Blair Glaser reaches out with an apology on behalf of the women who do these 10 things.
As a woman born into the Jewish faith, I’m habituated to review my actions and atone on a yearly basis. I don’t really believe in sin and celestial forgiveness, but I do believe in making time for personal reflection, and heeding the call to return to AT-ONE-MENT, as it were.
Recently, a man asked me for some advice on how he could be a better man. Somehow, even as a leadership mentor and relationship consultant, I could not find it in my heart to give him any — to add more wisdom to the enormous pile many men are sorting through as part of the arduous journey of discovering one’s manhood in these unmoored times.
I decided instead on behalf of all, or many women—I certainly don’t pretend to speak for us all—to atone. In the Yom Kippur service, there is a confessional prayer, in which we name all the sins we likely have committed over the year, and then apologize for them.
Men, please accept this repentance, to the extent that it applies to you.
It’s not perfect. But it is from the heart.
◊♦◊
Atonement Prayer from Women to Men:
1) For all the times we have criticized your choice of attire, in private and in public, we are sorry.
2) For all the times we have mistook you for our girlfriend, or a mind-reader, and chastised you for not behaving as such, though clearly you are neither a woman or a mind reader, we are sorry.
3) For all the times we have unintentionally lured you into the gravitational pull of our hormonal surges, or our unhealed wounds, we are sorry.
4) For all the times we have made you feel that your even-keeled, rational and logical ways of knowing were inferior to our intuitive, kinesthetic and analytic ways of knowing, we are sorry.
5) For all the times you have gone overboard to please us, and we have not been pleased, but instead focused on the one thing you forgot, we are sorry.
6) For all the times we misread your need for space as a personal rejection, even if that need was not articulated outright but expressed in some confusing way, we are sorry.
7) For all the times we have denounced your ardent sexuality as primitive, whilst sending mixed signals about wanting to be treated primitively when we lay together, we are sorry.
8) For all the times we hated our bodies and used our self-hate to reject you or defend ourselves from your penetrating love, we are sorry.
9) For all the times we were right, and did not refrain from rubbing it in your face, we are sorry.
10) For all the times we did not appreciate the depth of your struggle to be a good and respectable human being, while attempting to be true to yourself, amidst a pile of shame that isn’t yours but was inherited by you, and we forgot the glory of who you are and the sensitivity you posses underneath it, WE ARE SORRY.
Amen.
Here’s to another year to do better by each other.
***
Original publication: Owen Marcus’s blog www.owenmarcus.com.
Photo: Hartwig HKD/FLickr
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Paul,
Thank you for impassioned response!
I am so glad the piece touched you and moved you to share your heart-truth.
Here’s to growing community.
Warmly,
Blair
Blair, Thank you for the intentions. If I were to have heard any given one or two of these thoughts from failed relationships, the validation and trust building accomplished could have been stellar. The collective nature of your article I suspect might not be supported by the women of the world though, I would hope that it might reach them, and compel them to examine their actions, it has for me. I in return offer this collective encouragement fully well knowing that I don’t speak for all men, but for some who could embrace this list of philosophical catch phrases.… Read more »
I won’t accept your apology, Blair – but not for the reason you might think. Unless you’re personally guilty of committing some of these actions, then there is simply no need for you to apologise for them. It’s not clear in your article whether you have or haven’t done these things, so I see no reason to accept your apology. I intensely dislike this notion of collective responsibility being pushed these days – that we are somehow responsible for the actions of other people just because we have a gender identity in common with them. It is the same notion… Read more »
well said
seconded, fine comment orish
OirishM,
Non-acceptance accepted!
I have of course done everything on this list, and so have my girlfriends, but point taken about globablizing and collective shame.
“I am responsible for what I alone have committed, and nothing else.”
Responsibly said!
Thanks for your wisdom, reading and response.
Blair
Addendum – still not accepting the apology as you’ve not done any of those things towards me, even though I have been on the receiving end of a few of these :p
2nd non-acceptance accepted!
And if we ever meet in person, I promise that if I do one of these things, and you call me on it, (respectfully, of course!) I will apologize. And then we negotiate it all over again!
–B