When I’m faced with blatant misogyny, my immediate reaction
isn’t anger; it’s confusion. I find it utterly mystifying that anyone could think
that I have any less authority on my body and my own experience, so much so
that it gives them the right to dismiss it altogether.
I know for a fact that I’m a human being, and I’ve always
found it odd when someone treats me like I’m not. Yet somehow, I can relate to men’s
experiences, but many of them can’t relate to mine.
Misogyny happens on a lot of levels, and at varying degrees
of subtlety. It’s every time I’m automatically questioned on something that I
know to be factual and true. Telling someone I know something to be factual and
true isn’t always enough to convince them; neither is a bibliography.
It’s when I’m expected to clean up after someone else at the
office. It’s when someone keeps hitting on me even after I’ve told them—explicitly—that I’m not interested. It’s when I’m followed on the street for
a few blocks, for reasons that only include having a vagina.
It happens when the NY Post publishes a piece by Kyle Smith
purporting that women can’t possibly understand “GoodFellas.”
Smith is right that “GoodFellas” is, among other things, a
male fantasy, but not in the way he thinks. The male characters in the movie are
an incarnation of masculinity, itself the ideal of maleness that’s constantly
shoved down our collective throats. He describes what he thinks guys want to
be, without considering that he’s actually buying into the idea of what guys
are told they’re supposed to be.
It’s too bad that his imagination is so limited, but it also
explains why he doesn’t stop to reflect on why men and women might experience a
movie differently.
He’s also wrong to assume women don’t like ball-busting. Put
a bunch of us together on ladies’ night, and the kinds of things we talk about
would make men blush. In fact, the bulk of Smith’s piece demonstrates that he
really doesn’t get women at all. Worse still, he’s not interested in
trying to.
Women are very much aware of what the fantasy of maleness looks
like, and because it’s the standard, even those of us who argue against it can
still appreciate it, in part because we’ve been conditioned to value (and
validate) the male experience over our own.
He’s wrong that women can’t understand the structure of that
fantasy; we’re expected to come through on femininity, which is designed to
satisfy the fantasy of male desire; and we’re humiliated if we do, damned if we
don’t. Even Smith’s piece lives up to that behavior: praise be to Karen for
busting Henry’s balls; shame on her for expecting Henry to treat her decently
on their dates.
Unfortunately, it’s nearly pointless to argue with the Kyle
Smiths of the world. They’ve been conned into a narrative that’s very
convenient for them, so, on some level, I can actually understand the need to
cling to that narrative.
It’s how I also totally get why someone like Smith isn’t
willing to entertain the notion that women could possibly be on par with men
when it comes to comprehension. It explains why he didn’t bother to ask female
critics about “GoodFellas.” In reading his piece, we have to assume the only
woman whose opinion he solicited was his ex-girlfriend’s…that one time in 1991.
Equality requires a big shake-up. When the French monarchy
and aristocracy knew that commoners wanted equality, they were scared. To wit, non-nobles
literally beheaded their own ruling class in an attempt to achieve fairness.
The quest for equality is an acknowledgement that equality
is not the status quo. Anyone on the higher rung of that system necessarily
has to relinquish a good deal of the good stuff they’ve become accustomed to;
or, as they tend to fear most, they’ll have to share it.
I understand the structure of power, and I understand how
scary it is to let it go, or at least not to exercise that power in the same
way as before. Oddly, it’s something I can understand without ever having had
said power myself.
We live in the era of Jazmine Hughes, Jamelle Bouie, Laurie Penny, Mallory Ortberg, Lindy West, Roxane Gay and Ta-Nehisi Coates. The status quo is actively being challenged for the fallacy that it is, and the movement has allies on all gender fronts, in all professions.
I feel sorry for Smith, because his piece betrays just
how much he’s been duped. He bought the hack discourse that male and female “reptile”
brains are innately different. He made a generalization based on information
that’s known to be false. His mistake is a big one, and it’s so public that
he’ll have to live with it for a long time.
