The Post About the Menz

aka The post that will probably get me into a lot of trouble.

My sister and I were talking the other day about how she still gets (and I used to get) all of the questions about WHY doesn't she have children? I mean, its not like its the law that every woman should want to have children, right?

But this made me think of a question I still get, especially since having children and the lead up to children. "Why aren't you married?" Or, "When are you going to get married?" Or "Why don't you want to get married?" Just today I had lunch with J, who is in his late 40s and in luuuuv and engaged to get married, despite the Pacific Ocean that separates him and his fiance. I am very happy for him and I really enjoyed spending time with him today. But then the subject of my state of marriage came up and I did one of my tactless blurt outs:

"Men are 90% useless when it comes to relationships."

Yeah. I don't have issues.

But I kinda think I really don't. This is an academic issue for me and I'd like to qualify this statement. First of all, to prevent any confusion, D and I really do have a BIG insurance issue standing in our way. So marriage to him is beside the point. However, and I love D and he is family and I've said this before, I don't know that I'd marry him anyway because I just simply don't want to be married. Our relationship works on many levels, much better than some married couples I'd say. But one of the reasons it works is because we have so many mitigating issues surrounding disability and how we have to live to meet both our needs that it overrides some other big issues. Just for a really simplistic example: D and I don't fight about who does the dishes, who diapers the kids, who makes dinner and who vacuums because he can't do it anyway. It's irrelevant.

I'd like to think that if he could, he would be completely enlightened and he would see us as 100% equal partners and do all this stuff without question. But chances are good that he wouldn't, at least initially. The way he was raised, using his brothers as examples (which is not totally fair, but that's the little I have to go by) they are entrenched in patriarchal thinking. Male privilege. To D's credit, I think if anything, disability has enlightened him to what it feels like to be treated as subhuman, and has opened his mind to learning about the issues women face. So, it is a bit of a catch-22. If he wasn't disabled, he might be a bit of a chauvinist and not treat the partnership equally. But since he is disabled, he understands these issues that are important to me, but many times can't demonstrate it in concrete ways. But one of the things I most love about D is that he doesn't base his ego on stupid testosterone induced male pride and get all hung up about it.

But back to the usefulness of men. What I meant to say, and not that this is much better, but anyway...90% of men are useless when it comes to relationships with women. And of the 90%, there is certainly a continuum of usefulness. Many men of my generation might be in the top 20% of usefulness, while men of the older generation are perhaps lower on the scale, just based on different generational views and upbringing regarding women. So, what I am actually saying, is of the bell curve of men's usefullness in a relationship, my criteria to even bother with trying is only the top 10%. And by top 10%, I don't mean the top ten in traditional ways, like best looks, most money, most prestigious career, whatever. I mean in their usefulness as an equal partner, respectful, loving husband, kind and generous, conscientious, responsible, mature, honest, courageous, etc. Those kind of things.

Okay. I am FAAAAAR from perfect, but I always said that any guy I would marry had to have his shit together at least as much as I do in these areas. And it always seems to me that that only leaves the top 10%. Arrogant, much? I know, I know. But what I'm getting at here is that I don't consider myself to be in the top 10% of women in these areas. I'm probably just average. What I'm getting at is the discrepency between men and women that I don't want to put up with.

I know. I'm digging myself into a deep pit.

But come, come join me. Let me throw you a shovel. I will also qualify this to say that I have many male friends who I quite enjoy and some who I love dearly. I see their humanity and all their good points and things they have to offer. Besides D, of course, I love his dad, despite our differences. I love my first boyfriend, Kory and always will. I love Nik. I love J. But to enter into a lifelong commitment and equal partnership? There are very few guys out there who could pull off the kind of partnership I want. A patriarchy free one, as much as possible at least. Very few men are up to snuff to  make it worth my time and effort. I know that sounds just like the "I don't think all blacks are bad, I have a friend who is black." line. I do understand that it is an unfair statement to generalize all men in this way. And I don't feel like I am doing that so much as observing a social trend that affects both men and women.

In fact, J must be my special special. I must love J so much because I held my tongue and even coughed up a "well, there might be a grain of truth" to his example of that asshat quack John Gray and his stupid Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus drivel. Did you know he isn't even really a doctor? His stuff is misogynistic crap that basically gives men a "biological" excuse to be pigs. Here, for your entertainment, some great John Gray quotes:

"It's such a big deal, 'Well, I didn't get my 20 minutes of clitoral stimulation, so how can you think about penetrating me?' This is all feminist stuff that came in, and women are brainwashed with that. They should have it. I'm not against that. Women should have great sex. It will make better marriages for men."

"Does one spouse owe the other sex? The man goes out and risks his life for this woman. The man works hard for his family. What does she do for him? She has sex for him whenever he wants. That's what sex was. Sex was always for the man. What's this sex for the woman thing?...It's takes 30 minutes [for women] to have a real sexual experience. How do you have sex for 30 minutes every day in a busy life with kids? You don't. But you can do two minutes whenever the man wants."

(From an interview with Yahoo! Internet Life Magazine.)

No wonder his wife left him. My point is that I don't think the trend of men being worthless in relationships is in anyway inherent to the fact that they are men. I don't think it is in their DNA, I don't think men are useless in relationships in any way because they are inferior to females. I recognize that there may be some biological differences between men and women, but more and more research supports that the differences are minor. We are not from different planets, so much as we perhaps just have a different dialect when speaking the same language.

I think that men tend to be useless in relationships because for thousands of years, they had no expectations to live up to. Or very few in regards to accountability to their relationships with women. Women were property and thus could be treated as such. How men treated their property was based entirely on his prerogative, not on her rights or her humanity. Has this gotten better? Absolutely. But thousands of years of patriarchy does not go away overnight. Women have been forced to set their expectations low and men have have been entitled to basically do as they pleased. It is so ingrained into our society that we don't even see it without a trained eye.

So, I call myself a feminist, which for the record, doesn't mean that I feel women are inherently better than men, nor should women rule the earth. Shannon does a remarkable job illustrating my view of feminism in this post. It is about recognizing the humanity of everyone equally while understanding that we are not identical with identical needs. But this won't happen unless men take responsibility for their actions and women expect the respect they deserve.

Here is where people are going to write to me and tell me how mentally screwed I am, or (and I always love these, cuz they prove my point) where someone inevitably comments that I just need a 'good fuckin'. Because of course, when a woman has an opinion that deviates from her requisite dire need of a man, she must just need to get laid.

But here we go: Nothing illustrated the patriarchy and its cruelty to me more than after I was raped. I haven't talked about this much because I really don't want the guy to find me, nor do I want to open up myself to the criticism that always follows rape victims, but here is the story in a very abridged (cuz gawd, I'm sick of this story) and somewhat disguised version:

College. Never heard of the term date or acquaintance rape before. Very, very young. Got a university sponsored ride from a university employed driver (along with several other students) to the airport, two hours away. Talked to the driver the whole trip, a fellow student several years older than me. Nice guy. Perfect gentleman. Went above and beyond the call of duty making sure I got to my flight on time and helped with my bags.

Two months later. At a BYOB frat party with a friend. She wants to make a booze run, we are underage. She asks me if I know anyone at the party who can do it for us. I (barely) know the driver guy. He takes us for a booze run. My friend drinks, leaves with another guy. I don't drink, or drink very little. I'm not drunk. Getting late, driver guy asks to drive me home. Okay. Drives me to his dorm. I don't realize this (cuz I can't see) till we are out of the car and going up the steps. I realize it, I still go in with him. Sit around talking with a bunch of people in this guy's room. One by one, other guys and girls leave. We are left alone. We kiss. I (SUDDENLY!!, cuz I'm dumb) realize that he expects to have sex. I get up and say I don't want to have sex and head for the door. He apologizes. Sweetly. Convinces me that I shouldn't walk home at 4am (the danger!) and he is too tired to drive me home. He convinces me to stay to "just sleep." I stay. I fall asleep. I think I slept about 15 or 20 minutes and am awoken to him pinning me down and the rest I will spare you the details of.

So, my story is typical. You've all heard this type of thing before. We all know a girl who this happened to, right? And we all can see, with our aged wisdom and experience, the 300 things I did wrong to get myself in that situation. And I was naive. But here is the deal: The thing I did wrong, the thing that put me in the most danger, was in believing that my personhood would be respected. I believed, up until the very last second when I was physically overpowered, that I had complete control and autonomy and SAY in what happened to me and what I agreed and did not agree would happen to my body. Obviously, I was mistaken.

What was worse than that night was the reaction I got afterword from the few people I told, both men and women. It ranged anywhere from "how slutty of you" to "well, that's too bad, but what were you thinking???" Basically, the general attitude from everyone was, "well what did you expect when you voluntarily went and stayed in his room?"

Well, wild as this might sound, I expected to be respected. I expected that I would have a say in consenting or not consenting to any and everything that went on that night. When I thought about prosecuting, the main thing I heard about was how I was going to ruin HIS life. Basically, expectations were extremely high for me to monitor my behavior, but nonexistent for him to monitor his. I was supposed to respect my impact on his life but he was not required to respect his impact on mine. Thousands of years of entitlement and low expectations. This had nothing to do with him being from Mars. This was about misogyny and the lack of percieved humanity that I had as a woman. (BTW, I think it was Nik, five years later, who was the first to call bullshit on that line of reasoning and name it 'date rape'. Thats only one of many reasons he rocks.)

Now I do realize that this is an extreme example and most guys are not out there raping people. But even those who won't go so far as rape still carry these attitudes. It is everywhere. Men (and some women) seem to be very confused about rape. This is the litmus test:

At any time, at any moment in any situation, and no matter how she got there, a woman should be able to voluntarily get up and walk out of the room. Even if she consented to sexual actions, even THE sexual action and even if they are in the middle of doing THE sexual action. I'll even spot the guy a ten second reaction time. But at any moment, no matter what she was wearing or what she said or did, she should be able to stop what is happening and walk out of the situation. Now, I'm not saying the decisions she made that got her in the situation were good ones or wise ones or even nice ones, and the guy is free to end the relationship with her if he doesn't like her decisions. However, he is not free to rape her. End of story. Is this so damned hard to figure out?

So, take Kobe Bryan. His situation happened almost 15 years after mine. And I use that situation because it was similar to mine. The girl kinda liked him, she voluntarily went into his room, she might have consented to some sexual acts, and then she did not consent to others and she wanted to stop and to leave and was not allowed. Tons of men, men who I know were not bad men, men who would never rape anyone, said things like, "Well, she should have never gone into his room." Or, "she confused him by consenting to this and not to that." Or, "how was he supposed to stop? Guys get to a point where they can't stop." Or, " She is going to ruin his career." Her identity was leaked numerous times by the press. She received death threats. She was made into a villain. It was "blame the victim" at its worst.

Rape situations sometimes really illustrate how far we haven't come as a society in our ability to see woman as humans rather than objects and property. The standards for men's behavior are so low, and women have to sacrifice SO much sometimes to have a relationship with a man, it is very hard to find truly equal partnerships.

Most of the time, the low standards are much more benign than rape, of course. It is the guy who comes home from work and sits on his ass while the wife makes dinner, cleans up, gives the kid a bath and puts 'em to bed. Or the guy, like the uncles I grew up with, who grouch, "Woman! Get me a beer!" Or it is the husband who agrees to fix the broken stairs a month before the child's birthday party and then doesn't. Suddenly deciding to get his power tools out DURING the party. (True story.) Or another true story: Mom has been working on potty training junior. Asks dad to put off re-tiling the only bathroom for a week until the kid is back in daycare. And he up and rips the bathroom apart while the kid is home all day and has his first day of big boy underpants. Or (another true story, I read too many blogs.) the husband who spends all of his non-working hours playing Second Life on his computer having cyber sex while lying about it to his wife. He completely does not understand why spending his time having virtual sex with a real woman online instead of spending time with his family might be upsetting to his wife. Or the guy who skips his autistic kid's long awaited referral with a specialist to go to a Ferrari convention. Or it is the husbands who think that they work all day while the wife doesn't work. Or gets upset if the wife makes more than him. Or (in phony Ph.D and divorcee John Gray's case) the husband expects the wife to drop everything to give him a quickie but never seems to have time to return the favor. Or calling the type of intimacy that delivers the orgasm for women "foreplay"--an optional precursor to the MAIN EVENT! --the part where the man gets his. I hear about this shit every day and I never understand why women put up with it. Is it just because we have such low standards? Is it the necessity of economics? The exhaustion of raising children alone? How do we get out of the cycle?

There are just a thousand little ways that men don't have to measure up. It is deeply embedded in our society. It is the invisible backpack of entitlement that men carry and women almost don't recognize. And to some extent, men are victims of it as well. I think in the majority of cases, it is entirely unintentional on men's parts. It is for them probably like being a well-intentioned white person who doesn't see their own privilege and sees themselves as being colorblind. Men are often raised this way. It is in every aspect of our culture. Just last week I was lazily folding laundry while watching General Hospital. A successful business woman gives up her career and surrenders to the seduction of a man who is a mob boss (and a 'good guy'!) and can't guarantee her safety, yet won't give up his lifestyle so that his girlfriend and children won't be killed. I know its a soap, but this is still acceptable as romance today? They even had the protest-protest-protest-surrender kiss scene. Un-fucking-believable. Its everywhere.

I also recognize that women aren't perfect and often contribute to this by playing right into it or have a "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em attitude". My MIL's generation is full of master manipulators. And I think some women have learned this as a survival technique. If you can't gain power by money or brute strength or position in society, then you manipulate to get what you want. Women are taught from birth how to do this. How to use their bodies, how to trick men into getting what they want. Venus and Mars are all about manipulation. Oprah and Cosmo have articles about how to get your man to do what you want them to do by playing to their ego or sexual desires. Girls are told that the toys they should want at Christmas time are play kitchens and dolls and ironing boards and princess costumes and dolls heads to put make up on. Boys get heavy machinery and superheroes and footballs and toy swords and violent action figures. Toys that focus on power and strength. We are still, in 2007, taught from birth that men are powerful and do important things and women are here to be pretty and clean up after the men and their children.

Although we can't totally reject the patriarchal notions that have been driven into our brains from birth, like we can't really be totally cleansed of the racism we were raised with, we can recognize it for what it is. And here is where the great guys come from. They are out there. They are the men who recognize what is going on and conscientiously work to make sure that they are acting in ways that are not contributing to it. They recognize the humanity and worth of women and don't play stupid Mars/Venus games or act entitled to sex or beauty or a hot dinner waiting or a clean house. They understand the difference between making love and just getting laid. And they understand that the patriarchal bullshit is ingrained in them and will never really go away but they will do their best to try and minimize its impact on their lives and the lives of the women they love. They are out there. I know some of them. They are the 10% that are not useless.

And unfortunately for the most part, they are married. I think they all got scooped up by the woman who were self confident and expected to be treated with respect while girls like me were guilt-tripping ourselves with our misplaced culpability in our own rapes or were being self-conscious about our blindness or our fat or our zits or whatever. I admit it, I was too busy being a victim of the patriarchy (and wallowing in my victim hood) to get one while the gettin was good. Or I got too old and too set in my ways to want to train one in, and the trainable ones are too young for me now.

Yes, now I know I'm an old spinster at 37. And I'm not allowed to like it. But I do. I like my autonomy. I like living my life on my terms. I like not having to play the Mars and Venus game. I like that I can set my own standards as to my personality and standards and appearance and not have to play into guy expectations. It seems like you either have to compromise your standards or choose to be single. I like my choice.

Yes, I know. My standards are too high. I hear this all the time. My standards are too high if I want an equal relationship with a guy who understands and supports feminism and human rights. If I want a guy who not only refrains from saying "I'd hit that" but who doesn't cheer along when his buddies say it. If I want a guy who is not insecure around a smart or successful woman who doesn't feel like her main job is to feed her husband's ego. If I want a guy who can sit down with me and negotiate a conflict in a direct and amenable way for both of us and not let his entitlement or ego get involved. I know that no one is perfect, but I would want a guy that at least understands what an equal relationship is and does his best to strive for it.

I really don't feel like this is sour grapes, this isn't an uptight woman that needs to get laid. I can get laid anytime I want, as can most women, so I never understood that whole line of thought. This isn't a bitter old maid that is making excuses for not having a husband or a lesbian wanna-be or whatever else I get accused of. I do not hate men. I understand to the extent that I can that they are under their side of the patriarchal pressure as well and it can be hard to impossible to see above that. I see the good in men. I enjoy their company. I have many that I love and admire and even lust after a few (Okay, that guy Logan? On General Hospital? He is the only reason I watch that intrepid drivel. That's pure lust, I admit it.) I can see the good in men even though I can also recognize the weaknesses. They are human and deserve the same acceptance and level of respect as women. They deserve to be treated individually and not as a demographic, which admittedly I have failed to do here. I'm extremely lucky to have a long time relationship with a man who, if not always practices equality, understands it and is willing to listen and learn about my frustrations.  And who sees me as a fellow human above all else and who tries to contribute what he can to the extent that he can. I have two boys who I love unconditionally and who have in them both the influence of their father and the DNA of another man who I appreciate. I have a father, who although far from perfect in many respects, is responsible and was accepting of my mom as (almost) equal partner. He's about 100% times better than many other men from his generation.  I have NIk who is good-hearted and funny and forgiving and smart and tough. And J who is sensitive and witty and almost precious in his rose-colored lack of awareness of all things unjust in the world. I'm not lacking for men in my life. Men who show me their goodness and kindness on a day-to-day basis. Those guys? Top 25 to top 15, at least. ; )

But marriage? The whole institution bugs me. I'm not compromising. I'm opting out, and I'm perfectly fine with that.

Comments

[Pronoia]

Oh, I don't think your standards are too high. I think they're right where they should be. I was single for five years and you would have thought the world had fucking ended the way some of my friends thought of it. Me? I mostly loved it. Even now, yes, happily married (but to a girl, which changes the dynamic significantly), I sometimes miss it.

[J.]

Living with anyone is hard. I often wish I lived next door to my husband instead of with him and I'd put him at 11%. But I'd put myself at 35% just because I'm the one that gets very lazy and unreasonable. I don't think there's anything wrong with not wanting to get married. I think that sometimes people are desperate to connect (because in spite of being married, they are so lonely) that they want you to be like them in some way so they can relate to you.
It is sad how ingrained we are with our power plays. I sort of played into that "husband must have sex" crap for a while and finally got to the point where I was viciously attacking him (with words, mostly) for badgering me for sex. We finally have it worked out that it's a really bad idea for him to ask more than once. Strangely enough, it finally cemented in my head after watching an Oprah episode about married women being raped. While I was not being raped because I did consent after some whining and badgering; I realized that I did not have to make myself get in the mood if I wasn't in the damn mood, damnit.
And it is really ridiculous that people have such a hard time labeling rape what it is. It's as if you have to be beaten severely for it to count. I empathize with your rape situation and I know how you feel about being sick of sharing it, I can relate.

[Shannon]

Everyone will say I'm a man-hating lesbian whose opinion doesn't count, but I WAS married to a man once. I loved him. He was a feminist on paper. He tried his best in practice. I have since loved many men dearly but thank god I AM a lesbian and don't have to marry them (or just be in that kind of relationship with them). I feel sorry for women who don't have a choice but to partner with men or not at all. I wouldn't want to marry any of the men I love--erotics aside. (Sex is moot anyway when you have two small children, let's get real, marriage isn't really about sex when it comes down to it.)

On a different note, I could say a lot about the Duke lacrosse team case in re: your points above about standards etc. Perhaps I will on my blog. Don't know if I want to draw that fire again, but "innocent of rape" is pretty damn relative in our culture.

[cherylc]

For what it's worth, I really like being married to my husband. I do think we are exceptionally lucky, though. We've been together for 16 years, and we have a lot of fun. He's got a ton of emotional intelligence and does 50% of the childcare. And we make each other laugh. That's kind of garbled, but you get the point.

I wish John Grey would get run over by a garbage truck. That quote is one of the most horrible, creepiest things I've ever read.

[Lisa]

J. says:

While I was not being raped because I did consent after some whining and badgering...

I wasn't going to respond to my thoughts on this because I feel like I'm already hanging by my tonails on this post, but then I thought...what the hell...I'm already hanging by my toenails on this post.

There is a school of thought that the definition of rape should be broadened to include coercion. It is full of murky waters and is an interesting discussion. I'm not sure I know the answers to this. But I guess I kind of see it like I see the difference between physical vs. emotional abuse. Our current definition of rape solidly includes "stranger in the bushes who threatens your life" rape. It has broadened to include date rape, such as my case, but only in the clear cut cases of (proof of) saying "no" and yet being physically overpowered. Lately there has been somewhat of a broadening of the definition of rape by gaining consent of someone intoxicated or otherwise not of sound mind.

The emotional coercion definition of rape is broader still. And even that has a range. This is when the victim consents, but under the duress of having been blackmailed, threatened, etc. For example, if husband would threaten to stop contributing financially or threatening divorce or some other type of threat in order to coerce sex. The whining/badgering/nagging that you describe might be on the mild end of that range, but still might be emotional abuse.
So, should a badgering husband be locked up for 20 years? Possibly not. But I think this goes back to expectations. Men/boys need to be educated from the get-go that sex is only ethical when two people consent to it from equal positions of power and cooperation. Anything else slides steadily downward into abuse/rape.

Something to think about, I guess.

(And I'm glad you and your husband worked this out, but it is hard for me to imagine that you are at 35 and he is at 11% while this was going on! Hope all is on the upswing from now on.)

[Krissy Poopyhands]

Wow. You know some grade-A assholes!

As for the rape thing, you have nothing but my full sympathies and anyone who thinks that you had it coming should have it happen to them. I'm so sorry for that.

Your priorities are not out of whack with regard to finding a spouse, but in my experience there are more men willing to pull their weight and be a full partner than you'd think.

My husband can drive me crazy, just like I can drive him crazy, but I absolutely have a relationship where each of us gives 65% to everything. Money making, child rearing. I do do most of the cleaing, but that's because the dirt gets to me well before it gets to him, and because it's my standard it's my responsibility to meet it. In the same way that I cannot cook, but don't care, whereas my husband likes to have nice meals, so he does the cooking. It's his standard, so he gets to meet it.

I know that there are still relationships with people we know where the husband does nothing and the wife is naggy and bitches to everyone about how horrible he is, but for the most part it seems to me that the parties are equally guilty there.

There is an illness amongst women who want to feel important where they belittle every attempt by their husband to do things his way; snatching the baby back the instant he does things differently than she does, ridiculing his cooking or cleaning skills; that sets up a dynamic where he figures (rightly) that she wants to be in charge so he'll let her.

They mother and coddle and cluck to death and love to be martyred when the husband gives up in the face of endless criticism.

My husband and I share, and we take responsbility for those items that are important to us. We argue, of course, but then we talk and if we can't reach a solution one way then we tackle it another. We don't have a perfect relationship by any means, but it is an equal relationship in all respects, full of love and honor for us both.

Most of my married friends have similar relationships, and rather than sitting around talking about what heels men are, we often wind up talking about how lucky we are.

Maybe you just know some real assholes.

[Lisa]

Krissy,

Actually, rape guy nonwithstanding, I know a lot of great guys. I have had, I'll guess I'll say, 6 major long-term relationships with men in my life, and none of them were assholes. And that doesn't even count a dozen or so close male friends I've had over the years who I would also not consider assholes. In my friendships and long-term relationships, I have not (had to) put up with 1/10th or even 1/100th of the crap I see some other women dealing with. i.e. I've never been cheated on, never been 'dumped', really never been pressured into sex, never been made to feel bad about my appearance or disability or whatnot, etc.

However, all of these men have been influenced and affected by the patriarchy to varying degrees. Some might even say, victims of it themselves. All of us can recognize that even the most asshol-ian of men often have a mother, sister, wife, daughter that they treat well and see as fully human while overall struggling with (or outright denying) the humanity of woman as a whole. This is the "Not my Nigel" dilemma. Patriarcy penetrates everyone and everything, whether we like it or not.
What I want in my fantasy world, is something that doesn't exist. I want a patriarcy free man. I want a little shelter in my home where it doesn't find us in any way shape or form. That is impossible. This is about more than who does the dishes. This is about creating a sanctuary from the effects of the dehumanization of women that permeates everyone and everything in our society. My choice, and it is a radical choice, is to forego marraige rather than settle for less than I want. I'm lucky in some ways that I get the best of both worlds in that I do have a male companion and my children do have a father while still maintaining our autonomy. And he is generally a good person, not an asshole, who works to try and understand these issues.
I have some strong women readers here with great marraiges to great men. But are these marraiges patriarchy free and equal? I'd argue not. I've seen some men who do an awesome job of being aware of the effects of their male priviledge and actively work to counteract that. And yes, I think those men are rarer than the men who just go on their merry way and never think about it, or worse...actively persue the benefits of it. But a patriarchy free, truly equal marraige? I've never seen one. And I hang with a generally great crowd of women and men.
Do women act like assholes as you describe? Of course! And a partnership is too dynamic of an issue to say, well she is acting like an ass so therefore the patriarchy doesn't matter. Some of the ways that women act that are inappropriate (and not all, I'm not making excuses here, remember relationships are complex) are side effects from the dehumanization of women. For example, a woman might act all martyr-y and nitpicky about childcare and stuff because her role in it and the effort she makes is completely not valued. I'm not saying that is right at all, I'm just saying that you can't say that the man is blameless or that patriarchy isn't a factor in the relationship just because the woman is acting like an ass. Obviously this issue affects and is affected by the actions of both men and women. Thus, both men and women need to straighten up about it if things are ever going to really change.
I think the "oh, you hang with assholes" is a dangerous excuse that takes away the focus on the real issues by denying that male priviledge and patriarchy permeates everything.

[Angela]

Men are a lot of work.
Marriage has its good days and its bad.

[Krissy Poopyhands]

Lisa, you and I will have to agree to disagree on this one.

I agree with you that there is a societal problem with viewing women as second-class.

That worldly ill is not present in my household or part of my personal marriage experience, and I don't believe that forgoeing the institution of marriage is anything other than a personal choice.

It's a 100% valid personal choice, but it is not inherantly more feminist, braver, or valuable a choice than marriage is. It is simply a choice you've made.

Kudos to you for knowing what you want! I also know what I want, and choosing to be married has not compromised my self-confidence, feminine power, or happiness, it's only added to it.

I do not take a single issue with your statement that not being married is right for you; and I can respect that you may feel in a position to defend your choice. That's an obnoxious position to be in because your choice is entirely as valid as mine.

I do take issue with the implication that women who choose marriage are somehow complicit in the furthering of the "women as livestock" way of life.

It is not your choice, but the need to belittle other's choices that bothers me.

Also, if these great people you know are the same people you pointed to in your original post, I would say that you've certainly listed their most assholish behavior to make your point. I would add that the ability to behave like an asshole is neither gender-specific nor out of bounds for the most enlightened individual.

Simply because society still clings to the idea that anyone who is not a fully-able upper-middle-class white male is a second-class citizen, does not mean that at our house we don't see that for what it is, cry bullshit, and live our lives treating each other the way we'd like to be treated.

It's absolutely possible.

[Lisa]

Krissy Poopyhands,

First of all, great name!

Second, nowhere in this post do I feel that I belittle the choices of others to choose to marry. If you look at my definition of feminism...the practice of treating everyone as humans while understanding that this doesn't mean that we treat everyone identical and assume their needs are identical...than there is no "nonfeminist" choice. I don't go for any of that business where you must do A,B,or C to prove you are a feminist. It has to do with doing what you need to do to make sure you feel respected. So, if you and your husband have it all worked out so both of you are going at it as equal partners, great for you! And I believe you and I think that is wonderful. However, even the both of you cannot change the fact that marraige, as an institution is tainted with a history of patriarchy, and even if you've created a little oasis of freedom from it in your home, it still exists on the larger scale. We all react to that in different ways. I've just chosen not to marry. Quite frankly, In My Perfect World...there would be no marraige. But anyone could enter into a partnership with any one else on any conditions they wanted (save abuse). Want a big church wedding? Great. Want to coparent with your grandmother, your 2 gay male friends, and your neice? Fine. Want to co house with a bunch of single moms and share the expenses and childcare? Great. But the government would be out of it and no one form of partnership (read heterosexual 'married' couple) would be given preferential treatment over any other. I'm talking about my disenlightenment with marriage as an institution, not criticizing any one woman's choice to enter into it. I do have a negotiated partnership with a man. We coparent, we are each other's power of attorneys, we share some expenses and responsibilities, we share a commitment to each other. But we are not recognized as being married, nor do I see any inherent advantage (save some possible legal conveniences like health insurance or rights of next of kin, etc.) to being married. Doesn't make me a better or worse feminist than you.

Okay, just one more thing. I am not sure where you are getting the men I know = asshole connection. I specifically mention D, Nik, J, Kory, who else?? Oh, briefly both D's and my fathers. And I believe I only said fairly complimentary things about them. I don't want to marry any of them, and I do see evidence of patriarchal thinking in them. Which I've seen in every man I've ever met on the face of the earth. That's just natch in the world we live in. (I, myself, being born of this world, also have patriarchal thinking in me. I haven't really met a woman who has been free and clear either, however, I think we tend to see it in ourselves and others and reject it more.) Basically, though, I will say that all of the men that I mentioned in this article (rape guy excluded of course) are guys that can be called out when they say/do something stupidly patriarchal and are open to what I have to say and realize what I am saying in that regard. (The dad's being a bit tougher due to generational factors and the fact that they are our dads.)
The negative things I said, which letsee, responses to my rape which occurred pre-J, Nik, and D, and responses to the Kobe thing which was mostly from TV and radio media. The whole paragraph of little annoying male examples comes entirely from blogs I read, so these men I don't know personally,(except for my uncle and John Gray example, still men I really don't know personally). Other examples come in the form of other men (and women) who I would not consider in my personal peer group but would classify as "people I put up with." Bosses, extended family, people on the bus, distant acquintances at parties, a fictional character on a soap opera (aka the writers) and oh! All the husbands/boyfriends on the Real Housewives of Orange County, which I personally find to be mostly jerks.

I'm only spelling this out a) because if I insinuated that D, Nik, J, et al were the jerky ones saying stupid shit about rape then that is my poor writing and not a reflection on them, and b) even if you surround yourself with great guys, you can't escape male assholes in your life totally because they are kinda everywhere. In the media, on the bus, at parties, in the workplace, etc. If this hasn't been at least a part of your experience as a woman then I want to move to the utopia where you live.

Anyway, I hope no hard feelings about some of our differences of opinions, Krissy. Always good to have a good discussion here on the blog. Thanks for your comments.

[Jess]

I had a similar experience where I went home with a guy I had just met thinking we were just going to watch movies together. I still cringe at how naive I was and what could have happened. We didn't have sex but what did result was definetly non-consensual on my part. And the worst thing was that I kept dating him and kept letting him do things I didn't want him to do to me becuase I didn't know how to negotiate with him or speak up for myself.

I wish our culture could get over its assumption that rape is only rape if some masked guy jumps out of the bushes. We need to teach everyone what consent raelly means.

[Krissy Poopyhands]

My pleasure! I read your blog from the beginning and always stop by when something new posts.

I think you do a great job with your kids and always seem to make choices that I consider to be very smart. You've had to put up with a lot of crap, and I don't think I could do it with half as much grace.

The asshole thing was in relation to the stories about, for example, the guy who decided to fix the stairs during his kid's party. He's probably not a cosmic asshole, but my goodness that's asshole behavior! Heh.

I just meant that it seemed like we went from "Look what assholes all these men can be!" to "I know tons of great guys!" really fast. I got bloglash.

Mucho respect for you!

KP