each woman you choose to listen to on a case-by-case basis, both capable of harm and capable of care. Scepticism isn’t mean, it’s required discernment for our female safeguarding. Now, when we look back at Lundy Bancroft’s words, we can analyze it through a new lens, and dump his thoughts in the trash where they belong. Each time I learn of a new male predator, I’m never surprised; I’m just flabbergasted by how deep this parasitic mindset goes in male culture. How pathetic, illogical, irrational, and unintelligent must a man be to base his whole life on being a violent male moonlighting as an anti-male violence educator? This male wanted his message to come straight from the horse’s mouth because that’s how he enjoyed wielding violent power and control. I don’t care why he is the way he is, I care about his impact on women and girls, and I want to work toward eliminating such males from our spaces and analyses. Every single word this man has imparted is stained by his poisonous thought processes. This might be the first time in my life when I almost wish to burn and ban a book. His “all or nothing” viewpoints on males are a warning sign of his faulty logic. #YesAllMen isn’t some simplistic phrase saying that each and every single male is violent. Any thinker worth their salt knows that NOTHING is 100% in life. Such is the truth of the scientific method and reasoning. Lundy Bancroft distorts the message that all males have the potential to be violent due to male supremacy and should be considered threats due to the well-documented high rate of male violence. He twists this message into “all males are dangerous, except me”, which is classic male cult leader logic. It’s the typical projection of male supremacy meant to obscure the truth. When women say #YesAllMen, a male will always pull out his whataboutisms and logical fallacies by saying, “#NotAllMen or what about the violent women and girls?!?” And these stupid arguments are based on that same distorted, algorithmic logic. Just like not every single male is violent, not every single female person is non-violent. We need to break out of these inaccurate ways of understanding numbers, data, and statistics. Online algorithms have confused our thinking and perception; we need to rid ourselves of the extremism of all or nothing and return to the center of the bell curve. I urge women to practice female separatism and to admit that all males directly and indirectly benefit from male violence against women and girls. So whether a male is violent or not, he still gains from other males being violent. He still enacts microaggressions that target your sex. To face these difficult truths women need to patiently work through their personal trigger responses, the intial hopelessness of facing the realities of male violence, and finally arrive to a place of calmness, acceptance, and balance. We can’t be vigilant 24/7, and we have to process our traumas, so we can move from surviving to thriving. I urge women to practice safeguarding against all males in order to stay safer under the conditions of males’ culture and behaviors. I’m also science-minded and know full well that there are always outliers and exceptions. There are rare situations and rare males who do challenge their own male supremacy and that of their fellow males. But that should be a given, and I don’t give out accolades for the bare minimum. As humans our goal is to do no harm, or as little harm as we can possibly do. And the truth is that such men are rare outliers. The vast majority of males go along with upholding sexism, misogyny, and patriarchy so they can continue to reap the benefits. Sound scientific analysis doesn’t base correlations off of outliers but off of the majority. No woman ever said each and every single male needed to be violent for #YesAllMen to stand. It’s a purposely obtuse rebuttal. In general, when a thinker goes to “all or nothing” arguments, step back and question what is informing their view: is it based on reactivity, a trigger, on missing information, does it stem from survival-mode? Are they trying to manipulate or coerce your perception? If a thinker is at any extreme—where either it’s all nuance and immaterial, or it’s all or nothing and always concrete—then it might be time to step back from analytical discussions. Aim for balance. Aim for the center. Learn to discern. And if a male ever claims he’s “one of the good ones” fucking run sis, cause not even as a woman would I ever tell anyone to automatically consider me safe. Because that’s the difficult but necessary part of nuance and scientific rigor; you have to turn the mirror on yourself. I, too, have the propensity to harm others and I have; I don’t get to declare I’m safe, because that assessment lies with those around me. We live in a world that prefers flattened all-or-nothing messaging or a poetic, convoluted sermon on the mount. Just remember to question logic that’s either too simplistic or overly complex. These can be warning signs to protect women and girls from males and their cultural flaws. Males like Lundy Bancroft are highly manipulative and an important reminder of exactly why we say #YesAllMen.
Sisters, if you have any leads on the story of Lundy Bancroft’s violations, please share them in the comments. Please spread this story so we can support our sisters. Let’s return to promoting female-only resources that are well-vetted so we can better safeguard against males’ violence and illogicality. Share any female businesses with the community. Don’t risk trusting ANY male (or male culture-centered women) in ANY female-only or female-centered space. Males already have all their own spaces and all their own issues to work on. Let’s keep our circles female-only in the same manner males have been keeping their circles male-only for centuries. Each time we opt to work with women, we practice and model safeguarding 101 for the women and girls in our lives. And we finally can build up and pass on our female culture, free from male ideologies.
We only get this one life, and we can’t risk it spending any additional time around a demographic known to target us based on our sex class. Male humans have been scientifically established as the number one predator to women and girls. Males are 51% of the population and can’t be fully avoided. Yet we can take steps to reduce our interactions while cultivating women-centered communities. The odds are ever in our favor when we practice female separatism.
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