oh, mollie

My new "friend" Mollie (she of the book Counseling to End Violence Against Women: A Subversive Model) is tiring me out.

She is tiring me out because she writes so compellingly and yet I have to resist her.

I have to resist her because I want to be able to voice my questions and dilemmas in the face of the waves of her rage, her opinions and her point-blank certainty.

Por ejemplo, mi amor: "Women are always subject to the control of men, and women accommodate their behavior to mollify men and avoid the extremes of men's exertions of power. They marry, they become dutiful subjects, they cajole, they nurture, and they enjoy the few privileges they are permitted. These behaviors become defined as "women's nature."

Oh, man.

That is so true, really. And I am always conscious of that in myself especially when talking with men I am not close to. When in doubt, I tend to fall on the ever-ready gender-stereotypical ways of relating -- you know coddling egos, mollifying, soothing, nurturing, being nice. Fuck. Especially when I don't really give too much of a damn, and am mostly sure that I will not be conversing with them again or too much. When I don't care about them and I'm too tired to make an effort to be truly me, I become the cardboard "everywoman," pretty neat smiling and accommodating.

And then there are times when I have to talk to some men more, because after all we live in a world with both women and men, and I would really like to be friends, and authentic, with both, so I have to make the effort to introduce the real me, and sometimes to do it in such a way that I am not shut off/ immediately stereotyped/ but will be listened to, and will make an impact in degrees because basically, all I really want ...

Is a nice space, expanding, where we can sit and talk, and get to know each other, as real people :)

As equals.

(and of course, I have misrepresented Mollie here by just giving one paragraph of her entire book, and then moving on to my emotional reaction to reading her, which turns out to be not about her, but about me, and in fact, the bigger reasons why I am resisting Mollie is not found above but will probably be found in some other blog post when I find the time, or perish if i don't find the time, to blog instead of writing the counseling plan i am currently making "hapa" on.)

so there.