Kanye West had to be hospitalized “for his own good.” When I heard that, I was like, yep, the man is crazy. My partner, Kevin was like, “yeah, that’s what happens when you marry one them Kardashian girls.” Then I saw a post on Facebook saying that Kanye lost his mother in the month of November and still blames himself for her death. I suddenly felt bad.
As Access Hollywood repeated the story tonight, Kevin, remaining unsympathetic said “he needs to be put away. He’s crazy.” I told him that this is the month Kanye lost his mother. “I lost my mother too, and I ain’t acting like that.” “Not everybody grieves the same way.” As soon as these words left my lips, I was reminded of Britany Spears and the disastrous display she put on when her marriage fell apart. Back then it was Kevin telling me to have some understanding because she’s grieving her break up AND she has to do it publicly. My very next thoughts were whether or not the two of us were sexist or simply just more sympathetic to the opposite sex. It’s a somewhat sad and funny inquiry on my part. I was somewhat of a tomboy growing up. I played football (tackle) with my brothers and their friends. I say somewhat because football was the only game I played with them. I was also raised by my father who taught me more man shit than female. I have a general saying when people inquire about my views—I was a boy scout before I was a girl scout. No I’m not a transgender; I was born female. My dad just happened to be a single father who was also a Boy Scout cabin leader. My sister and I had no choice but to attend the meetings, paper drives and dinners. The only thing we couldn’t do was go to Florida with the boys…Grandmom got to keep us for a week. dad was also a little league coach. We attended every game and every end of season party. I even had to keep score for the games at a time when EVERYTHING was handwritten. By the time I joined the Girl Scouts, I was severely jaded and biased. Nothing about me wanted to be around a bunch of girls. But dad’s word was law and there I was among my girl peers having no clue how to interact with them. I was probably in 6th grade at the time I joined—a late comer to boot. The girls in the troop had grown up playing with and loving Barbie dolls. I read books. The only interest I had in dolls was their hair (which did not help me later in life). My time with the Scouts didn’t last very long. I hated the meetings. I hated the songs they sung and I absolutely HATED selling those damn cookies! The uniform did not help. I still, to this day, have a hard time putting on a dress. Surely this one of those childhood things that affected my parenting of my only girl. She never played with Barbie dolls. She had (and still does) plenty of stuffed animals and thought stimulating games. Sports were not her thing, though I did try to teach her how to play Hacki Sack. I remember a time when I worked with my brother and his friends in the Ujima Collective, a non-profit that issued quarterly newsletters promoting unity (the meaning of Ujima). At one of the meetings, my brother asked me to give them a summary of the female perspective. You can imagine the raised eyebrows when I said “Well, I’m probably not the one to ask that question because I don’t know what it is” (this was the mid-90s). I tried (unsuccessfully) to explain that mine wasn’t a “normal” female experience but I didn’t have the words or even the understanding to explain that. The only thing they understood was “I’m not gay.” We left it at that. After that, they only asked questions about my research which suited me just fine. But as time goes, you grow and learn. It is only over the last several years that I’ve discovered my own feminist bent. Now, surely it had been growing. In ’96, I remember dad giving me a six month lecture saying that I can’t make decisions based on feelings alone. My counter was that was the same as asking me not to be female. Though I still didn’t have much of an understanding of what that meant per se, I had the fact that I’m female. Much of my life had been spent suppressing feelings, so the fact that I had them was occasionally a relief. Most of the time, though, it felt like I was trying to pour water into a vat of oil that had been sitting and congealing for some 30 years (does oil congeal?) with the intent of loosening it up. Of course, it did give me something to counter dad with even if he could win the war of words. He would no longer tell me how to feel or that what I was feeling was invalid. Over the years, I’ve adopted such sayings as ‘A woman can do anything a man can, but why would she want to.’ And I’ve always believed that a woman can do anything a man, sometimes she can do it better. It was dad who taught me how to change a tire, change the oil, replace spark plugs, starter, alternator and water pump. I can change brakes if need be. I can hit a baseball, throw a football, shoot foul shots. I can talk sports with the men. I can talk cars with men. I can go to any bar and curse like a sailor with men. Growing up, I was one of the guys. As a young adult and well into my late 20s, I was one of the guys…well sort of. There was that sex thing that I just could not escape. Some believe that it is impossible for men and women to simply be friends. I do not share this belief. It’s entirely possible when one chooses to do so. It does not mean that a sexual attraction does not exist. It simply means you choose not to act on it. I made that choice occasionally. Today, I’m much different than the me of yesterday (aren’t we all?). Reflecting on it now, is an interesting journey. Without any transgender ideations, I have been a female, with a strong male bent that I have had to deal with as a female. And that without much direction. My favorite female author is Taylor Caldwell who shares the same male understanding I do without having to be a man. It doesn’t make her less feminine, nor does she deny her womanhood. She, like me, simply embraces her understanding of both worlds with the understanding that she understands neither completely. So am I sexist or simply more sympathetic to the opposite sex? Wednesday, November 9, 2016. Waking to the news that Donald Trump is the president elect.
“Fuck.” On the news, a Hilary supporter is saying “I can see that glass ceiling…” So can I. I can see it and it’s shattered. Not because Hillary ran for president or that she lost. Not because anything is going to change for women generally. It’s shattered because, with trump’s win, America’s fear of women in charge just came crashing through, reining shards of glass upon us all. Some of us are bleeding and it hurts. As I sit here watching the raindrops fall into the puddle outside my window, I’m thinking how gloomily appropriate the rain is today. I watch as little bubbles form and travel down the short stream of water, some going further than others, but each ending up bursting somewhere along the line. Their end is the same. It seems the same for women today. Our end is the bubble bursting wide open with nothing left to show for the traveling. We’ve engaged. We’ve raised awareness. We’ve raised children. We’ve buried parents. We’ve buried husbands. Some of us have buried children. We’ve held jobs; some rising to levels of authority. We’ve faced obstacles too numerous to mention. Our sex is put on display and taken advantage of to sell everything, even the manly sport of football. Our sex has been deemed not our own. Sexy women are put down. Women who like to have sex and say so are called derogatory names. Our wombs are the object of much controversy. Our wombs are where we’ve had to launch our battle to make choices for ourselves. Our personhood revolves around our ability to produce persons or not. So what really happened to the glass ceiling in this presidential election? Most would contend that it’s still there keeping women down. And why would I say it’s shattered when nothing will change? Because something has changed. Something in me and I suspect I’m not the only one. Way back in 2008, Hillary lost the primary to Barack Obama. America would rather have a Black man as president over a woman. John McCain offered up Sara Palin for VP and he lost because of it, which ushered in the Obama era. In 2012, women helped to defeat Mitt Romney based on his stance on abortion among other things. But that same base of women couldn’t defeat a man with the same stance on abortion because he was up against a woman in 2016. America would rather have a racist, sexist, pro-lifer man than a woman. And this is what has shattered the glass ceiling for me. Women want rights. Men want to be in charge. A man losing to a woman still has the same effect as it does on any field of play where men play the dominant role. It spells weakness. And whether any of us believe it or not, social conditioning has allowed us, even required us to embrace this idea of strength and weakness of the sexes. Women who dare challenge a man are challenging his strength as a man. And what strength of woman can match that of a man? Her womb. The womb of the woman is where her fight is. Her womb carries her strength. The womb carries the weight of women’s rights. And where the is a womb in charge…well we don’t yet know generally because we, both men and women, have never allowed ourselves to see it on a national scale. But the glass ceiling has been shattered by our own fear of ourselves and what we as women are capable of. Our wombs are the key to the future. Our wombs hold the promise of that future. Our wombs are the fear of men. Our wombs have been our fighting ground. President elect Trump is a reminder to us all that it is not only men who create the glass ceiling, but it is also women who help to keep it in place. So today, at least for me, the glass ceiling is shattered on the fear and strength of the womb. |
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