If were a man - article in Guardian magazine

[Bloodybridget]

Just reading . this article by Rebecca Solnit in yesterday's Guardian magazine, about why women still feel often that they have to apologise for or minimise their success. Wonder if anyone has read and wants to talk about it. I've been a lesbian all my adult life so have not had that issue with a partner, but the non-reciprocal conversations, mansplaining etc all ring bells.

Yeah I thought it was a great article, and I recognised for the first time (lifelong feminist, had mostly relationships with women in my 20s) that my XP/DD's dad's need to constantly be best and to get very prickly about anything that I might know more about wasn't just because he was a twat, it was because he was a male twat! It seems really obvious now that it wasn't just a random quirk of his personality but actually a design feature.

The bit about not being able to move around the place freely really resonated with me too. I think about it in relation to XP. On the one hand I kind of think we are equal but on the other he has had such an incredible amount of freedom 1. because he has walked away from any childcare, and 2. because he doesn't face the constant intrusion on space and fear of attack that I do.

I will read the article again as I think it was v well written but also needs a lot of taking in. I am starting (again) to feel full of rage about the invisibility of what women have to put up with, or how it's always thought about as millions of individual problems rather than a wider attack on women as a group.

Op,
This was a great article - thank you for pointing it out. And agree with Summer - I need to go back and read it again.

Ah, thanks for responding, both. Absolutely, Summer, re intrusion on space and fear of attack. It does drive me mad when I read travel articles by male writers about their solo adventures in various furrin parts with no apparent awareness that it is male privilege that enables them to do it and male violence that makes it practically impossible for women.

Yes, that line about not being able to wander lonely as a cloud, if you constantly fear attack, was very striking.

It definitely resonated with me. I used to run and sometimes would want to go through a beautiful, lonely area with fields, flowers etc. But if I was alone, I never did. I went along the street instead, because there are people and traffic and a greater feeling of safety. I never actually made a conscious choice about it, I just automatically wrote off the idea of going to isolated places by myself, even in the middle of the day, because the threat of male violence is such a constant, unacknowledged and unrecognised presence, that I didn't even know that's why I wasn't running through the field and open woodland area I wanted to. I just thought I was being sensible. Because that's how our society frames it.

It's a great article, lots to pick out, thanks for posting it.

What Summer said with her points 1 and 2! It was a good article, OP, thanks for sharing it.

As regards the fear of being attacked and not going into less populated places, I've always felt that I am not too bothered but every now and again I have an experience which makes me realise that this fear is deep-rooted and definitely there. However, I don't want to hijack this thread so will start another one on that subject.

the invisibility of what women have to put up with, or how it's always thought about as millions of individual problems rather than a wider attack on women as a group.

This.

I'm single after a 13 year relationship and looking to date and the top thing on my list is finding a man who doesn't mind that I am really fucking brainy. It is the absolute no 2 thing (no 1 is single)

It's taken me a year to get over the defensive put-downs from my thinks-he's-clever-but-knows-he's not-quite-as-clever-as-me ex. I eat differently and talk differently now I'm getting over it. Colours look different. Music sounds different.

I went out with old work friends last night and walked in and the first man I said hello to looked puzzled into my eyes and said "you look so..... vibrant".

I will never put myself (in a personal capacity, work is different) in the orbit of a defensive little man like that again. It's great to know what I'm looking for!

the worst thing about being better (at anything) than your male partner is, in a line from Anne Enfield (paraphrased I'm sure, by memory) that "you have to do everything, AND apologise for doing it"

"you look so..... vibrant"

That's bloody wonderful - what a great compliment, Anti! Not quite the same thing, but I left a job where I'd been dealing with overbearing and bullying management for over 10 years and, although it took a while, when I bumped into former colleagues from other departments over th next year they all commented on how much happier, younger (!) and more relaxed I looked. It was when I caught myself bellowing with laughter at a work team-building event, I realised how long it was since I'd been so joyful in a work setting. Oppressive relationships, whatever form they take, gradually squeeze all the lightness and joy out of you. It's such a relief to break free.