unless you can feel compelled to act the same as him. It’s not that you stay in this state of compulsion, but rather that, if only for a passing second, you can want to act as he wants to act. Like, you don’t “get” Trump voters unless you’ve, at some point, felt the desire to vote for Trump.

For certain topics, the bridge to understanding (as set by this standard) may be too steep to conquer. This is especially true where the topic is less academic, like sexual harassment. Still, if you as a man have ever felt uncomfortable with the way another man speaks/touches a woman, a woman’s cries of sexual harassment are more likely not only sound bad, but to feel bad. And it’s in shared feelings that the deepest forms of understanding become possible.