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Goose, gander

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“What is good for the goose is good for the gander.”

While this phrase actually refers to sauce, it can also refer to life. If you want to learn if something is sexist, put each gender’s face on it and see what it looks like. If it seems odd, then maybe something is up.

I’m specifically thinking of books right now, but you can do this with anything.

Teen girls are bombarded with books about how to get and keep a boyfriend. How to lose weight. How to do their makeup and hair. How to dress.

There are no similar books for teen boys.

If they read at all, the books they read are science fiction. Boys rarely read books for fun. This needs to be addressed, but it isn’t the topic of this post.

So if it is OK to teach girls that their focus in life should be on their image, and subsequently, how to catch and keep a mate, how come it isn’t something we teach boys?

Maybe we shouldn’t teach girls this at all. Maybe we should teach them good character skills rather than good cosmetic skills. Maybe instead of teaching them how to dress for success, we should teach them how to be a success. Maybe instead of teaching them how to find a mate we should teach them how to find themselves.

A ring makes it real.

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I don’t wear diamonds very often. They get in the way. They draw attention.

When we got engaged, I insisted on a diamond ring. A ring makes it real, and a diamond ring is traditional. Not only did I want other people to know we were engaged, I wanted to know I was engaged.

I’d had two previous boyfriends who had asked me to marry them. It turns out that what they were really asking was if they were to ask me for real, would I say yes. There was no sincerity to their question, unbeknownst to me. I thought I was engaged but I ended up just being embarrassed. The one constant in both situations was that there was no ring.

I wasn’t about to make the same mistake a third time. When my husband and I started talking about getting married, I called his bluff. We’d talked about what we would wear at our wedding and who would be there and what kind of food we would have. It was fun in a daydreaming kind of way but I was getting tired of playing the fool. Are we serious about getting married or not? And if we are serious, where’s my ring?

When I said this, slightly more gently than that, he balked a bit. His concern wasn’t about getting married to me, or even getting married in general. His concern was price. He balked at the idea of spending two months’ salary on a ring.

I pointed out that it is the diamond industry that says that, and I’m a cheap date. I don’t need a big flashy ring. I am not a girly girl. But I do need something to be sure of his intentions.

Now, while I didn’t want a big flashy ring, I also didn’t want a ring made up of a bunch of diamond chips. I’ve seen these in the past, but I haven’t seen any in a while. They look sparkly from far away but really cheap close up. And I don’t just mean inexpensive. I mean low class, in that trailer park kind of way. These rings have a simple shank and a flat disk soldered on top. This is to maximize the surface area. It is about half an inch across. The tiny pieces are set in it, without prongs. It kind of looks like a tiny lotus pod, but without the symbolism. It kind of looks like it came out of a vending machine or a box of Cracker Jacks.

I needed something a little more than that. Something that wouldn’t draw attention or break the bank, but also something that wouldn’t elicit sympathy and be purchased with pocket change.

We settled on a happy medium. The funny thing is that I don’t even wear it anymore. It sticks up a bit, and that makes it hard to wear at work or in the winter when I have to wear gloves. I ended up getting another ring that is channel set. I wear it when I’m not going to the Y, because I take my rings off then and I don’t want to lose it.

I’ve also bought another ring for myself and it is a “diamond in the rough.” It is a raw diamond set into a sterling silver band that has been hammered. It is one of a kind, and I love the symbolism. If it were to be cut to make it sparkle, it would lose a lot of its size. I also like the idea of learning to see beauty in simple things.

Limits – on exclusion in religious groups.

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I cannot be part of any organization that does not allow full membership to people. Especially if it is because of something they have no control over.

I cannot become a Catholic for this reason. Women cannot ever be priests.

I cannot join the order of the Eastern Star for this reason. While it is a sister organization to the Masons, it is not equal. It is an auxiliary group.

I’m very wary of the new trend in spiritual circles that are “embracing the Divine Feminine” and are centered around women members.

I get it. Women’s voices and stories have been excluded from the conversation for years. They are trying to rectify things by putting the focus on female power.

But to do this is simply to play the same game that has been played for centuries. To celebrate the “Divine Feminine” at the exclusion of men is to ask women to be the oppressors and the excluders. It isn’t opening up the conversation. It is simply changing who the storyteller is.

To have female only spiritual or religious groups isn’t empowering to women at all. It is in fact the very opposite. It isn’t feminine at all to exclude people. It certainly isn’t divine.

We have to work together. This is why we were made differently, so we can share our strengths.

On romance novels – just say no.

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I so dislike romance novels. I dislike them for the same reason I dislike women’s magazines. They teach women that their value as a human being is directly connected with others, especially men

Women are taught to be submissive in these books. The latest series to drive this message home are the “Grey” books, but even light fare such as Christian or Amish fiction teaches the same thing. You aren’t anything unless you have a man.

These books in various ways are all about finding and keeping a man. Whether he is a doctor or a drug addict makes no difference. He’s male, and you must have him. Even if he is abusive, staying with him is better than being single.

Of course, people will say that it is just fiction. It doesn’t teach anything. But it does. It teaches what is “normal.”

The funny part is that men aren’t getting the same script. If they read fiction at all, they read science fiction or action novels, where women are afterthoughts, if they exist as characters at all.

How is a woman going to become a strong, fully realized human beings if she has role models that tell her she only has value if she is a wife and/or mother?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against those roles. They are perfectly valid and laudable. But they aren’t the only thing, and they sometimes aren’t the best thing.

Not every woman makes a good wife or mother, and it isn’t fair to make women feel guilty for not living up to that expectation when it doesn’t suit them.

There are also way too many books for women on how to find and keep a man, especially if she is over 35. I’ve not seen any similar books for men.

How come women have to do all the work? How come women are made to feel lesser than, or left out, if they don’t marry?

Part of it is economic. There aren’t that many jobs where a woman can support herself if she is single. The most common are teacher, nurse, and librarian. Sure, a woman could go into any field, but then she has another hurdle to overcome. There are a lot of social stereotypes that almost herd women into gender specific jobs. The jobs that fit the expected role or nature of women. Caregiver. Nurturer.

The interesting thing is that then there is an additional stigma attached to a woman who enters those fields and is single. It is assumed that she is a lesbian. While the stigma is lesser these days than in the past, it is still there and has to be contended with.

And once again, she is being defined by her relationship with a man, or in this case a lack of relationship. Since she does not have sex with a man, she is seen as other, and subsequently, as lesser.

Lady

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There is more to being a woman than dressing like one.

I recently met the co-owner of the bead store I often go to. I’ve been going to this store for at least a dozen years and I’ve never met this person. I didn’t even know this was a staff member and not just a customer for a while.

I’m being vague about gender because so is the person. I believe this is a man who is dressing like a woman. I was finally supplied the pronoun “she” by the staff member I know so I will use that.

She had beautifully manicured nails and well groomed hair. Her hair wasn’t especially stylish, but it was certainly longer and tidier than the hairstyle of most men. Her top had fabric that was blouse-y and more colorful and fancier than a man’s.

Yet she had very baggy jeans that looked worn out. They did not fit well and looked out of date. Her shoes were also not feminine. They were leather, but clunky and squared off. Perhaps there were heels to them. It was hard to tell because her jeans were so long.

Then there was the matter of her size and voice. She was immense. Very few women are that tall or wide. Physically, she would have made a great bouncer at a club. Her voice was disconcerting too. It was very deep and rumbly.

All of this was what I was working with while also trying to figure out if she was a new staff member. She was walking in areas that are usually for staff members, but that doesn’t mean much at this store. Some of the best beads are behind the counter where the cash register is and if you ask they will let you go back there and look. If you go there as often as I do you don’t even have to ask anymore.

In all reality I don’t care if she is a he trying to somewhat pass as a she or if she is a she who is doing an unusual job of it.

The issue is that I don’t want to address a customer as a staff member (it has been done to me) and I don’t want to ignore a new staff member at a shop I regularly go to. I also don’t want to address someone incorrectly gender wise. That too has happened to me. (I had a mohawk at the time.) I’m personally very sensitive to all of this.

I simply asked the staff member I know if they had a new employee. She clued me in that this person was the co-owner. The word “partner” was used. This word can have multiple nuances these days, and as I have long suspected that the owner I know is gay, it added to my information. She also very helpfully gave me the pronoun “she” to use.

I understand if a man dresses as a woman, he wants to be referred to as “she”. This is fine with me. But only half of her outfit was feminine, so I needed that bit of help. I went along with this from then on.

At one point I was behind the counter while she was looking at the Swarovski crystal beads. The clerk I know walked by and said that her head hurt. The co-owner immediately said that “If my head looked like yours, it would hurt too”. In years past I would have said nothing to this bit of rudeness but that is changing. I immediately said “That’s not nice.” She stopped with her insult with that lady but then shortly afterwards resumed her behavior with her friend who was looking at beads with her. Her friend complained of a different ailment, and she did the elementary school retort of rubbing her thumb and fingers together and saying “Do you know what this is? It is the world’s smallest violin playing just for you.” She was saying she didn’t care, but doing it in a childish way.

I thought about this all the rest of the day.

I think there is a lot more to being a woman than dressing like one. There is something about empathy, and compassion. There is also something about not saying everything you think. There is a lot more, but that is what comes to mind in this situation. We are taught to be kind and to “mind our manners”. We are taught to put others needs first. We are taught to care about others feelings.

She may be trying to pass as a woman, but she doesn’t have the internal part down.

I also think that she is in a lot of pain. Whether it is physical, emotional, or mental or some combination of them makes no difference. Pain is pain, and it comes out in ugly ways. People who are hurt tend to become people who hurt others. Her need to express how she does not care about other people’s feelings or concerns is simply a reflection of how she feels. She feels ignored and put upon, so she is not going to be kind to anyone else who is in pain.

I find this unusual. She has developed enough energy to dress in opposition to social norms. This usually indicates a strong personality. Yet to insult and degrade others is a sign of a weak personality. Perhaps this is part of why she is only half dressed as a woman. She is only halfway there.

If only she knew how hard it is to be a woman!

Choice – not coercion. On defining women by relationship to others.

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Women are defined by who they are connected to. Meeting new people, you’ll hear these questions – “Are you married?” or “Do you have children?” Both questions seek to define the woman by who and how she is related to others. Women are rarely seen as valid citizens, much less as people, if they are not connected. A woman who tries to define herself on her own merit and ability is in for a hard time.

Romance novels teach women an overwhelmingly unrealistic life goal of finding and keeping a spouse. Men don’t get this script. Ever. Men don’t fill themselves with a diet of definition by relationship to others. Men read about adventure, and superheros, and strength. The characters, their role models, are strong and independent. Women read about being swept off their feet. Men are active, and women are passive. Women’s lives are things that happen to them, acted on by others.

There are countless books for women and young girls about how to find and keep a mate – whether it is a boyfriend or a husband. There are specialized ones if the woman is over 35, where it is seen as more difficult to land a choice selection. The books are framed in the language of strategy and the hunt. Women have to seek out men, because otherwise they will be left out, and left wanting.

There are no books for men like this, and there are no books telling women how to live a happy life without a spouse, thank you very much. If you are single you are seen lesser-than. “Spinster” is not equal to “bachelor”. It should be. Being single, of either gender, needs to be viewed as a valid life choice, and not a failure. It is better to be single and happy than married and miserable.

Single women who wish to remain that way often go into nursing, teaching, or library services. All of these jobs pay enough money that a woman doesn’t have to have a spouse to support her. Yet all of these jobs are nurturing jobs. They involve taking care of and helping other people. So a woman is still defined by her relationship to others, whether she is single or not.

It wasn’t that long ago that women who got married lost their names. They were described as Mrs. John Smith – never as Mrs. Jane Smith. It was as if John suddenly developed a female alternate persona. It was never that the woman gained status, it was as if she just disappeared. By removing her first name and differentiating her by just her title of Mrs., she lost her identity as a unique person.

How often are women who have children referred to by the children’s names? She is “Sally’s Mom” – Sally is never seen as Jane’s daughter.

I bring these points up because sometimes you have to see injustice and imbalance before you can fix it. There is nothing wrong with being married, or having children. There is everything wrong with making those choices no longer choices, but mandatory. There is everything wrong with overt and covert social pressure to make women define themselves by getting married and having children. These are not life events that should be entered into lightly. These choices will affect a woman’s entire life. Women should marry or have children out of choice, not coercion, and know that they will be accepted if they choose not to do either of these things.

Bad mood.

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People try to blame women’s bad moods on their hormones, or the moon, or that they didn’t get enough sleep, or exercise, or healthy food. They never do this to men. It is that they are saying women can’t be anything other than happy and content and placid all the time. If they are upset or angry it is the result of something they did or didn’t do.

It never is the result of being talked down to, being belittled, being ignored, or overlooked.

Women are treated like children. We are treated as if we are incapable of making decisions, running households, running our own lives.

A female scientist is seen as an anomaly, a showpiece. She isn’t taken seriously. She is a woman first, a scientist second. Trade the word scientist for engineer, diplomat, doctor. It is all the same. Her gender is more important than her ability. Her hairstyle and clothing choices are questioned more than her skills.

How much of women’s anger comes from being treated as women, and not as people? How much from not being allowed to be who we want to be, but instead forced to fit into a socially acceptable mold?

A lot of anger comes from pain, and a lot of pain comes from being repressed, suppressed, oppressed.

I dare any man to go a month shaving half his body hair off every day, wearing hose that always bunches up in the wrong places, and shoes that destroy your feet and make it impossible to walk confidently.

And that is just taking care of the physical pain.

We need a “Black like Me” but for women. If men understood what it was like to be women, they’d get it. They’d stop blaming our moods on stupid things.

How much of women’s anger comes from dealing with men who treat them as less than OK? Who treat them as sexual objects? Who treat them as things?

Sure, we are in bad moods sometimes. It has little to do with what we have done, but what has been done to us.

Why is fake better than real?

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Why do women paint their real nails to look like real nails? A “French” manicure replicates the look of real nails, but they aren’t real. The colors are the same as unpolished nails, but enhanced. Most women who have this nail style pay a lot of money to get this done. None of this makes any sense. If you are going to go to the trouble of having fake nails, why make them look like real nails? Why not have real nails?

Why is fake better than real?

I knew a lady who didn’t even have her own nails painted to look like a French manicure. She used fake nails. Every week she would take off the fake nails and put on new fake nails. She felt she had to do this to look professional for her job. The chemicals she used for this were damaging her own real nails. Every week her own natural nails looked worse and worse because of the fake nails she was putting on.

What a waste of money and time. This is madness.

It reminds me of the makeup that is sold as “the natural look”. If you have to pay money to get the natural look, it isn’t natural. If it comes in a bottle, it isn’t real.

Imagine how many industries would go out of business if women loved how they look. We are taught that we aren’t beautiful with every advertisement. We are taught that we aren’t good enough, no matter what we look like. It is a game we can never win.

Our skin is blotchy or too light or too dark. There are concealers, creams, and foundations that even out skin tones and make them any color you’d like. There are bleaches that will lighten your skin if you are too dark.

Our butts are too big or not big enough. There are elastic bands that squeeze fat into submission. There are padded prosthetics that give you a rounded shape.

Our hair is the wrong color or it is going grey. If your hair is too dark, make it blonde. If it is blonde, then make it brunette. If it is going grey, cover it up. Once you start on that path you’ll forever have to get your hair done to keep up.

Our hair is too straight, too curly, to kinky, too flat, too textured, too much.

We have hair in places we are told we shouldn’t have hair. We tweeze, pluck, shave, and wax it away. Hairs on arms and faces are discretely taken care of. Hair almost everywhere else is removed or trimmed into submission.

Why do women shave? We are expected to shave off all (or most of) the body hair we gained when we hit puberty. To remove this is to reduce our appearance to that of a prepubescent girl. Something is distinctly creepy about this.

Why do we have to feel ashamed about something natural? Why are we taught that we aren’t good enough? Why are we taught that our natural beauty isn’t beautiful?

And more importantly, why do we believe these lies?

Size

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I resent that women’s clothing manufacturers have unreasonable sizing. I came to understand this when I tried on a women’s extra large shirt and it was too tight. Then, from the same manufacturer, I tried on a men’s medium and it was very roomy.

Why are women’s t-shirts different from men’s t-shirts? Women’s shirts are tight and short. Men’s are loose and roomy.

Women are taught conflicting messages. Be sexy, but don’t be slutty. Show off the curves of your body, but only if they are hourglass shaped. No pears or apples need apply.

The focus needs to be on health, not weight. Everybody needs to eat well and exercise. Everybody needs to learn healthy ways to deal with stress and difficult emotions.

Stressing about how much you weigh isn’t going to do anything about it. Wishing you were skinnier won’t make it so.

As one coworker says “the only thing for it is to do it”.

Being healthy is a lifelong thing. It isn’t something you do for a week before you get married so you can squeeze into your dress. It isn’t something you do just after New Year’s Day and then drop it in February.

Getting healthy is a gift to yourself. It is saying that you deserve better.

Perhaps that is the problem. Perhaps people don’t take care of themselves because deep down they don’t love themselves. Perhaps deep down they treat their bodies badly because they thing they deserve this.

There is no shortcut to health. It isn’t like you can just eat a grapefruit and the pounds melt off and the muscles come on.

How much of women’s self image comes from clothing designers who try to convince us that we are larger than we are?

High end clothes manufacturers market differently. Their clothes are marked at least two sizes smaller. So you think you are smaller than you are.

Perhaps the sizes need to be like men’s sizes. Just do it in inches. That isn’t an arbitrary thing.

Now sure, American health is terrible. Obese is just considered overweight. People don’t seem to know what healthy looks like. And they seem to think “exercise” is a dirty word.

We need to focus not on weight but strength and endurance. If we change the focus not on how much you weigh but are you healthy – do you eat well and do you exercise – then weight will improve naturally. But who cares what you weigh if your heart is in bad shape and your muscles are weak?

Cougar

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We have a term for older women who date younger men. But we don’t have a term for older men who date younger women.

Why do we care who dates who? Why does it matter the age difference at all if both people are old enough to decide for themselves? If they both are legally able and mature enough to date each other then what does it matter?

Older men have been dating younger women for years. Older men have divorced their older wives and married younger ones so long it is considered normal. They are called trophy wives. He upgrades to a sports car and a beautiful wife. It is his sign that he is still virile.

I’m totally against this, not because of the age difference but because of the divorce. There is no reason a man should abandon the woman who stood by him and supported him while he was going up the ladder. Once he achieves success, she deserves that glory too. She is part of the reason he is there.

But, back to the point. There is a stigma against older women dating or marrying younger men. And by younger, I mean ten years or more. Yet somehow it is seen as acceptable for older men to date or marry younger women.

I ask, why – to both? If one is OK, then why is the other not? “What is good for the goose is good for the gander”, right? Or if it isn’t OK for one, then perhaps it isn’t OK for both.

It is just something to consider. I don’t have the answer. But I am about asking questions and making people questioning their assumptions and the usual way of thinking. This kind of exercise is very healing. It helps you see walls that you put up that aren’t really there.