That's Empress to You

A Totally Not-Funny Screed

Having just read a blog post called A Message To Women From A Man: You Are Not “Crazy” written, by, of course, a man, I wanted to put my fist through my computer screen. First of all, the guy uses an overbroad definition of the word gaslighting, defining all simple overbearing, dismissive rudeness (often but not always perpetrated by men against women) as gaslighting. Sometimes it is, but most of the behavior he describes, while intolerable, is not gaslighting. Gaslighting is insisting to another that an untruth is true, either unconcerned with the psychological damage this will do, or wreaking this damage purposely. I don’t think men go around saying, “You’re so sensitive. You’re so emotional. You’re defensive. You’re overreacting. Calm down. Relax. Stop freaking out! You’re crazy! I was just joking, don’t you have a sense of humor? You’re so dramatic. Just get over it already!” to drive women crazy. Most men who do this do it because they’re tools to begin with, and they’re too lazy or emotionally inept to deal with the reactions they are provoking.  

But what I really want to say is: Dude you don’t have to tell me stuff I already know. Having you say it – even if there is truth in your simplistic diatribe – in this sanctimonious tone, with your male empathy smeared all over it, makes me want to smack you.

I don’t like men taking over women’s issues, and I don’t appreciate their trying to look all post new-age, generation-we-are-all-sisters, more-feminist-than-thou. You’re not more feminist than I am. And women don’t need you to save us. We need you to cooperate, but we can save our damn selves. Don’t get me wrong. I am glad you recognize that there’s a problem. And I know your heart is in the right place. Maybe all you’re trying to do is convince your less enlightened brothers that they should stop oppressing women.

But when you are all marching around in Take Back the Night rallies, I want to grab you by your crotches, yank you over to the curb, and scream, “You’re the ones who took the night away in the first place, asshole!” It pisses me off to watch you wave your righteousness around in my face. You do not know what it is like to be raped by a person who is bigger, stronger, and who, by virtue of his gender, is in almost every social and cultural respect more powerful than you. I do and you don’t.

You can do your part by treating all women, and especially the women in your life, equitably and with respect, by voting for and legislating equality in every aspect of society. You can even stop that frat guy from mauling the drunk freshman girl. But I think you’re more likely to be able to do it by saying, “Stop that, motherfucker,” than by painting gender signs on a bedsheet and reciting Adrienne Rich poems. Recite away, if you love Adrienne Rich, but don’t do it to prove how bad you feel about gender inequality.

Okay activate, activize, whatever the verb is, as much as you want. Maybe it will help. But just know that there’s a generation of women who don’t appreciate it that much, who kind of want to say, “Just stop treating women like shit already, and shut up about it.”

 

For More, Wiser, Better Words on Sarah Palin

see Laura Castellanos' new blog Stealing Home, in particular The Play on Palin (Aug. 29) and Random Notes to End the Month (Aug 31). 

Accessorizing

John McCain woke up yesterday morning and chose the shoes he wants to wear for the next four years. 

He said to himself, I need a pair that makes a statement, that makes me look open-minded.  And young.  Youngly open-minded.  How about some UGG boots?  The ones nubile young girls wear with miniskirts.  Warm yet hot.  Um, no.  Okay.  I know. Comfortable mid-heeled pumps.  Brand new. No. They should look like they’ve been around the block.  But not a big scary urban block.  Maybe the kind of block they have in Wasilla, Alaska, population 7,000.  Perfect.  I am going to stride out in these and everyone is going to say “Whoa!  Who is that risk-taking young whippersnapper?  How cool is he?  Snappy yet not too whippy.  Sexy, yet moral.  The sort of person who has a baby every time they get pregnant by their hot snowmobiling, rifle-toting husband Dude.  Not the kind of guy who has an affair and leaves his ailing wife or calls his second wife a cunt.”

I am in like Flynn.  Cool-o Daddy-o.  Phat. 

Now, however, it looks like Big J. just caught a glimpse of himself in a storefront window and is desperately wishing he’d taken a quick look in the mirror before leaving the house, because these are the wrong shoes.  He has the look of someone who just discovered that he has put on galoshes to go the beach. 

John and Elizabeth Tell All

August 8, 2008
Chapel Hill, North Carolina

What he said: “In 2006, I made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs.”

What he meant: “Can’t believe I got caught.  2006.  Can you read?  2006.  Ancient history.  I just know there’s a statute of limitations on disloyalty. Judas Iscariot got a bum rap.”

What she said: “Although John believes he should stand alone and take the consequences of his action now, when the door closes behind him, he has his family waiting for him.”

What she meant: “Waiting to pull out every one of those well-coiffed hairs, wrap it around his tiny little penis and pull real hard.”

What he said: “I recognized my mistake and I told my wife that I had a liaison with another woman, and I asked for her forgiveness."

What he meant: “How do you spell liaison anyway?  Dang.  Can’t say affair.  Can’t say poked her.  Can’t say way hotter than a tired old thing who like, barfs all the time.”

What she said: But he did tell me. And we began a long and painful process in 2006, a process oddly made somewhat easier with my diagnosis in March of 2007.”

What she meant: “Because I knew I wouldn’t have to spend eternity with this major dickwad.  He can’t even spell liaison.  And God knows it’s torture to hear a mill worker’s son try to say anything in French.”

What he said: “Although I was honest in every painful detail with my family…”

What he meant: “Except about the group sex.”

What she said: “Admitting one's mistakes is a hard thing for anyone to do.”

What she meant: “All I really wanted to know about was the group sex.  So, like, when you have your hand on someone's... you get my drift.”

What he said: “I did not tell the public. When a supermarket tabloid told a version of the story, I used the fact that the story contained many falsities to deny it.  But being 99% honest is no longer enough.”

What he meant: “Yeah, but how about 25%?  That’s pretty good.  That’s damn good.  Workers unite.”

What she said: “This was our private matter, and I frankly wanted it to be private because as painful as it was I did not want to have to play it out on a public stage as well.

What she meant: “I am absolutely humiliated.  I am beyond endurance.  His trotting out my illness, and the death of our son, and his low-life pedigree, all so that he could be elected president.  And now he flays his “narcissistic” wrists in public, and desperately sputters that it’s all okay because I was in remission.  He holds on to the infantile hope that his disloyalty and obvious lack of love for me or regard for our family will be forgiven in a cascade of self-disclosure, and more importantly, that it will be forgotten sometime during the next primary season."

Maureen Dowd said it best. Which doesn't prevent me from saying it too.

Camille Paglia can kiss my ass, I just want my chicken

Okay okay. Uncle. It’s a gender issue. It’s evolutionary biology at its most inconvenient. I cannot barbecue. I have just spent ten minutes squirting lighter fluid onto a pile of organic hardwood lump charcoal after my attempt to pile it into a healthfully if not environmentally correct barbecue chimney left me with two cold limp pink chicken breasts and a couple of bright green artichokes.

I don’t care anymore if we die of cancer before Friday, and I care even less if our neighbors downwind have already dialed two digits of 911 because they’re afraid our house is burning down again. The black charcoal stains on this keyboard are just fine with me. I just want to serve dinner to my starving child. I’ll do what I must.

But I also have to admit that I really really really want a guy to be standing on my balcony. I want him to have those manly tongs in his hand as the fire burns white hot and the chicken sizzles. There are certain things I just can’t do. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been corrupted by gender identity expectations. I drive fast and well, and can throw a football better than most men, but I seriously cannot barbecue. I am woman hear me roar and all that shit, but I have now just fired up the broiler.