Let's Be Sure To Baby Those Women

"How to talk to the women in your life right now."
Let me tell you: it's a lot. And it makes functioning on a baseline level difficult. You may have noticed that the women in your life have been particularly unhappy over the past two weeks as this news cycle reared its ugly head: we have been showing up late to work, giving you surly looks, loudly complaining about "men", et cetera. These are coping mechanisms. And perhaps you, a thoughtful and potentially kind-hearted person, want to know how to better support your non-male friends and colleagues. This is a very good instinct! We appreciate it. Here is some advice on how to do that...
Showing up late for work is of course perfectly excusable if you're... upset? Right. Because you're not a real professional. You're a woman. We should be glad you deigned to come in to work at all, given how difficult all this is for you.

My guess is that teaching people that they're rightly treated as frail, or fragile, makes them worse people. Teach them they need to deal with the stuff life throws at them, and that they shouldn't expect it to be fair. That's how you build resilient people. People who don't show up late for work just because they're angry about something else.

Professionals. Killers. The kind of people who make the world heel to them, rather than running late to appointments. Five minutes early is on time; on time is late; late is unacceptable because it's disrespectful.

10 comments:

Texan99 said...

As someone said at Ace:

"All you men, sit down and shut up!"

". . . Hey, where all the men at?"

Luckily they're still all around to baby us, because we're not true grownups. Men! They're so forgiving and supportive!

Yikes. Well, I'm retired, so I haven't had to show up at work. Otherwise, though, I haven't completely decompensated this week. I can still bathe and dress myself.

Elise said...

The article is satire, right? Please God, I hope so.

The author is right about one thing: I have been "particularly unhappy over the past two weeks as this news cycle reared its ugly head." I haven't been using the coping mechanisms she talks about, though. My coping mechanism has been putting together a list of the particularly odious Democrats involved in this mess, figuring out which ones are up for re-election, and finding out how to donate to their opponents.

(Every so often, I think about why I'm a conservative. The item at the top of my list of reasons is always: Because I'm a feminist.)

Texan99 said...

Yup. News cycles like this threaten to put me in an unpleasantly trapped state of mind. It's always important to find out something concrete and constructive to do as a vent to feelings. The last thing I want to do is adopt the position of an impotent victim. If I really am up against something I can't improve in any way, that leaves only dignified resignation, not a temper tantrum at the office and a demand to be mollycoddled until I regain my composure.

Anonymous said...

As I've said before. This week has been one of those news weeks that makes me want to turn in my second X chromosome.

If women are supposed to be weak, fragile, perpetual victims, then does that make me a man, a neuter, or just p*ssed? I was assaulted several times as a teen. I'm a survivor, not a victim.

Little Red1

Texan99 said...

I've been reflecting. I honestly can't come up with examples of any female friends or aquaintances who haven't experienced something at least at serious as Dr. Ford accuses against Judge K. Friends raped by brothers or fathers or strangers, to say nothing of casual groping with some more or less serious or frightening strong-arming. When did the more minor manifestations of this kind of thing get to be so serious that we're supposed to be crippled for life and too fragile to endure questioning, or be expected to speak up in any way like a grownup?

In the 1950s my father was accused of treason by an unbalanced in-law. I've read the FBI file on it; thank goodness they did a rapid and dispassionate job of concluding that nothing of the sort could be corroborated. This witch-trial atmosphere is simply unhinged. I don't know how much of it is mass hysteria and how much is coldly calculated partisanship. I'm holding my breath to see whether the FBI still has any sane agents working for it.

E Hines said...

I've said before that I think Ford did suffer a traumatic experience those decades ago. I wonder what happened to Feinstein (oh, she saw a bud murdered while she was in San Fran those decades ago), to Hirono, to Klobuchar.

However, I do know my wife has been bombed by the Red Army Faction, and she's had a bilateral mastectomy pursuant to facing down breast cancer.

I also know which woman I'm glad is my wife.

Regarding the DC witch hunt, how much is coldly calculated partisanship: I wonder whether anyone really believes Feinstein didn't share Ford's accusation letter with her Progressive-Democrat colleagues? I wonder whether anyone really believes that during those weeks Feinstein, et al., kept Ford's letter hidden from the FBI and from the Republican Committee members, they didn't conduct their own investigation, that they really sprang this affair without knowing what they had in their hands?

The witch hunters have abused Ford nearly as badly as did her unknown assailant.

Eric Hines

Texan99 said...

In the Senate, I'm generally opting for coldly calculated partisanship. Among my acquaintances and the general public, I'm hoping for mere mass hysteria.

Gringo said...

Cold calculated partisanship from the leaders, knowing full well that mass hysteria will come from the followers. If the followers knew the facts and still expressed outrage, then the conclusion would be that it was also cold calculated partisanship from the followers.

Before the bar closed down, I used to have drinks every Friday with a Yellow Dog Democrat friend. I could predict what his talking points of the week would be- whatever the press had recently stirred up against Republicans.

Gringo said...

In the 1950s my father was accused of treason by an unbalanced in-law. I've read the FBI file on it; thank goodness they did a rapid and dispassionate job of concluding that nothing of the sort could be corroborated.


Which supports my contention that if the FBI concluded you were a Commie, you probably were one. Howard Zinn, for example.

And then there are the FBI files with the real thing. There were two kids associated with my Liberal Religious Youth (Unitarian) group in high school. Decades later I found out that they were red diaper babies- not something they let be known- not that I blame them. In addition, one had a Commie uncle who was prominent enough to merit a Wikipedia page. The other's father spent a decade as a full time CPUSA operative.

There were nonexistent Reds under the bed, but there were also actual Reds under the bed.

douglas said...

Heck, there were Reds in the White House advising FDR, for Pete's sake