Terri Trespicio’s personal memoir of how she accidentally conflated being strong with being single.
Feminism has done a lot of good–for you, me, all the women you know, and all the women you’ll never meet–as far as social issues, birth control, employment, and your right to do anything and be a woman at the same time. I’m all about girl power, and go women. Yes.
But there’s one area where feminism has not served me well. And that is dating. Why? Because, having been raised in the 80s, I came of age with the strong impression that men were basically up to no good. In the movies, TV shows, general cultural messages, men were by and large aggressive, incorrigible boors. They could hurt you. At the very least, they might get in your way. The good news was you probably didn’t need them.
Men Not Required
This was easy for me to believe because I went to an all-girls’ private and progressive catholic high school. Training grounds for the “men not required” mentality. I wore a uniform, no makeup, and had not an ounce of concern for boys, as they were not on my radar, and not deemed central to my life in any real way. Sure, we talked about them, but they were more like attractions than people I had relationships with. Beings I’d ogle and wonder at from the stands of a high school football game or at a dance. They were infrequent visitors in my life and I was in a tourist in theirs.
I’d heard about how girls were cowed by the boys in public schools. Girls who didn’t get a shot at leadership, or acted dumb. I felt bad for them. I was certainly better off. For instance, we never mooned about waiting for someone to ask us to a school dance because when our school hosted one, it was on us to do the inviting. Every day was Sadie Hawkins day. We were running the place. And we would run the world.
As students of Oak Knoll High School, we were weren’t just students. We were “women of promise.” We were the promise of a better future. I took this as a promise not to let anything, or anyone, get in my way.
During our senior year, we were shown some horrible video about how to avoid being the unfortunate drunk girl who gets date raped at a frat party. Stay sober, stay smart, and if someone goes to rape you, run for ze hills, screaming your head off.
That was my prep for dealing with men.
I got the impression that I could, should, and would run circles around guys. I’d be smarter, stronger, and savvier. And I was sure as shit not going to let any of them hurt me. Probably a good idea not to let any even get near me.
I’m Embarrassed This Happened
And guess what? I succeeded. I sneered at, and even humiliated men as a teenager, and if a guy liked me, I fairly resented him for it. At 14, I had what might be considered my first boyfriend. I’d met him at a spelling bee (not kidding). After two daytime dates held within earshot of parental supervision, I invited him to a dance at the boys’ school.
That night, I had a change of heart. I realized that if he showed up, he was officially my problem and I would in some ways be responsible for him. I panicked. As I saw him lean cautiously through the auditorium door in the flickering disco light (skinny kid, blond crew cut, windbreaker), I felt my heart ball up in a fist, and thought, No, no this was a mistake.
Except, instead of greeting him and talking to him and being civil, I decided to ignore him. I returned to the safety of my friends and we watched him amble from one poorly lit corner of the room to the other, looking for me. I passed him once, and waved hi–and kept walking. I felt bad, but the way I see it now, not bad enough.
I left this boy stranded and friendless, at a school dance where he knew no one but me. I am not proud of this. It remains one of the cruelest things I’ve ever done. I went home that night and said nothing–until the phone rang at 11:30 (which in the days of one-family land lines, was a big deal), and it was him. He was shocked and furious–as he should be. I had nothing to say–I shut down. I had no defense. When my mother got wind of what happened, she scolded me, pleaded–”What is wrong with you? How could you do that?” And I had no answer. I felt tough, and cold.
Then the letters started–scrawled black ink on both sides of thin looseleaf, declarations of love and war, promises to kill himself (“And if you don’t hear about it, I either didn’t do it, or nobody noticed.”) I balled them up and threw them in the back of a drawer. I ignored and ignored, until he went away. I resented his neediness, his melodrama. I liked him a whole lot better when I didn’t know if I could have him, but once I did, I was done.
(I’ve since Google-stalked him and was happy to find that he was working as a computer technician in San Jose. I’m sure he never thinks of it–at least I hope he doesn’t.)
I can’t blame feminism for my piss-poor behavior of course, which I chalk up to fear, insecurity, and anything else that rules the mind and emotions of a 14-year-old girl. But it was reinforced by the notion that men were something to be dealt with, but not at all necessary or required.
I’m Not Proud of This, Either
But it was a bit of a pattern, it turns out. During my first year of high school, my best friend introduced me to her cousin–a sweet strawberry blonde track star from the boys’ school. I knew he liked me, and so of course I was suspicious and guarded. What did he WANT? I enjoyed the attention in an eye-rolling way, and was amused and compelled in ways I didn’t know how to handle except to keep some distance. The night my friend and I double-dated with him and his friend to a Seton Hall hockey game, I walked ahead of him and only hesitantly accepted his varsity track jacket to keep me warm, quickly returning it afterwards.
…And Why This Became a Problem
Flash forward to adulthood and you can imagine how this might set me up with a bit of a handicap. Little did I know the inability to accept anything from a man–attention, love, a jacket–would become a bigger problem. I guarded my virginity jealously, well into college, up until the bitter end, in fact. I believed to share “it”–sex, intimacy–was to give it away to someone who likely didn’t deserve it.
I’ve come a long, long way since the ensuing years of tense serial monogamy in my 20s, and have far to go. So while everyone was up in arms over Suzanne Venker’s article on foxnews.com (in which she says, essentially, that feminists are to blame for the lack of marriageable men), I acknowledged the nerve she struck in me. Because she’s right–I have been angry and defensive for a big chunk of my life, and I’m not even sure why.
Anything But Needy
I’ve worked so hard to be independent, thinking that, as the anti-chick, I would need nothing and no one–and that men would somehow love this. The very last thing on earth I ever wanted to be was a needy, awful girl. I figured if I needed nothing, I’d win. I just didn’t realize the cost of winning.
I certainly don’t regret how feminism has served me: I’ve learned to be aggressive, tough, resilient, and have had many successes in my life as a result. I never have let a man get in my way–are you kidding? No one ever stood a chance. But now I’m trying to unlearn some of that–to learn what it means to soften, not weaken, and to expand, not constrict. To have power without the shiny, hard outer shell. This is incredibly fucking hard.
The notion that some post-fem fallout is to blame, well, that makes sense to me. I swung really hard in one direction and am gradually finding my way back to a more balanced state. My understanding of feminism has evolved, too–in that you don’t have to hate men or beat them in order to be a powerful woman.
Make no mistake–I wouldn’t undo feminism. And I have no regrets about the choices I’ve made in my life (except, of course, for the school dance episode, and a few others to be sure). But I’m well aware that my tendency to fight and compete and fear losing to men has made it incredibly hard for me to love the way I know I could. Even though marriage has never been a goal for me, how silly to think that you can–or should–get through life without loving, as often and as intensely as you can.
Of course, love requires all the things that scare me most: vulnerability, need, want, rejection. It’s hard for me to turn down a challenge–but I’m facing an entirely new one now. Because the softening and revealing and opening up that love requires is the very thing I’ve been steeling myself against. And I’m discovering that to win at not wanting, and not having, may not be a game worth winning, in the end.
This article originally appeared at territrespicio.com.
Photo—sara biljana/Flickr
About Terri Trespicio
This is soooooooo good. I love every word. And I am passing it along to all my single lady clients. The art of being feminine – something I am fascinated by and am so grateful you out how important it is for dating into words. My favorite is the last line “And I’m discovering that to win at not wanting, and not having, may not be a game worth winning, in the end.” And the shout out to your insecure teenager – Amen!
Oh my god. Your school, ‘leading’ private Catholic girl’s school. That was my school too, years on and I am still hopeless with men. Boys were never on my radar until weirdly at the late blooming stage of 18 when they suddenly were…and I did not have a clue. I used (still almost do and I’m 22) see men as a different species. I don’t know if it is just feminism but more the emotional stunting of never growing up in a normal unisex environment. It’s true men are demonized in all girl schools and these days even the few male teachers there are in these schools walk on eggshells.
Terri I totally get your reaction to all of this stuff. Mine was slightly different. I was, for years petrified of the opposite sex. Then and maybe still, quite addicted to everything about them…ie the unhealthy flip side of years of subjection to the idea of men as the forbidden, denial of ‘sin’.. ‘they are only after one thing…-well why not bloody give to them then’ …like reverse psychology or something.
Still I don’t think I resent them, so much as the idea that they get away with so much more then women in some ways because they are ‘biologically wired’ to be that way- especially when it comes to sex and relationships.
Single sex education on the basis that the opposite sex is a distraction to studies only leads to the development of unhealthy attitudes and incorrect ideas (between genders, evident when they eventually mix), and yes I think it has screwed me up forever when it comes to romantic relationships.
I just don’t understand men..because one never sat next to me in maths class I guess.
“I just don’t understand men..because one never sat next to me in maths class I guess.”
When they get hardon’s, they rape everything in sight! (sarcasm)
Not all men are the same, but just talk to men and ask about their lives. Read this site and you’ll find out quite a bit, I am pretty open about my fears, insecurities, and stuff that affects me in life.
“It’s true men are demonized in all girl schools and these days even the few male teachers there are in these schools walk on eggshells.”
To me it seems that these schools reinforces gender stereotypes, didnt you had gender courses? or they were also faulty? I wonder what happens in boy schools, anybody went there?
What year was she in this private school? I could see this in the 60′s maybe
Nope no gender courses, I’m not sure I know what that it either? A tiny mention of the beauty of the union of marriage in religion class every now and then. Also occasional, patchy, awkward of the teachers part, sex education in heath in PE in the final years where they just told us all forms of contraception were bad and we should monitor our ‘natural’ cycle to try predict, coz all else is ‘damaging’ and not the way God intended us to use our bodies….marriage. We had a lecture from a lady from a religious centre with a powerpoint and everything, oh the horror.
Yeh very very conflicting messages.
Interesting how a lot of the girls in my year turned out. I know of a stripper, ‘glamour’ model, teenage mum- leading private catholic girl school eat your heart out.
The most we really got is
‘there are a lot of bad boys out there who will try to take advantage of your good virtues’
Mr Super”typo” .. sorry about that … my typo. Also want to say that it is sad that Catholic schools have fallen into the secular feminism.
Mr Superhero …. Demonizing men is what they do in many women’s study programs as well. Higher education simply mask it better.
Thank you for sharing, Stacey.
I’m a man about twice your age, and like you, I’ve mostly been fascinated by the opposite sex.
But constantly being ignored or ridiculed in my attempts to get in contact with them I’ve grown to become more or less petrified of women.
I hope that you will fare better with age than I have done.
my school too! exclusive all girls grammar school….
Sometimes when I come across extremist sites I wonder if they’re pulling my leg. Maybe I’m too naïve or too cynical, but sometimes I suspect such things are caricatures created by people who want to discredit whatever the larger group is. If someone wanted to discredit feminism or show that there are feminists who have gone off the rails, these sites would be the perfect anti-feminist propaganda. It’s the anti-feminist Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Or, maybe more playfully, these sites are like the “Yes-Men” stunts, pushing the envelope to see how far people will buy into it.
As someone writing under a pseudonym, I am always conscious of the fact that you can’t really know who’s writing in to a blog. How does the Jezebel site really know that a commenter is a woman, much less a feminist? How do we even know that the editors didn’t write all the comments themselves?
This was meant to be in response to one of Archy’s messages.
“As someone writing under a pseudonym, I am always conscious of the fact that you can’t really know who’s writing in to a blog. How does the Jezebel site really know that a commenter is a woman, much less a feminist? How do we even know that the editors didn’t write all the comments themselves?”
I stumbled in the same pattern of thinking as you, lots of time. Perhaps all the time, naaah its just a joke, naah they cant be serious. But then the question arises in me: where the real feminist? are they always joking? is feminism a joke for them? when do they get serious?
The joke hypothesis, can only work if feminism is monolithic. But it isnt.
I’ve wondered how much of both the extremist feminist AND mra sites were simply trolling. I find both movements pretty depressing atm, I wish they’d just team up already and end the bullshit but it seems very little trust exists between them….
As the fiasco over the #ineedmasculismbecause tag today on twitter has shown there are a lot of problematic elements on BOTH sides of this.
Reading the jezebel and the original thread now. What an epic clusterfuck. Bigotry like crazy, generalizations of what each movement is, how is it helpful? Call out the misogynists n misandrists but people should celebrate those truly interested in equality. The MRA’s and Feminists need to call out the extremists, kick em out, do whatever, they need each other to truly fight inequality n sexism.
A circumcised guy said circumcision isn’t that bad…..You’re missing the point, the point is that as an adult you should be able to choose but as a child you should be left intact. Go tell those who have major problems from botched surgery that circumcision isn’t bad. Would people perform labiaplasty on babies too? It’s just a bit of excess skin right.
http://jezebel.com/5982901
“Hilarious”
Feminists Are Savagely Trolling This ‘Masculism’ Hashtag on Twitter
So the tag was made as a joke and now SOME feminists onboard are making a joke of it, I have a question for them though. For the legitimate concerns, is it funny? Seems to be quite a few people taking it more seriously, hopefully I’ll see some feminists comment about that and agree instead of the focusing on the negative alone. But what is the point in trolling it further? Joining in on the “fun”? This goes beyond picking out the misogynist comments and pointing out the bad, it’s sinking to a lower level and really just shows how petty some feminists are acting along with the trolls and some of the MRA’s.
I avoid feminist sites as well as MRA sites because I’m with you, most of it is incredibly depressing. A bunch of angry people bitching about the world in an echo chamber of negativity.
Who was saying women should stop reading women’s magazines? Y’all really need to stop ingesting the poison of hate-sites too. As Dr. King said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” Find the love, people!
Thing is, where are the non-hate sites? Most major sites linked about the SPLC calling men’s rights a hate movement, an act which generalized about MRA’s. If I did the same towards feminism I could call feminist a hate movement based off the radfemhub site. But that’d be stupid…yet some of the major sites use nothing but bigotry to talk about mra’s, makes me wonder if one should consider them as a hate site. Which sites are hate-free?
Trolling or doing recon? Checking out various sites allows people to see what’s going on and when the opportunity presents itself, why not comment? Where as I see many people be okay with a variety of feminists sites/groups, I see little consideration given toward MRA’s/MRM’s. I still ask, as I have many times, please provide me a list of these MRA(M)’s? They’re talked about as though they are this overwhelming force.
Can we PLEASE stop using so many generalizations. Saying “feminists are this” isn’t any better than saying “men are that.” Every label is going to be as diverse as the individuals who use it. Looking for “real feminists” or “good feminists” is the same as saying “where are all the real men?” or the “good men?” which if you have read anything on this site you know is a fractious question. If you are going to argue that “feminists say this” or “feminists do that,” PLEASE have the decency to find a specific example, like the comments about Jezebel and other specific websites.
Which brings me back to a question I posed on another thread – what is any movement supposed to do about the extreme elements in it? Do the Black Panthers negate the importance or success of the Civil Rights movement? Do Gay Republicans undermine the sincerity of the religious right? Do hate-feminists define feminism or rapists define masculinity?
You all keep asking for feminists to “call out” the negative impacts of the movement. Hello! [waving arms in the air wildly] Over here! I’m a feminist and I’ve said on other threads (and will continue to say) the feminist movement caused a lot of problems when man-bashing became the primary method of deconstructing patriarchy. Ignoring male victims of violence is wrong. Gatekeeping around childcare to keep fathers in second-banana status is wrong. Denying men’s experiences and wounds and perspectives is wrong. So, apparently, that makes me an “egalitarian feminist” – whatever. I’m still a feminist and I’m calling out the detrimental effects of the movement (and I’m not the first or the last to do so).
Wow, thanks so much, Kari. I don’t really have time to be writing comments on here because I’m on a deadline but if I had’ve I would’ve (tried) to say exactly that. Spot on.
You can’t claim that feminists don’t disavow ‘bad feminists’ without giving specific examples of the ‘bad’ feminist doctrine to which you refer. Otherwise you’re guilty of the same kind of fuzzy thinking of which you accuse others.
I’ve given examples, others have given them. Radfemhub, agent orange files, etc. Find me a mainstream feminist article that tears radfemhub apart for their bigotry and not just a single person in a comment. What I find interesting is SO MANY feminist websites do exactly that, generalize negatively about the MRM/MRA’s calling them hateful, dangerous, etc. Should I ignore those feminists too?
The silence of many feminists about their extremists allows those extremists to keep working with the name, but worse it means those who come into contact with them will see negative behaviour yet it seems quite often many mainstream feminists ignore this and dismiss it. It’s the major source of anti-feminist behaviour, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that feminism’s reputation is damaged heavily by extremist behaviour, extremist comments, hypocrisy and other negative behaviour within the movement. Ask men here for instance about their experience on feminist websites that with one breath say they are for male issues and in another will treat a man like shit for raising male issues. Ask about how “privilege” gets used to silence people and how “whataboutthemenz” is used to insult male issues, where it’s not just used to point out derailing but used to belittle men. Or how about the issue of hearing “the poor white menz” as if men have nothing to complain about (hello selective service, terrible support for rape n DV, etc). Not to mention the snark which does no one any good.
Feminists should be asking themselves why so many anti-feminists exist, especially when those anti-feminists aren’t annoyed at women getting equal rights but what they perceive as wanting MORE than equal rights such as special protections men cannot get from issues that men too suffer.
I’m not anti-feminist, I am critical of some feminists but love egalitarian feminists but I can plainly see there is a big problem with feminism atm with it’s reputation where high profile people are afraid to take on the label.
“So, apparently, that makes me an “egalitarian feminist” – whatever. I’m still a feminist and I’m calling out the detrimental effects of the movement (and I’m not the first or the last to do so).”
I’m glad you do, care to write an article about it? Can you point to any major feminist websites running articles like that? I see a few in the comments calling it out which is great but it needs to move from comments into wide-spread articles and gain major publicity. I or another man could write one but it’d probably be written off as “MRA” yet it’d have significant impact on a frontpage feminist site written by a feminist woman. Quite frankly feminists should be pissed off bigtime at the extremists, and the unchecked bigots even in the comment threads of some sites, they are influencing perceptions of feminism. The negative stereotypes exist for a reason, they need to be challenged and proven wrong. Both feminism and the MRM need to get off their ass n do this to save their reputations.
Feminists should be asking themselves why so many anti-feminists exist…
A lot of anti-feminists exist because they made the calculation– like the author did, though she’s not an anti-feminist– that feminism would hamper their romantic lives. Or their capacity to be good parents. I can easily see, for instance, a feminist woman whose love of her life just happens to be a Southern Baptist or a member of Focus on the Family (these things happen) making the pragmatic-in-her-mind decision that her marriage, love life and happy family demand that she make herself similar in some way to her husband/lover. Therefore, she sees giving up some self-determination and essential freedoms as a worthy price to pay for the presence of love, romance, and children.
Another question we should be asking ourselves is this: why do so many people find traditional gender roles sexy and attractive, evern today?
There are a lot of hidden coercions and contingencies in relationships; and what most of them seem to have in common is the idea that being attractive to me requires you be like me. Unfortunately, there is a wealth of scientific evidence proving this is true– attraction and liking requires something in common. The rub is in what you DO to “become similar”. How much similarity does your partner require? If their love depends on you having to compromise your core values a lot, or changing into someone you don’t like looking at in the mirror; then you have a problem. How many Focus on the Family wives sneak away from their husbands and kids to vote Democratic on election day?
I, for one, would like more and more of that “becoming similar” reduced to the following: We like/love each other. We want (or don’t want) to have each other’s children. We commit ourselves to each other’s best interests. That way “similarity” doesn’t have to become a social and romantic straitjacket.
Again, I ask where all these radical MRM(A) sites are …. Can someone please post them so I can look for myself? We’ve identified a couple of radical feminist sites but where are all these, all so powerful, men’s sites?
Try going to manboobz.com and looking at the “Boob Roll” on the right,
Even one needs to actually look at the sites themselves and make their own decision because the Manboobz crowd has a chronic case of If-its-MRA-then-it-be-bad-itis.
you could find bad feminist anywhere, especially in popular media. Jezebel for example.
It’s always amusing how the same movement that gave us patriarchy theory, “the personal is political,” the oppressor/oppressed worldview, “systemic prejudice”, etc. etc., suddenly demands to be treated as individuals when the shoe is on the other foot.
And just so I’m living up to my own request – a highly-visible and *specific* example of a feminist giving an internal critique of the movement is bell hooks. She “called” the movement on its racism over thirty years ago.
Thank-you, I also know of Christina Hoff Summers, are there any more recently? Any major sites like feministe, feministing, jezebel, etc?
Archy –
Usually internal critiques are launched by the fringe toward the mainstream, not the other way around (that would be so distracting and time consuming to address every tiny group at the edges of a movement). Many feminist-overview-type works include the main internal critiques of the movement (dissecting radical feminism too) – like Rosemarie Putnam Tong’s work (the fourth edition of her book comes out this spring). Much third-wave rhetoric includes criticism of second-wave feminism (and it’s anti-male mistakes). Third-wavers like Rebecca Walker and Jennifer Baumgardner are putting out great stuff these days. Katha Pollitt (now at The Nation) is great, too.
Thank you for this, Kari.
Thanks for providing some examples we can look into. In the interim, do any of these criticisms of previous iterations of feminism include self reflection of the current to ensure those “anti-male mistakes” aren’t just being perpetuated?
As to who’s doing the criticism… can you please clarify on what you view as the “mainstream” and what’s the “fringe”? As many view the mainstream as those opposed to equality for men .
bell hooks criticied through having an eye to making feminism better. Her criticism is not another way of saying “feminism is bad and needs to be scrapped” like Hoff Sommers’ is.
Feminism is actually dangerous to a womans sexuality because she has been taught that she is a victim of men.
To be penetrated is to be vulnerable so you must be able to give trust but you cannot give trust to a member of the group (men) that has “victimized” you..
The problem with labelling any group as victims is you than take their power which as a group was done to blacks and women.
Make a person believe they are a victim and you break their spirit and steal their confidence.
Women have sexualized themselves to stop men from sexualizing them much like how blacks call each other N….r to take the power out of the word.
Women have been taught to hate their sexuality as vulnerability so now use their vaginas as penises so they have more power than their oppressors.
Women have adopted male sexuality as a behavior for themselves so are becoming enstranged from their femininity, the true source of their power.
This has stolen their capacity to love as women which men experience as rejection.
The more power women want because they are victims the less power they actually have.
Once you believe you are a victim and something is owed to you your power has been taken from you and placed in the hands of someone else.
Being told you are a victim and than not doing anything about it causes internal self hate because you are told you are weak if you do not stop being a victim but the only way to stop being a victim is to give up your sexuality since your sexuality is dependant on your oppressor.
A woman cannot give up her sexuality so she must become more of an oppressor than her oppressor resulting in modern marriage and female hyper sexuality.
Equality as a concept of victims and oppressors is dangerous if it results in passivity.
Feminism mixed with cowardice results in hate.
Read a book before spewing ignorance.
I thought Erik’s comment was very well thought out & showed he has read something to form his opinions. It was thought provoking & something I find worth contemplating on. I
It could likewise be said to you to start thinking for yourself and stop accepting what you find in books as the gospel truth and only way to view things. Much of feminist writing is little more than opinion and theory.
I like the comment and emphatically agree on many points
I don’t think it’s just feminism that has imparted in women’s minds to need to not be needy. The taboo against being desperate and (too) vulnerable is all over the dating and romance world. And so it’s socially de rigueur to affect an attitude of nonchalance in the early stages of dating, only being allowed to unleash passion or intensity once the other person has decided they know us well enough. Depending on our partners’ preference and comfort level, “early stage” could last indefinitely.
For people who identify as passionate and intense and/or love those parts of themselves, this is a big problem– in order to respect others’ boundaries, you have to put yourself in an emotional corset?! And the rationale is “so you don’t scare people”… first of all, why is “not scaring people” held as more important than, um, actually being loving? Because it’s seen as a prerequisite? And also– if you must keep yourself bottled up so as to be a “safe” person… how might we rework the rules so that we can loosen our stays a bit, be more passionate, and still be safe people?
Ah, but that’s American culture; so in love with emotional stability we will chuck love, compassion, possibilties, even common sense to attain it. The only person in our culture who’s acceptable being flamboyantly romantic is Spanish Buzz in Toy Story 3. And he’s fictional.
there is a covert social system of oppression where one is humiliated/shamed for feeling ‘emotion’. a disvalue of the trait which is traditionally seen as ‘feminine’. until and unless this value can be respected universally, and instead of shunned be an attribute to aspire to, the oppression (and victimisation) will continue. so called ‘rights to privacy/non contact’ are seen as can do no wrong, and is commonly used as a tool to abuse without accountability, while the rights of ‘recipiency’ are not even addressed.
Women where not shamed for exhibiting emotion at all before the advent of feminism. TO the extent women are shamed for it today it is because of feminisms atempt to make women as masculine as possible.
wow this is something new to me. as a female in her mid 30s i can say the opposite – that women are the ‘foreign territory’ for me. its only men who have always been there for me in my life. only men. they were the ones who stood by me, supported me, stuck up for me, respected me and were always there for me when i needed someone to talk to, a shoulder to cry on or someone to confide in. not women. ever. women have only been two faced, resentful, bullies for the most part (99.99%) – nasty, petty and catty – by women, ive been abused, excluded, bullied, and betrayed. what can i say? i sound like a mysoginist lol but most women i do know feel the same as me. nowadays i feel so awkward and uncomfortable in a group of women its embarrassing. but i guess its only natural after being only around men socially for so many years. when i was a little girl i did have only female friends like most; i was unhappy and frustrated. my only regret is i didnt discover men sooner – i would have had a better experience growing up. thank god i fought tooth and nail to avoid going to a girls school, possibly one of my better decisions in life.
This was me a year ago. I was recovering from an abusive relationship and was absolutely convinced that I could not accept anything from any man because he would use it against me later like my ex was prone to do. It took about a year of being with a trustworthy guy to get that out of me.
I’ve got absolutely no problem with all of what you’re saying. As with so many ideas, often when you first pick them up you go a bit nuts with them. University students who are introduced to existentialism, for example, often go a bit mad with “NOTHING MATTERS AHHHH!” So yeah, I get that.
I am not a fan of the title, though, as it plays into the idea that somehow feminism itself is antithesis to romantic relationships…as though feminism makes a woman unattractive. If that is indeed the case, I think that says more about the negative ways in which we define female attractiveness than it does feminism.
What really gets me about these kinds of articles, though, is that you always get women writing them. – Because of feminism I thought I didn’t need a man, but turns out I do. Now I’m too hard/confrontational/aggressive, so I’m needing to unlearn that to get a man. – You don’t ever get articles written by men saying the opposite (or at least not outside of niche feminist websites). Something along the lines of, “Oh I thought I didn’t need feminism because I am a man, and I could get chicks without it. But turns out I’m too aggressive/patriarchal/etc., and not soft/nurturing enough, so I’m needing to unlearn that to be more attractive to women.”
And that’s not a critique of your own personal story, Terri…that’s just me noticing the one-sided nature of this sort of discussion.
You don’t ever get articles written by men saying the opposite (or at least not outside of niche feminist websites). Something along the lines of, “Oh I thought I didn’t need feminism because I am a man, and I could get chicks without it. But turns out I’m too aggressive/patriarchal/etc., and not soft/nurturing enough, so I’m needing to unlearn that to be more attractive to women.”
Are you by chance saying that there should be articles like that?
HeatherN, umm ever ready anything by Hugo Schwyzer, Dr Nerdlove, etc? They have talked about male privilege, how men act etc and it’s relation to attractiveness. I’ve seen articles by men telling men to be more feminist to be more attractive.
“And that’s not a critique of your own personal story, Terri…that’s just me noticing the one-sided nature of this sort of discussion.”
Probably because there are many women that want patriarchal men still. Thing is this article was more about how some feminism can be pushed on women and cause harm to their success in dating. Eg, the recent episode of Californication has Marcy? becoming very anti-male, her and 2 others get hit on by men and her and the other man-hater (she calls herself that) end up using a bitter tone to talk about a stereotype of men which ends up scaring em off. I’m sure there are some who got that message from the feminism they read, were introduced to, if you start to believe misandrist shit and have a bitter attitude then that will scare off a lot of men just as there is no shortage of misogynists scaring off women. If a woman wanted to date me, but start spouting shit from the radfemhub or even the jezebel type of feminism I’d be saying goodbye to her because I don’t wanna listen to sexist bullshit.
Being hyper-aware of rape statistics for instance about girls only can lead some to create a misandrist view of men, they take Schrodinger’s rapist to a whole new level and become fearful of ALL men. That is going to harm your chances of getting a boyfriend if you’re deathly afraid of them. It’s part of why it’s bad to have gendered campaigns without hte other gender’s vulnerability made aware, it creates this view of men being monsters, women being vulnerable porcelain dolls that a man can easily overpower and creates a binary view of the genders. Think arnie before and after the blood scene in predator, if it bleeds we can kill it. If you view men as pretty much invincible and that women can’t harm men then you will probably feel far less equal to them, and feel very vulnerable around them.
Not all that go through feminism (or any ideology) will get like that but it does happen to some and will harm your chances at romance if you see the other gender (or the gender you are attracted to) as demons instead of humans. There are women who will flat out refuse to date MRA’s become of a bigoted view of them, just as there are men who flat out refuse to date feminists because of bigoted views towards them. There is plenty of hatred put on MRA’s in the feminist circles, and the same for the reverse, it lowers the pool of people to date if you view them as the enemy instead of looking at people as individuals.
Not all feminists act the way you do, nor how the OP says, feminism isn’t even a monolith but a basic term for a wide variety of views so yes feminism can screw up your lovelife if the version of feminism you use isn’t a good one. Not sure there really is a comparison, maybe men denouncing the MRM? But the MRM is bloody small compared to feminism, and hasn’t been known as long so it’ll be rarer to find such an article.
Funny thing is, Heather, that I hear just the opposite from women in the city I live in: Men here are too passive and sensitive, they need to learn to be more aggressive to be more attractive to women, they’re not men. I guess we’re all SNAGs.
Great article, Terri.
I think many women in your age cohort are realizing how much feminism has screwed up their love lives. This is especially true in progressive cities with large gender imbalances: NYC, DC, and SF come to mind. Marriage rates in those towns are low, and fertility rates are abysmal.
Half a loaf is better than none. I have been waiting for an avowed feminist to admit feminism’s failings for some time and while this article does not go far enough, I suppose I should be thankful that it acknowledges a major failing in that feminism has utterly failed to deal with initmate relationships between the genders. I have always viewed “The Feminine Mystique” as The Feminist Manifesto and this article attacks a core principle of that work that women should focus more on their careers than finding suitable man to marry. I looked at Ms. Trespicio’s website and it is largely focuses on dating and relationships, topics that Ms. Friedan suggested women should focus on less. The pendulum is, I believe, starting to swing away from feminism. Too late for me, but not for my sons, Thank God!
Feminism didn’t just screw womens’ love lives it screwed up their lives by shifting the earning burden on to them. Case in point see this http://boards.askmen.com/showthread.php?57450-Secret-lives-of-breadwinner-wives
Another example of this is well articulated in today’s Washington Post on the 50th anniversary of Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique:” is the following article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-parker-the-feminine-mystique-at-50/2013/02/12/0169524c-7552-11e2-95e4-6148e45d7adb_story.html
The article made me think of this essay:
http://www.menweb.org/femexpos.htm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2245681/Its-taboo-admit-I-wish-unborn-baby-wasnt-beastly-boy.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
I give this woman kudos for airing her laundry in front of the world. I give her no respect. I find her attitude just awful.
No sorry, this doesn’t convince me one bit that it will screw up a love life. If a man is so threatened by a woman being a feminist then he’s not worth it
I think she was actually saying that it was about how feminism made her view herself…. not about men being threatened by her being a feminist…just saying