On being the butt of disparaging comments and laughter...
Yesterday I was walking home from work through the mall and some guys yelled out "Hey! There's that guy!" Other words were muttered in the group, followed by mocking laughter. That particular kind of laughter that guys seem to reserve for their disparagement of women.
I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt. Mind you it may have meant that they had seen the Bodyworks show about my sex reassignment surgery which if nothing else has - even for them - the potential to sow seeds of change. Maybe tho' it's just that they have often observed me from the earliest days of my transition from the vantage point of their park bench.
Interestingly (sadly) almost the only time I get any disparaging comments is from what I would catagorize as "small groups of adolescent and/or socially-disadvantaged males". Typically they are of rough appearance and manner of speaking, sit around malls in groups, apparently unemployed and exhibit one or more of the following characteristics: drinking surreptitiously from brown paper bags, arguing loudly amongst themselves, staring and commenting on passers-by and exhibiting the overly loud and slurred speech patterns associated with a recent methadone hit.
I figure that they carry many hurts inside, were once vulnerable, hopeful little boys who early on encountered a particularly hostile and unloving world; have little self-esteem and see women as both potential threats to that fragile sense of self and potential props. Women are a dangerous and unpredictable threat; one they "can't live with but can't live without". Women must be "put down" into the subordinate and safe and unthreatening category of sex-objects about which one can make smutty innuendos amongst the beta-male group. Alpha male lords it over beta male lords it over zeta female. Somewhere below that pecking order are children, the children they themselves were once.
Women who don't fit the stereotype of a desirable sexual object and accoutrement (and therefore couldn't be potential props to their egos) have only one use - as tall poppies to be cut down to make themselves "taller".
I tried to think what kind of woman I could have been and NOT been a potential target for their slurs and mocking. Mmmm! Couldn't think of one. Whether I was young or old, fat or thin, curvy or straight-up-and-down, ugly or drop-dead gorgeous, lesbian or straight, transsexual or non-transsexual I was prey to their famished egos, road-kill before the juggernaut of their despair.
Of couse in my case there was the overlay of being transsexual. That brings up the uncomfortable demon (I'm sure - in their minds anyway) of "homosexuality". Now I see myself as a hetreosexual woman in terms of my relationships with men. But for men I am a problematical creature. Obviously I'm feminine and look (mostly) and act like a woman but they can't get away from that old nagging thought, "Ummm! Isn't she really a guy? Didn't she used to have a penis? What if I got an erection...would I be gay?" And that's the ultimate threat and put-down for the beta male.
There seems to be a viewpoint amongst that particular demographic that says any woman is only useful as your "mum" or a "root", ie. emotional cossetting, sexual gratification and ego-enhancement within the beta group. If you're old you can only be useful if you can bestow mothering. If you're ugly you're a waste of space. If you're lesbian you're a waste of space until you experience a "good root" (from them, of course) which will cure you since that's all you were lacking in order to make you useful. Of course if you're an ugly lesbian, forget it - there's no hope. Besides being ugly explains why you are lesbian. I mean who (male that is) would want you?
Now if you're a transsexual woman the matter is even more complicated. You are probably going to be seen as ugly to them so that's a black mark to start with and even you look drop-dead gorgeous there's the old problem men always encounter with transsexual women. Aren't they "really" male? So if I feel attracted to them or even accepting of them then I must be gay, hey? Can't let anyone think I'm gay. I don't think heterosexual men can help themselves. They can't help responding in some way to a transsexual woman's femininity and that arouses the old spectre of homosexuality to them. Disparagement and cruelty is the minimum safety response in that case. Violence is never far away.
You know, I can't help feel - despite knowing some lovely men (Alex being the prime example!) that the radical separatist feminists had a point when they said that men per se were the problem. I can understand the thinking behind testerone and strength and focus and drive - works well when hunting woolly mammoths - but somehow I just don't think the design was as well thought through as it might have been. Like designing a truck with a powerful enough engine to carry heavy loads but installing bicycle brakes to stop it and tiny slits for a windscreen to see out of. Can't see where I'm going, can't stop, WATCH OUT!
Nightly on TV I see that it is always young, socially disadvantaged males who throng the streets brandishing machetes and AK-47's...and hate and rage. Nightly I see that it is largely women and children who trudge despairingly and resignedly over the mountain passes into vulnerable and shaky refugee camps.
What's the answer...for them...for us..for me? I don't know.
Maybe...love is the answer.
Maybe...we should start now...we've got a long way to go...and some big design flaws to overcome.
I'd be lying if I said it didn't hurt. Mind you it may have meant that they had seen the Bodyworks show about my sex reassignment surgery which if nothing else has - even for them - the potential to sow seeds of change. Maybe tho' it's just that they have often observed me from the earliest days of my transition from the vantage point of their park bench.
Interestingly (sadly) almost the only time I get any disparaging comments is from what I would catagorize as "small groups of adolescent and/or socially-disadvantaged males". Typically they are of rough appearance and manner of speaking, sit around malls in groups, apparently unemployed and exhibit one or more of the following characteristics: drinking surreptitiously from brown paper bags, arguing loudly amongst themselves, staring and commenting on passers-by and exhibiting the overly loud and slurred speech patterns associated with a recent methadone hit.
I figure that they carry many hurts inside, were once vulnerable, hopeful little boys who early on encountered a particularly hostile and unloving world; have little self-esteem and see women as both potential threats to that fragile sense of self and potential props. Women are a dangerous and unpredictable threat; one they "can't live with but can't live without". Women must be "put down" into the subordinate and safe and unthreatening category of sex-objects about which one can make smutty innuendos amongst the beta-male group. Alpha male lords it over beta male lords it over zeta female. Somewhere below that pecking order are children, the children they themselves were once.
Women who don't fit the stereotype of a desirable sexual object and accoutrement (and therefore couldn't be potential props to their egos) have only one use - as tall poppies to be cut down to make themselves "taller".
I tried to think what kind of woman I could have been and NOT been a potential target for their slurs and mocking. Mmmm! Couldn't think of one. Whether I was young or old, fat or thin, curvy or straight-up-and-down, ugly or drop-dead gorgeous, lesbian or straight, transsexual or non-transsexual I was prey to their famished egos, road-kill before the juggernaut of their despair.
Of couse in my case there was the overlay of being transsexual. That brings up the uncomfortable demon (I'm sure - in their minds anyway) of "homosexuality". Now I see myself as a hetreosexual woman in terms of my relationships with men. But for men I am a problematical creature. Obviously I'm feminine and look (mostly) and act like a woman but they can't get away from that old nagging thought, "Ummm! Isn't she really a guy? Didn't she used to have a penis? What if I got an erection...would I be gay?" And that's the ultimate threat and put-down for the beta male.
There seems to be a viewpoint amongst that particular demographic that says any woman is only useful as your "mum" or a "root", ie. emotional cossetting, sexual gratification and ego-enhancement within the beta group. If you're old you can only be useful if you can bestow mothering. If you're ugly you're a waste of space. If you're lesbian you're a waste of space until you experience a "good root" (from them, of course) which will cure you since that's all you were lacking in order to make you useful. Of course if you're an ugly lesbian, forget it - there's no hope. Besides being ugly explains why you are lesbian. I mean who (male that is) would want you?
Now if you're a transsexual woman the matter is even more complicated. You are probably going to be seen as ugly to them so that's a black mark to start with and even you look drop-dead gorgeous there's the old problem men always encounter with transsexual women. Aren't they "really" male? So if I feel attracted to them or even accepting of them then I must be gay, hey? Can't let anyone think I'm gay. I don't think heterosexual men can help themselves. They can't help responding in some way to a transsexual woman's femininity and that arouses the old spectre of homosexuality to them. Disparagement and cruelty is the minimum safety response in that case. Violence is never far away.
You know, I can't help feel - despite knowing some lovely men (Alex being the prime example!) that the radical separatist feminists had a point when they said that men per se were the problem. I can understand the thinking behind testerone and strength and focus and drive - works well when hunting woolly mammoths - but somehow I just don't think the design was as well thought through as it might have been. Like designing a truck with a powerful enough engine to carry heavy loads but installing bicycle brakes to stop it and tiny slits for a windscreen to see out of. Can't see where I'm going, can't stop, WATCH OUT!
Nightly on TV I see that it is always young, socially disadvantaged males who throng the streets brandishing machetes and AK-47's...and hate and rage. Nightly I see that it is largely women and children who trudge despairingly and resignedly over the mountain passes into vulnerable and shaky refugee camps.
What's the answer...for them...for us..for me? I don't know.
Maybe...love is the answer.
Maybe...we should start now...we've got a long way to go...and some big design flaws to overcome.
posted by Paula at
9:44 am
1 Comments:
Dear Ghostwriter,
Yes, you are right. The crushing weight of the world produces the diamond of sense of self. As it is said in Buddhism, "The three poisons become the seeds of great virtue". Without wishing to diminish the pain and damage of other;s hurtful actions they can indeed be the source of great growth and realsiation. Thankyou.
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