"I want to say a little something that's long overdue
The disrespect to women has got to be through
To all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends
The disrespect to women has got to be through
To all the mothers and the sisters and the wives and friends
I want to offer my love and respect to the end"
["Sure Shot", Beastie Boys]
About a week ago, I was at my sister's house when one of her dogs behaved a little strangely toward me. She commented something like "she's not usually like that around men", to which I joked something to the effect of "perhaps I've cleansed myself of enough toxic masculinity and moved toward the centre of the spectrum that she [the dog] no longer sees me as a man."
A few nights ago someone referred to me as "woke". I said I prefer "waking". I don't think of it in past tense, but as an ongoing process every day. Years ago it was "open-minded" versus "I have an opening mind." The more I learn, the more I realize there is so much more to learn. When you start paying attention, a whole world opens up, and you realize just how very little you really know. And that's a good thing. So many people. So many stories.
A few nights ago someone referred to me as "woke". I said I prefer "waking". I don't think of it in past tense, but as an ongoing process every day. Years ago it was "open-minded" versus "I have an opening mind." The more I learn, the more I realize there is so much more to learn. When you start paying attention, a whole world opens up, and you realize just how very little you really know. And that's a good thing. So many people. So many stories.
A little over a month ago someone referred to me as an 'activist'. That's not a word I'm prepared to wear yet. Let me feel like I've actually done something real, accomplished something real, before I'll consider really wearing that word. Sure, some friends and I have started doing a few things here and there in furtherance of our particular feminist beliefs, but I feel like we've accomplished so little compared with what needs to happen that it'd be like calling someone an engineer just because they read the covers of a few math books at a Chapters. It's a long road. We're just beginning.
I was at a breast cancer fundraiser event recently, and I was one of only about five men in the room. The comedian MC joked on taking the stage that those few men were "the ones who lost the bet". I was not. And when we arrived to find the room so lopsided - about 5 to 195 - Liza-Ann briefly started to apologize that while she knew (and had told me) it'd likely be a lot more women than men, but that she didn't expect it to be quite so slanted. No apology was necessary. Fact is, it was not the first time in 2018 I'd found myself in such conditions, being at an event where I was one of only a small sprinkling of men far outnumbered by women.
[And let me briefly interject that when I say "men" and "women" here, I do so of habit and convenience, but I know I'm really saying "male-presenting" and "female-presenting", because really, I have no idea how many trans, non-binary, fluid, agender, or gender-queer people were there. Who does?]
Now on this particular occasion, it wasn't my idea to be there - Liza-Ann needed a "+1" for the event and I'd agreed - but I did have a good time. I enjoyed myself with the exception of some awkward sexist comments by the comedian/MC aimed at embarrassing a young woman about her choice of dress. It was in that old school "just a joke, sure"/"all in good fun" kind of way that's actually awkward, hurtful, and embarrassing, and I look forward to the day when we're all past that bullshit. And yeah, I'm not that keen on Xmas carols. But the meal was pretty nice, the speeches were great, and it was a fun overall atmosphere. I didn't know what to expect going into it, but if it was the sort of thing that had interested me, the idea of it being mostly women would certainly not have kept me away. I may go again next year.
When I say the notion of such a gender-unbalanced audience doesn't frighten me, I acknowledge it is male privilege talking: a man can walk alone into a room of two hundred women and feel as though there is zero threat to his physical safety. Intellectually, I realize Rhonda Rousey would clean my clock, but on an instinctive level, I don't know that I've ever met a woman and thought "I bet she could kick my ass", because my brain was not socialized to ever make such assessments, unlike the way it does in a whole range of scenarios involving men, thanks to a childhood of street-fights. This, despite the fact that the only time I was ever struck with a weapon (a baseball bat), it was actually a girl swinging it. So deep are the gender-based lessons of our childhood that it simply didn't register.
On the other two occasions in 2018 where I was at a vastly female-dominated event, it was because I chose to attend an event where feminist films were being presented on subjects about which I was curious, and I knew going in that I would be in a room predominantly full of women. The idea didn't bother me.
On one of those occasions, we were watching a film (Play Your Gender), and there was a comment in the film that caused a collective snicker among all the women in the room. I think I may have laughed too, I'm not sure. I wish I could remember the exact comment, but I cannot. I remember the context and the 'feel' of it though: it was about women having to manage men's attraction to them, because men who struggle with being attracted to women they can't have tend to project that struggle onto the women (through inappropriate flirting, etc.) and make it the woman's problem. The comment was comedically-timed and matter-of-fact to the ladies but very insightful to me. I have spent a considerable amount of time thinking about the idea since, and trying to take a self-assessment of how uncomfortable I may or may not make women around me to whom I find myself attracted through my speech and actions.
I could go on about that, but as insightful as it was, those are not the points I came to make today nor was it the reason I sat down and started typing. (A post for another day, perhaps?) The reason for this post came later, when on reflecting on the context in which I'd heard the comment, the nature of the film, the room full of women who snickered (rightly so) at the remark...
There is a toxic-masculine notion that men aren't supposed to be comfortable in or enjoy the company of women. I do. I suspect I always have. I grew up with enormous respect for my mother, and she, my sisters, and my "second mom" Pat Cronin did a good job of instilling a respect for women in me. (Thanks, ladies.) For the men that don't or won't or can't ever feel comfortable surrounded by women, I feel sorry for you. I truly do. You're missing out.
But it's not nearly the same as women negotiating the world of men. Women negotiate the world of men with a level of apprehension and fear that is impossible to miss if you open your eyes and watch. In the corporate world, for instance, you can hear them pose their best suggestions as questions and even allow these ideas to be stolen by the men around them, an overlooked sacrifice made to keep things moving forward. You can watch them stroke the egos of their male coworkers - or even subordinates - in an effort to ingratiate themselves and gain agency.
A while back I was in a meeting with three female superiors, yet felt as though my ego was being stroked. (As if my ego needs stroking?!) And it was shortly after that, thinking back to that comment in the movie, I realized:
There are conversations to which I will never be a party.
Because if women's apprehension and fear is commensurate with the number of men in the room, I can never be in a room where the needle goes to zero. Any room I'm in will always have at least one man in it.
Can I never witness a group of women talking in a truly fearless, authentic way? Or will the closest I ever get be the rare, pointed comment like that one, a sort of 'overheard secret'?
Because if so, if that's as close as I'll ever come... frankly, it's a little bit heart-breaking.
I was at a breast cancer fundraiser event recently, and I was one of only about five men in the room. The comedian MC joked on taking the stage that those few men were "the ones who lost the bet". I was not. And when we arrived to find the room so lopsided - about 5 to 195 - Liza-Ann briefly started to apologize that while she knew (and had told me) it'd likely be a lot more women than men, but that she didn't expect it to be quite so slanted. No apology was necessary. Fact is, it was not the first time in 2018 I'd found myself in such conditions, being at an event where I was one of only a small sprinkling of men far outnumbered by women.
[And let me briefly interject that when I say "men" and "women" here, I do so of habit and convenience, but I know I'm really saying "male-presenting" and "female-presenting", because really, I have no idea how many trans, non-binary, fluid, agender, or gender-queer people were there. Who does?]
Now on this particular occasion, it wasn't my idea to be there - Liza-Ann needed a "+1" for the event and I'd agreed - but I did have a good time. I enjoyed myself with the exception of some awkward sexist comments by the comedian/MC aimed at embarrassing a young woman about her choice of dress. It was in that old school "just a joke, sure"/"all in good fun" kind of way that's actually awkward, hurtful, and embarrassing, and I look forward to the day when we're all past that bullshit. And yeah, I'm not that keen on Xmas carols. But the meal was pretty nice, the speeches were great, and it was a fun overall atmosphere. I didn't know what to expect going into it, but if it was the sort of thing that had interested me, the idea of it being mostly women would certainly not have kept me away. I may go again next year.
When I say the notion of such a gender-unbalanced audience doesn't frighten me, I acknowledge it is male privilege talking: a man can walk alone into a room of two hundred women and feel as though there is zero threat to his physical safety. Intellectually, I realize Rhonda Rousey would clean my clock, but on an instinctive level, I don't know that I've ever met a woman and thought "I bet she could kick my ass", because my brain was not socialized to ever make such assessments, unlike the way it does in a whole range of scenarios involving men, thanks to a childhood of street-fights. This, despite the fact that the only time I was ever struck with a weapon (a baseball bat), it was actually a girl swinging it. So deep are the gender-based lessons of our childhood that it simply didn't register.
On the other two occasions in 2018 where I was at a vastly female-dominated event, it was because I chose to attend an event where feminist films were being presented on subjects about which I was curious, and I knew going in that I would be in a room predominantly full of women. The idea didn't bother me.
On one of those occasions, we were watching a film (Play Your Gender), and there was a comment in the film that caused a collective snicker among all the women in the room. I think I may have laughed too, I'm not sure. I wish I could remember the exact comment, but I cannot. I remember the context and the 'feel' of it though: it was about women having to manage men's attraction to them, because men who struggle with being attracted to women they can't have tend to project that struggle onto the women (through inappropriate flirting, etc.) and make it the woman's problem. The comment was comedically-timed and matter-of-fact to the ladies but very insightful to me. I have spent a considerable amount of time thinking about the idea since, and trying to take a self-assessment of how uncomfortable I may or may not make women around me to whom I find myself attracted through my speech and actions.
I could go on about that, but as insightful as it was, those are not the points I came to make today nor was it the reason I sat down and started typing. (A post for another day, perhaps?) The reason for this post came later, when on reflecting on the context in which I'd heard the comment, the nature of the film, the room full of women who snickered (rightly so) at the remark...
There is a toxic-masculine notion that men aren't supposed to be comfortable in or enjoy the company of women. I do. I suspect I always have. I grew up with enormous respect for my mother, and she, my sisters, and my "second mom" Pat Cronin did a good job of instilling a respect for women in me. (Thanks, ladies.) For the men that don't or won't or can't ever feel comfortable surrounded by women, I feel sorry for you. I truly do. You're missing out.
But it's not nearly the same as women negotiating the world of men. Women negotiate the world of men with a level of apprehension and fear that is impossible to miss if you open your eyes and watch. In the corporate world, for instance, you can hear them pose their best suggestions as questions and even allow these ideas to be stolen by the men around them, an overlooked sacrifice made to keep things moving forward. You can watch them stroke the egos of their male coworkers - or even subordinates - in an effort to ingratiate themselves and gain agency.
A while back I was in a meeting with three female superiors, yet felt as though my ego was being stroked. (As if my ego needs stroking?!) And it was shortly after that, thinking back to that comment in the movie, I realized:
There are conversations to which I will never be a party.
Because if women's apprehension and fear is commensurate with the number of men in the room, I can never be in a room where the needle goes to zero. Any room I'm in will always have at least one man in it.
Can I never witness a group of women talking in a truly fearless, authentic way? Or will the closest I ever get be the rare, pointed comment like that one, a sort of 'overheard secret'?
Because if so, if that's as close as I'll ever come... frankly, it's a little bit heart-breaking.
