A Rambling On Fear
I was talking to a male friend the other day, and I asked him how he approached relationships with women. His answer? Mostly with fear.
I found this quite off-putting – not in the sense that I didn’t want to hang out with him or anything, but I was taken aback. I wouldn’t want to make a sweeping generalisation, but I don’t think I am ever afraid in my dealings with men – nervous, maybe, but I’d like to think I’m comfortable enough in my own skin and with who I am that fear would never enter into the equation too much with me. Maybe I’m giving myself too much credit, but this is how I feel at the moment.
So why was this guy afraid?
I hesitate to say afraid ‘of’ women, because I think that’s a different spin altogether. But fear of what? We often hear about men being intimidated by women, especially now, after the advent of the first waves of feminism, when women have the liberty to do pretty much whatever they want (women in my position and station in life, anyway). I, and women like me, are under no actual obligation to get married and have children, whatever societal pressures may still linger. I can have a career. I can write this blog. I can do all kinds of wonderful things. And I’m getting sidetracked from what I was actually writing about.
What I’m asking, I suppose, is what are men afraid of? And why are they afraid of it? Sure, there’s always going to be an element of fear with anyone who puts themselves out there – there’s always a risk you’re going to get your heart broken. I don’t know – maybe I’m applying too much of a gendered construct to this in this quick, afternoon-at-work rambling. Who can tell?
Maybe I’m thinking too much in terms of stereotypes and archetypes. There’s the notion of the knight in shining armour who sweeps a damsel off her feet. Thing is, these days, a lot of damsels aren’t in distress any more, and can do their own saving. Does that leave no room for a man? Is he afraid because he doesn’t know what his role is? Again, this is a total sweeping generalisation and I don’t think I’m making a whole lot of sense here, so I’ll wrap up. Like I didn’t know how to deal with my friend being ‘afraid,’ I don’t think I’ve adequately thought this through enough to be able to deal with a response.
But that’s the question I’d like to throw out to the void – are men afraid? If so, what are they afraid of, and why?
~Jodi
Who Should Speak Up?
I was travelling back to Canberra on the bus from my family home, and as it is a rather long journey, I was reading a book. It was trashy chicklit – ‘Not Finding Mr Right’ by Anita Heiss, and while the book itself was unremarkable (though the heroine, Alice Aigner, had one of the most likeable and unique voices I’ve ever read in chicklit) there was one passage that stood out for me, where the author references a feminist critic, who said that when a man makes a sexist comment, it is not up to women to correct him, but other men.
I found this very interesting, because if I hear some bloke making a sexist comment, I’m going to pounce immediately, not sit meekly like a good girl and wait for a man to do it for me. But I do understand the logic in the statement. For sexism to be truly eradicated (I’m talking specifically in the traditional patriarchal sense here, though it probably has a more universal application) then awareness needs to be reflexive and come from within – in this case, from within the male gender.
Heiss takes the argument and applies it to racism in her book – in that case, the divide between Anglo and Indigenous Australians. It is better, she hypothesises (all this in a chicklit novel!) that when a racist comment is made – for example, an Anglo making a derogatory remark about an Indigenous Aussie – that the rebuke come from another Anglo. I can certainly see the logic in this, but I think I would find it very hard to apply myself – back in the gender ballpark now. I think a man would probably be more inclined to listen to another man, especially as he is the kind of man who is going around making derogatory remarks about women.
But does this mean waiting? And if one waits for a man to swoop in and make the rebuke, would that not lessen the impact of one’s message?
In short, I think I think that it’s a nice theory. But difficult to apply. I would like to think that men would rebuke other men for making misogynistic remarks – but I’d like to think that they were fighting with the girls for the right to do so.
Thoughts?
~Jodi
Congratulations!
We’ve had a huge spike in readership today, largely due to people searching for pictures of Roger Federer and Mirka Vavrinec’s wedding. No, you won’t get your pictures here, but I’d like to offer congratulations on behalf of the Black Valentine’s Day Manifesto to the happy couple!
(Though they didn’t need to be married to be cool!)
~Jodi
I Spend A Lot Of My Time Thinking In Blue
Once again, huge apologies for the lack of postage – hopefully now that the play I was in has finished we will be able to return to regularly scheduled programming! But for now, a song – Jodi’s current Kate Bush love.
Symphony in Blue is the first song on Kate’s second album, Lionheart. She was noticeably disappointed with this album as she felt she was rushed making it (it came out in the same year as her debut album, The Kick Inside.) However, I still love it sick, and Symphony in Blue is one of my favourites. I’m one of those people who is obsessed with words and language, and the way that Kate links image and colour and word in this song is for me, very profound and beautiful. There’s something quite soothing about this song – not quite at a lullaby level, but it’s so gentle and lovely that I’ve fallen asleep to it a number of times.
~Jodi
The Black Valentine's Day Manifesto 