Texan who was tricked by Used Husband into moving to Milwaukee. Fomenting feminist revolution based on potty parity, pockets, and psleeves. Bad bacon eater. Also, cats. Also, REVOLUTION.
Fourth-grade girls know what’s going on and they are not having it but the Patriarchy is still strong so let’s keep working
The original Greek is “pithos,” which means “jar.”
After talking to my friend’s fourth-grade daughter, Claire, today, I have a little more confidence in the future.
Claire is obsessed with Greek mythology, so I asked if she had read Madeline Miller’s Circe.
Me: Do you know who Circe was?
Claire: Yes!
Me: She turned the sailors into pigs and she’s often portrayed as a bad guy, but she really wasn’t. This story is told from her perspective and when the story is told from the woman’s perspective, it changes everything.
Claire: My teacher says you have to pay attention to the origin story. Women get blamed for things! Like Eve! And Pandora! (Only it wasn’t Pandora’s box, it was Pandora’s jar.)
Me (jaw dropping as I look at my friend): Exactly!
Claire: She caught Poseidon’s eye. It was in Athena’s temple and Athena turned her hair into snakes.
Me: What do we learn from this?
Claire: Hmmmmm.
Claire: We learn not to be too beautiful.
Me (trying to figure out how to talk about this without using the word “rape” with a ten year old): Well, that’s not exactly where I was going with this. Maybe it’s more that Athena shouldn’t have punished Medusa when Medusa hadn’t done anything wrong? Maybe it’s that women need to support each other? And protect each other from bad men?
Claire: OK. But if the gods want you, there’s nothing you can do about it.
Me: Yeah. We have to fix that, too.
Me: I think it’s cool that you are learning all this and thinking about it! You have to fight and improve the world for women because I can’t finish before I die.
Some of these women want full blown relationship activities & won’t even tell you where they live… smh…
His women friends responded with what is obvious to almost all women: Dating can be dangerous for women. And we are not going to tell you where we live until we trust you. I didn’t even give a former boyfriend my real name until we had been emailing for a few weeks. (We met on a dating site.) And I sure didn’t give him my address until we had gone on a few dates, meeting in public places.
My relationship with Mr T accelerated to the six-month point in weeks because his best friend since our freshman year of college, who also happened to be a friend of mine, vouched for him.
Of course, this is no guarantee. I’m sure that there are abusive, bad men who have fooled outsiders, but I think – maybe I’m wrong – that’s it’s a good sign when men have long-term friends.
The female responses to “Why won’t this woman tell my friend where she lives?”
Me: Because women do what they need to do to try to stay safe.
Theo: Are women really in that much danger?
Me: This is a serious question: Do you read the news? Yes. Women are in danger. I read that on a blind date, men worry that they will be bored or that she will be unattractive. Women worry that we will be raped and/or murdered.
Theo: I know women worry about those things, but does it actually happen that often?
1 out of every 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in her lifetime.
Theo: I can’t say I know anyone that was murdered on a first date? Or sexually assaulted on a blind or first date. I’m not trying to be insensitive because I know women should take some precautions, but I think a lot of women are victims of watching too much Lifetime channel.
Question to my readers: How many of you have experienced sexual assault or date rape?
Another question to my readers: How many of you have shared this information with the Theos in your life?
Me: Every woman I know has experienced some kind of undesirable behavior from men. And yes, because some women have been murdered on a date, we have to worry that we might be the next one. Predators can be very charming. Ted Bundy wasn’t repulsive.I was five the first time a man showed me his penis and asked me to go into the men’s room at the park. I’m not the only woman with this experience. So yeah. We are wary.
Ted Bundy kidnapped, raped and murdered dozens of young women and girls during the 1970s and possibly earlier. After more than a decade of denials, he confessed to 30 murders committed in seven states between 1974 and 1978. His true victim total is unknown.
Theo: Over the years, I have often heard parents say they couldn’t leave their daughters in certain company. I guess since I didn’t have sisters I never had any first hand knowledge of any kind of abuse. I didn’t run into anyone that confided in me that they’d been raped until I was in grad school. The stories were horrible, but none of them reported the incidents. I never understood why.
Question to my readers: If you have been date raped, why didn’t you report it hahahaha.
Me: Because the first question is “But what were you wearing?”
Theo’s Female Friend #1: because many family members either don’t believe them or blame them. Had a friend who was practically kicked out of her family for telling on her uncle, who was a deacon and pillar in her community.
Theo: If the law has been broken, and I’ve been violated, I wouldn’t care what questions you asked me, I’m telling!
Oh yeah I’m sure if you were raped you would go to the police, Theo.
Female friend #2: I’m a 58 yr old Army Vet and currently a hairstylist. 98% of women I know has experienced some sort of sexual violation from a man. We have learned to push it down into our subconscious so we’re functional but it’s ALWAYS a thought…it could possibly happen again.
Theo: As a hair stylist I’m sure you probably come in contact with women from all walks of life. Are these predominantly single women, young women, low income women, professional or educated women? I mean, America isn’t Pakistan or South Africa. Our rates of assault aren’t that high. What would they say was the most common contributing factor? Were there any commonalities in their incidents?
According to the World Population Review, Pakistan has no reported rapes.
The reported rate of rape in the US is 27.31. (2010)
For Sweden, it’s 63.54. (2010)
For South Africa, it’s 72.10. (2019)
For India, it’s 1.81. (2010)
It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to understand why rape would not be reported in Pakistan. It’s barely reported in the US.
Female friend #3: this is why women don’t disclose. Questions like u just asked…what’s their education level, ethnicity, why her? Not, I see why the wariness and caution. How can I prove to women that I can be trusted? Just ‘what is it about these women and it has nothing to do with me.’
Not all men!
FF #1: she could have some underlying issues that she hasn’t disclosed. You would be shocked at the number of women who have been victims of molestation, rape and date rapes. No, this isn’t Pakistan but women have always and continue to be looked upon as prey for men in some way. Even the most educated, well known, wealthy women have experienced it. Status and race doesn’t matter.
FF #2: the commonality is they’re women….the fact that you’re so surprised and think EDUCATION & INCOME are factors speaks volumes…but to answer they’re age twenties to eighties and income level 60% very high income 20% average and 20% low income I guess you’re missing the point that it is very common for most women to have experienced some sort of UNWANTED sexual contact with a man.
Theo: I am somewhat shocked to hear that most women have some sort of horror story associated with inappropriate male interactions. I can’t say I’ve ever been made aware of many of my former girlfriends or friend girls being assaulted. The ones that have shared those types of details speak of it as something from the distant past.
The male responses to “Why won’t this woman tell my friend where she lives?”
My dear friend, Sally, who is only 29, is stuck executing her mom’s estate after her mom’s sudden and unexpected death, a death that has left us all reeling but has been especially hard on Sally, who was very close to her mom.
Sally is ready to sell her mom’s house.
Sally’s best friend, Sue, is married to a man, Pushy, who just got his realtor’s license. He has never sold a house before. He has a non-realtor day job.
A few months ago, Pushy suggested to Sally that he might sell the house for her.
Sally is a very agreeable, non-conflict seeking person, so she just said, “Yeah we can think about that!”
A few weeks ago, Sally asked Sue and Pushy for their opinions – as friends but also with Pushy’s real-estate insights – as to what she needed to do to the house to finish preparing it for sale. Pushy gave her some good ideas and referred her to a contractor who actually *showed up,* which was amazing, as Sally has been trying for months to complete a major renovation project that her mom had started. (The original contractor had long since abandoned the project.)
Last week, Pushy asked to Sally to review a formal written proposal for him to be her agent.
They went through a very long contract that included Pushy doing things (for money) that Sally has already arranged to be done herself, including deep cleaning the house and gardening, and that included a 7% commission.
Have you *ever* heard of anyone paying a 7% commission to a realtor?
I haven’t.
I googled to see if maybe things have changed and I don’t know anymore.
Nope.
Five to six percent is standard.
Years ago, when Mr T was selling his mom and dad’s house, his obnoxious brother told him that “Six percenters are laughed out of the room” and that Mr T should have insisted on a five percent commission.
(I will note that Mr T’s brother has never actually sold a house, so I’m not sure why he’s so confident of his opinion, but he has a penis and he is a total jerk, so there you go.)
Sally told Pushy she needed to talk to her lawyer before signing anything. (Sally is a very smart young woman.)
Since then, Pushy has been texting her many times a day, including at 5:00 a.m., even though she has told him she will get back to him when she’s ready.
Sue texted Sally a photo of Sue and Pushy mulching their yard.
That is not the sort of thing Sue usually sends to Sally.
Pushy texted that of course the commission is negotiable and that he was offering Sally the “premium” package to ensure that they could sell the house quickly.
Pushy also texted that Sally should tell her lawyer that he had helped by recommending a contractor and that he was willing to negotiate the commission and that he was willing to mulch, even fronting the cash for the mulch out of his own pocket.
“A bad salesman will automatically drop his price. Bad salesmen make me sick.” (imdb)
Decades ago, my mom got her real estate license. During her classes, they told her to create a sense of obligation in her clients by buying them lunch.
(They also told her that in the past, agents had gotten around Fair Housing laws by indicating non-white buyers – this was in San Antonio, so that would have meant Black or Mexican-American buyers – by writing their names in all capital letters. Selling agents would know to decline an offer that had the name in all caps. Some people are just evil.)
When I was looking for a place to live in Memphis, a real-estate agent showed me a few houses. After she dropped me back at my car, she asked what I was doing the rest of the day. I told her I was going to eat lunch at the Vietnamese restaurant I had seen earlier.
“I’ll go with you!” she announced.
I did not want to eat lunch with her, but I was surprised and I had not yet learned The Southern No, so I suffered through lunch with her. She insisted on paying for my lunch over my protests. I did not want to be obligated to her in any way.
If someone tried this today, I would know how to head her off.
“Oh that’s so kind of you but I’m afraid I simply have to get some work done while I eat” or – this is The Southern No – a sincere (except not really) desire to to the thing coupled with a warm decline and no reason for the decline (so nothing to argue with): “Thank you so much I wish I could but I just can’t!”
A work friend asked me to drive her to the shop to pick up her car. It was about 15 minutes out of my way – no big deal.
As she got out of the car, she dug into her purse and then pulled out a five dollar bill.
“Thank you!” she said, as she handed the money to me.
I was confused.
“For gas!” she said.
I laughed. “Girl! You insult me! You’re my friend and I don’t charge my friends.”
Mr T saw a specialist who recommended a series of tests after Mr T had a certain baseline test. (He’s fine, we think.)
Mr T had a lot of questions and felt like the doctor had just thrown him onto a conveyor belt and he didn’t think the testing was necessary.
We had a friend who practices the same speciality. He’s not even a close friend, but he’s a long-term college friend.
Mr T asked College Friend if he would review Specialist notes and baseline test results. College Friend said OF COURSE and spent an hour on the phone with Mr T, talking him through everything.
We do not expect a bill.
We do not expect a contract.
Sally doesn’t want to affect her friendship and she’s worried about how Pushy, who clearly has no boundaries, will react to a “no.”
She is also is feeling conflicted because Pushy has done her a favor and she feels the need to reciprocate.
I told Sally about my mom’s class and how they were taught to create that sense of obligation.
“That’s why Pushy wanted to buy coffee for my sister and me!” she gasped. “He’s never bought coffee for me before!”
Sally’s lawyer was no help. She said that Sally could say that her lawyer told her she cannot sign a contract for above-market commission, but I pointed out that Pushy has already said that he is willing to reduce the commission.
The great state of Wisconsin, which fought on the Union side and refused to recognize the Fugitive Slave Act, is full of racists.
Are you shocked?
Don’t be.
Wisconsin is actually one of the most if not the most racist place I have ever lived and I have lived in the deep south.
The difference between the south and Wisconsin, my Black friends tell me, is that in the south, the racists let you see them coming, although this seems to be changing for the worse in Wisconsin. (Thank you Trump.)
The racists have never had a problem letting me see them coming.
I’m not sure what to think about that, but I’m pretty sure it’s not a compliment.
That is, it’s not a compliment from my perspective that a racist would think it’s OK to be racist around me.
I don’t want to be a safe space for racists.
I want racists to be afraid to show themselves around me.
Over 20 years ago, my aunt and uncle were visiting me. My uncle casually used the n word.
I was stunned into silence, but then I was stunned into speaking.
“Uncle,” I said carefully, “I don’t like to hear that word in my home.”
He got defensive and started to bluster.
Because basically, I was accusing him of being a racist.
Which he was.
And he knew being a racist was a bad thing.
(He has since become a Trumper, which I had hoped would not happen but it did. In 2015, he hated Trump, but I guess he got over it.)
(And what’s even sadder is that in person, he is so, so lovely. How can that kind of evil hide behind such apparent kindness? And why?)
(And is someone truly kind if he votes for Trump?)
A few years later, my other uncle was at my mom and dad’s place. He said the n word as well. I calmly – as I now had experience – repeated my words: “Uncle, I don’t like to hear that word.”
He also blustered.
My mother later told me that I was rude and inhospitable.
You don’t correct a guest in your home, she said.
I told her that I was not going to be the one watching as the Nazis loaded the Jews on the trains.
I have not heard either of my uncles use the word since.
I don’t know if they have used it around other people.
They probably have.
But they have not used it around me.
Now they know that it’s not acceptable around me.
Which means they know that it’s not acceptable in some cases.
Which means they know.
They. Know.
Everybody knows.
And some of them still do it anyhow.
I don’t know how to fix society. But I do know how to let the people around me know that I will not tolerate their shit.
Some people might even say it’s OK if a dog licks your face. (I am not one of those people, but I accept that other people are fine with it.)
And it’s OK if someone you know and to whom you have given permission to licks your face, although I don’t know if that’s something that’s part of most people’s repetoire.
I think we can all agree that it’s not OK for a relative stranger to lick your face.
And yet, that’s what happened the first time my cousin, Liz, met Mr T.
We were at a family reunion. I introduced Liz to Mr T and she leaned over and dragged her tongue up the side of his face.
Then she leaned over to my sister’s boyfriend, whom she was also meeting for the first time, and did the same thing.
We all avoided Liz, whom we dubbed “Licking Liz” for the next (now minus 2006) years.
Mr T’s older brother, Lex, has never been my favorite.
He invited himself to our wedding, which I was not happy about, but I guess actually turned out OK as he offered a great service by driving Mr T’s parents around while they were drunk, keeping them away from Mr T and me and the people whose presence I wanted to enjoy.
But when Mr T’s parents died – they share a father but Mr T’s father abandoned his two little boys and his first wife to marry Mr T’s mother, Lex was angry that the parents had disinherited him.
Lex was angry at Mr T.
The parents also disinherited Mr T and Mr T was not involved in writing the will, but whatever.
He was also angry that Mr T was the executor, saying that primogeniture meant that he, Lex, should be executor. I was with Lex on this one, as being executor is a major pain in the neck and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone I liked.
After their father’s funeral, Lex sent Mr T a “tally” (he loves that word. He also talks about getting on the “telly” with Mr T, only he doesn’t mean the TV, he means the phone. Maybe he has dementia?) for his and his family’s travel expenses (including the expensive parking at the airport) to the funeral.
A little audacious but hey why not try?
Lex said that Mrs Lex’s mother’s estate was reimbursing them for their travel to Mrs Lex’s mom’s place. (Except Mrs Lex’s mother wasn’t dead, so it was just Mrs Lex’s mom giving them money.)
But when Mr T refused to reimburse Lex $800 a ticket for the flights Lex had gotten with frequent flyer miles and that Lex could have bought for under $400 each, Lex called Mr T and screamed at him.
He then followed up with an angry email telling Mr T never to DARE to treat him like that again.
And then he sent several condescending emails, telling Mr T he was sorry for him and he was learning things about Mr T that he had not known before and didn’t like.
When Lex asked Mr T about a bracelet that Mr T’s mother had promised Mrs Lex, Mr T found his mom’s jewelry and sent all of it to Lex.
Lex replied that Mrs Lex had taken the bracelets to a jeweler and they were all costume jewelry and suggested that Mr T was keeping the good stuff for me.
That is, he accused Mr T of stealing.
I wanted nothing to do with anything that had ever touched Mr T’s parents’ bodies.
Mr T had sent them everything he had found and had even talked to the jeweler his dad used to use to make sure he had all his mom’s jewelry.
Lex’s anger and outbursts led his best friend of decades to break up with him.
Any time Mr T would see Lex’s number on his phone, he would feel sick to his stomach.
Mr T has had to deal with Lex since their dad died because Mr T was also the trustee for the money that Lex’s child inherited from their father.
(I won’t even go into how Lex has tried to drain his own child’s trust for things like European vacations and remodeling his house.)(Or how he has insisted that Mr T put trust money into very speculative investments that later had to be undone at great hassle to Mr T.)(But he has done these things.)
Last year, Lex’s screaming at Mr T came up. I don’t remember if Mr T mentioned it or Lex brought it up.
Lex dismissed his rages: “Oh yeah I used to get high a lot.”
That was it.
That was all he said.
That was his apology.
That he used to get high.
As if that meant he was not responsible?
As if all could be forgiven?
As if Mr T should wipe the slate clean?
I saw my cousin Liz last week at a family event.
She was warm and kind and funny and acted with complete decorum.
At the end of the evening, I joked that I appreciated that she hadn’t licked my husband this time.
“What?!” she asked.
“Thank you for not licking Mr T this time!” I told her.
“I did that?” she asked.
I laughed. “Yes. When you first met him at the family reunion.”
Her jaw dropped.
“I am SO SORRY,” she said. “Oh my gosh I am sorry. I must have been drinking. I don’t do that anymore. I am so sorry.”
She didn’t remember but she acknowledged that it had happened. And she apologized.
FF #2: 
Texan in Exile 