The Feminine in the Sky

A smart and talented woman I know wrote this book: The Coming of the Feminine Christ. (Which due to some technical difficulties, I’ve had to unlink to.)

at a church in London

This is not a review; I haven’t read the book yet. And this is not about your religion; I don’t need to know (and let’s not ruin a lovely relationship).

When I was a kid, my mother had a black tee-shirt that read in white script, “God is coming, and she is pissed.” My mother wore this in the 70s in our small hometown.

If she got any grief for it, she never said. (She was used to grief from people anyway.)

But my eight-year-old mind was stunned by that pronoun. She.

Not long after that I found a button in the bowling alley parking lot. It had been run over, but I could still read it. “A woman’s place is every place.” I pinned that button to my purse–my purse that held red rocks and barbies.

Sometimes I ask writing students to imagine how their lives would be different if they’d been born the opposite sex. My female students rarely have trouble with this. <My male students generally look horrified, make a joke about not being gay, and write either they'd go shopping and get married or that their lives wouldn't be different at all.

Sometimes I ask writing students to imagine a favorite character in fiction–and switch that character's gender. What if Harry Potter were Harriet? What if Batman were a woman–and I don't mean Batgirl. What if in Titanic you gave Leo Kate’s role and gave Kate Leo’s? What if James Bond were a woman?

(I’ve also asked them to change a famous character’s race or religion. Once I asked the students to imagine Edward from Twilight as Muslim…oh the expressions.)

Niamh Clune‘s book is not a game or a simple writing exercise. The book expresses a profound belief and way of seeing the world.

What are books about but seeing the world in a new way? (My mother used to say, “If you’re strong in your beliefs, you can always handle encountering someone else’s.”)

I’m looking forward to reading Niamh’s book. Maybe you would too.

*

And for folks on Facebook, there is this.

Keep your mouth shut.

Do you argue with people online who you’ve never met? If you do, are those arguments mud-fests with names flying? If not, why not?

Most people I know who are on facebook have at least one I-shouldn’t-have-made-that-comment experience. If not that, then a I-can’t-believe-X-left that-comment experience. Haven’t you?

If you decide to pick a fight or take the bait for one, why? What triggers your I’ll-show-’em response?

Maybe you’ve never given in to the impulse–but haven’t you wanted to? Don’t some people deserve a good telling off?

I’m a diplomat by nature. Confrontation makes me tremble, literally. Nonetheless, every once in a while, I argue. Is that always wrong?

Just yesterday I ended up in a shouting match of sorts on Facebook on a friend’s thread. Part of me says that’s like going to a friend’s house and picking a fight with a fellow party guest. Rude. Unnecessary.

But another part of me–the part that won out in this case–thought that certain people will keep making sexist remarks if no one ever calls them on it. I decided to call him on it. I might not have said anything, but my fb friend had told him to “shut up” and he still made another comment. So. I told him he was being sexist.

He told me I had no sense of humor.

I told him that was the defense of a bully.

Now, maybe I don’t have a sense of humor. Maybe I’m the most unfunny woman on the planet. But I know that you-don’t-have-sense-of-humor is what people say when they make an unfunny, hurtful, or rude remark. Throw the blame on someone. I didn’t say anything wrong. You just don’t get it. As if the person’s unhappy response can be explained only in this way.

I explained clearly why I thought his comment was sexist. He said nothing about any of the points I made. Not one thing. He said he bet that I get called a shrew and a b*tch a lot.

I think it has been 20 years since anyone has called me a b*tch. No one has ever before called me a shrew. Not so as I heard anyway.

I told him that name-calling wasn’t much of a defense.

Someone else on the thread said that this guy wasn’t really that bad. He just said crazy things when he was bored.

Then I sent a message to my fb friend apologizing for the scene in her thread. She told me he’d been asked many times not to say certain rude things, but he always just replied that she didn’t have a sense of humor. She couldn’t unfriend him because he was the husband of a good friend. She understood how I felt, but I was wasting my time.

She deleted the post, which was probably for the best.

I’m sure I didn’t get this guy to change his mind. So why bother to say anything?

But why not call him out? Why not let him know that not everyone thinks he’s funny. If the other women in the post had stood up to him, maybe at the very least he’d have slunk away.

People have the right to say obnoxious things. Other people have the right to say, Hey, what you said was obnoxious.

The gist of his comment that irritated me had to do with women needing Oprah to tell them what to read while men could make decisions for themselves. And the original facebook post my friend made was about a mutual friend getting her novel chosen for Oprah’s book list. (That’s another post.)

So, do you argue or do you let things go?

Women Are Awesome. How about if We Stop Murdering Them?

I don’t remember when I started to care about women. (And I’m not going to say women’s issues because it’s not a self-contained status sort of thing. We’re half the population—-nothing special interest about that.)

In grad school I complained about a professor who told the class his favorite bar was called “The Silent Woman” and out front it had a picture of a woman with her head chopped off. I was told he had tenure and to go away.

In college I complained about a physics professor who said, “You ladies with your pressure cookers will understand this…” I was given extra points on my grade and told to go away.

In 10th grade a male classmate who sat next to me in the computer class told me repeatedly how he was going to find out where I lived, force his way in, and show me how he was “a real man.” I complained to the office. They told me to avoid him and try not to provoke him. (Even by sexist standards, I failed to understand this. I was a flat-chested, make-up-less bookworm. Short of not existing, I didn’t see how I wasn’t going to provoke him.)

In 7th grade I was sent to the office for slapping a boy. He had me pinned to a wall and was about to punch me. He wasn’t sent to the office. I didn’t get into trouble because, as the guidance counselor said, everyone knew I was “really a nice girl.”

In 5th grade I had a button on my person that read, “A woman’s place is every place.” I’d found the button in a bowling alley parking lot. I think it had already been run over. But I pinned it to my purse.

In 3rd grade I complained to teachers about a boy because, “He shouldn’t be talking to girls that way.” He had looked up my skirt and asked me to kiss him. I kicked him really hard. I was told to play nice. He got in no trouble at all.

And those are only the moments I’m going to share.

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of about violence against women around the world and in school shootings. And today I read a piece riffing on the famous quote, “Well-behaved women seldom make history”.

And another piece about having The Right Reader.

It’s funny how everyone agrees with the saying, “You can’t please everyone,” until they’re the one not pleased.

Recently a male facebook friend made disparaging comments about the Duchess of Cornwall–Camilla Parker Bowles. His main complaint wasn’t that Charles had cheated on his wife. Sure that was bad. But the bigger sin was to cheat on his wife with someone ugly, and he hoped the if William ever cheated on Kate, it would be with someone pretty.

I am insecure about my looks, and I had to ask my friend if he really thought that women judge unattractive were underserving of loving relationships. Really? Honestly, while I think Charles is a cad, I reluctantly admire his ability to devote himself to a woman whose looks are constantly insulted in the media. Here is a man who ignored his pretty, young wife for an older, dowdy woman. How cliche breaking is that?

In most places a woman is only as valuable as she is pretty. And virtuous.

I think one reason I had trouble killing a character in a short story recently was because that character was a teenage girl. Before her death, she had not been virtuous… Gosh, now I’m rethinking the ending again. Don’t we have enough violence against women and girls? Then again, because it happens, shouldn’t we write about it?

So, I realize that my “right reader” would be someone who cares about women too.

Do you ever consider how your characters reflect the culture or an issue that matters to you? And I don’t mean being didactic about it. Just, do you consider such things?