Karen: I don't like the socially acceptable fiction that its permissible for women to be so "into their feelings " that they can be fickle and neurotic, and that's ok cos its "just women". I have always had good solid long term female friendships because I ignore the fact that most of the time they're going to have a snit on, and go into some sort of :"very hurt" repertoire.A man would normally be told by his mates to "get over it"...as he should.Once its established that there is mutual affection and concern, then its important not to be too prickly, or to expect too much.And because I accept most women are going to be really silly a lot, then I keep the friendships.
Where they fail is almost inevitably over men.That women feel the need to bitch about their males, and try inexpertly to dissect their relationship, but when I give them some psychological perspective, they immediately go into super protective mode towards their relationship.I have given up trying to help.they only want to bitch, not to change, and not to improve the relationship with any form of self actualisation.They are unhappy in their miserable little dynamic, but they can't face the world outside of it: at least not until they find the next guy same as the old guy to move onto.
And sometimes very "Assertive" women can be just as annoying as the relationship victims.(particularly to work with)using assertive as an incorrect adjective to mean everything from Premenstrual, mindlessly and male-like aggressive,plain old bitchy, nasty and mean, picky and rude..usually just plain rude.
Jennifer Armstrong
Karen, when you talk about women in that way, it is as if you are speaking about aliens, from my perspective. You are revealing, in detail, certain types of behavior of which I have no knowledge. The closest I have been to these kind of women you describe is watching Neighbours TV soap. I sometimes wonder why this makes me feel inwardly sick. That feeling is linked to the fact that the women in particular (but men as well) seem to handle their affairs with so little genuine wit.
Really, I don't know anything about the "very hurt" repertoire. I think that my lack of knowledge here is cultural. When I went back to Zimbabwe recently, I met a lot of Zimbabwean women whom I really came to admire. It doesn't seem to be part of Shona culture, nor is it part of the white colonial culture -- which is still there -- for women to go into this "very hurt" mode. Both of these cultures reflect a much greater stoicism than this. (I was very relieved to find that I was just the same as these women -- although compared to Australian women, I could not be more different.)
Also the trope of "assertiveness" for the sake of it is out of place in both Zimbabwean cultures. Really, you can't have wit if you are to have this kind of assertiveness.
6 comments:
On complaining just to complain: I know men who do this, too. Venting is one thing and it has its place. But complaining just to complain is, I now theorize, a strategy to draw your audience into a depressed type of gestalt, and/or a way to vampirize the audience's energies or otherwise exhaust them.
Do the men who try to do this, only try it on women (thinking it's something women like to engage in)?
I'm not sufficiently immersed in contemporary culture to be able to say anything about males who love to complain. What I do think is that when it is understood that people (male or female) complain just to complain, this devalues the meaning of complaining. So when someone comes along that has a legitimate grievance, they are less likely to be taken seriously. (In fact they are already likely to be disregarded under capitalism anyway.)
Well I've realized that one of my main traumas in life -- the main one actually -- is the assumption that if one complains, it is just to complain. !!!
Yes -- it is mine too. It's the sense that nobody is really listening, that one is in a glass bubble, and that one might face even worse calamities, even die, before somebody will sit up and take notice.
Judith Lewis Herman points out that post-traumatic stress is directly linked to being betrayed by one's community in this way. In the case of capitalist society, one would better say that it is linked to being betrayed by not having any sense of community.
Herman is brilliant and I'd like to take the time to read that book slowly. It's true, that, about capitalist society, too.
Complaining is a waste of time. It presumes that everything will stay the same.
Post a Comment