2 cents from a man

Why can’t a woman be more like a man?

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I am so often inspired by Twitter when it come time to write these posts. Sometimes it is in powerful uplifting ways.

Other times it is not.

Molly read a fascinating article on regretting having children. Now Molly loves her children and sacrifices a great deal to make sure they are cared for and brought up to be fine adults. But if she had it to do all over again, she wouldn’t. This is apparently a bold thing to say, in spite of the fact that no man in the history of time would garner a second glance at voicing this opinion. She tweeted her opinion and of course a man that neither of us know or follow had to get his 2 cents in, explaining, well I am not going to bother with his response because it was just ridiculous about how much better women have it.. blah, blah, blah.

What caught me off guard was the arrogance and frankly the privilege (god I hate that I have to use that word) and it made me wake up a bit to what women have had to put up with their whole lives. Being constantly told that their experiences of being women are wrong. It was truly staggering that this dude would tell Molly her opinions formed by being an actual woman weren’t real. FFS.

My brain being what it is flashed to a musical. My Fair Lady and the scene between Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering and the words

Why can’t a woman be more like a man?
Men are so honest, so thoroughly square;
Eternally noble, historically fair;
Who, when you win, will always give your back a pat.
Why can’t a woman be like that?

Why does ev’ryone do what the others do?
Can’t a woman learn to use her head?
Why do they do ev’rything their mothers do?
Why don’t they grow up- well, like their father instead?
Why can’t a woman take after a man?
Men are so pleasant, so easy to please;
Wherever you’re with them, you’re always at ease.

It is the obliviousness that the song conveys that carries what I felt from this guys tweets. I will state my stand bluntly here. This kind of behavior from men needs to stop. Stop thinking that you know what it is like in any way to be a woman.

So to all the women, I am sorry how you have been treated and I am sorry if I have ever treated you this way.

Michael

P.S. I don’t believe any parent has never (even if only for a moment) regretted having children and women are far more trapped by expectations than men are in almost every case. I look forward to a time when a woman can state that and not be looked on as a horrible person.


Comments

4 responses to “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?”

  1. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… Michael, you need to teach classes to the many men who just don’t get it. About male privilege, about white privilege, about Christian privilege, and when you put all three of them together, women suffer in so many ways that most men don’t even see, let alone acknowledge. These egotistical misogynist attitudes are passed down from father to son and then supported by religion and society, and based on what I am seeing on social media and from my own experiences, things are getting worse and not better. The fact that my 17 year old granddaughter buys into these outdated ideas scares the hell out of me. My sexuality was damaged and severely limited because these ideas and it took me until I was 60 to say “fuck that nonsense”. I see so many women, especially my age, who fear and hates sex because of the things they’ve been taught to believe and do. And male entitlement just makes it worse. I wish I knew what the answer was.. actually I do. Education, especially better sex education, is drastically needed… not just the mechanics, but anatomy, relationships, responsibility and respect… and consent.

  2. I have, absolutely truthfully, never regretted having my children and, even though parts of it have been horrifically hard, if I could go back, I would do it again. I know that isn’t the point though. The attitudes on both sides damage all of us. The people who know our experiences and explain it to us, and those who deny the involvement of others based on their gender. It sucks. I wish people would allow and accept the validity of each person’s experience. The world would be better if there was a huge amount more listening and a heck less explaining/correcting.

  3. I did reply to Molly’s tweet.
    I don’t regret having kids but I do wish I could have done things differently. A different father for a start 😀
    But then life may have been worse. The problem with wanting to change the things we’ve done is we have no idea how life would change.
    We do need proper sex and relationship ed. in schools, and we need to stop vilifying those who don’t do as society tells them. From where I stand things seem to be getting worse.

  4. As a woman who never had the “need to breed” gene, I have equally received a fair amount of criticism and being told “you will change your mind dearie” over the years. I had to push the medical profession quite hard to get sterilised even at nearly 40 and that was after several attempts because by then it had become “fashionable” to breed later in life. I have always known children weren’t for me, other people’s are great to borrow but that’s as far as it goes.
    Education would be a start but not just in schools, the whole of our Western society needs to reconsider its attitudes and that wont happen overnight but if enough people keep chipping away, then perhaps….

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