CONFESSION # 2: I STRUGGLE WITH ANDROPHOBIA

Artwork: Androphobia
By Skitch

THEN:


In 1990 I was working for the big corporation that sells cheap crap from overseas put together by the exhausted and underpaid workers in countries that don't have a minimum wage or even child labor laws. You know the company. My son-in-law, X, calls it "The Big Blue Devil". 

I started out as a cashier, but within just a month or so they figured out that I was capable of smiling and helping older folks get a buggy, so I was designated "door greeter." The problem with that position was that all six assistant managers (or was it seven) thought they were in charge of it, and they all had their own ideas about how the duties of "greeting" and "theft prevention" should be carried out. Each day as they arrived they gave me pointers and how-tos that almost always contradicted with what one or more of their peers had told me. I had to keep up with the various managers and their preferences, and if two of them that had conflicting ideas worked on the same day, well, I just had to mix it up and hope I was doing things they way they approved of when they walked around the corner. It was a little like playing the lottery except there was no money and no fun involved.  A few months of that nonsense and I managed to get myself transferred to the ladies wear department where I hung up new clothing and hung up old clothing that some insensitive person threw in the floor or on top of the pop display. I let people into and out of the dressing rooms, and I answered the phones. I liked that a lot better than the other two positions I'd held there, but I still had to occasionally deal with conflicting ideas from the assistant managers.

During this flipping and flopping all over the store, I got to know most of the employees. My favorite cousin worked there with me and a girl I had gone to school with that had been a grade or two above me, but mostly the faces were new. If someone had asked me about my favorite new face, I wouldn't have hesitated. There was a talkative fellow named Don that worked there, and I was not alone in thinking he was one great guy. He always had a smile and a funny story ready, and you got the idea that he knew, really knew, what kindness was all about.

After a while, Don began to talk to me about his plans to open his own business. He and his bride wanted to open a photography business, and he asked me if I would like to assist them. I'm not sure if this was because we had talked about a shared love of photography or if he simply liked the fact that I could be friendly and show up every day. I loved the idea of working for two human beings instead of The Big Blue Devil and all it's assistant manager heads, and I loved the idea of working with something artistic that pulled at my mind and soul the way photography did. But something kept me from saying yes to his offer. That something, though I liked to kid myself about how brave and strong I was, was fear.

I had a very dear friend that had been raped by an employer and it had scarred both of us. She threatened to go to the police and her boss said, "Yeah, and I'll tell them you agreed to it at the time. Who are they going to believe, me or a little whore like you?"

My friend was not a whore, but the man that had raped her owned half the town he lived in. He knocked her down, (causing her head to crash into a shelf behind her) pulled off her jeans while she still could not think straight, and raped her while she cried and begged him to stop. Outside that room where he did this evil deed, he was a business man, a husband, a father, and a respected member of society. She didn't feel confident that she could survive the disbelief that so many people would have, let alone the prosecuting attorney's questions, or the shame of everyone simply knowing that she had "let this man get the best of her". So, she went home and showered away all the evidence while she sobbed her eyes dry. She vowed to put it all behind her, but to this day it is not behind either of us and that was over 30 years ago.

In 1990, I talked to her about wanting to work as a photographer's assistant. I told her how nice this fellow seemed and how much and how happily he talked about his bride. I told her I wanted to work for humans instead of a corporation. I talked of creativity and making something beautiful that might even outlive me. I told her that the only thing stopping me was the idea that this man might be like the one she used to work for. That he might be like the guy that treated her kindly when people were looking and then damaged her inside and out when they weren't. How could you ever know?

She understood all of this and I could see that she wanted to encourage me to take the chance, but I could also see my own fears mirrored in her eyes. She suggested that I take the job but carry mace with me at all times. I thought it over, but I was not even brave enough to do that. 

When I met my current husband he was working now and then for his best friend Don who had a successful photography business. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be the same Don! I told my future husband how much I had looked up to Don when we worked together and that I had turned down the offer to help out when he first started the business. I even mentioned it to Don when I saw him again, but he did not seem to remember. Maybe he offered the position to several people and forgot that I was one of them. Maybe I thought he was offering me a job when he was just planning out loud. I don't know. I do know that, looking back, I wish I had said, "I'd love to help you out with that!" Looking back, I wish I had taken many chances that I did not have the courage for at the time. Don and his wife Melissa are some of the dearest friends we have, and now I can say that I would trust him to never hurt me. Not only have I come to realize that men are often as gentle and trustworthy as women (as a child I thought my daddy was the only one!) but I've gotten to know Don better, and I truly believe anyone would be safe in his presence, under any circumstances. He is a true gentleman and I was right: he knows, really knows, what kindness is all about.

My fears are not as intense now, but I still have to face them now and then. My husband struggles to understand them. I have attempted to explain to him what it feels like to know that this other person you are alone with would win in a physical confrontation 99 out of 100 times. I tried to explain what it is like to know that you are largely at their mercy, that only their "civilization" keeps you safe. 

When I was a teen, several boys delighted in showing me they were bigger and badder than I was. The ones that came to blows with me lost because they were not my friends, and I was filled with rage at the injustice of my small stature, so rageful that I held nothing back. Add to that, the fact that they did not want to be known as someone that would hit a girl, or they were kinder than I knew, or they were too shocked to properly fight back. Who knows for sure why I won those confrontations? Rarely, did they hit me after the first blow or assault that set me off. Mostly, I pummeled their shocked faces and then stomped away. The ones that won in these confrontations were my "friends" and my relatives. They made a joke of it; they won laughingly. They held me down just to show me they could. They pinched me or fondled me when I did not want them to. They pushed me up against walls and shoved their knee between my legs. They seemed to scream, "See? I could have whatever I wanted." They made of my safety both a gift and a joke. They left me hating the fact that I was female.

One of them, a cousin, forced me to hold his hand for what seemed like ages, his palm sweaty against my skin that never grew damp. (My hands have no sweat glands or oil glands.) I pleaded and reasoned, but to no avail. He held my hand captive until I was on the verge of bringing things to blows myself because I felt so overpowered, so trapped, so insignificant that it boiled my blood into a near-fury. He told me, "I'm doing this for your own good because you shouldn't be so jumpy about people touching you." And added, "I'll let you go as soon as you stop pitching a fit about it!" I had been pulling hard at my hand until it hurt. I had been reasoning, threatening, pleading with him in a loud whisper. So, I tried to remain calm, but it was all an act. Inside my blood was alive with indignation, and I wanted to cut him as I had so often cut myself. We were in my home and my family was sleeping. I could have called my dad and he would have given his nephew hell just for pissing me off. I threatened to wake the house, but my cousin called my bluff, and deep down, I loved him and I pitied him. He seemed so lost in the world. He did not have a dad like mine. Because of that, I managed to pretend to be calm until he let go of my hand, but there is to this day a small flame of indignation and pain that flickers inside me when I remember that night. 

The guys that instilled this fear in me were my relatives and my friends and many of them I loved, but the guys I eventually felt safe with were the ones that never deemed it necessary to prove they could hold me down, or pinch me on the breasts or hips despite my objections, or hang onto my hand when I wanted them to let go of me. Still, many guys paid the price for what I had been shown by others, and I am sure that I neglected even getting to know some very nice fellows because the ones I knew and loved had already made me so insecure. The "bad" males made me afraid of the "good" ones.

And then my dear friend was raped. When she told me about it, I cried for days.

I have struggled all my life to come to terms with the reality that I am not only female but small, and to come to grips with this fear I carry of men. For so many years, I envied males very much! It took becoming the mother of sons to finally begin to understand the opposite sex. Without the right guidance, I see how easily a boy could think they were "just goofing off" and that "no harm was done." And in the physical world, which is where they live, they were largely right. My friends and family did no, or very little, harm to me physically, but inside my soul they wounded me. They scarred me deeply. They hurt me and they continue to hurt me to this day. 

Still, these days I find it easy to forgive them. I see now that they live in that physical world so boldly that it causes them to struggle harder, I think, than females do to understand the other worlds we live in. They thrive in the physical and struggle with practically everything else. They are daunted by the emotional, the social, the spiritual, and even the intellectual realms more than women are. The physical world clouds all else for them. I see how uncomfortable they are with same sex affection, with their own pain and fears, with social skills, and even with focusing on their studies. I see how easily the physical world distracts them. I understand that my sons could have made similar mistakes on top of similar mistakes. I forgive my offenders because of that, and because I now suspect that I was mistaken in thinking that life would have been so much easier if I had been born male. Sure, they have the power and they make the money. In a test of physical strength they will win 99 out of 100 times. But they pay a price for those boons. They struggle so much more just to know who they are, to be in touch with each other, with God, with their own soul. They lack the sense of community and union that females share. They make war on each other and they cannot ever be mothers. They puch when they want to hug. They name call when they want to say sweet words to each other. This is sometimes true of my own sons, who were rased as outside of the macho expectations as I could get them. I now suspect that it's just as hard to be a male in this world as it is to be a female, perhaps even harder. I certainly don't envy them anymore.

Just because I forgive them, does not mean I see these past incidents as acceptable or unavoidable. If I had it to do over I would love and pity much less in the face of sexual or physical assault. I would wake my daddy without hesitation, realizing now that my fear of his anger toward my cousin was also a fear of mankind. And that somewhere deep inside my head, I could hear the words of my mother telling me, "You don't want two men to fight over you! Men only fight over whores!" I think I was nine years old when she said that and I adopted the idea. No men every fought over me, and my daddy was not even clued in when I needed his protection. I'm sure that's not what my mother had intended, but to me my father raising a stink over some guy holding my hand was "two men fighting over me." And I avoided it very well. 

There is a wonderful quote, attributed to "unknown" that says: "Make your anger so expensive that no one can afford it, and your happiness so cheap that people get it for free." If I had it to do over again, my anger would be massively expensive in those situations. Whatever it took: a firm talk with them, ostracization, a talk with my dad, or even pressing charges with the local police, they would get the point that I was not to be treated that way and that their actions were unacceptable. They would understand that my anger was indeed expensive.

I write this to appeal to young women to do just that: Make your anger expensive. If mothers and fathers are not going to teach males how to treat you then, by God, you better teach them yourself! Understand that they may not mean to hurt you, but do not let them be in doubt about the fact that they did! 

I share this because I hope it will shed light on the differences between men and women, which exist no matter how equally we should be treated. With our kids, we try to be "good" to all of them. What one wants another may not want. What one needs another may not need. And so it is with men and women, individually and (in general) in groups. We should be treated equally well, but we are not the same. 

I write this in hopes that some young man somewhere might think twice before "just goofing off" with his young female friends and family members. That he might make more of an effort to imagine what it would feel like to be at the mercy of 99 out of 100 women. 

I share this in hopes that I can reach out to others that are going through similar situations and let them know they are not alone. We are all on this big, twirling, flying, mass together, and it's high time we worked on understanding each other and being clear about what we need, what we expect, and what we can and cannot tolerate.