My Feminist Teaching Moment

The all day Russian River fun-in-the-sun birthday extravaganza didn't kill me and turned out to be fun. Thankfully the woman coordinating it is a thoughtful planner and she brought me a veggie burger and a sun tent! No sunburn nor icky hotdog meat for me! It's been years since I lolled around in a bikini all day. Frankly, I think we should all just be naked, but I will grant that the strips of fabric do help to keep the sand out of the ass and give a little support to the boobular jiggle.

The festive day ended on a strange note, with me stepping into my Feminist Bitch role to provide a mostly drunk, cranky man with a Feminist Teaching Moment. At first I was annoyed that no one else, male or female, was speaking up to remind the guy to mind his manners. "Women logic"? "Poon"? Stereotypes of women drivers? Puh-leeze. It was a adolescent as could be. But my annoyance waned. I dismissed the men, because honestly I don't expect men to stand up to "minor" anti-feminist assholery. And women, well, I can't blame them at all. They were all clearly uncomfortable and just started to drift away. It is the rare woman who wants to risk being the Angry Feminist and end up seen as antagonistic. It's much safer to dismiss and walk away.

But not me. I called him on his bullshit and he did his dismissive blow off. The other party goers gave me "that look," the one that says Angry Feminist in the room. Fine. But a few moments later he walked over to me and asked if we could talk. I expected him to give me lame excuses about how he doesn't really think women are weak minded, but..... and well, he mostly did that. But it also turns out that he had very recently suffered some heart crushing betrayal from his love.

While listening to his story, I had many thoughts swirling about my brain. The first being, this is still an excuse for your poor behaviour and your low brow stereotypes. There is nothing so telling of a person's true feelings as liquor and strong emotions. I think you can tell a lot about a person when these mostly controlled and hidden parts seep out.

Still. I was listening and I did have some sympathy for the poor boy. Betrayal is heartbreak no matter how much of a jerk you are. My next thought was, why do I have to waste my last minutes at this party to listen to this guy tell me his sob story? At least he's apologizing I thought.

But then I had a moment of "What would Thorn do?" (For those not in the loop, and I am very quiet about this, I am currently studying with T Thorn Coyle, she kicks some serious ass.) So I listened hard. I told him I was sorry for his pain and that while what his ex did was mean, it wasn't characteristic of women to betray, it was characteristic of people. People of all genders do horrible things to one another. I then told him that while he is hurting and working out his anger, it's no excuse for perpetuating myths about women. When spewed out casually his words make him sound like a jerk and makes it okay for others to share in these myths that perpetuate the patriarchy (he use the P word first, folks!). I also mentioned that no one else knows his context, no one in the room knew his hurt and therefore everyone took his assholery at face value. Instead of telling us that he was struggling with some hurt around women, he took it out on all women - which included all the women at the party, even those women he's good friends with.

Since he was drinking I'm not sure how much of that soaked in, but I was proud of myself for speaking up, for being That Woman at the party, and also for being able to both listen and to put my foot down. I'm not always so good at the former.

I am very proud of myself.