The problem between the sexes is a topic I’ve been kicking around and chewing on quite a bit recently. I’m intrigued that it came up in this session, though I know it has come up before.
I have a few observations to offer concerning
@Serendipity ’s posts and the many replies.
It occurs to me that the sacred cows run deep throughout: the patriarchal defense, the feminist threads, the polite society angles. Let’s have a look at the extremes that humans swing between. And let’s think about, however you like, personal responsibility, accountability, and karmic cycles.
it seems that at a point in time, women may have systematically killed the majority of men within their civilization. And we are considering that maybe this is why psychopathic men want women in burkas now.
I kid. But so, we have clearly not mastered the balance on a grand scale.
I would like to sincerely lay out some of my personal realizations that have only come about because I am a woman who trusted the process of hearing out an angry man (who I love and respect and who is not a psychopath), even when he made loud scary noises and said mean things to me. This was not a quick or easy venture for me.
My husband and I went through some rough years. It is a very common experience for women with very young children to feel overwhelmed and alone and to begin to lash out a bit more.
I had of course felt that emotional space many times before I had our daughter, but the mother experience really layers it on thick at times.
I would usually pick these fights by becoming instantly indignant whenever my husband said something that sounded insensitive or dismissive. Some examples might be
“what’s the big deal f I put a dirty dish in the sink? It takes 5 seconds to move it to the dishwasher.”
Or
“I was at work all day. I need some down time before I play with the kiddo.”
Or
“Why are you talking about your male coworker so much?”
Or
“Trans women shouldn’t use women’s restrooms because that could be dangerous.”
(I know. That’s a weird thing, but it sticks out as evoking the same rage crying as the others.)
Let me be clear, both of us had ugly things to say to each other. He got very loud a number of times (in truth so did I, but I felt like HE was inappropriately loud sometimes.)
One time he opened the door of our moving car and just walked into a random neighborhood during one of these arguments. I couldn’t understand later when he told me he did it to get away from me.
In retrospect, that should have been a red flag to me in a different way than it was. I was quick to drop this in the bucket of “his unstable behavior” and get more indignant and wary about having further discussion on the matter. I didn’t give a thought to what it might say about my own at the time.
So, while I was busy internalizing the oppression of housework and diaper changes and breast feeding, I was growing more dismissive of his perspective on any aspect of our shared life, because I believed we didn’t share much of it anymore. And since the arguments were not going away, I began avoiding confrontation or conversation all the more.
Keep in mind, I knew I loved him. And I knew he loved me. That made it all the more troublesome. Because how could we be so good together and still not work?
On down the road, we had a pretty blowout argument - at this point about some topic that just rubbed my basic feminist tendencies a very wrong way, and I still remember the look on his face during the escalation.
I was insisting for the umpteenth time that I didn’t want to fight, but that I just couldn’t make sense of his perspective (probably yelling and waving my arms the whole time.)
His face was embodied desperation: wide eyed, loud voice, but helpless. Non-threatening. Saying the same words as me but somehow on the wrong side still. Begging me to not get into this again.
Here I am curious - men of the forum, have you ever found yourself in a state like that while arguing with a woman you care about? Unheard, desperate to find common ground, unable to find firm footing anywhere in the conversation?
At that moment I abandoned his company. I grabbed a notebook and a pen and I wrote the words that came out of his mouth that set me off. And I tried to figure out how these words had so much sway over me. I know I can express myself better in writing than I can when in a heated conversation, so it began as a documentation of my relationship with offensive remarks as a woman, and I went all the way back to toddlerhood.
I intended for him to read it and to finally see from my perspective. Of course, once I was done writing it, I realized what my issue was and that it actually had very little to do with him.
That is where the healing began. But the best part came after some weeks, once I had really had time to contemplate the far-reaching consequences of my response to triggers like this, and why those triggers existed. I laid out to my husband what I had learned about myself and my behavior, and I told him I was so sorry that I tried for so long to lay the blame on him. That I had absolutely stopped listening to him a long time ago, and that I had stunted my own progress, because I felt a certain way that I couldn’t explain when he talked or moved a certain way.
If it sounds like nonsense, that’s because it was!
I can expand on what obstacles I perceived and what he did, and I can extrapolate my story onto most (if not all) of my female friends and family, all of whom I love and respect. I have a list of anecdotes and a text exchange that took place while I read this thread, if anyone needs further example of the everyday horrors.
In an effort to hold interest, I will try to keep this brief.
What I have learned about myself, and therefore possibly women at large is the following:
We are more open to our subconscious when perceiving reality. This is why we are creative, why we thrive with symbolism, why we have been witches and magic and psychic throughout time. It is why we “feel” more. It is why we remember more about people. It is why we are good with children and elderly and people who are hurting.
It could also be that this more open subconscious allows women to learn to behave in ways that are socially acceptable while bypassing important lessons in personal development. This is just an idea I had - I could be off base. But I know that a big part of my experience as a western liberal independent and capable woman (well, girl at the time) was disassociating during conflict because I had a rich inner world to travel through, full of memories and media and all the rest telling me that I was actually awesome and the world couldn’t change who I was.
At any point in time, I could find sympathy from other women in my life - fellow students, friends, my mother, my boss, the clerk at the store- who would assure me that I could do better than whatever jerk I was dating at the time who made me feel such a way. I never had to own up to a damned thing. I still don’t, as far as they are concerned.
Women of the forum coming from a fairly stable childhood - is this something you have experienced? Or was I just especially coddled?
So, to conclude this invitation to deeper exploration of the problem with men and women, especially now, I would like to offer my suspicions that perhaps women don’t realize how much time we spend in feelings and memories and fears and hopes instead of looking at reality, especially who we are and what we do in it.
My three point plan for beginning the work:
1. Make a conscious effort to understand the plight of men, historically and currently, in the same way we do every other sun-sect of humanity. Do it without blaming the dude immediately. This is important because it is not the default right now. We have to try a new approach, and we have to do it without assuming it leads to burkas right away.
2. As women, we need to do brutal self analysis on our actions and words in the world. Set aside women’s history for a moment. Only consider your own. If you have regular contact with modern normie culture, observe other women’s actions and attitudes regarding the men in their life. No judgement, no feelings, no flying off into times when you felt the same. Just observe and listen. See how often you can find a familiar pattern. Consider how often these patterns may worsen the problem:
-avoidant behavior
-make nice and or “kill with kindness”
-victim mentality/crying instead of talking
-Disney princess program (rebel against the king/father/tradition and be the hero)
-woman warrior mentality (if I feel like he thinks I’m weak then I will have to fight)
- if I feel like it’s happening, then it’s reality
-all men are the same (or any variation thereof)
3. Take ownership for all of those patterns that you have identified and apologize to those you’ve wronged. No half-apologies, where you are sorry you made someone feel bad. Apologize for lying, for shutting down, for dismissing, for cold shoulder treatment.
Apologize for any time you treated a man like he was “just like the rest of them,” or in any way inferior for not understanding you in the moment, because you may not have been explaining yourself very well.
Obviously none of this is really gender-specific. This is pretty basic work. But do it through the lens that doesn’t welcome it. Make the devil meditate.
I don’t even want to share all of this that I have written. I don’t expect a warm welcome. When I talk about this stuff with the women in my life who ask for advice, I usually get the silent treatment for awhile, followed by a quick change of subject.
But there it is, from one chick to anyone who will make it this far.
Your youth
.
