men

Shot in the face

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Who remembers the story of the Long Island Lolita, Amy Fisher? A Long Island high school girl who had an affair with a car mechanic, Joey Buttafuoco, and then when he dumped her, she went to the Buttafuoco house and shot Joey’s wife, Mary Jo, in the face. What in the hell did Mary Jo have to do with this conflict? Sure, the teenage girl is unhinged and somehow sees the wife as the hindrance keeping her away from her lover. But it wasn’t the wife. It was the man: blaming his inability to know what he wants, playing all sides, having cake and eating it. But the women pay the price.

It was a long time ago, and you would be forgiven to have forgotten this sordid, ripped-from-the-headlines, made-for-tv tale. It was mined once more in a recent season of Mozart in the Jungle, but even that is not a must-watch for most, so the Buttafuoco/Fisher story isn’t immediately at the ready in most people’s memories. No matter – it is just an extreme example of the cautionary tale that we’re fed: women are jealous; women are crazy; women will try to kill each other over a man and imagine the worst intentions in the other woman. In fact, the other woman may be completely in the dark.

So often, it’s not the women. It’s almost always the men. The men are the ones making poor choices, misleading women… and then these blind women, who never have all the facts, end up doing stupid shit like shooting each other in the face.

Most are not shooting anyone in the face. Nothing quite so dramatic… or criminal. But I wonder about the majority of the women I know. There’s a lot of lip service about being supportive of women, being feminists, believing and listening to other women. But in practice, even the most reasonable of women are always suspicious of and placing blame on another (or ‘the other’) woman. But I don’t think the majority of women would, for example, actively pursue someone (male or female) whom they knew to be already involved/unavailable.

I wonder today, along these lines, how could woman A (a nameless/faceless woman) read book after book, all feminist manifestos and dialectics of women supporting women, and yet be so territorial about the man she lived with and supposedly didn’t even love or want? Woman B is simply told that man Z has split up with woman A. But woman A apparently has a different understanding of the situation. Why does she then blame woman B, who does not have accurate or truthful information about where things stand? Woman B has stumbled into a situation about which she does not have, well… any information. (Although that does not become totally clear until the end, when it no longer matters.) The problem always comes back to man Z. And why would either woman, given how they are being played and given false or incomplete information, even want man Z?

How could woman A, apparently intelligent, thoughtful and brilliant, after reading so much about women, act as though and treat other women – strangers, in most cases – as though they were enemies to her cause? As standing in her way? As trying to steal from her? Women so often, especially when someone else is in the middle, do not have all the information they need.

And the world goes on being a horrible place for women not only because of men’s oppression, which of course is in the news now – dominating headlines – but also because of women’s suspicion about each other and what they do to and how they treat and view each other.

Photo by Mr Cup / Fabien Barral on Unsplash

The silent woman

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“The real trouble about women is that they must always go on trying to adapt themselves to men’s theories of women.” —D. H. Lawrence

“It has taken me most of my 40 or so years as a conscious person to realize: I don’t owe anyone an explanation.” – Me

Today I read an article by Danish writer Dorthe Nors on the invisibility of middle-aged and older women. She writes: “A middle-aged woman who’s not preoccupied with handling herself or taking care of someone else is a dangerous, erratic being. What is she up to? And what’s the point of her being up to anything?” It fell in my lap at the right time, seeing as how I’m sidled right up to middle age, and have always been a bit invisible anyway.

In that sense I, perhaps wrongly, feel like I can see this clearly and objectively, but I doubt this is true. Perhaps it is, as one dear friend commented when I shared this article, “I think middle age must come as much more of a shock to women who fit the current standards of beauty. For someone to whom men have never paid much attention, there is not much difference in how we are considered in middle age. While difficult to deal with when young, you are forced to find your self-worth outside of a man and man’s view of you at an earlier age.”

This article arrived at a moment when I was otherwise contemplating commitment and choice. We are led, at least by the media, to believe that our choices become ever-more limited, and scarcity rears its terrifying head – in the workplace, in terms of potential relationship or sexual partners, even in our friendships. I don’t think any of this is as acute as we’re told, but it is also not universal. It depends on you, where you are, what you are doing, what you want and all kinds of other factors. In the midst of all the infernal thinking, someone said to me, referring to more specific things than I thus applied it to, “There are still a number of points ahead of you at which your life branches off in multiple directions. You still have options, choices.” Logically I know this but a combination of inertia and grief, and a soupçon of fear, has stopped me in my tracks. I feel a bit like I have been shaken awake and have no time to lose.

But a lot of sluggish meandering through literary contemplations on women, communication, relationships and marriage had to happen first.

Finding a voice

For a lot of women, finding their voice – the voice that represents them truly, not just the voice and content she uses as a conciliatory mediator, but the voice and content as the one who gets labeled as a bitch or troublemaker or a roadblock simply because she actually is the smartest one in the room, knows what she is doing and has thought through all the potential outcomes and problems. The voice that is not just a cushion, a boomerang, a mirror for something a man says or does, but the voice that is not afraid of or concerned with how she is perceived. This is mined with risk. It is all easier said than done. It’s not just having the knowledge and eloquence to hold forth on a given subject, it’s as Rebecca Solnit posits, just being able to assert the right or space to say anything at all:

“Most women fight wars on two fronts, one for whatever the putative topic is and one simply for the right to speak, to have ideas, to be acknowledged to be in possession of facts and truths, to have value, to be a human being. Things have gotten better, but this war won’t end in my lifetime.” –Men Explain Things to Me, Rebecca Solnit

I am not sure how much of my own difficulty in asserting myself is rooted in age-old shyness (as opposed to my being female). But, as an adult, I also live in Sweden, so I don’t find that men are quite as domineering, particularly when they have sought out my expertise in my own field. Right after I wrote that sentence I happened to see this opinion piece by Paulina Porizkova on feminism. She realized when she moved to Sweden as a child that suddenly “my power was suddenly equal to a boy’s”. In the Swedish world, “the word ‘feminist’ felt antiquated; there was no longer a use for it”; after all, “Women could do anything men did, but they could also — when they chose to — bear children. And that made us more powerful than men.”

It was only later, in comparing the roles of women in her native Czech Republic, in Sweden, in France and finally the United States that she could embrace the need for feminism:

“In the Czech Republic, the nicknames for women, whether sweet or bitter, fall into the animal category: little bug, kitten, old cow, swine. In Sweden, women are rulers of the universe. In France, women are dangerous objects to treasure and fear. For better or worse, in those countries, a woman knows her place.

But the American woman is told she can do anything and then is knocked down the moment she proves it.” –Paulina Porizkova

I also tend to have the upper hand in business dealings because everyone else is using English as a second or third language, and it’s my first. But I certainly recognize that battle of trying to gain the right to speak. And the ability to say what I want or need to say without being interrupted or talked over or “mansplained to”. This isn’t scientific, my observations/thoughts. But being this insular, shy person for my entire life, while teeming with vociferous opinions, thoughts and ideas, I experience the ongoing struggle, but then I also experience this with louder, more domineering women who stubbornly want to hear the sounds of their own voices and repetitive thoughts (they’ve probably learned to behave this way because they too are fighting for a space for their voices). I also keenly feel that these communication difficulties (not mine specifically but more general, gender-related mismatches) have informed my opinions on male-female communication, relationships, and have contributed a lot to my desire to be alone.

It often takes us such a long time as people to find our true voices, to be ourselves, that it’s a shame that it’s twice as hard for women of all ages under most circumstances, and that by the time we as middle-aged women find our voice and claim the agency to speak openly and freely and to demand the floor, so to speak, we are silenced by this invisibility (or as Alex Qin explains in her SkillShare TechSummit 2017 keynote, linked above, being hypervisible and invisible at the same time).

On a scale of 1 to 10

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“What do you rate that on a scale of 1 to 10?”
“How annoying is it to be asked to rate something on a scale of 1 to 10?”

This is a question I have never asked, and will never ask. But it is asked frequently enough that I am used to it and respond to it.

An American friend recently told me that his Swedish ex-girlfriend constantly berated him for wanting everything to fit into this 1-to-10 rating scale. He felt fairly sure that this was a cultural difference – maybe non-Americans did not care for this stick-to-simple-numbers scale. I interrupted, “It’s not a Swedish thing; it’s a man thing.” Not that I know very many Swedish – or non-American – men who go straight to the 1-to-10 scale, but almost every American man I know uses this meaningless shorthand. He argued with me, “But women do take part – they always answer.” Again, I put a stop to it. “Yes,” I said, “They answer. They are conditioned to participate. It’s polite. The answer is something they know you will understand and expect. But think back: has a woman ever once asked you this question? Has a woman ever asked you to give anything a rating on a scale of 1 to 10?” No.

I have never asked the question; I have never met another woman who has or would ask this question. I know this is a sweeping generalization; I have no hard, scientific data backing up this claim, but women generally need more information, more detail, more nuance and more shading when they receive a value-oriented evaluation of something. Men always initiate this question, and even if women will humor them and participate by providing an answer, they don’t usually (in my experience) pose the question.

Take note.

The 50-somethings

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When exactly is it that most men hit the point of peak entitlement, non-listening, world-class dullards and yet, despite being more closed off to the outside world and the most out of touch they have possibly ever been, feel perfectly comfortable being outlandishly demanding?

It’s a slow process, perhaps simmering within them for their entire lives.

A friend and I discussed her observation (and I agree) that many men we know (mostly men in their 50s) are mind-numbingly boring, selfish and self-involved conversationalists who are so lacking in self-awareness that they don’t realize they have monopolized the one-sided conversations they start with the most boring of rambling. My friend is a social woman and tries to engage everyone in conversation, which I admire but also cringe at, knowing she will end up in more than her share of these time-suck monologues. I have no small talk wizardry at my disposal so avoid this kind of stuff as much as I can. Most people are boring, in the end. I have often found myself in challenging and awkward social situations, where I overcome my aversion to idle chitchat – at considerable pains – and want to almost congratulate myself that I kickstarted a conversation, only to hate myself for bothering minutes later when someone starts talking ad nauseam about himself, his stodgy perspectives, insipid opinions and lifeless hobbies. Conversation thus becomes tedious, drudgery… and work. And the monotony is wearisome.

But these guys were certainly not born this way? Before they hit 50, and found themselves on the loose in the world as single men again for the first time in years, they did manage to get married and have families.

One friend told me recently about how hard marriage is. The man she fell in love with was gregarious, outgoing, curious, adventurous – always looking for new things to try. And these were the qualities that attracted her, the things they had in common. He was the life of the party and could win anyone over because he’s so talkative; in fact, he dominates every conversation with his stories and opinions. He had life experience and adventures to share, though, and stories with which to regale even the most reluctant listener. With each passing year (click the link for Gavin Ewart‘s “Short Time”, brilliant poem on self-deception) though, he has grown less adventurous, more closed-off and closed-minded. But he still turns on the charm in social situations and dominates the conversation. For how long, though, will it seem charming, as the ratio of adventures/new stories dwindles versus the urge to dominate, and eventually tyrannize, the conversation?

I started wondering if this is the trajectory of the 50-something man. Not every man has been quite as witty or engaging as this friend’s husband, but is there something to the idea that as these guys’ experiences, influence and curiosity diminish in breadth, reach and frequency, everything about them becomes more limited in scope? And for men who dominate conversations, they reach this period of just-beyond middle-age and do not realize they aren’t the life of the party. My theory here could be way off, but isn’t there a correlation here? These guys, if they ever had “it”, have lost it – and they and their wives are no longer in the same place… for the same old reasons. One changed, and the other didn’t.

What gets me, though, is that these 50-something men often get divorced but then don’t even question or evaluate how it all broke down. Could it have anything to do with the fact that every time they opened their mouths, they showered their wives with routine, interminable selfishness? And if that assertion is anything close to true, wouldn’t it make sense that they might recalibrate before striking up conversations with new people (whether colleagues or dates or potential partners)? I keep running into this exact scenario – sometimes being met with obliviousness (I could walk away and these men would continue to babble), sometimes being met with absolutely foul, sour and hideous behavior and insults (and here I mean real nastiness). Either way, this demographic – maladjusted pricks and dicks (of any age) – isn’t one I am keen to be around.