The “Want to Change the World for Women” rant.
RANT FOLLOWS. Then yoga.
I was scrolling through FB as I was waking up this morning (so sue me, it’s not a habit of top CEOs) and ran into a shared post:
“What would you do if there were no men on earth for 24 hours?”
I woke up salty, so I replied,
“I would literally smile more, turn the other 90% of my sexuality and sheer pleasure in living back on in public, and take bigger creative risks because I didn’t have the constant feedback that mediocre dudes are talented but I’m selfish and/or arrogant.”
–The thread was full of women (cis and trans) going, “I would do thing X that men take for granted,” and men going, “Boo hoo, what a shame that other men do this to you; I hope other men read this and take it to heart; I do what I can.” Like, from people who have shut me down in conversations before.
Because I’m still feeling pretty salty about it, I’m going to say that comments like that are the equivalent of kissing your hand and pretending you’re making out with your girlfriend.
Want to change the world for women? Change it for yourself first.
–Be cute. Take on elements of softness, smoochiness, and delight.
–Learn how to take a fucking compliment without pressuring the person who gave it to you into silence.
–Stand beside people you want to support, like, LITERALLY stand hip beside hip. Stop fucking blocking other people into corners or looming over them or creeping up behind them. “I’m on your side” = by their hip.
–LIKE things. LIKE them so hard that you make kissy faces and embarrass yourself. When someone else says they like the same things, fill your heart with glitter and confetti and give them FAR TOO MUCH OF MORE OF THE SAME. Okay, people won’t love all the things as much as you do, but WOW do you not need to throttle that. It’s adorable.
–Don’t be a man for a while. Be the boy who was like, “I have a plan and it involves roller skates and peanut butter SO GET IN THE CAR WE’RE GOING.”
–Get in conversations where your challenge is to literally not speak unless you’re spoken to, and if someone asks for your expertise, deflect the question and redirect the conversation toward supporting the person asking you. “YOU GOT THIS. YOU’RE AMAZING.”
–Get in conversations where your challenge is to admit that you’re not as good at XYZ as literally everyone else that opens their mouths, NO MATTER HOW BAD YOU THINK THEY ARE.
–Get in a conversation where your goal is to say zero words with negative connotations. You can only say “Yes, and” or “In other circumstances” to disagree with someone else. If you question anyone else’s opinion at all, even at the level of “But what about…” or “did you consider,” then you lose. Now think about doing this for the rest of your life.
–Get in a conversation where your goal is just to laugh at women’s jokes. Don’t laugh loudly; it can twist the conversation back to you.
–The more you make yourself noticeable in a women’s conversation, the more likely they’ll be to focus their attention on you, and then you’ll miss out on this whole other fun thing that happens. I have seen it happen over and over again. A man enters the room and the conversation 100% changes, and changes for the worse. If you think women are boring conversationalists, it’s because they’re throttling themselves around you.
–Learn how to release your violence and aggression. It’ll always be there when you need it TO DEFEND OTHER PEOPLE. The rest of the time it’s just a red flag that says, “Don’t touch me.”
–Eat and drink sweet things once in a while.
–Take in some media that includes fluffy romance where nobody saves the world, sacrifices their lives, or justifies having a hate-filled sex life. Note how the characters treasure the people they’re with.
–Ask for people to give you care. (And let them say no!) If someone offers you care, take it, even if you think you don’t want it, deserve it, or need it. (If you actively dislike it or are freaking out, that’s a different story!) Think of care as positive action being performed by someone’s inner toddler. Channel your inner dad and be delighted to take it, no matter how awkward it may seem.
–Don’t blame women if you feel left out. Girls aren’t saints, but most of us have been trying to hang out with you since you were little and got rejected, ignored, belittled, molested, and bullied. BLAH BLAH BLAH, women having friendships that you don’t is *so* unfair. We get it.
–If a woman makes you uncomfortable, be polite. Be *obliviously, scrupulously* polite. Bless her heart, if you will. Apologize for minor offenses like they’re huge. Treat her like she’s not capable of controlling her emotions and has to be handled with kid gloves. Now think of all the times women have been scrupulously polite to you. If you want the politeness loop to end, do a gut check, process whatever you’re getting defensive about (because you will be, even if it has nothing to do with you), make a peace offering, and step back for a while.
–If a woman sets boundaries with you, take it as a compliment: you are safe enough to be around that she doesn’t have to ghost you. You can feel hurt, but whine to people you have at your hip, not at the person whose boundaries have already been crossed.
–A lot of women have to manage their lovers like lifelong toddlers on the edge of an emotional meltdown. Their lovers are important in the way a shitty employer is important: if you don’t constantly keep them placated, you’ll get let go–and have to start all over again at a different shitty employer. It takes courage to be self-employed, and even MORE courage to enter into a business partnership. “Why did you stay with him?” is not a question you should be asking if you’ve ever complained about a job.
–Women who survive abuse are often cut off from other women, and will react more like guys if you try to be nice to them.
–Say things like, “YOU’RE AMAZING” and “YOU HAVE ALWAYS IMPRESSED ME.” Or think back to the things your mentors told you in your teens and twenties, how they could make you feel powerful and complimented without having to even say a word. Do those things. A lot of us never got those things! Nobody was ever proud of us. Everything we accomplished was undermined and made inherently less valuable because it was an insult to some dude’s abilities. (Example, women do most of the cooking, but most top-tier chefs are men, and most women will say, “I’m not that great a cook” after 30+ years of experience while praising men who bother to even try to cook.) We don’t know how to believe in ourselves and instead spend a lot of time believing in each other (which isn’t terrible, but it’s incomplete).
Many thanks to the women who have supported me through learning how to be around women, instead of thinking I was “different than most women.” What a fucking joke that was. Hi! I wasn’t special, just cutting myself off from sanity and support. YOU ARE AMAZING, TOO.
–RANT ENDS. MOSTLY–
Yoga this morning: because I was in a salty mood, that same area of my trapezius tensed up. Like, let go of saltiness for a minute: no pain. Think about saltiness: pain. I messed around with it and did a bunch of shoulder things.
On the walk, I realized that my one shoulder felt “Hulked up,” and worked to relax it. It didn’t work. I just kept getting mad. So I tried pulling the pain/tense feelings toward the center of the muscle, away from shoulder and bra strap, and that helped–but it made me feel rather evil. Wicked, maybe? Like I had demon’s wings.
It got me thinking: when I feel truly angry, effectively angry, it comes out of my heart and chest. This shoulder/arm thing was different; it felt like I was being puppeted by an external source of anger. Anger was a tool that my ex used to manipulate me; the angrier I got, the more he yanked me around. Anger and guilt.
When I got hold of my own anger, not this reactive stupid shit, it felt different. I thought I was going to have a heart attack a couple of times. (“Oh well.”) That was the anger that helped me get out.
I feel like a lot of men’s anger that I encounter is the puppeted anger, that tenses up the shoulders, twists the spine, and jerks the limbs around. Like, it feels righteous but it changes nothing and just makes the soul rigid and difficult to hug. I don’t want that; I think that’s what’s freaking me out about building up shoulder strength.
Story stuff, one of my characters was feeling more open today and let slip something he didn’t want even himself to know. They’re all unreliable narrators on some level, but this was huge. Oh, baby, nobody but you is mad that you did what you had to do. I hope he hears it.