Anytime you claim that men find you intimidating or “scary”, it generates debate. In a world where men are taught to look to women for support, not competition, some men do find a woman intimidating if she shows her intelligence or demonstrates self-sufficiency. The counter usually boils down to, “Just because you’re smart/self-sufficient doesn’t mean that’s why they reject you/ignore you. Maybe they do it because you’re just not nice.”
The problem with that argument is that niceness is required of women and looked down upon in men. We’re told “nice guys finish last.” We may like how nice they are, but they don’t get the promotions, the hot dates, the hard work from their employees, etc. (or so we’re conditioned to think). Conversely, when women are as authoritative, fair but unsympathetic, and aggressive as men are congratulated on being, we often get labeled “bitch.”
Katems at Feministing talks about having mixed feelings because men fear her.
Apparently my landlord, the man of the couple that lives next door, my husband’s mother and brother and everyone else I’ve ever told off have all confided in my husband that they are afraid of me. Both of us find this pretty hilarious considering that I’m barely 5’3 and around 100 lbs. I asked my husband what exactly scares people when I call them out on being ass-holes. He says it’s a combination of my intensity and the fact that I sugarcoat nothing and have a habit off cutting people to the core with my words.
That’s me. I read a lot of stories in which women describe harassment and the feeling of being scared and not knowing what to do, or thinking of some great comeback minutes after the event is over. My response is quite different: my adrenaline surges, I zone in quickly on that person’s insecurities, my vision goes a little hazy, and I want to physically hurt the person. I have to restrain that urge and redirect my energy into a verbal barb or a gesture that lets them know to back off.
For example: if a man tries to touch me in a remotely inappropriate way, I’ll try to edge away politely if the situation permits. If he’s insistent, I am 100% fully entitled to hit him. And I have done it. It stuns people, but to their credit I must say no one has ever criticized me for it. Several men have even congratulated me, and I’m not talking feminist ally types: I’m talking about men from all walks of life who simply don’t think women should be bullied.
This isn’t limited to men or sexual harassment. When AT&T tried to screw me over recently, I called them on every line of bullshit they shoveled my way until they realized they hadn’t a leg to stand on. When a medical billing company tried to charge me for something they weren’t supposed to and on top of that made it nearly impossible for me to reach anyone, I gave them hell to the point that the supervisor called my doctor, realized I was right and called me back, sounding scared. I am very forgiving of mistakes – we all make them. I also restrain myself when dealing with the people who aren’t responsible but get used as human shielding for those who are (i.e., customer service reps). But I just cannot tolerate bullshit, not even when it would be to my advantage to tolerate it for the moment. And even when I avoid being overly sarcastic or using my more colorful vocabulary, there’s a tone in my voice that says, “Nobody’s going home until either I’m satisfied with the outcome or you’re bleeding.”
If at this point you think I sound like a ranting bitch… I feel sorry for you. Get out more – you might just meet some people (not just women) who can be firm and unyielding without being mean or demeaning. It happens.
The more I think about it, the more I wonder if a man who tolerates as little bullshit as I do would not also be considered “intimidating.” While men are conditioned to tolerate less crap than women, I think most people are uncomfortable enough with confrontation to prefer letting slights slide. I’m uncomfortable with confrontation, too, but for me the confrontation begins when someone bullies me, not when I choose not to let it slide, and since I’m already in I might as well kick some ass.
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Fair enough.
I may be wrong, but I’m a man and those are the opinions I have based on what I’ve observed in my environment. Maybe I’m stupid. I didn’t start out seeking a “this is right/wrong” argument. I didn’t want this to turn into a vicious exchange of rhetoric. I just read an article about you talking about why people think you’re a bitch when you argue with them and hit them, and I just thought I’d say, hey, people consider me a doormat because I don’t do those things and I think it has something to do with me being a male.
Sorry about the orgasm comment too. I didn’t mean it to be as offensive as it sounded. I was just very disappointed that you introduced that to the argument so I wanted to throw it back at you. I often get the feeling that women partly feel slighted for their male partner’s lack of sexual reciprocity, but I also think that they use it as a weapon to make insecure fearful men feel even a little more insecure and fearful. If I said that that comment made me feel a little more fearful and insecure, would you feel like you won? Because I think you did.
I will definitely google those topics.
Farewell.
AH(Quote) (Reply)
Wow.
Of course, you realize it’s virtually impossible to please people of any gender (something’s always wrong), so it’s not a far stretch to think you never leave your home out of fear of failure.
Whoops, why am I responding?
/backs away quietly
sbg(Quote) (Reply)
I introduced it because your entire argument boiled down to: “Women suffer a lot, but at least they have an easier time getting laid.” Which would be a valid argument if sex were pure pleasure for women as often as it is for men. For us, it’s something we owe men, something men are entitled to take by force, something we’re not supposed to reserve for ourselves or for female lovers if we’re so inclined, something we’re supposed to be ashamed of, something we’re supposed to trade for our very subsistence. Do you not see how utterly offensive it is to suggest that it is in any way a good thing if sex is easier for women to procure than men?
Of course you do – because your male privilege insulates you from realizing that sex is a weapon against women every day of our lives. It determines, for example, where we can live safely and how much extra we have to pay to live there next to our male counterpart who needn’t worry about a rapist breaking into his home and raping him. It determines what jobs we can safely take (hey, if you take a job with a bunch of randy men, you’re just askin’ for it, toots). Even those of us who’ve never been raped are constrained every day by the culture of rape in which we live.
I’m no fan of women using sex as a weapon, and it does happen, but bloody hell, you’re talking about a mouse getting in a bite now and then against a lion. Just as you can’t measure the distrust or hatred of an oppressed race against its oppressor the same way you would measure the hatred of the oppressor who has so little to fear from the oppressed, it just doesn’t begin to compare.
No, I just find it incredibly sad that you would even think this. I don’t think it’s sex you’re afraid of – I think it’s women.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
To put it in a different perspective maybe: I don’t think the charge of insensitive male lover applies to me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t recognize how society still regards women’s sexuality very different from men’s. I would even say that women have it easier to get sex precisely because of that difference, of the fact then men looking for release is acceptable, so having a one-night stand is something to congratulate your buddies for – women, on the other hand, take the “walk of shame”. It’s great that it’s easy to have sex, but when having sex is treated as a shameful act, when society still regards sexually liberated women with suspicion and almost exclusively from a male point of view (i.e. it’s all intended to turn the man on, nor for the woman’s own gratification), then that supposed advantage evaporates.
And then, if a woman goes out looking for sex, she is either rebuffed as too aggressive or seen as a slut. Yes, men are at least somewhat under pressure to be sexual aggressors, and that can be a harsh pressure, but at least it’s a pressure that in the end points to personal satisfaction – your own, and not your partners. On the other hand, even femdom fetish films are usually filmed to excite submissive men, not the dominant women supposedly portrayed therein.
So get over it. That’s one lesson I had to understand, too, that while I have my own problems and expectations I don’t fulfill, I have it infinitely easier than someone who is not a more or less straight white middle-class dude.
And let me just quote Jennifer from above:
See, it’s not always that what you’re saying is wrong so much as where you’re saying it.
This is simply not a site where you say, “yeah, you women have it hard, but men do, too”. This is a place for (feminist) women and the men trying hard to be some kind of ally. Imagine a forum for, say, film freaks where there’s a thread about the dying art of film criticism – and you come in and post, “yeah, I don’t watch films, but I read a lot, and I have problems with reading, you know?” I guarantee you most forums would say that was trolling. It’s off-topic for both the discussion and the whole site.
Not to say that there might be a discussion here about looking at the other side, at what men may “go through”, and where your comments would be perfectly fine and welcome. And it’s certainly possible to describe your own experience, even as a man – I’m not doing much else, most of the time, really, aside from trying to understand. But you have to do so regarding the problem at hand, somehow. And be mindful of the space you’re in (granted, I sometimes forget that, too, since I feel so at home here). I mean, I’m writing this worrying that this post might look as if I thought Jennifer needed my (male) help in dealing with you, which I certainly don’t think. I think she’d kick my ass if it came to that, and I’d welcome the ass-kicking, too.
The Other Patrick(Quote) (Reply)
I’m really glad I visited this site. For one thing, it will help me gain insight into feminine views, but for now, I think it’s making me think introspectively more. I stayed awake most of last night thinking about all of this. I hope you don’t think you’re wasting your time on me. I know I’m struggling with concepts and sometimes I make bad comparisons (sometimes I mean to and sometimes I don’t). I AM listening to you and I am taking your words to mind and heart (ouch, by the way
)
I’m just now seeing your comment, and it affirms what I thought about last night. I think you are absolutely correct – I do fear women. And I think the biggest problem you have with me so far is that I don’t truly understand feminism because I’m being too selfish. Again, correct. To truly understand this, I need to think outside of my own box; I must be selfless and put myself aside for a moment to really gain understanding of the female perspective.
To rephrase, I think the problem is, that (you’re right), I’m not perusing feminist insight for selfless understanding. I’m looking for answers to my own questions. My question is: How have I wronged women? Why do I fail? Why can’t I earn their affection? Well, something I’ve always known but it hit me again last night – I have mommy issues. My parents had a terrible marriage, and he was often off on business, leaving her behind to deal with the little kids. She felt overwhelmed and resented my dad on MANY levels. She resented his bossy personality. Well, I felt the rift of her dislike of my dad and what grew into her general disdain for men. She took frustration out on me, physically and mentally. If I ever had a budding male ego – believe me – she beat it out of me before it could bloom.
I do have male/female equality issues. But it’s not the problem that I feel superior to women; I feel INFERIOR to them. I reject myself before they do because I do not feel worthy or deserving of their respect. I’ve been taught by mom to fear and yield to women. Well, if I fear women, how can I ever respect them?
In seeking answers to my questions about femininity, I admit, I get upset. I put my feelings aside for the time being (put myself second), and read about how women have been historically wronged and the privileges males have. I read about men being superior, when throughout all my life, women (specifically, MY MOM) have broken my spirit and taught me to feel inferior. I have never wronged a woman, so to be TOLD I have pisses me off – I realize that’s unjustifiable, but that’s my reflexive response. I take feminism personally and internalize it (wrong, I know). What I need to do is shake my inferiority complex. In some sense, I need to stop taking crap from people (women’s crap too – whether real OR perceived), and treat myself as an equal to women.
I do self-pity and seek sympathy from others, but honestly, who doesn’t? Something I often read and hear: “Men have no idea how bad childbirth hurts.” “You will never know how bad this hurts” “Men are so lucky for not having to do this.” Correct. I will NEVER know what childbirth feels like. What do you want from me? My sympathy? My understanding? I think I’m supposed to just sit there and nod my head. “Yes, I’m sorry – and I support you.” That’s just being humane. Putting male and female struggles in the balance to determine “Who has it harder” is a dead end road. Trying to say two things that are different are equal seems idealistic to me. I think in some of my flawed comparisons, I’m really just trying RELATE to women with my own male life experiences and not pretend that I KNOW what it feels like to be a women, and perhaps not even try – because how will I ever know? As you said, I’m not special nor am I interesting – but I still feel compelled to hold on the thing that makes me different from you – my gender. I don’t want to surrender the acknowledgment my own struggles in exchange for the understanding of yours. That’s probably my wrongful internalization of feminism show again, but I’m working through it…
I might be stupid too – many of my concepts probably seem elementary and redundant to a professional like yourself, but I’m just trying to process it. And when I argue, I’m trying not to fear you (the “intimidating bitch”), I want to respect you even if I make a fool out of myself in the process.
AH(Quote) (Reply)
If you’re still here at this point, then there’s hope.
There are many things you have in common with many people on this site, including me. Maybe that could be a starting point for relating to us. For example:
–As I said before, lots of people who are “late” virgins, asexuals, etc.
–Lots of people, including women, who never or rarely get the opportunity to date. Some of whom wonder “What’s wrong with me?” but many of whom wonder “What’s wrong with all the people who don’t want me? Losers!”
–Lots of folks who had dysfunctional or abusive relationships with one or both parents, and have struggled to work through all the shit that heaps on a person.
And yeah, your concepts are “elementary”, but we all had to learn them at some point. It’s just many of our discussions are designed for people who have already learned them. Hence, the recommendation for extracurricular reading.
I don’t want to surrender the acknowledgment my own struggles in exchange for the understanding of yours.
Read Patrick’s response to you – this is precisely NOT what anyone’s asking you to do. This is in fact what men have expected women to do, and whites have expected other races to do, and so on. But you DO have to realize this is a website where we discuss the struggles of women, primarily. Except on articles like the Cult of Masculinity post, where the subject matter clearly invites some of the type of complaints you were making before. I would suggest maybe you don’t try to relate it to women’s struggles directly – at least not until you’ve read more – but on that article, you’re welcome to talk about how “be aggressive or we’ll label you GAY which is the most worstest fate evah” is a miserable pressure under which to live.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
This comment is actually a really great example of being an ally.
Jennifer Kesler(Quote) (Reply)
*blush*
Thank you
The Other Patrick(Quote) (Reply)
AH, I’m one of the “late” virgins that Jennifer Kesler mentioned. I’m a 31-year-old straight man, I rarely date, and I haven’t been in a serious relationship since high school.
And really, this is mostly due to my own decisions. I’m not interested in casual sex, and I haven’t gotten out of the house much during the past three years, most of which were spent on dialysis. I did not go on a single date during college, largely because I only asked women out once I already knew them well enough to be interested in a relationship with them. (No women asked me out, probably for the host of reasons that have been covered all over this site.) All of my female friends are involved, gay, or simply uninterested.
I’d like to give an example of how social factors have interfered with my romantic life. I’ll be pretty vague here, since I post under my real name (male privilege!).
There’s a hobby group I take part in, and I’m quite interested in a woman who is another member of the group. However, this is a hobby that is VERY male-dominated (there are a grand total of two other women in this fairly large network). Many of the men in this subculture are lacking in social graces, and there is a good deal of sexism present.
What this means is that there is essentially no way that I can make a move without potentially compromising her comfort zone and ability to enjoy the group without feeling any more self-conscious than she might already. She’s there for the hobby, and being hit on would hinder that.
Patrick McGraw(Quote) (Reply)
Thanks for telling me about your situation. There are many other things I can relate to you on, beyond just the single male virgin part.
I’ve dug deeper into this site, and the sites it has linked me to. So much of it is mind-blowing. For example, the “nice guy” myth. Hell, I’m not nearly as damn nice as I thought I was. If I were to define a guy who is “not nice” as one who consciously aims to harm women, then at a very simple level I feel fairly sure that in contrast to that, I could be considered….”nice.” (I’m trying to tread lightly with how I use the term “nice” here, as it relates to my failure with women.) But I didn’t really grasp some of the subconscious irrationality I had about my my perceived rejection by women despite my “niceness” and the growing resentment that was beginning to steam from that. I’m alarmed that I’m more ****ed in the head than even realized.
The more I read about some of these feminist views, though, the more I feel liberated. I wouldn’t say I’m becoming a feminist ally, nor do I really want to be – at least not yet. I’m not to that point, and if I said I was, I’d only be patronizing. But I find it liberating that shedding some of the bizarre conditioning males and females undergo in our culture (conditioning that feminism has opened my eyes to) and the irrational expectations that conditioning breeds, it makes the falsehoods seem a little more transparent.
For example – instead of viewing a woman as a higher being that I have to prove my worthiness to (worthiness I’m always afraid I lack for various screwed up reasons), I should instead treat a woman as just another individual who has the choice of accepting me or rejecting me for her own reasons, regardless of my screwy little inferiority issues that she’s not really even aware of yet and has no reason to care about. In a way, in understanding more of these concepts, I feel solace in that I don’t really have to give a shit what women think about me – because I’m not so sure they do give a shit. That feels a little crappy, but not really, because expecting someone to give a shit by default doesn’t really mean much. And if I approach a woman, I can do so with far more less anxiety because I’m not preloaded with irrational bullcrap I really have no reason to worry about.
So to relate all of that nice guy stuff I’m guilty of to the situation with the female you’re mentioning, I ask this: By acknowledging the existence of the social factors you believe are hindering your approach to this female, aren’t you really just reinforcing those same flawed social factors and extending their existence? Consider this: screw all those factors. Tell yourself “who gives a shit?” and just go for it. If you are as good of a person as you seem like you are, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t go for it. If she rejects you for whatever reason, who gives a shit? Maybe it would be because of one of those factors you mentioned, but how would you know until you gave her the choice to make that determination on her own?
I don’t mean “who gives a shit what this woman thinks of me” to be a form of ignorance towards feminism, I just mean it in the sense that having too many expectations, most likely based on false pretenses, will probably not yield much success for anyone.
And I’m NOT attacking you in any way Patrick. In fact, your kind offering of your situation and what you have in common with me feels very warm and welcomed, and I appreciate it very much. And I know that “not giving a shit” is far more easier in theory than in practice, so I’m not trying to belittle you or say that you need to buck up. I’m just stating all this for the sake of discussion and understanding of what my own problem is.
AH(Quote) (Reply)
Thanks for this post. It felt almost autobiographical!
One thing I’ve found to be ironic is that sometimes men I’ve known can do things that are incredibly rude — things I would never even consider doing. But when I say something like, “Hey, that’s kind of uncool,” they respond with something like, “why are you so oversensitive?” When they don’t take the hint and I finally tell them to get a clue and cut it out, they look astonished and then say that I’M the one being rude or intimidating! For example, several years ago a group of friends and I visited Santa Fe together. While we were there, one of the guys briefly met a woman and then committed the entire group to going to a certain club to meet her. He and the other guys in the group then dominated the conversation for three hours with speculations on his odds of getting laid. Personally, I just found it to be completely uninteresting, but the other two women were friends with his girlfriend at home, so the conversation made them uncomfortable. We tried changing the subject several times and they ignored us. I asked if we could please talk about something, anything, else, and they blew us off. Finally I told him that the conversation was “fucking pathetic” and suggested that he just go on the date without discussing it for hours like the rest of us do. He was very offended and barely spoke to me for several months (something I viewed as a benefit). Anyway, I thought it was ironic that he could be THAT insensitive and then get mad at me (for months) when I finally bluntly told him that his behavior was just sad.
When I was younger, I was even viewed as a “problem,” particularly with a few male teachers/bosses, even though my behavior often wasn’t different than those of the guys I was working with. When I was 19, I went on a backpacking course taught by two men from my university’s counseling center. While the two straight male students on the trip were commended for their knowledge of outdoor skills and for their “leadership” ability when they expressed opinions to the group, it was more problematic when I did similar things. In fact, both of the male instructors offered to counsel me for my “communication problems” — in one of the cases it was after one of the guys in the group who was co-leading with me undermined my decision in front of the whole group after I was out of earshot. This was viewed as a symptom of my communication difficulties, and they discussed the “problem” with me, but not with the guy. Even then, when I was 19, I mentioned to one of the male instructors that there might be a difference in how they were treating the men and women on the trip. That at least got him to back off. But then the other male instructor took his place and began pressuring me to get counseling from them. I’m 38 now, and this would all be behind me, but now I’m an untenured professor at a small college and one of these men is on the faculty — he’s become a big name in the Outdoor Education field.
Like other posters here, I’m a petite woman and I also look young. I think it throws people. Particularly when I was younger, people would sometimes respond like, “Who the hell does this girl think she is?” But the good news is that it’s become a bit easier to be an intelligent and outspoken woman now that I’m in my 30′s. Having a PhD helps a bit too. Also, maybe at least a little bit has changed since the 90′s.
Calirodan(Quote) (Reply)
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