I heard a word today and it has been lingering in my mind ever since. Compelling. Definition: driving or forcing, holding attention, attracting strong interest and attention. Doesn't it sound like one of those words that you want somebody to use to describe you? She was compelling. Her argument was compelling. Her aura was compelling. I mean, I kind of want to be compelling. And sometimes, when I try hard enough, when I grit my teeth and focus, I can sort of be compelling....to no avail.
But I realized, after a long series of ridiculous facebook message arguments with a douchebag who added me last year and who messaged me first, that even when you are compelling, even when your arguments are compelling, there are people too idiotic to appreciate it. What is the point of being a driving force when you're driving into a dumb, deaf, brick wall? That wall being one bad representative of the male gender.
I always find it relatively amusing when men need to assert their masculinity by beating down on women, physically or psychologically. It's both sad and pathetic. Now, because I'm an intelligent woman, who certainly doesn't need the admiration or validation of a man, I see right through their "little woman", pat-me-on-the-head attitude. I wonder, isn't it the men who are not threatened by the intelligence of a woman that are the most masculine? This old school macho ideology that in order to be a man you must be above a woman is not only utterly lame (in laymans terms), but totally indicative of male insecurity. Why do you need to penis swagger in order to feel like you are something? That something, ironically, being a person whose self esteem is tied to the intellectual progress of women. Sad, isn't it? They've had a 3,000 year head start and they still have issues. Get over it.
I will sum up the idiotic beauty of this "man's" facebook messages below:
1) He never, and I do mean never, admits he's wrong, or that I could possibly be right. To do so would somehow mean his balls have shrunk and my uterus has grown. We wouldn't want that, now would we?
2) He attacks. Ah, the old school male tactic of irrational, unnecessary war because diplomacy is, well, too rational (see: Bush, also hope: Hillary). Women, well, we talk and sometimes we also listen. Imagine that.
3) The flip of the tables. Rather than focus on the dumb comments he makes, he would rather dissect the patient and logical comments I make. Can one sided arguments actually be considered arguments?
4) Always resorts to the "You're so emotional" comment. Nothing else has to be said about that.
It was rather like misogynistic, verbal art. In the course of this dialogue (oh, and I'm being generous by calling it that) I learned that the world hasn't changed much even as the first viable female candidate runs for President of the United States. And this guy is American to boot. Isn't he learning anything about the progress, the determination, the sheer struggle of the female gender while he is witness to one of the greatest female achievements of our lifetime? We didn't burn bras for nothing, you know. While I make a compelling case to him about what women represent, what we stand for, what we symbolize, he can only stroke his own ego and that Y chromosome that created it. However cliche and transparent his position, I took offense to it. It shouldn't matter in the grand scheme of it all, but somehow it irked me. He irked me. And then I realized that it was men like him that made the seemingly out of reach idea of women like me a reality.
Maybe all women need to be reminded, on occasion, that the struggle is not over. That you might still be seen as "emotional" or inferior. However, to be seen that way is only indicative of the growing fear of some men over the continuous, and powerful progress we are making. His messages reek of desperate fear. He will not evaluate or consider any arguments I make about anything, because he already feels I've lost due to my gender. Little does he know in about 20 years when my daughter and his son are sitting side by side in a classroom, my little girl is going to show his son what it means to be the product of an intelligent, progressive, educated and informed woman. Because of that.....the movement will live on.
But I realized, after a long series of ridiculous facebook message arguments with a douchebag who added me last year and who messaged me first, that even when you are compelling, even when your arguments are compelling, there are people too idiotic to appreciate it. What is the point of being a driving force when you're driving into a dumb, deaf, brick wall? That wall being one bad representative of the male gender.
I always find it relatively amusing when men need to assert their masculinity by beating down on women, physically or psychologically. It's both sad and pathetic. Now, because I'm an intelligent woman, who certainly doesn't need the admiration or validation of a man, I see right through their "little woman", pat-me-on-the-head attitude. I wonder, isn't it the men who are not threatened by the intelligence of a woman that are the most masculine? This old school macho ideology that in order to be a man you must be above a woman is not only utterly lame (in laymans terms), but totally indicative of male insecurity. Why do you need to penis swagger in order to feel like you are something? That something, ironically, being a person whose self esteem is tied to the intellectual progress of women. Sad, isn't it? They've had a 3,000 year head start and they still have issues. Get over it.
I will sum up the idiotic beauty of this "man's" facebook messages below:
1) He never, and I do mean never, admits he's wrong, or that I could possibly be right. To do so would somehow mean his balls have shrunk and my uterus has grown. We wouldn't want that, now would we?
2) He attacks. Ah, the old school male tactic of irrational, unnecessary war because diplomacy is, well, too rational (see: Bush, also hope: Hillary). Women, well, we talk and sometimes we also listen. Imagine that.
3) The flip of the tables. Rather than focus on the dumb comments he makes, he would rather dissect the patient and logical comments I make. Can one sided arguments actually be considered arguments?
4) Always resorts to the "You're so emotional" comment. Nothing else has to be said about that.
It was rather like misogynistic, verbal art. In the course of this dialogue (oh, and I'm being generous by calling it that) I learned that the world hasn't changed much even as the first viable female candidate runs for President of the United States. And this guy is American to boot. Isn't he learning anything about the progress, the determination, the sheer struggle of the female gender while he is witness to one of the greatest female achievements of our lifetime? We didn't burn bras for nothing, you know. While I make a compelling case to him about what women represent, what we stand for, what we symbolize, he can only stroke his own ego and that Y chromosome that created it. However cliche and transparent his position, I took offense to it. It shouldn't matter in the grand scheme of it all, but somehow it irked me. He irked me. And then I realized that it was men like him that made the seemingly out of reach idea of women like me a reality.
Maybe all women need to be reminded, on occasion, that the struggle is not over. That you might still be seen as "emotional" or inferior. However, to be seen that way is only indicative of the growing fear of some men over the continuous, and powerful progress we are making. His messages reek of desperate fear. He will not evaluate or consider any arguments I make about anything, because he already feels I've lost due to my gender. Little does he know in about 20 years when my daughter and his son are sitting side by side in a classroom, my little girl is going to show his son what it means to be the product of an intelligent, progressive, educated and informed woman. Because of that.....the movement will live on.
No comments:
Post a Comment