That’s A Contradiction – The Ladies

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Absolutely Not

I was raised by a family that doesn’t really like hypocrisy. Their version of it, anyway. They believe that wishy-washy is weak. People just need to make up their minds. I mean, it’s not that hard, right? It’s a funny thing, though. I grew up thinking that being a hypocrite was absolute and bad. Not being a hypocrite meant that you went all in on those beliefs and you didn’t change your mind. All of something or none of it. And that was good. 

Here’s the problem. If this were true, if they were right and this actually worked, wouldn’t I already be done figuring life out? I would do the right thing for myself. I’d easily know how. Trust me, my family wishes I did. Since I haven’t figured it all out, though, I had to take a different approach. Instead of feeling bad and just trying to figure out how to be whatever won’t make me a hypocrite, I started wondering if there might be a different perspective.

A much better approach for me is that ideas and beliefs are never static. Learning new things is not just more knowledge, but enlightenment. Learning is not just to find more ways to confirm your opinions and beliefs. It’s uncomfortable, though, this view of learning. Wouldn’t it be easier to just figure it out and stick with it? Once you believe in that absolute, you can be done. So comfortable and all sorted out. All or nothing. But, I don’t want life to be all or nothing. It feels too narrow. I want all of the messed up tangled stuff in the middle.

As I have said in other blog posts, I thought a couple of years ago that the learning portion of my life somehow ended at adulthood. If I didn’t know it by then, figuring it out on my own would take a lot of effort. So it made sense to stay in the comfortable zone with no hypocrisy. But, I just couldn’t stay there. I guess that makes me a hypocrite.

All and Nothing

I know now that all or nothing won’t work for me. Learning throughout my life is not only necessary, it’s actually really fun. Once I opened my mind up, it became so much easier to embrace contradictions. They are strangely wonderful. Anything that makes me think and dig and learn is wonderful. Contradictions do this. Paradoxes. Ideas that exist as truth, but appear to hold a contradiction.

Here are some of the ones I like:

• I can love someone unconditionally and not believe the way they do
• Time is on my side but ticking away
• I can love K-Pop and still understand algorithms (I call this the “RM Conundrum”)
• Changing my mind can happen in the same sentence as making up my mind
• I don’t have to make up my mind to feel accomplished
• I can have a past and not live in it
• History is “factual”, but unreliable (a line from Stephen King that I love: “That’s all history is. Scar tissue.”)
• There really are two sides to every story that will never add up
• I can crave comfort and seek out the uncomfortable
• I can be a feminist and want to be treated like a lady
• Walking away is sometimes the only way to stand my ground
• I can support friends with lifestyles that I don’t fully understand
• I can have deep connections with people and still create boundaries
• Joy and pain are not opposites. They are unavoidable, sometimes simultaneous, and the duration of each is up to me
• I can be angry without being unkind
• When I think I don’t need to change, it’s exactly what I need to consider doing
• When someone thinks I should change my life, they are looking to change theirs
• Gender equality and gender fluidity can exist in the same society with room for both (it’s called humanity)

Paradoxes: The Societal Expectation of Women

As much as I believe that living with paradoxes is something that is inevitable, it doesn’t mean I don’t want to challenge them (is this an ironic paradox?🤔). I at least want to face the reality of them. The gender paradox is a big one for me because it has already shown up in my world. I see the contradictions in the lives of women. The things that can’t be reconciled. I know that by learning more, I’ll be more aware of how they impact my life.

I see a world where men and women belong to the same species. But, in this same world, women have to prove their right to be there (anywhere) even if their resumé to society is just as good or better than all of the men. Women are held to different standards with no foundation for those differences except gender. Whether it’s justified by presumed superior biological traits or any other presumption, the result is the same. Woman’s difference from Man means she is inferior. This is the result in the vast majority of the world’s societies. And it sucks…

We’re all human, but we’re different. Every individual is different in some significant way from the next. Duh. So, why are these differences used against women as a whole? This hypocrisy is the kind that deserves to be exposed.

I don’t accept the paradox that women and men are the same species yet women are just arbitrarily assumed inferior. Society has fallen into a definitional trap. Yes, “Same” and “Equal” have interchangeable definitions. This is where the paradox gets weird. Men and women are the same species. By definition, they should be equal. But, same also means identical. We are definitely not identical. Therefore, sameness and equality diverge here even if their definitions don’t. I propose that before we can be equal, we, as the same species, have to break the paradox.

We don’t have to be physically the same to be equal. We don’t have to have similar backgrounds to be respected and find common ground. If we can find respect for humanity, we can find equality. We’ve turned a lack of understanding into superiority and judgment and tried to reconcile sameness with equality. It can’t be done, and we will suffer trying.

At what point will gender not matter anymore? Just like any other difference that doesn’t change that we are all human, gender should be what I get to embrace for what it brings to my life. It shouldn’t be what you get to judge. I didn’t pick it originally, but I still get to choose it, and I can even change it. That is the paradox that can work. Not the one where you get to decide what it means for me. 

What a difficult world it is when women get a seat at the table but still have to hold back their excellence in order to be heard. We can’t be assertive without being labeled aggressive, and we can’t be too timid or we lack confidence. We have to be just smart enough to keep our place, but if we out pace the men, we are aggressively seeking to take from them what is rightfully theirs – the power. That invisible thing that separates us because of the lie that power is scarce. That thing that separates this same species into unequal parts.

To me, this is hypocrisy at its most passive aggressive. In order to actually keep power, the patriarchy goes along with all of the right language, like mansplaining, gender diversity, and unconscious bias. They are not to blame as individuals. They are awake, right? The problem is so many of them don’t really buy in. As they acknowledge the theories of gender equality, they continue to treat women as objects or ask them to do more than they ask of men, never being aware that their words and actions don’t match.

Some men simply proclaim that because they aren’t part of the problem, it must already be solved. And then, there is my favorite. If women demand to be seen as just as smart as men, suddenly we must be super smart all the time. If any of us falter, guess we’re not that smart after all. We just thought we were. It’s like the men are just waiting for us to prove we were never that smart so they have evidence to back up their original opinion.

Why is the comparison necessary? We all, as far as we know, have this one life. We don’t get to know if this is wrong until it’s over. Even then whatever is next will not be this life. It’s in our best interest to make the most of it. All of us. And it just makes sense to me that our lives would be better if we quit acting like there isn’t enough room for everyone. I don’t mean money. Not sure I can solve that one. I mean respect. It’s the key to happiness and joy. It’s the key to belonging.

Consent is Sexy, But…

Where we are with gender still has a long way to go. It’s sad when women have to make a big deal out of consent. I guess it’s the exception. Men are held up as heroes because they asked permission. Wow! What a sacrifice. It’s even sadder when women believe they have to settle for consent instead of active participation. Women are pretty good at asking first before assuming (isn’t it ironic?). No one has to point out that consent is a prerequisite to women. Wonder why? Couldn’t have anything to do with the power balance, could it?

Consent is necessary. I love the phrase “consent is sexy”. I think women deserve more than just offering their initial consent, though. “No” is the end (isn’t it really sad when it isn’t?). “Yes” is the beginning. Giving consent to one piece isn’t the end of the negotiation. Men don’t believe the first “yes” is the end of the negotiation in the boardroom. Why don’t they give women the same courtesy in relationships? If anything is, life is an ongoing negotiation, isn’t it? It has what I want in it and what you want, too. How do we get what we both want? We negotiate. 

Why can’t we just say what we want? (Oops! Did I just assume women have the freedom to want stuff?) Just saying “yes” is not the only negotiation. It’s just the way in. It’s not the way through. Saying “yes” is not consenting to being obligated to fulfill someone’s every want and need in every future situation. And it absolutely isn’t a surrender. It’s only an acknowledgment of moving forward for now, and it’s not an invitation to manipulate or judge or abuse. 

The biggest irony I believe women face is men wanting women in the ways they believe are best for them. This means either taking absolute control over or denying any part in the consequences. Limiting women’s rights (they’re really our liberties, aren’t they?) to deal with their own bodies is a boldly ironic response when men seem to need these same bodies so badly that they give themselves permission through our consent to control them. How amazingly disrespectful to ask, have consent granted, and then act like it was a solo mission. Power loss avoided. Superiority preserved.

I know not all men are the actual problem. But if you want us so much, you, as part of the whole of men, shouldn’t get away with disrespecting what we want after you get what you asked for, especially when we fully negotiated the outcome we each wanted. Afterwards, it isn’t up to the men who weren’t there, or the ones who acted like we weren’t, when the unexpected happens. If men want to limit our liberty with our bodies, they should be limited in their access to them or live with the consequences. It’s a negotiation. Stop breaking the deal.

Here’s a revelation. I don’t seek or want power from men (or anyone). I don’t need it. I will enjoy sharing my life with the people I choose to connect with. I don’t want to take anything from them. Why so many men today seem to believe that women are looking to take power is intriguing to me. We don’t need to take power. We just need you to stop treating us like we can’t be powerful on our own. Being angry about this doesn’t mean I’m vengeful. It just means I’m feeling the limitations of a society that assumes I either do not have a life worth sharing, or offering to share it is, in itself, a power play. Neither is true, and both keep me caught in a useless power struggle.

So, I’ll leave it here with some not asked for advice. Let’s stop thinking of women’s bodies and choices as socially necessary. Even more importantly, let’s stop treating women’s bodies and choices as a morality question. This isn’t about morality. What happens to my soul isn’t anyone else’s responsibility but mine. We all have different definitions of who is a sinner. So, men, please don’t judge me. The responsibility you feel for my soul is neither my problem nor a good enough reason to deny a liberty you so easily grant to yourself via my consent. 

I’m off to sign my permission slip!

Poem coming soon