Not Me

The entire Internet has been going through the Me Too phenomenon, women (and occasionally men) posting about sexual harassment and abuse and men apologising and saying they didn't know. 

I have nothing to offer.  Unlike the entire rest of the female population, I've never been abused.  I was followed for less than a block on my way to school in third grade by a guy once who walked behind and asked me if I was a good girl, but that's the extent of it.  I'm not a victim of anything; I wasn't even afraid because we'd been warned about him and I made it to school.  I didn't even think about it again for years. 

This kind of movement has always had the effect of making me think there's something wrong with me.  I'm not normal, I haven't been abused, I'm not a victim. 

The assistant stage manager yesterday relayed a story to me.  The set was in place earlier this week, and after rehearsal, she went to walk a particularly complicated actor exit path.  The production manager was in the space, watched her and told her he wasn't comfortable with her doing what she was doing.  She explained that it was some of the blocking in the show and she'd come down to check it on the set, what about it was unsafe?  He explained a couple of details, and asked her not to do that. 

The ASM passed this information on to the director, who was perturbed by this.  The next day, the director came to the ASM and said, "The production manager told me it isn't a problem."  "I'm telling you what he told me," she said.  "Why would he tell you one thing and me another?" asked the director.  "Because I'm a woman."  And the director stopped, she told me, and his eyes got wide and he realised that not only had this not occurred to him, his question made it sound like she had lied to him for some reason, whereupon he apologised for everything.  "Don't be sorry," she said, "This is this industry for me.  Don't be sorry, be aware." 

And she tells this to me like this is something I understand, that I experience, that I recognise.  By and large, no.  I spent a semester working for a technical director who I hated for reasons that were entirely related to his ability to do his job, but he was also sexist.  Years later, when I understood that telling women to smile was a thing men did, I remembered he did tell me to smile once, and I shot back, "I'll smile at your funeral," whereupon he shut the hell up.  Then there was the gay, tenured professor from the year I spent in grad school who found out I was married and, on the first day of class, asked when I was planning to be pregnant.  "I'm not."  "That's what they all say, you wait."  He'd once been married to a woman and had two children.  Presumably, that's his bitter backstory showing, but I don't know.  He was a dick and a terrible writer, and hated everything I did, but that was the extent of the actual misogyny. 

A friend from high school always tells me that she envies my ability to not give a damn about authority and people who treat me poorly, that I stand up for myself.  And maybe that's the difference, that I don't experience this not because it doesn't happen to me, but because I don't categorise it as, "men harrass me because I am a woman," but, "hey you, stop being a jerk to me."  Because I've gone up against more women who have made it clear they think I'm a liar, and a threat to them- most of my teachers were women. 

I could suppose, like Blossom did in her op ed, that it's because I'm not pretty and I don't drink and because I'm smart, and sometimes I do (though, generally not aloud and in public to strangers, because, gee, Blossom, people are going to take your words way out of proportion; it ceases to be self-deprecating when the New York Times publishes it) but I know that implies that the inverse is true of victims of sexual harassment and abuse, and it isn't. 

So, Not Me.  And maybe the question is simply, "when?"

Everything's Coming Up Milhouse

About two months ago, I met a guy for dinner in Union Square.  We've sat down and as we're talking and going over the menus, he observes that I'm from Iowa, where I'd lived almost my entire life, and I haven't been in the city for very long, "Am I running from something?"  "Isn't everyone?" I counter.  I decide to tell him, because the conversation up to now has been good, and if he can't handle it, well, I know now.  I tell him I was married for ten years, and it's this point that our server comes over to ask if we're ready to order.  I've barely had time to look at the menu, never mind figure out what I want.  Sometimes I have an idea and I can make a decision if the other person goes first, but that's not going to do it here. "No," I say to her, "Come back."

From the other side of the table, he tells me later, this story looks a little bit different.

He asks me if I'm running from something and I look visibly concerned, and I think about it for a minute and make the decision to say, "I was married for ten years."  The server, who has been eavesdropping on the conversation from behind us almost from the moment she realised this was a first date, immediately comes over to rescue me, "Are you ready to order?"  So now I have the opportunity to order, change the subject, forget about it and move on in the evening.  She's doing me a favour.  And I, in response to her, snap, "No!  Come back."  I do not need rescuing, I am going to tell the story and I'm OK with that.  The waitress is so shocked by my reaction that she gets another server to take over our table, because she just can't with me anymore.  "She's tough," he thought. 

I did not recognise the second story until it was told to me.  Yes, I noticed that we had a new waitress later on, but I did not put it together that I'd smacked down an opportunity to be rescued from a difficult line of inquiry.  It's not even part of my thinking, that I would stop talking about something that might be uncomfortable once I'd started telling it. 

She is tough, she just doesn't always notice it.