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Sex and Sensibility
Mary Anne — (archived)

We are at a sea change in the relationship between men and women... again.

We are coming to the point where enough women have reached a platform from which we can be heard, and from which we can wield authority over issues for which we have always had responsibility without control.

Transitions are rough, especially for those who are comfortable with the way things have always been. Some react with violence, both actual and symbolic. Some react by capitulating, an act that often takes hidden resentment along for the ride. Some agree, and become allies for change.

Of the allies for change, some are serious and earnest, and some defuse their underlying discomfort with humor and irony. We see this in many shades and combinations.

On the whole, I think that humor is healthy, even when it's borderline offensive, as long as nobody tells me I have to laugh and I'm allowed to tell them why I don't think it's funny.

Gender is a touchy issue, because we never entirely get away from it. I could be any race or ethnicity, and no one would know in this medium. I could have any religious belief, and as long as I didn't bring it up, that would slide too. But gender? Tom said recently, in another discussion, that I could be a bald 50-year-old guy working at a gas station (or something like that -- sorry, Tom) and nobody would know. I agreed. Yet I think that gender does tend to come out in ways of expressing one's self as nothing else. Sometimes it takes the form of flirtation, which is a harmless enough diversion, and if it gets too heavy, I know how to tell a guy to shove off.

In our present state of transition, gender makes a difference, still. So I'm willing to be a good sport and ride it out, knowing that people of good faith will not be pristine in their speech even though their intentions are good.

Art's about my age, whereas you are about 15 years younger, if I count correctly. (Early to mid-30s for you, yes?) You grew up in a world where assertive women were out there in public. He and I grew up in an America of suburban housewives banished from the workplace by postwar prosperity and returning veterans. I appreciate your context: it gives me hope for the future, for my daughters. But I share Art's context with him, so I understand his viewpoint very well.

And though I've never owned a whip in my life (and my only pair of knee-high boots were for slogging through snowdrifts on the walk home from school in my Catholic schoolgirl uniform), I've come by my forthright style of speaking honestly. Compared to the other women in my family, I'm the shy one. Most of the people here wouldn't last half an hour with my 5-foot-3 77-year-old mother. :)

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