Male Bashing
October 28, 1999
4:36 a.m.
It's been too long. So it's time to shake things up again. This means it's time for a new contest, okay? Here's the scoop. We're nearing the 4,000th hit to the new incarnation of the site, so we'll use that as the measuring stick. The first person to e-mail me after the number 4,000 appears on the front cover of the page will get the goodies. What are the goodies, you might ask? If I hit the send button, what fare am I in for, and will it be of my liking? I'm on to you, Collins. So give up the news, all right, or you'll never see your cat alive again. (Geeze, you guys can get a bit serious here, can't you? Remember, this is just a game. Wouldn't want any stampedes or gun wielding psychopaths to go gaga over this -- although, I AM worth it. Well, maybe.) THE GOODSThe winner's package contains the following: 1 copy Writers of the Future, vol XV, signed by one of the featured authors (moi). Okay, I'll admit that's a pretty healthy package. In keeping with the new Web tradition, I'll also note that you should be prepared to provide me with your address.
  Good. I feel better now that this is out of the way. This morning is ideally the day I'll finish "Gazebo." I'm kind of doubting I'll actually get it done, though, because I'm breaking habit here and writing this before I get my writing done. Call me a rebel. I was reading Tamela's journal the past day or so, wherein over the course of an entry or three she touches upon ideas of why white males feel somehow put upon these days. Among the thoughts she puts forward is that men feel less useful today than they used to feel. She quotes feminist Susan Faludi as saying "I discovered that many men are in crisis because society no longer offers them a feeling of being useful to their community and family." Then it goes on. I recommend you read it, because I'm not going to repeat it here in its entirety when I can just use what the Web does best. Personally, I think this thought is only half-baked. At least it is in my case. In my personal case, I feel over-useful right now. But that's another story. What I like about the quote, and Tamela's entire collection of entries on the subject, is that it's an example of feminists pulling themselves out of their own arena of thought and trying to truly understand what the "other side" is thinking and feeling. (We do realize thinking and feeling are two different things, right?) The world needs more of this. Empathy does not mean taking the time to think about how I would feel in your shoes. True empathy is me taking the time to understand how you actually feel, whether it's justified or not, or whether that feeling is correct or not. Nobody likes hypocrisy. Until we understand the other side's argument, and can honestly state it back in such a fashion as our "opponent" agrees that yes, we understand. We're all subject to being seen as hypocrites. I don't let (or try not to let) the current spat of White Male Bashing bother me much, because it's unhealthy to let something so amorphously global keep me from operating at my best. To be honest, I don't even consciously think of it until someone else points it out (of course, there are those who think these things are hard-wired into us through our environment and heredity; I'm sure they're right, so I'll give them that I might unconsciously be concerned). (Whatever). But if pressed, the things that bother me the most about WMB is the cloud of anger and paranoia that seems to be allotted to me because I happen to be white and a male. Please. Read my lips. I do not cower in the corner of my room and worry that people of color and women will soon be taking my job away. Go ahead. Take it from me. If you're a better project manager in my field then you deserve the spot. I want to write, anyway! Please, though, don't expect me to give it away. I'm not worried about diversity. Women make just as many good decisions as men. Men make just as many good decisions as women. Yada, yada, yada. Yes, I can occasionally get nervous around people I don't know. And I'll admit fully to having heightened feelings around people of cultures that I don't understand. But most of that comes from my concern over how they are viewing me, not visa versa. As a White Male today, my biggest concern in interacting with a diverse public is that I'll make an honest blunder, and be ostracized for it because someone will assume I'm just a closed-minded bigot from the old school. That's the anger and paranoia I've been assigned. So, what do we do? How do we make things better? Well, we chill. We let global bashing slide off us, because it's not very relevant to our lives anyway, and we focus on things at our own level. We do what Susan Faludi did, and try to take an honest stab at what really drives people we don't understand. If we get it wrong, we try again. That's the human way of learning. It's really the same thing with writing, too. This is why I love being a writer, by the way. I've often said that being a writer makes me a better person. This discussion is an example of how. To write a good character, a believable character, an author (or at least me) has to be able to dissociate himself from himself (or herself!) and truly understand that individual. To write a good story, we have to be able to see it as a whole, and understand what makes it work. It's a skill. A few years ago, that skill wasn't as strong as it is today, and hopefully a few years from now it will be even stronger. We write a story and make it the best we can. If it doesn't work, we have to look at the characters and make them more real. We have to look at the structure and make changes that bring out the truth of the story. We remove barriers that obscure that same truth. Then we move to the next story. Next thing you know, it's a year later and we're better writers. And better people, too.  Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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Lee Morton, 42, a pilot from Brownsburg, Ind., ... was reading Men Are frm Mars ... in the living room, while his wife, Patty, 42, a mother of two and a former engineer, was watching basketball in the family room. "We were going through lots of stuff, with babies and houses," Lee says, " so I thought I'd try to explain my feelings and ask what she was feeling." "All of a sudden he walks in the room," Patty recalls, laghing, "and he wants t know, Am I Happy?" Her answer? "Get out of here. I'm trying to watch the play-offs!" TIME Magazine "When Venus Crosses Mars" by Francine Russo October 11, 1999 |
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