New Project: Chapter 6
Six
In this country, men are given the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Women are told if they do it right and give enough they’ll live happily-ever-after.
I knew better. Really, I did. Happily-ever-after is a convenient myth to keep girls under control. Since I never was “good,” I never expected happily-ever-after, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want it or think I could eventually earn it.
Steve was home to me. I belonged with him. Everything felt right in his arms. He loved my mind as much as my heart. He cheered me, bragged about me, bolstered me, and supported me in all the ways I’d ever wanted. Smart and good looking with warm dimples and slim hips, he was perfect. I scarcely believed I deserved him. Still, I’d fought hard for independence and success. I knew what I’d done and could do it again. That made me worthy of him.
Unlike most men I’d met, Steve wasn’t looking for a good housekeeper. Though he enjoyed my meals, he didn’t expect me to cook. He loved that I used tools and thought my welding cool. My scars were jewels that adorned me. He had favorites – the long, lean ridge across my right shoulder blade, the crisscross of fine white lines that covered my forearm – but he loved them all. In short, he was everything I’d hoped for and happily-ever-after was in my grasp. He just had to choose me again and again.
The moment I told him he was my world I abdicated liberty and threw equality to the wind. His choosing became my be-all, beginning, and maybe end because after a short time I didn’t think I could breathe without him.
“The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves…”
I gave to Steve in every way.
In spite of this, we remain together today.
Some of that is love. Some is luck. Some might be the ring he eventually put on my finger, but I don’t think so. I think we’re still together because he was smart enough to tell me I can’t have it both ways.
I hated him for saying it. From my narrow, feminist lens, our problems were his fault, not mine. I felt powerless in our relationship. I’d studied the Duluth Wheel and knew without a doubt that he controlled me, intentional or not, and our fights were my attempt to combat that.
Like most men I’d met, Steve exhibited some controlling behaviors. When I lost my income, I had to ask him for money when I needed to pay bills. I didn’t sign on his personal checking account and wasn’t on record as an officer in his corporations. When I objected to minimizing behaviors, he made light of them, denied them, or made them my fault. Instead of asking me to stop what I was doing to serve him, he bellowed a command from the couch. Thankfully, he never said, “Bring me a beer,” but it was bad enough.
In my mind, I had the right to pick fights over these issues. Each time I did, Steve proclaimed I did the same things. If I objected to his picking up his phone while we were talking because something else crossed his mind, he’d argue that I’d done it earlier that day. He’d admit he did it more frequently, but, because I did it too, that made it okay. Then, he’d point out the difference between us: when I did whatever it was, he didn’t get mad. He just thought it cute.
That infuriated me. I didn’t want to be cute. I wanted to him to take me seriously. I used metaphor to win the argument and compared the situation to shaving. If I didn’t shave my legs, he suffered no ills. If he didn’t shave, he tore my face up when we kissed. Just because he didn’t mind me not shaving didn’t mean I had to suffer him not shaving. He retorted. That was a physical issue and my discomfort with things like phone calls was a choice. Oh, he made me mad, but at the time I would only acknowledge hurt. Women are not supposed to get angry with men. Anger is reserved for disciplining children and, if placed elsewhere, might end (or change) the world.
Women live in fear of violence against them. In her book, My Life on the Road, Gloria Steinem says “Violence against females … has now produced a world with fewer females than males, a first in recorded history.” Every day, women are beaten, raped, and murdered in numbers that cause those intimate with them to shudder. Collectively, we ignore a crisis so deep and systemic as to alter the balance of nature because challenging it escalates it.
To compound the problem, the conviction that women somehow deserve the violence inflicted upon them is not gender specific. Women also believe they’re to blame. It’s our fault for being women. We are original sin. We failed to remain virgins. We will never be like Mother Mary. Our plight is that of Magdalene. Women are shamed and abused for their sexuality.
As of this writing, over 3,000 women and girls ranging in age from eight to thirty are enslaved by ISIS. They are sold repeatedly and raped multiple times a day. Rescue efforts had managed to free more than a hundred women a month, but costs exhausted available funds. Now, the world watches and does little to help. Can you imagine any other group of hostages treated with such disdain? Where are our world leaders offering humanitarian aid? Where are the protests and petitions? Why does abuse of women so seldom take center stage?
That rarity, that lack of justice, keeps women worldwide emotionally enslaved, even when the captors are, at least partially, figments of their imaginations.
The day I asked Steve to put me on his personal account, he did. He had no idea that opening that account had caused me such distress. He opened it because he changed work locations and wanted a closer bank. His actions weren’t malicious or even thought out and yet they caused me consternation so severe it took me years to talk about.
On the way to the bank, he reminded me that he didn’t sign on my business account either. His words were a slap in the face. I’d done exactly what he did at exactly the same bank for exactly the same reason and it never occurred to me to put him on the account. More, that fact didn’t bother him. This time, I had no choice but to pay attention. Why weren’t our viewpoints the same?
