I’m afraid Bernie Sanders’ lack of response to the follow-up question didn’t simply result from a lack of preparation, because then you have to ask why he wasn’t prepared. The patriarchal pappies on the other side are certainly prepared — with lies, obfuscations, and myths, of course, but they’ve done their homework.

Sanders, like many liberal men, seems to have a benign but abstract appreciation of women’s rights. For example, he has taken measures to ensure that members of his campaign staff don’t engage in sexual harassment during the 2020 cycle. And this is certainly a positive action. But he did so only after 2016 campaign staffers — women and a few men — complained of flagrant abuses that went fairly high up the chain. Sexual harassment within the ranks wasn’t a problem during the 2016 election not simply because he was unaware; according to Sanders himself, he was unaware because he was busy running for office. (This isn’t Sanders bashing per se; Lord knows he’s an improvement on certain of his Democratic rivals.)

There are a number of men who claim to be progressive on women’s issues but whose online communications reveal a deep foundation of misogyny and patriarchal privilege. It’s not just that they consider certain feminist issues unimportant because they’re unaffected directly. It’s that they are satisfied with the status quo, and like the moderate Episcopal bishops MLK upbraids in the “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” who had urged King not to move too fast in his quest for equality, they are far more dangerous than the extremists on the far right.

You have to look for the subtext sometimes, but sooner or later these “progressive” men show their true colors in the way they react (or fail to react) to genuine threats, like the attempt to overturn Roe v. Wade. It’s our duty as men to call these false allies out, as well as to be informed and active in our support for women’s reproductive rights.