This morning I read an entry in Facebook which started an exchange about how women and men see the interaction between the genders so differently as to suggest that rather than simply different genders males and females of the human race are almost different species.

And of course I’d see it that way because I’m a man, based on what the feminist writer is saying about how women perceive men.

Her first point is that women spend much of their lives de-escalating the emotional temperature of interactions with men, because they perceive the actions and behavior of men through a lens informed by a lifetime of gender based abuse, assault and rape.  So whether or not a man is acting aggressively towards a woman, at any given moment, she is anticipating that the interaction could very well turn into an assault or rape or at least abuse and doing everything she can do to turn down the temperature so that doesn’t happen, on this specific occasion.

So even with men who have never acted offensively in any abusive way, women are accustomed to automatically assuming that they have to behave in a manner that won’t escalate behavior into violence or other abuse, simply because it has happened so often in the past that there is an automatic assumption of risk based on real world observation.

Almost without regard to how various women process their previous experience of male/female interactions, the threatening nature of these transactions has an effect on how women perceive male intentions and actions.

According to these observation, then, it suggests that men should simply shut up and not express any opinions on any subject.  And if they find themselves attracted to a given woman, they should probably keep it to themselves.

Well maybe not so much.  What it does say is that men need to be extremely sensitive to how their communications are likely to be viewed by women, whether by strangers or even intimates.  It says that expressing affection or attraction has to be done in a way that is not threatening to a woman, and doesn’t demean her or make her feel cornered.

It the article isn’t an overstatement of how women feel about men, in general, then I fear for the human race.  Half the race is terrified of the other. And the other half has no idea how to behave so as to not further terrify the other.  Neither side seems to be able to communicate with each other without being threatened or misrepresented, or being seen as a monster, simply because of gender.

This hardly amounts to gender equality.  Unless by gender equality we mean that both genders are totally fucked.

 

 

I think that blogging can provide an opportunity to express ideas in progress, rather than completed or resolved.  In that way, then, writing a stream of consciousness blog is a legitimate reason to change subjects or tone during a single blog, rather than make a blog more like an essay, complete in and of itself.  Jumping around from subject to subject, however, makes it pretty hard for a reader to figure out where you’re going, or indeed, if you are going anywhere, at all.

I find writing a blog, especially a personal blog, is pretty difficult, and I find myself frustrated at trying to focus on a subject, yet aware that I have so much to say and yet can’t seem to say anything much at all.  Part of my frustration is that I often feel the need to state conclusions to my conundrums, rather than being willing to hang around without resolution for very long.  Or to let a written piece end without any resolution of the issue raised in the piece.

Writing a blog is a little bit like a conversation with my daughter. It runs all over the map without ever actually getting to the point.  With her its because she’s really afraid to ask for what she needs or wants, or perhaps because she feels it necessary to justify or rationalize her requests.  She’s over thirty, actually thirty-five tomorrow, and she’s way too dependent on her Dad.  And that’s both of our opinion. So we’re working on it but its a new conversation without any known parameters.

And like it or not, she really does rely on me more than is healthy for either of us.

Writing about intimate relationships is hard, because I know that I believe things about the other person that don’t seem true to them.  And yet which seem all too true to me.  With her, it feels to her like I don’t support her, believe in her, trust her, have confidence in her ability to take care of herself and my grand-kids, etc. She says that I don’t like her.  And sometimes it’s all true.

Sometimes I don’t know how to explain to her that even while all those things are sometimes true about my feelings about her, they don’t really encompass what I feel at all.

What they don’t express are my observations that she is beautiful, brilliant, talented in many different ways.  It doesn’t inform her about how much I love her, and how little difference I seem to have made in her life, despite massive efforts to do so.  I often feel that I am sacrificing myself on the alter, trying to care for her with all of her disabilities, illness, and violently victimized past.  Ultimately, she seems broken to me, and I don’t know if she will ever be able to put herself together again. In fact, helping her often seems to be contributing to her brokenness more than to helping her to heal.

They say that the first step towards solving a problem is to acknowledge that you have one, and to express it in words.

I have a problem.  I don’t know how to love her without either abandoning her and letting her sink or swim on her own, or alternatively, holding her up and destroying her by undermining her growth into a self sufficient person.

Which is the harder road?  For me or for her?