Sometimes we don’t even believe ourselves

I went to a talk about victim impact statements in the context of the trial of the rapist and serial molester Larry Nassar.

After the speakers, one of whom is a sociology professor and a lawyer, described what Nassar had done, which was to sexually assault dozens of young women and girls, some of them as young as six years old,

and after the speakers shared what some of the survivors had said in court during their victim impact statements –

that is, after 45 minutes of discussion of how Nassar had assaulted girls and how they had told their parents and the police and other relevant authorities and nobody had believed them,

an older white man asked if anyone has ever done a sociological study of why authorities don’t believe women who report assault.

Sociology professor/lawyer (female): Why weren’t they believed?

Man: Yes! They told the police! They told the authorities!

Sociology professor: Pfft. This is what happens when women report rape.

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It is indeed what happens. Women are not believed.

This story is from a 2022 study, “Unfounded Sexual Assault: Women’s Experiences of Not Being Believed by the Police.”

Although some women were told directly by the police that they did not believe them, others indicated that there was a pivotal moment in the process with the police that led them to believe that the police were dismissing their accounts. For some women, this moment occurred when the police stopped writing things down; for others, it was when a particularly offensive or doubtful question was asked, or a comment was made regarding their character. One woman who was questioned about how she knew that she was being touched with a man’s penis disclosed this interaction with police as a pivotal moment where she realized she was not being believed:

I was hurt. It was like why aren’t you listening to me, why aren’t you hearing what I’m telling you. I mean, he was sitting there fondling my breast while my hand was sliding up and down on his whatever. Like I don’t understand why they don’t listen? I don’t understand why you are pouring your heart and soul out to this guy [police], and all you want is help, and he’s like how do you know that’s true? How do you know that happened? And I was like because I was fucking there, that’s how I know it happened.

NIH

Unfortunately, this study doesn’t delve much into the why beyond some victims just aren’t the right kind of victims.

But this 2019 PBS story does include speculation about the why.

Soraya Chemaly: I mean, I think part of the issue with MeToo is sort of the flip side, which is men quietly thinking me too. Like, if he did that, I have done that. Does that make me this person?

And, really, it comes down to an interrogation of masculinity and manhood. We see in survey after survey that men are much more likely to doubt women’s testimonies, unless they themselves have been assaulted….

It’s the men — I mean, I believe, in our culture, we have many more boys and men who are assaulted than we are willing to admit to or who can come forward, because, in fact, their shame is very, very deep.

It usually takes a man until he’s in his 50s or 60s to come forward. And so, if a man has experienced assault, he responds to stories of assault the way a typical woman does, which is much more sympathy or empathy or likelihood to find the testimony credible.

And so I think it’s hard for men because, in fact, if all the women around them are saying this is happening, we’re being threatened or harassed, it means they are failing, in fact, to perform a fundamental function of their manhood, which is to protect them.

Why we often don’t believe women who report sexual assault

TLDR: Men don’t think rape happens until it happens to them.

And some men have assaulted or date raped women and now they are being forced to confront their own actions.

Rather than admit that they have done wrong or have been wronged or have prevented a wrong from happening, these men deny that that wrong exists.

They are not rapists themselves. They have not been raped. They have not ignored it when their friends have raped.

Because if rape exists and if women tell the truth, then these men have to confront horrible truths about themselves.

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How many of us have had sexual experiences that we would describe as less than ideal? Experiences for which if we used the proper language – rape, assault – we would also have to use the proper language for the man who perpetuated the rape or the assault?

Rapist.

Sexual assaulter.

How many of these men would describe themselves with those words?

Probably about zero, I guess.

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I still think about a guy – I hesitate to use the word boyfriend because it makes him sound OK – who I saw a few times.

Let’s call him JD for John Doe, although I would love love love to use his real name, but he is now a highly-respected businessman and politician in Austin who is undoubtedly convinced that he is one of the Good Guys and I am not interested in being sued.

JD was my friends’ boss when we all lived in Austin. I was 23 and he was in his early 30s. We met at happy hour and then at his going-away party when he was leaving Austin for grad school out of state. He had moved out of his Austin place and was on his way to see his sister in Houston before going to school.

He flirted. I was flattered. I thought he was sophisticated and handsome.

He called me the next day from Houston and asked me out.

I said yes.

He returned to Austin. We went out. He drove me back to my apartment.

I said goodbye.

He said he had thought he would stay with me.

I laughed.

He did not.

He was serious.

I was an idiot.

This was the part where I should have said “Dude you have lived in Austin for over ten years. You have plenty of friends you can stay with. Good. Night.”

I did not.

I let him in.

So everything that follows is my fault, right?

He tried to convince me to let him sleep in my bed instead of the couch.

And to have sex.

And after an hour of this, I was so exhausted that I agreed, just to get him to shut the fuck up.

He returned over his break and stayed with me again.

(Again – I *asked* for this, right? I *consented.* So it’s my fault.)

And then I wised up and started to ignore him.

He wrote me a letter telling me he wanted me to move to California with him. (Not asking me to marry him. Just wanting me to quit my job and move to another state with him. Outside of everything else, he expected me to uproot myself and take a ton of risk on his behalf? While he made no commitment at all?)

I ignored him.

He told me not to be afraid of my passion.

I ignored him.

He called and left me a message telling me he was driving to Austin that day and would see me soon.

I not only ignored him, I also Ieft my apartment for the day.

I never saw him again.

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I never thought the words rape or assault applied to me.

I was no victim.

I was in complete control of my story and my life.

It has taken me decades to realize that DAMN HE SHOULD HAVE STOPPED ASKING THE FIRST TIME I SAID NO.

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These young women knew right away that what was happening was wrong, even when their own parents tried to explain away what the rapist was doing while he was supposed to be treating them for injuries.

They knew it was bad. They knew it was wrong.

I am so proud of these young women for speaking up.

I am so proud that they knew something was wrong and that they persisted.

I am so proud that they had the courage to stand up and point a finger.

Larry Nassar will die in prison.

Also – Why are women supposed to do all the work?

I know many women mourn after having a miscarriage, but I did and I do not.

I’m glad I don’t have children.

I never wanted them. Ever.

I am delighted to be a bonus mom to Mr T’s stepdaughters from his first marriage, but I am so relieved I do not have my own children.

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I would have been a horrible mother.

Parents are expected to be super involved these days – attending not only soccer or volleyball or basketball games but also practice. Isn’t practice where children go so their moms can have an hour of alone time?

I love to cook, but I love to cook as a hobby. If I had to feed children three times a day every single day every single week every single month every single year for almost two decades, I, too, would grow to hate cooking and would happily throw money at restaurants to do the work for me.

Only I wouldn’t have the money because our income would not be high enough for regular eating out – unless we decided that retirement was not going to happen.

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I have at least two female friends who are the parent who works for money while the dad stays home with the kids.

Both of these women are the ones whom the school calls first.

Whom the PTA asks to volunteer.

Whom the room parent asks for cupcakes.

Whom the school nurse calls when the kid is sick.

Even though the fathers are listed as the primary contact.

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Many male friends have joked how happy they would be to be a stay at home parent.

Well sure! Who wouldn’t like not having to deal with a boss and performance evaluations when the alternative is to stay at home while your spouse still does all the emotional labor of making doctor appointments, planning playdates, and making sure the parent-teacher conference is on the calendar?

(Yes I know Not All Dads but enough that some of you will say Yep I have friends like this.)

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It appears to be the common wisdom that children need a lot of time and attention from their mothers and that would mean I would never get to read or watch tv or do anything by myself. Which would make me bitter.

Or sleepless, as I would have to stay up late reading so I could get my alone/reading fix.

Or both, because now I would have been able to read, but I would be exhausted.

And I would still have to get up to get kids off to school.

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It’s no wonder that there are so many jokes about Mommy Juice.

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I think grandmothers who live close must be the key.

My friends who are grandmothers help take care of the kids. One friend watches her granddaughters every Friday, which means she drives an hour north every Thursday night. That means she does not work at her own job on Fridays. But she does this for her daughter.

My aunt picks her granddaughters up at school every Wednesday, takes them home, feeds them, and helps them with their homework until their mom picks them up.

Another friend won’t move away from Houston unless it’s to be closer to her grandchildren, who are currently an hour away.

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A friend just posted on facebook that her 14 year old daughter had joined the school robotics team and there go mom’s Saturday mornings.

WTF?

Isn’t 14 old enough to get yourself out of bed and feed yourself and take the bus or the subway or ride your bike or get the carpool to school for meetings or the school bus to the competition?

Does this parental responsibility never end?

Is it weird that my parents didn’t attend my swim practices and hardly came to meets? And that I got myself to and from practice and meets? On public transportation? In a foreign country?

That was the norm when I was in high school. We would have laughed at anyone whose parents came to watch practice.

Or would today’s parents say that my mom and dad were bad parents?

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Honestly, I also would not want a child who has my genes. I was a fat, smart, glasses-wearing, violin-playing, not terribly attractive kid and that is not an easy thing to be. Why would I inflict that destiny on any child?

And I have no interest in re-living my elementary school trauma through my own children. A dear friend is going through that now with her daughter – her daughter is smart and delightful but does not fit with the other third graders. It is breaking my friend’s heart to watch her child go through what my friend did. She wants to fix it for her daughter but there is no way to fix it.

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When I was seven, I wanted to be an astronaut, a writer, a comedian, a surgeon.

I never once said I wanted to be a mother.

I knew, even then.

Aren’t we past the Queen Bee Syndrome? The enemy is not other women, it’s The Patriarchy

I have this amazing friend who does wonderful work who has been treated horribly by her boss.

And her boss is another woman.

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Mr T and I have been renting the same cottage on Lake Superior every summer for 15 years. There’s a small museum near the cottage and we always go there.

For the first few years, it was an OK museum but a few years ago, it started to become an amazing museum. There were really interesting new exhibits and talks, including a lot with a focus on telling the truth about the Ojibwe and other Native Americans who live in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan. Native American artists were showcased. There were live demonstrations from re-enactors and from artists. During covid, there were small, behind the scenes tours of the archives.

Something had changed.

Turns out, what changed was the director.

The former director was adequate, but the new director was very connected to the community and wanted to tell those stories in any way she could.

That new director, Judith, has become our friend.

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I have gotten to where I expect men to disregard women.

Another friend, Sally, told me it took her years – YEARS – to convince her male gynecologist that something was wrong. That she could feel something inside of her.

Turned out it was a small, dead fetus. Unbeknownst to Sally, she had been pregnant, the fetus died, the fetus did not come out.

The doctor did not believe Sally that something was wrong.

Sally knew.

I’m not surprised the male physician ignored Sally’s issues.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that another woman would ignore a woman’s issues.

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A year ago, Judith’s boss put her on a performance improvement plan, which, in corporate America, is the first step before you fired someone.

Judith had not been meeting her deadlines, the boss said.

That’s reasonable, right?

It’s important to meet your deadlines at work.

If you don’t meet your deadlines, bad things can happen.

---

Judith had always met her deadlines before.

Judith had always done an amazing job.

This boss – let’s call her Regina – was new.

Regina had gotten the job because another new person, who was recruited in a nationwide search, had recommended her for the position, a position the museum leadership – there are a few museums in this group – had been trying to fill for a while.

Regina had a museum background, but in a very different kind of museum. Not at all like the museum Judith is running. Regina has run museums where nothing ever changes at the museum – no changing installations or outreach. She did not understand Judith’s museum at all.

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From the beginning, Regina did not like Judith, probably because Judith has amazing ideas and Regina does not. Judith seeks new work and new artists. She develops fun, interesting ways to take the museum to the community, with artists demonstrations at the museum and with outreach events to engage people.

Regina, rather than embrace Judith and her creativity and her engagement-enhancing ideas – all of which could have been used to burnish Regina’s own resume (“My team developed and executed programs such as A, B, and C, which increased community engagement X% in one year.”), Regina felt threatened and tried anything she could to squelch Judith.

For instance, Judith suggested a program where a Native American artist would teach a class to children in a park.

Regina said no.

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So yes – not meeting deadlines is serious. Regina was concerned. Regina thought the only course of action was to threaten Judith with being fired if she didn’t straighten up and fly right.

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Why was Judith not meeting her deadlines?

Because she had taken six weeks off.

On FLMA.

After having a double mastectomy.

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Yes you read that right.

Judith missed her deadlines while she was on leave recovering from having both of her breasts amputated in an attempt to prevent breast cancer from killing her.

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Yes, Regina knew that.

Yes, Judith is meeting all her deadlines now that she is actually back at work.

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Do you hate Regina now?

I do.

Do you wonder about women who don’t support other women?

I do.

It’s always the right time for Family Drama!

It’s been a year exactly since my beloved sister in law – Stephanie – died.

(Have you made your will?)

I miss her every day.

And today – Thanksgiving – I remember her again, and our common enemy, our father in law, Sly.

This is the Great Turkey Story that connected Stephanie and me forever.

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About 15 years ago, shortly after Mr T and I married, we were all at Thanksgiving at Mr T’s mom and dad’s house. It was Sly and Doris, his parents, Mr T, me, Stephanie, Stephanie’s soon to be ex-husband AKA Mr T’s half brother (remember Sly left his first wife for Doris but he had to because his first wife was so so bad), and their three children.

Ten people.

A 24-lb turkey.

A 24-lb turkey will feed 20 people. (And probably still provide leftovers.)

Sly told the kids, who were young teenagers, to serve themselves first from the plate of carved turkey.

They each served themselves a modest portion of white meat and then started to get potatoes and stuffing and cranberries.

Sly shouted, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

The kids stopped. They were serving themselves food as instructed?

Sly raged. “How DARE you serve yourselves only white meat? When I was a kid, I would never have taken all the white meat!”

Remember. Huge turkey and Sly had told them to serve themselves first.

Sly turned to Stephanie. “Didn’t you teach your children anything? You are a bad mother!”

Note: He does not accuse his son of being a bad father.

The kids are frozen in fear.

As Sly continues to rage at Stephanie, she hisses, “That’s it I am not taking this shit I’m leaving.”

I follow her into the living room as she grabs her purse. “Do you want some xanax? I have some.”

“Nope,” she says. “I have some at home.”

Her soon to be ex-husband tries to convince Stephanie to stay.

She refuses, walks out the front door and to the car. He follows her.

Sly rages and yells his way into his office, where Mr T and soon, Stephanie’s soon to be ex-husband follow him.

Doris, the kids, and I stand in the kitchen, wondering what on earth to do.

Doris instructs the kids to finish serving themselves and sit.

I am frozen. This is not how fights worked at my house when I was a kid and it sure wasn’t how my dad or my grandfather ever acted. I do not have a script for this scenario.

Mr T and his brother convince Sly to emerge from his office and return to the dinner table. Sly, the injured party for sure. Sly, who is unhappy that his own grandchildren have it better than he did as a kid.

Stephanie’s soon to be ex-husband convinces her to return to the house.

We all serve ourselves and sit.

Sly is calm and smiling and asks Mr T, “What do you think about the Steelers this year?”

The rest of us keep our mouths shut because.

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The next year, we are all at Sly and Doris’ again – all ten of us, only now, Stephanie and Mr T’s brother are divorced.

The kids very carefully serve themselves only a small amount of dark meat turkey.

We are all careful about what we do and say.

As we start eating, Sly muses – without prompting – that he has never liked the white meat. “Too dry,” he says. “I prefer the dark meat.”

Stephanie and I lock eyes as our jaws drop.

WTAF?

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I mentioned this story to my niece recently and she has no memory of it.

When I ask Mr T about his father’s temper tantrums and mention specific ones, Mr T does not remember.

“You have a really good memory,” I say to Mr T. “Do you not remember because you have forgotten or because your dad’s tantrums were so frequent that they all blend into each other?”

“The latter,” Mr T answers. “The latter.”

And other learnings from The Patriarchy

I’m all stressed because Mr T has a friend coming to visit for five days, arriving on Tuesday – I am writing this on Sunday night – and he has exactly one meal planned and he hasn’t prepared the guest room or bathroom or gotten his stuff off the stairs or cleared stuff off the dining room table where I presume we will eat the unplanned meals.

I am stressed because if this work does not get done and the friend – let’s call him Ulysses – arrives to a messy house and the guest room bed not made, he will assume it’s my fault.

Because housework is the province of the wife, right?

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So here’s some internalized patriarchy.

Years ago, a male work friend – Dave – invited a few of us to his house on a Saturday. He was brewing his own beer and wanted to share and I don’t like beer but I was new in town and I liked these co-workers and wanted to hang out.

When we got to Dave’s house, his wife, Sue, was just leaving.

He introduced us to her and then she left.

And I was kind of shocked because she was leaving.

Because who was going to make us a snack? Offer us something to drink?

And how could a married couple not entertain jointly? Doesn’t an invitation from a husband bind a wife?

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I always assumed that everyone knew that you offer guests something to eat and drink. You cross the threshold in my house and I ask if you would like a drink. If you’re here longer than a few minutes, I will probably offer you food.

It’s what My People do.

Mr T’s parents did not teach him this.

The first time I visited their house – the first time I met them, Mr T and I had started our journey early in the morning in Milwaukee. We had flown to Jacksonville, rented a car, and driven the hour to St Augustine. We arrived at Mr T’s parents’ at about 2:00, I think.

I was hungry.

They did not offer water.

They did not offer food.

After half an hour of their pretty much ignoring me (they already did not like me because of my previous blog), I finally asked if I could have a glass of water.

Y’all.

I had to *ask* for water.

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And now it’s Monday morning and I think Mr T did some cleaning. I know he will get all the cleaning done, even if he has to stay up late to do it, but he is happy to leave the meal planning up in the air.

When Mr T and I would visit his parents, I had to find my own lunch every day (like – drive to a store to buy something) because they did not eat lunch and they did not plan for anyone else to eat lunch and the one time I ate leftovers for lunch, Mr T did not hear the end of it. Even in his last weeks of life – ON HIS DEATHBED, Mr T’s father was complaining to him about all the things I had done wrong, including Eating The Leftovers.

(How I eat bacon wrong was another complaint.)

When we would visit, Mr T and I got to where we would stop at the grocery store on the way from the airport to buy food – bread and sandwich meat and fruit – for our lunch. I packed almonds and other snacks in the suitcase.

Now, it’s not like I expected to be treated like royalty. I don’t expect hosts, especially parent hosts, to wait on me. I am happy to help with cooking and chores. I am even happy to buy groceries. I don’t expect other people to spend their money to feed me.

But we didn’t even want to visit them. These were command performances that required us to spend a lot of money on plane tickets and auto rental and to use precious vacation days.

The least they could have done was provide lunch.

But even without that experience, I knew to feed my guests. It’s what’s done, right?

You have a guest in your home and you feed her.

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Mr T plans to grill steak and veg one night, which is great.

But the other nights? (And the breakfasts? and the lunches?)

He has no plans.

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Let me back up.

When Mr T said Ulysses wanted to visit, I was happy because Mr T and Ulysses have been friends for decades. Mr T has been pretty lonely since covid started and a lot of his usual activities have been curtailed. (Like singing at karaoke.)

But I told him all the preparation was on him.

His guest – his work.

Not that I won’t help – I will clean the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom, both of which are on my usual chore list, but the guest room and bath are both on him. (And, like I said, he will do it, but it will be last minute, instead of a week in advance as I would do it.)

And, I said, he needs to figure out the food.

I will help prepare and cook whatever he wants, but he has to figure out what the menu is.

That is, he has to do the emotional labor.

“But that’s *hard*!” he said.

“I know,” I answered. “That’s why I don’t want to do it.”

The stories we are told versus the truth

The mother of Mr T’s two half-brothers died last week.

The story, as long as Mr T’s parents, especially his dad, were alive, was that Wife 1 (Mr T’s mom was Wife 2) was Bad.

According to Mr T’s dad, Wife 1 was an alcoholic who was also frigid.

Me: Wait. Your dad actually used those words with you? He told you Wife 1 was frigid?

Mr T: Yes.

Me: He talked about his sex life with you?

Mr T: Well, not when I was a kid!

Me: That’s not something parents do even with adult children! Your dad never heard of this thing called “boundaries,” did he?

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The story was that Wife 1 was an alcoholic so of course Mr T’s dad had to leave her.

Leave her for Mr T’s mom, whom Mr T’s dad had just happened to meet (while they were both singing in a church choir)(while Wife 1 watched the kids)(after being at work all day)(and making supper)(and cleaning the house)(and doing laundry)(and wanting to do nothing more than sit down with a good book but she couldn’t because Mr T’s dad was at choir rehearsal).

Mr T’s dad had to leave Wife 1 because she was alcoholic but it was more important to leave her than to stay to protect his two little boys, both under five years old at the time, from their allegedly alcoholic mother?

Wife 1 was bad bad bad.

That’s all Mr T ever heard when he was a kid.

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Wife 1 went on to meet her Husband 2 and have two more children.

But there was no Mixing of the Children with Wife 1 and her new family. As children, Mr T and his sister never met their half-brothers’ half siblings.

The half brothers came to Mr T’s home, but never the other way around.

Maybe that’s the norm? I don’t know. I do know that my aunt was Wife #2 to her husband. And that my aunt and Wife #1 are friends. And that my aunt and uncle and Wife #1 and her Husband #2 threw a party to celebrate what would have been Wife #1 and aunt’s husband’s 30th wedding anniversary.

Sometimes people can actually get along.

Sometimes people can admit that they just weren’t right for each other and move on without demonizing each other.

To be fair, my uncle did not leave Wife #1 for my aunt. He was already divorced when my aunt met him.

Still, the children are innocents in all of this and why wouldn’t you do everything you can to make things easier for your kids?

Mr T’s parents trash-talked Wife 1 and her new husband to Mr T and his sister. All. The. Time.

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The story from Mr T’s parents was that Wife 1 was bad and worthless and to be avoided. She had nothing to commend her.

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And then I read Wife 1’s obituary.

Holy. Smoke.

This woman was amazing.

(I am so glad my wonderful nieces have her genes!)

She was an RN and apparently, going by dates in her obituary, put Mr T’s dad through graduate school. While taking care of two little boys.

I never knew that.

Let’s sit with that, shall we?

Wife 1. Put. Mr T’s dad. Through graduate school.

Yet he never breathed a word about it.

Mr T did not know this.

Mr T’s dad said only she was an alcoholic.

I don’t even know if that’s true, but if Wife 1 had a glass of wine now and then to deal with

1. Taking care of – BIRTHING – two little boys
2. While also doing all the housework and cooking because let’s not kid ourselves leopards don’t change their spots and Mr T’s dad didn’t lift a finger to help Mr T’s mom even after he retired
3. While also working as a nurse
4. While being married to a man who later claimed she was frigid. (I don’t know the truth but can we all acknowledge that if she wasn’t always ready for sexy time, it might have been because of 1, 2, and 3?)

I do not blame her.

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If you have not read Anna Funder’s Wifedom, do so. She writes about Eileen O’Shaughnessy, who was married to George Orwell.

What?

You didn’t know George Orwell had a wife?

That’s because he erased her.

Just like Mr T’s dad tried to do to Wife 1.

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Mr T’s mom became an alcoholic.

Mr T said, “My dad turned his wives into alcoholics.”

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After Mr T’s dad left her, Wife 1 became a college professor, teaching nursing and winning teaching awards, and was published in several peer-reviewed journals.

Mr T’s dad never mentioned any of this, either.

Wife 1 was just bad.

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When Mr T read Wife 1’s obituary, he was stunned.

“I didn’t know any of this,” he said.

And why would he? It didn’t serve his dad’s narrative.

His shoulders sagged. “I didn’t know. My dad never told me any of this. I guess my dad really was an asshole.”

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Wife 1 probably watched Mr T’s dad turn Mr T’s mom into a sad, lonely alcoholic. When Mr T’s dad met Mr T’s mom, she had just been accepted to a prestigious music conservatory to stufy voice. She was going to be a professional singer.

Mr T’s dad convinced her not to go to conservatory.

She spent her life as his housemaid.

In her obituary, Mr T’s dad wrote – first line – that Mr T’s mom had lived long enough to know Mr T’s dad had survived surgery. (She died the day after he had cancer surgery.)

If you have ever wondered if a narcissist can make someone else’s obituary about him, now you know the answer is yes.

Wife 1 probably watched all that and breathed a sigh of relief that she had dodged that bullet.

I would rather leave money on the table than leave time on the table – but it still feels like I failed

One of my fears is that I haven’t reached my potential.

My worse fear is that I have.

What do I mean by “potential?”

The same thing almost everyone else in US society does: income level + power + social acceptability.

Shouldn’t I be a vice president or CEO at a Fortune 100 company? I went to top schools for both college and grad school.

What’s wrong with me that I’m not there?

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I read this in The Atlantic.

Relieved of the deforming crush of financial fear, and of the world’s battering demands and expectations, people’s personalities have started to assume their true shape. And a lot of them don’t want to return to wasting their days in purgatorial commutes, to the fluorescent lights and dress codes and middle-school politics of the office….More and more people have noticed that some of the basic American axioms—that hard work is a virtue, productivity is an end in itself—are horseshit.

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I saw a former co-worker last week. She’s lovely and I am so happy she wants to stay friends outside of the job. She is in her early 40s, I would guess, and is a VP.

She is amazing. She works hard and does all the stuff you need to do to advance in corporate America. She likes it. She is ambitious.

I want her to succeed! I want her to advance.

But I didn’t and don’t share her ambition. Am I lazy? Am I afraid? What’s wrong with me?

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Maybe part of it is that I am older than she is and that I have been laid off not once but twice from a corporate job. It’s hard to stay emotionally invested in a job when you know they will get rid of you in a second.

Ever since the first layoff, I have viewed a job as nothing more than a financial transaction.

Even before that, I struggled to love my work in the way others seemed to love theirs. Maybe because I grew up on military bases during the Cold War, when I saw that my dad and his colleagues had a clear sense of mission? It’s hard to feel like selling widgets is important enough to merit your heart and soul (and long hours) after seeing people literally trying to keep democracy alive.

“The world is literally on fire. Income inequality is out of control. Racial injustice is horrifying and crying out for resolution. And I’m sitting here writing pitches for big-box retailers on how they can sell more products that people don’t need.”

The New Yorker

Even if the work is important – I just left a job working for a company with a very worthwhile mission, I don’t want to do it more than 40 hours a week.

Yet I saw – I still see – others willingly work long hours and on the weekend (and not get paid overtime).

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When I compare myself to my college friends, I feel like a failure. They have reached the tops of their professions: CEOs, senior partners at major law firms, federal judges.

At a party once, I overheard some friends laugh about a former co-worker who had quit and was consulting for “only” $300 an hour.

Me?

I have been a wage slave. In my most recent job, at a local insurance company, I made, according to a friend who also worked there, less than a new-hire college grad.

I have never had a title better than “manager.”

I have never had a corner office. Indeed, I have gone from office to cubicle. I didn’t have any office by the end.

I have never had any power. I have never had any prestige.

When I quit my last job – without another job lined up, a dear friend, whose husband has a highly-paid, highly-respected position, asked how I could walk away from the money.

I laughed.

“It’s easy to walk away from almost no pay!” I told her. “I’m making less than I did three years out of college. And I’m treated like crap. I’m not the boss. It’s easy.”

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I remind myself that our friends have started to die. And that Mr T and I, although neither wealthy nor powerful, are happy volunteering our time for causes we care about and goofing off the rest of the time.

But I have to admit I am slightly dreading seeing my college friends at our reunion because I know I am The Loser in the group.

Or, Questions nobody ever asks when a man is raped

What’s the worst thing that can happen – to a man?

Like – what’s a fate worse than death – for a man?

Apparently, it’s rape.

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Let me back up.

Turns out that after Omar Qaddafi was captured, he might have been sodomized. (Which is a nice way of saying rape that happens to men.)

Amid mounting questions about just how and when Muammar Qaddafi died, a GlobalPost analysis of video footage suggests a Libyan fighter sodomized the former dictator after he was captured near Sirte.

As GlobalPost reports:

A frame by frame analysis of this exclusive GlobalPost video clearly shows the rebel trying to insert some kind of stick or knife into Gaddafi’s rear end….

CBS News

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According to Vincent Bevins, who wrote If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution, other dictators cracked down on protests and protestors after what happened to Qaddafi because they didn’t want what happened to Qaddafi to happen to them. Rape was the worst thing. For them.

And Qaddafi thought so, as well: According to Annick Cojean, a French journalist who wrote Gaddafi’s Harem, he used rape as a weapon.

Annick Cojean: Gaddafi had a harem of women kept in the basement of his residence, in little rooms or apartments. These women, obligated to appear before him in their underwear, could be called at any time of day or night. They were raped, beaten, subjected to the worst kinds of sexual humiliation. For Gaddafi, rape was a weapon … a way of dominating others — women, obviously, because it was easy, but also men, by possessing their wives and daughters.

Similarly, he forced some of his ministers to have sex with him. (Ed. AKA “rape.”) He did the same with certain tribal chiefs, diplomats and military officials over whom he wanted to get the upper hand. 

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Have you noticed that when rape is threatened in art, it’s men who are being threatened with it?

I can’t think of instances where women are threatened with rape.

But I can think of many instances where women actually are raped.

Rape is so common for women that it’s just part of the scenery.

A lot of the time, we don’t even call it rape.

Remember in 8th grade, when we studied Greek mythology, and there were all the stories about virgins getting pregnant by the gods? “Zeus came to her in the form of gold coins/a bull/a swan.”

Not, “Zeus raped her.”

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Imagine if we actually used the word “rape” to talk about what happens to women.

If we didn’t normalize men having their way, even in stories.

What if we used the word “rape” when we taught mythology to 8th graders? And taught girls that it’s not OK for men to have sex with them against their will? And taught boys it is not OK for rape women, even if you turn yourself into a swan?

Seriously – how many of us – female and male – internalized this crap when we were kids?

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How come the easiest way for a cop – in art – to strike fear into the heart of a male suspect is to warn him that he will be raped?

Why is it so bad if it happens to men? But often dismissed if it happens to women?

When it happens to women, men (and some women) ask what the woman was doing to deserve such a thing. They ask what she had been drinking. They scold her for having gone to his dorm room.

There are thousands of unprocessed rape kits. Judges worry about ruining the lives of promising young men.

There’s no worry about the victims.

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Do you remember Clayton Williams’ rape joke when he was running against Ann Richards?

That joke helped him lose the race.

Today, it would probably help him win.

Clayton was an obsessive talker. He began a patter about the weather and the fog as he filled a blue tin cup with beans. He sat down on a metal folding chair and rocked back on the hind legs as he spooned beans into his mouth, chattering between each bite. The roundup had to be delayed, he said, because of the fog. The calves would get down in ravines and low areas and be missed, forcing a repeat of the roundup. Nope. Nothing to do but wait until the fog lifts. Get another cup of coffee, another cup of beans.

Bad weather is like rape, he said; “if it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.”

By that evening, Clayton Williams’s remark had spread all across the nation via the Associated Press, and he begrudgingly apologized without fully understanding why he was doing so. “If anyone was offended, I apologize deeply,” Williams said with the news media huddled around him in an Alpine steakhouse. It was “just a joke” made at a campfire in a man’s world. “That’s not a Republican women’s club that we were at this morning,” he said. “It’s a working cow camp, a tough world where you can get kicked in the testicles if you’re not careful.”

Texas Monthly

And we must burn them

My grandmother didn’t get to go to school after she finished 8th grade. She wanted to, but her family was poor and she needed to work.

But she knew that you need to let the strudel dough rest for a few hours before you pull it.

I argued with her, telling her that Joy of Cooking said it needed to rest only 20 minutes.

No, she answered. A few hours.

After several batches of strudel with torn dough, I finally heeded her words and did it her way.

It worked. My dough stretched without tearing.

Years later, I read about the science behind letting dough sit. Letting it sit lets the glutens relax, etc, etc, etc.

My grandmother didn’t know the why but she did know the how. She had the knowledge that her own mother had given to her and of her experience.

Women know things.

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Edward Jenner has always gotten the credit for discovering/inventing vaccination. His is the name I learned in school.

But Mary Montagu inoculated her daughter against smallpox almost 75 years before Jenner’s first experiments. And Mary Montagu learned about inoculation in Turkey from “illiterate old Greek and Armenian women.”

[Mary] Wortley Montagu, a smallpox survivor with a disfigured face, took the risky decision to inoculate her daughter by making tiny cuts on her daughter’s skin and rubbing in a small amount of pus from a live smallpox sore.

“If [Wortley Montagu] hadn’t inoculated her daughter, we may never have gone on to find a cure for smallpox,” writes Jo Willett….

This gave the child, known as “young Mary”, a very mild dose of the disease, Willett said.

“Normally, with smallpox, you might have several thousand spots on your body. An inoculated child would probably have about 30 spots and then a few days later they’d be absolutely fine again, running around and having fun.”

Wortley Montagu had learned about the practice of inoculation in Turkey, where her husband had worked as the British ambassador. “When she got there, she went to Turkish baths and saw women without any smallpox marks on their skin. That was a wake-up call.”

In 18th-century Turkey, inoculation was a common “folk practice”, typically carried out by “illiterate old Greek and Armenian women”, Willett said. “She asked them about it and analysed it, and decided it was worth the risk.”

How Mary Wortley Montagu’s bold experiment led to smallpox vaccine – 75 years before Jenner

Women know things.

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I asked a Spanish woman in Galicia about all the witches.

“They were women who knew how to heal,” she said with exasperation. “They knew things. But the men didn’t like that. So the men decided that they would call the women ‘witches’ and tell everyone that being a witch was a bad thing.”

Women know things.

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When I was a little girl and learned about the Salem witch trials and other the other witch hunts, why didn’t I ask, “Who thought it was a good idea to burn women alive?”

Why didn’t I ask, “How come they burned mostly women?”

Why didn’t I ask, “Who were the women accused of witchcraft and why were they targeted, especially as we know that witchcraft doesn’t even exist?”

Why did I accept the premise that

1. Witches (who can actually cause bad things to happen) exist
2. So of course we have to set them on fire?

“We haven’t been able to study [hyperemesis gravidarum] because it only happens to women.”

@netflixisajoke

pills are scawy #amyschumer #birthcontrol #standup

♬ original sound – Netflix Is A Joke

So anyway they have chewable Viagra now.

God forbid a man not be able to get a hard-on when he wants.

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Researchers believe that endometriosis — a disease where the tissue forming the inner lining of the uterus is found outside of the uterus such as within the fallopian tubes, ovaries, bladder and intestines — affects more than 6 million women in the U.S. and as many as 200 million women worldwide….

On average, women wait as long as seven to 10 years for a diagnosis…

Good Morning America

While women wait for a diagnosis, they’re in pain.

And once they’re diagnosed, there’s still not a cure.

But we have chewable Viagra.

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Erectile Dysfunction Market Size to Reach Revenues of USD 4.7 Billion by 2026 

Vendors are focusing on technological advancements and improvements to develop advanced treatment options for impotence/erectile dysfunction. The main aim of vendors is to develop a treatment that is faster, more effective with fewer side effects. These advancements in the treatment of ED were observed to expand in the market, and more options are likely to be available in the upcoming years.

Several new device technologies for ED treatment are introduced in the market. One of the technologies is the low-intensity shock wave extracorporeal therapy (LI-ESWT), which is a quite promising method in treating erectile dysfunction. This therapy is already proven to be effective in cardiology, in the case of kidney stones, and observed recent success in reversible ischemic tissues of the heart and fractures. The LI-ESWT is a wand-like device placed near different areas of the penis, and it releases acoustic waves, which interact with the tissues and release angiogenic factors leading to improvement of blood circulation.

PR Newswire 2021

“more options are likely to be available in the upcoming years.”

Thank God men won’t be limited to the dozens of ED solutions available to them now.

Thank God.