Saturday, September 17, 2011

crying and feminism

I am not the first person to talk about this. In fact, I am quite certain that Sex and the City covered this more adequately than I could or will. But this is an important topic: crying.

At some point, little boys become too old to not be considered male, and we subtly teach them that "crying is for girls." They receive this message in a number of ways . . . peer pressure, dad's showing their sons how to act, older brothers, messages in the media, and even out and out saying that it's not manly for boys to cry. The tacit message that gets delivered along with it is that it is ok for girls to cry.

Except it isn't.

At least not for me.

As far as girls go, I don't often turn to chik fliks, and I don't often cry. I'm just as happy at a live football or baseball game as I am getting a pedicure (one is exciting, one is relaxing. Why not have both?!). And I don't get my finger nails done, ever, because between the working out I do, and the breakage caused by my medical conditions, what's the point? Sure, I love to cook and I adore babies, but I'm not into pink, and I am waaaaaaay into zombies. The last time I had a girls night out, it was a girls night in (with killer amazing food) and we watched Dane Cook swear it up! Like I said in my post about sisters, I don't even really know how to use a curling iron! Sometimes it's hard to tell I am a girl.

When I was little, I went through a short few years, from maybe age 5 until age 8 where I desperately wanted to be girly. So much so that I lied to various parties about having to wear a dress, but I went through a time period twice as long as those three years where I refused to wear dresses, skirts, anything with flowers on it, anything pink or purple, and I wore instead boys jeans and t-shirts, and sweaters swiped from my brothers and dad. Somewhere in this time, I learned, and learned too well that crying was, "for babies and little girls," (just gotta LOVE how girls are compared to infants there, don't you?!) and I was bound and determined not to be one.

In my house growing up, feminism was not living well you see. It wasn't an intentional knock on women, but my dad had very definite ideas about gender roles. I don't think it was his plan to demean women or make his daughter feel that the world held fewer options for me, but he had grown up in a different family structure and a different time. (In point of fact, by acting as a shield from the rest of the world, and holding different expectations when it came to certain things, by holding doors and pulling out chairs, he truly believed he was showing respect for women, in the way he was raised.) He wanted either strong, smart, athletic sons or a nice little girl. I was neither. What came out of this dilemma was that I went back and forth between trying to be both, finally settling miraculously on just being myself. I'm not a pretty, nice, girl. It's not who I am. I'm not a mean person, in fact I consider myself pretty compassionate and giving, but I'm not the type of woman who tells white lies to smooth things over, who is quiet and careful, or who holds back strong opinions.

Growing up, there were two sets of rules for almost everything; some of these rules were spoken and some were not. For instance, there were spoken rules about what dressing modestly meant for me. The unspoken rule was that shorts were fine for my brothers because they were boys, but not for me. My brothers could play football, I should be a cheerleader. Spoken: girls can't play football. Unspoken: Isn't cool to be a cheerleader? Your cousin is! Look at how much fun that looks like! When it came time for dating and liking people, I wasn't (supposed to be) allowed to go out with someone on my own until I was 16. (As an incredibly verbal and responsible child I argued my way into a date with someone nice and harmless at 14 by reminding my parents how trustworthy I had been and wearing them down verbally). By the time my brothers were 16 my dad treated them like buddies who could talk about beer, football, and women and get a high five. Spoken: You can't date until you prove you can be responsible. Unspoken: Young women need to be protected while young men are basically grown ups.

Now, don't get me wrong, sometimes this incredibly well meaning sexism was in my favor. I was never asked to mow the lawn. If we were traveling, my brothers had to share a bed in the hotel, while I got my own. Come to think of it, while living at home, my brothers always had a shared room, and I always had my own.

Where the deep gap between us didn't benefit me was in my emotional development. In our household crying was for, "little girls and babies," and even when I was a little girl, I was told that crying was disruptive, manipulative and just made everything more complicated. I learned that lesson and learned it well. I learned it so well that there have been long periods of my life where I have gone without crying ever. There was a three year period from the end of eighth grade into 11th where I cried . . . never. Not when I dislocated my knee, not when somebody died, not when my beloved drama coach yelled at me. Crying was for babies and little girls, and my tears were on lock-down. Of course, my feelings had to come out somewhere, and they did, and honestly, it was probably worse.

I don't do that anymore. I cry at the Google Chrome commercial (like, seriously, I've seen it more than 12 times and it still lays me out), I cried numerous times while reading and seeing The Help, I cry when great art and music move me, especially when things are harmonized gorgeously or when something catches me by surprise (don't laugh, but when the big animals enter during The Lion King, on Broadway, it slays me. The amount of art it takes to make something look that good, to build the elephants and make them move, or make a giraffe, combined with my knowing just enough about theater to know some of the effort it took, and the swelling music - - fuhgeddabowdit. Kleenex time!). These seem to be socially accepted venues for tears. I still do not cry when undergoing painful procedures (I am allergic to pain killers so I've had three surgeries in the past 5 years and sucked it up), I did not cry during any of the four knee dislocations I had in 2010, and I work really really hard not to cry when my feelings are wounded. If there's a backlog of crying that needs to take place, well I can always go watch Sophie on the Google chrome commercial or if I need more release than that I usually go looking for it in Steel Magnolias, Love Actually, or Life as a house.

Because if crying is manipulative, disruptive and makes everything more complicated it should be done alone, right? Wrong, but that is the lesson I learned too well.

I consider it bad manners to cry, or get upset. And, I hate to say this so baldly, but when it is still very much a man's world, at least in the line of business I work in, figuring out what the manners, expectations, and social norms are is tres important. On the one hand, I was flat out told at one point (by someone who was not my supervisor and had no right to evaluate me) that I should be a, "nicer girl. Like _____ who is more quiet and doesn't have such a strong personality." On the other hand, there were men in my office at the time who literally screamed and swore at clients or who called people into the conference room (despite not having any authority to do so) and threw tantrums, yelling in their faces. (Meanwhile, it was me and two women who carried all of the workload because neither of those two men did anything approaching their share, or even showed up sometimes!) Spoken: We expect you to be nicer because you have ovaries. Unspoken: It's ok for men to have strong personalities, and even to be verbally abusive, disrespectful, and inappropriate, but women should be "nice."

I hate all that "sugar and spice" crap but apparently I buy into it on some level because I ended up feeling so bad about myself in that office that it made it hard to get out of bed in the morning. When I finally couldn't take it anymore after weeks and months of working 70-80 hours to keep the office afloat and being treated like crap by these two men daily, and cried because things were so awful I was told, albeit very compassionately, that I needed to leave the office and "compose myself." It was completely baffling to me - somehow I was supposed to be a nicer (read: softer, more emotional, thoughtful) woman, but when letting my guard down meant that I had to feel how awful things were, I was asked not to rejoin my supervisor or the conversation until I was "composed" (harder, guard up, more staunch). This was after I had only two tears fall and reached for one tissue. (I hadn't like gone to pieces or something, with snot dripping down my face.)

So, when I found myself in tears twice yesterday, I felt like a failure. In the first instance, it was completely justified personal stuff. I hate being lied to and then manipulated to believe it is ok, and the level of frustration I was at made it ok. It was hard that it was at 7am, but that is life. What sucked was that I felt that somehow I had to keep my feelings and my crying from the other person . . . even though their dishonesty was the direct cause. I took a shower and tried to move on. Fast forward to later in the day at work. I met with a client to discuss some future options she is looking into. Our meeting had come to a close when she told me her husband was on the way. Her husband has no professional connection to the company, but since having a strong personal relationship often paves the way for better professional outcomes in my job, as a courtesy, I waited for him. He immediately began questioning me, rudely I might add, and although I remained calm, he seemed to get more and more agitated. What started as a simple conversation about one very finite and definable thing became his need to vent about every frustration he has had on his wife's behalf for five years. I sympathized, but when it got personal, and when it got to the point that I couldn't say anything without him cutting me off and yelling some more, I was done. So I tried to keep things as professional as possible while also ending the conversation. I tried to end the conversation a second time, while staying calm. Finally, I had to just say, "I'm sorry, but this is getting very personal. Thanks for your time, goodbye." And walk away.

What was heartbreaking is that this is a client who I have bent over backwards for. I have worked more weekends in order to help this person than anyone else. I have made special trips by to drop off and pick up things from her. I have run her business in her absence and I have collaborated closely with her on a weekly basis for two straight years, even if it meant talking to her on the phone during my lunch hour, discussing things on a weekend or holiday, or fitting it in on a day where I was also giving time to multiple other people at their disparate locations. I add hours to my workweek for her. Her husband yells at me. As a result of our work together, her business has grown significantly in all measures that we use. It felt so disrespectful to me. And so unappreciative of both my hard work and his wife's. So, I walked away, kept my head high, knowing he had seen the tears building (aghhhhhhhh!), shed three tears in my car, and then drove to another parking lot a block or so away so I could cry openly.

I hate that he got those tears out of me, and as one of my friends remarked, I hate that that husband "won" by getting that much of a rise out of me. (Another friend wisely commented that he must be feeling very powerless in order to need to bully me in this way, especially since he knows I had no hand in creating the issue frustrating him. More than anything, I should pity him and show him mercy.) But what I hate most is that I was vulnerable enough to be seen crying twice in one day. Never mind the circumstances.

Yet, what was I supposed to do? Keep it inside and be bitter? Stuff it down and not feel it? Wait for it to come out in other and more unhealthy ways? I feel, honestly, that in a feminist world, women are stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to crying. We can't be respected if we do cry, but if we don't and we become too "mannish" my experience is that the adjectives used to describe us are very unflattering, although those same characteristics are accolades for men. And aside from all that, I obviously have personal damage when it comes to crying and being open and hurting.

What does this have to do with Empty Calories? Maybe nothing. I didn't eat addictively to cope with this, though I had a long stare down with some popcorn. I went running. It didn't make me feel better but I did it. I guess if anything, being honest about my emotions is the only way out of the tangle of things I do when I'm not feeling my emotions. On some level I should be patting myself on the back for crying, instead of burying my head in a box of Cheezits. But instead, I am blogging and still trying to make sense of how to be ok with it all. I started writing this last night. All I wanted to do was come home and pull a blanket around me and watch TV, but my cable is out so instead I pulled a blanket around me and went to sleep . . . at like 9pm! So, here we are this morning . . . hopefully I will be able to find more peace in myself today

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