Raining Men

To admit I do not understand gender is a step for me. Up to now, I was unconsciously unwilling to accept that it baffles me terribly and likely always will.

Its not a black or white thing, gender. That made sense to me from the start. Transgendered folks never really had to convince me, it made sense to me that gender had little to do with the body parts we were born with. I didn't really believe gender meant much. Sure, your biological sex almost always dictated that you would be physically weaker than most every man around you if you were born with female sex characteristics, but it did not dictate whether you'd like working on cars or wearing frilly dresses. Certainly, the body parts you were born with didn't change the basic definition of how to treat other people well and relate to them meaningfully.

Its funny, I would not call myself a feminist particularly, I've never been clear on what that word was suppose to mean. But my friend, Meagan, responded with gleeful surprise a short time back when we were trying to move a bunch of heavy tables and I grumbled that it would be nice to have a few men around to do the heavy lifting. I didn't understand what was so surprising, as one of the physically weakest people I've ever known who did not have some debilitating condition to explain it away, I've always been very aware that men are much stronger than me. Its something I'm hyper-aware of and, to be honest, resented and been jealous of at times. It was the gender stereotyping that delighted her in my comment, the admission that there are some generalities about gender that really are the truth and can just be accepted, not fought.

"Fighting" would not be my word for how I react to the stereotypes of gender. Can it be called fighting when you are trying to make just enough breathing room between everyone else's expectations of who you should be to just be, period? I don't know why I don't fit, but I don't. I am not trying to "be" anything in particular, it just turns out that what feels right and natural to me does not to most other folks. Its not that I fight the stereotypes of gender, its that I don't fit them and most everyone I love that I am not genetically linked to doesn't particularly fit them, either. The most emotionally and spiritually developed people I know transcend such simplistic boundaries without trying, just by being themselves.

And yet, I am finding my mouth full of these gender stereotypes as of late. I didn't know why this life-long struggle to understand gender and my relationship to the "opposite"one was so on my mind lately and then I noticed something - I am not use to being around men lately. There is my husband (see, I like that gendered term just fine, Meagan!) and my best friend, who happens to be my ex-husband. My father, whom I talk to on the phone once a week. The thing is, that transcendence comes into play here too, though - the way Michael and I relate is much too close to the bone for all the external of gender to get in the way, we passed through that layer into something much deeper a few years back now. Gender baloney never once came up in my previous 10 year marriage - if you get past the fact that he is over 6' tall, wide in the shoulders and strong as an ox you'll realize gender is a non-issue for my ex, except when it comes to sexual encounters.

So, where are the men? I use to have so many good friends that were men, back in my early 20s. I often felt I wouldn't know what to do with a female friend if I had one. Actually, I had one or two, and they baffled me - it was all about these men who treated them like shit that they were in love with and having babies, or fearful pregnancy tests. It rather embarrassed and disgusted me, I can admit now. With male friends, there was a lot less melodrama.

See, there I go again, Meagan, I am full of the stereotypes you think I do not admit to.

At my last job, I was the boss of a handful of men that were younger than me, all unmarried and twenty-something. In the kitchen where we worked practically on top of one another, an honesty and closeness developed fast and while yes, they were such "guys" at times, again, there was a transcendence that came into play because we lived our lives so in each other's faces. I loved it, though I didn't know that until I just thought of it now. I crave meaningful interaction with men, with men who are not related to my life by sex in some fashion - whether they had sex and helped to conceive me, or they had sex with me in the past, or they are having sex with me on a regular basis now, or they were conceived because I had sex.

Ah, men without sex in the way. Its one of the good things about getting older, becoming a mom, being married. If a man is still enjoying talking to you after repeated interactions, you can 90% bet in the stage of the life game that I am at that, its just because they like talking to you.

Not that I don't like flirting and the whole attraction game, but I was an idiot at it so I don't miss it too much. If a man was attracted to me, I pretty much never noticed until it was too late to enjoy it and flirt it up. And I just did not flirt unless I was so wildly into a guy that it shorted my circuits, then I suddenly was a big flirt. Ask Michael. But that is only when hormone overdrive strikes, which is actually pretty rare with me when men are concerned. There's a lot there that the hormones have to overcome.

Okay, confession:
It isn't pretty, but the truth is that I see many men as dogs - sometimes harmless, fun, cute and friendly, often unthinking, and always capable of doing you serious damage. I like dogs from a distance, but I am always worried about what will make them turn mean and it seems so unpredictable. For me, men are like that -mostly emotionally, but, on occasion, physically too.

Michael and I spent a lot of time talking about most men's fascination for violence or war in some form. He likes action films. We tried to watch a DVD of that Bond film that is suppose to be more like the books - uhg. I was out of the room within 10 minutes; too pointlessly, excessively violent. Oh, and that Batman movie that was suppose to explain the origins of Batman? It was so silly, I was giggling within 10 minutes and making fun of it - oh the drama, the deepness, the manly self-sacrifice to train his body and mind to be a warrior of the night! - turns out, Michael didn't see the humor and I was inadvertently rude. And its not just action films - its interest in weapons, in past wars, in *something* about physical combat.

I remember hanging out with male friends, old pals, at parties or what have you, and their sudden, unexpected moves to kiss or touch when I'd never given a single indication of interest. Turns out, according to those men, my interest in who they were and the meaningful conversations I would have with them, often at night, gave them the idea I'd want to fuck them. Huh? See, unexpected moves and reactions to things that seemed harmless to me.

Or, another example - the way men seem to scent blood when you start to get upset in an argument. This one has happened even with Michael, before we were dating. It especially happens when there are multiple men in on the conversation. You can be debating with one another about politics or anything else as intellectual equals but if you get visibly worked up in any way they get smug and unpleasant, as if you've lost the argument because you showed emotion about it, a clear sign of intellectual weakness. To men. There go the stereotypes again! But it is true that almost all biological females are hardwired to cry more than men, and crying is weak, so behaving like a woman is weakness - and people wonder why I get pissed with guys. Its called prolactin and differently shaped tear ducts, its got nothing to do with how smart or tough I am.

I lost my cool a week or so ago and, in a phone conversation about a contentious issue, I started choking up while talking to the man on the other end of the line. I was under some severe stresses at that moment that had nothing to do with him, but his confrontational phone call was the last straw and I told him I had to get off the phone or I'd keep crying. Not that I minded continuing to talk despite my crying, but I know 99% of men do mind. This was confirmed later when a friend said this particular guy was, "a little afraid of me" since then, afraid to set me off.

I didn't cry because I was hurt by what this person was saying to me, I was crying because I was overstimulated with emergencies, demands for quick answers, and the need to perform or else. For a second, I felt stupid for crying, but then I felt something else. I am sick to death of being taken less seriously and you are taken less seriously because you allowed an emotion to show - something men don't do as much so it must be weak and bad to do. Get angry, get flustered, get stressed out, get upset - you are no longer taken seriously.

We could turn the tables, we could say that crying is a strength, that it allows people to release stresses so they can move on and function more effectively or just that it simply is healthier and, therefore, men are the weak ones. What I suppose really needs to happen is accepting that we are different, biologically.

How much of it is biology? I hadn't thought about it much, but I was clearly someone who thought gendered behavior was all nurture until recently. And some of it definitely is. But I feel like I am waking up and looking at the other half of the human race and getting just that - they are "other." I watch women who seem to interact with men with ease, enjoying even their most stereotypical behavior and it becomes clear I have never enjoyed men quite the way these women do. Funny thing is, when I talk with women who seem utterly at ease with men, 9 out of 10 of them have said a version of the same thing to me, "well, they are just men. You can't take them so seriously." It has sounded too much like a "get out of jail free" card to me, that sentiment, in the past. It sounds as if they become comfortable with men by seeing them as foolish, harmless boys. And maybe that is the thing to do.

It is a revelation of sorts, to stand on this side of the divide and consider just letting everything that irritates the hell out of me about the other sex go. Just don't take them and their judgments so seriously. And I have been taking them seriously, all my life. Because I have wanted them to respect me, to be understanding friends to me, to be trust-able. But all friends and loved ones blow the respect and understanding thing sometimes, right? Its just been more consistent with men in my life. What if I just stopped giving such a shit and saying, "boys will be boys." Will that be letting them "off the hook" of growing up, or just setting myself free?

Maybe in saying, "boys will be boys" we aren't letting them off the hook, so much as acknowledging there are some things that we will never understand about them but that we will not let that get in the way of enjoying them in our lives and loving them. "Boys will boys" doesn't have to refer to putting down women, abusing women, discounting women - that's not boys being boys, that's people being assholes.

If I allow myself to accept their "otherness" what does this mean for my belief that your sex isn't about your gender or vise versa? I've gotten discounted as a girl because I tend to lead, be gruff and direct, and competitive at times (especially with men.) I've got an investment in not having my gender defined by some arbitrary list of what is feminine and what is masculine. I've been dealing with that all my life, though, I can figure that out on my own and not buy in. Its not black and white but then, I should be old enough now to be able to navigate that.

And there is more than one appeal to embracing the otherness. Less grief, but also more enjoying. Because its often their otherness that makes them so enjoyable, sexually and otherwise, to me. Its permission to celebrate all I love about men, too, and there is a lot to celebrate. So yes, Meagan, lets definitely let the boys do all the heavy lifting next time.