Private, Public

It is a theme of this blog that men get raised to have public lives and women get raised to have private lives and as women move into the paid work force, this is creating a LOT of problems. 

At some point some years ago, I saw a piece on Hacker News that I probably couldn't identify if I wanted to where a gal accused her ex-boyfriend of abusive behavior and I think she and the new girlfriend both showed up in comments. That's moderation nightmare fuel right there. 

We hear all the time "Believe the woman" if she says she was sexually assaulted, sexually harassed or abused by her man. Frankly, that doesn't work because being born with girl bits doesn't automatically make you an excessively honest paragon of virtue.

Planet Earth has a problem because historically if you lived in a small community and had a dysfunctional marriage, people knew what was going on. The Romans had a saying along the lines of "You don't get raped in the top bunk."

I lived in Germany in my twenties. You go to cities where the center of town is hundreds of years old and you WALK into the old part of town as a tourist experience. If you're some fool American with a four-wheel drive American-made vehicle and make the mistake of driving in while the streets get narrower and narrower and you HOPE you can get through because you sure as hell won't be backing out, I hope you don't have high blood pressure or something. And rest assured, next time you'll park it elsewhere and walk it if you have any sense. 

In olden times, even a city was a small community with narrow streets and thin walls where everyone knew everyone's business. So when a homemaker had trouble with her man, everyone within a half mile radius of her house could testify in court and tell you with confidence who did what. 

Post World War II, we are awash in North American Affluenza and mostly live in single family detached houses in the 'burbs and if you are home all day, your neighbors may know essentially nothing about you. And your man likely has a public reputation because of his well-paid job that pays for that big house in the burbs and no one really knows YOU and your character and how honest you are and the reality is abusive men may behave like gentlemen in public and be abusive behind closed doors.

And it gets more complicated at work because that he said, she said garbage gets uglier when there is no means for a man to be adequately above reproach and us women have bad habits from being raised to be homemakers that men reasonably and innocently misinterpret.

I absolutely am not writing about my corporate experiences to drag any of the men I worked with. If you think that's my goal, try reading pieces on this site, Eclogiselle and Witness to Destruction about people in Aberdeen, Washington. In one case, I state unequivocally I'm certain a man whose name I don't recall was a polite rapist and I give sufficient information to identify him.

I wrote a piece earlier today elsewhere and I linked to some pieces here, including A Tale of Two Men. There is an additional piece about one of those two men on this site and part of what I say is:

I was happy to talk with him. I'm chatty anyway. But at some point I realized he would probably asked me for a date if he ever ended up single because it's lonely at the top and most people were very cold to him at work, uncomfortably aware of the power he wielded, so my warmth towards him was an anomaly even though I wasn't trying to be anything but diplomatic and my ideas about that are out of step with the norm.

And I realized that, at least in theory, I would say yes if he asked me for a date because at some point I realized he's not the uptight Christian I thought he was, no, he's merely at least a decade older than I first thought -- so his body language is conservative because he reserves his energy for working -- and when we ate at the same table he said he eats microwave meals sometimes when his wife travels.

He was probably attracted to me and would likely feel extremely uncomfortable if someone asked him about that, though he was a perfect gentleman and never did one thing wrong. He was in charge of half of the department in a Pink Collar Ghetto and he could teach classes in how to behave yourself around women at work.

I'm the moron with no sense who thought it was no big deal to ask one of the big bosses if I could sit with him. That's the reason he felt weirdly comfortable with me. 

I also sat near and casually conversed with the guy who called me Doll because he ran into me outside of work and didn't know my name. And he imagined it was okay to hit on me because I didn't have a cow about that slip of the lip.

I'm not writing to smear any of the men I worked with. I'm also not writing to vouch for their character. 

I try to tell MY story in hopes of casting light on the details of how things go wrong. If I want to lambast someone, rest assured I'm perfectly capable of giving my unvarnished opinion in writing on the public record if I'm certain I'm correct in my assertions and have appropriately provided adequate provisos outlining the limits of what I can prove in case it goes to court.

The guy I called Mr. Skeevy was probably a relative Johnny come lately. My two bosses were both women and likely had worked there longer and openly adored him in a manner that looks questionable for a professional relationship. Given their seniority, if there was anything inappropriate going on, I would start with the assumption HE was the victim.

My two female bosses habitually paraded pregnant women past their cubicles and instructed them to POSE -- "Oh, turn and let me see the belly!" -- while they moaned and groaned orgasmically for the entire department to hear.

If two men did that even once they would probably be promptly fired. I found it pukeworthy and couldn't believe this was allowed to go on.

When I was in therapy in my twenties, one of the books I read was about the ten most common sexual fantasies of women. Guess what's one of the top ten sexual fantasies women use to get themselves off?

Fertility. 

I don't get it. I don't remember most of the others because they didn't seem weird to me but this one always made me shake my head because like have you ever been pregnant????? Why would that idea help you reach orgasm in bed?????????

I don't understand it, but I know that's scientifically documented. So I'm looking at this SHIT at work thinking "I bet they are closeted gay women and I know from overhearing their personal phone calls at work they have shit marriages. This is probably their only sexual satisfaction in life."

For bonus points, my lead spent all her time trying to lose weight, had dyed her hair red, gotten contact lenses to ditch the glasses and completely changed how she dressed like someone on the lamb trying to not be recognized because it's not like she genuinely had an interest in fashion nor looked in the slightest more attractive after all that time, money and effort.

I'm trying to talk about where things go wrong in hopes we can come up with better answers. Please pretend this is a non-Christian Bible and my message is "We are ALL sinners."

In other words: We are ALL making stupid mistakes because 99 percent of us have no idea how women are supposed to behave professionally regardless of what gender we are.

I'm not saying men who make mistakes at work are necessarily bad people. I'm saying we simply do not have good rules for how to do this dance.

And we need solutions. I have fantasies my writing will serve as part of the solution, not part of the problem. 

Reality: The way to bet is this is a pointless waste of my time accomplishing nothing whatsoever and will never get traction.