Andy ✌️

but empathy and communication are innately a woman's trait, right? at least, that's how they are gendered. isn't that how we explain away all those so-called "biological" differences in roles between men and women. isn't that why so many women take on emotional labor. why we dominate communication-based fields. women are supposed to be talkative, gossipy. women are just better, supposedly, at anything "feelings"-oriented. if it's natural - well, no fault of the system!

i cannot tell you how carefully the average woman watches what she says. not every woman, certainly - there are genuine assholes in every gender. but an angry woman is very quickly labelled bitchy or hysterical. we are supposed to be catty, not outright violent. a scared woman yelling is overreacting. even laughing may be labelled shrill. how many of us have written down our feelings into the notes app first. journaled about it before raising our voices. went to the seminar on conflict resolution.

meanwhile masculinity is recalcitrant. it is restrained. it is stoic. a "real" man rarely speaks. unless it is a violent rage, he holds it all in. (ironically, a man on one of their 3 million podcasts says men take action, we don't speak). within the last 5 hours, my father said that real women don't "overtake" their man. they let the man just "be" a man. and how many times have men made the second joke - well, of course i'm not listening. that the wife babbles in the background, and the man (who is somehow straight?) just tries to tune her out in lieu of the television.

so two things must be true at once, then. women need to be entirely aware of and in control of their own emotions - and consistently capable of accurately expressing them to an unwilling, unhelpful audience. men know they don't listen, they're proud of it. but when that communication fails, it is your problem.

but hope springs into eternal damnation, doesn't it. you have had the same conversation with him six, eight, twenty, a hundred times. about how you're feeling burnt out. about how it bothers you when he ignores you and plays video games instead. about how when he doesn't ask you questions about your day, it makes you feel ignored and rejected. about how you need to be comforted. you have laid it all out for him, tried to make it as simple and executable as a manager's directive - here is what i need and how to get it. short of a powerpoint presentation, you've tried everything.

and then you see the socks on the wet bathroom floor and you've asked him so many times to not leave clothing there, it will get covered in mold, and you hate picking up wet clothes. work was hard and your back is hurting again and you also need to take care of a million more things. you are planning a trip and you have to pick up a friend's birthday present and you need to figure out dinner again. and there are socks on the ground, and you know logically the problem is essentially nonexistent. it is essentially nothing, in the grand scheme of things.

so what are you going to do about it? go into the next room and explode at him? you've done that before, you were labelled crazy for being upset at socks. or you could just pick up the socks and avoid the confrontation, but it will make you fucking angry at him, which will label you cold and a bitch. you could leave the socks to mold (fuck his weaponized incompetence) but you just don't want to be in the same house where mold is. and you could go out there, and again fucking explain to him - i work too. i am fucking exhausted, and this is overwhelming. it is my house too. please don't make me do your chores for you. just for him to mock you. oh socks aren't such a big thing and you were already cleaning.

so you pick up the socks, because of course you do. and you picture the entire fucking conversation, and how you could possibly frame it in a way that actually makes sense. how you could possibly communicate to a being that sometimes appears to only speak to you in a different language. hurr durr, men are just so stupid about these things. they can't help it! it's natural! it's just how their brains function! he will stare at you slack-jawed and blank-faced, and that will make you want to actually fucking punch him. the loneliness that will cause - it could tear you in twain.

but the longer it takes for him to notice your ire, the more it makes you sad and sick and devastated. you're a feminist. you promised yourself you would never love a person who causes you this kind of distress. but he does eventually notice. and he will be strange and kind of already-irritated. he will say why are you upset. he will not use kind, thoughtful language. he will treat it like a game, like something you created. he will imply, however casually, you are being over-sensitive. and you will say i'm fine because honestly you are trying to be fine about it. you want to let it pass. you don't want to be like this. and later he will ask again; and you repeat it. when you finally (if ever) actually admit - you left your socks on the wet floor again - he will laugh, act like you could have always complained about it. and at that point, the rage will have mostly burned off. you will feel a little bit silly too. like maybe you shouldn't have ever been upset about it.

he will not reflect on his actions. he will not worry about why it's happening. he will chalk it up to one of those crazy distances between men and women; like you are some kind of alien robot that functions without clear and present instruction. as if you never talked to him. as if he has never met a woman. as if you are so foreign you might as well be an octopus to him. all those nights you've wept, all those careful conversations - well; who knows the mind of women.

and then he will get up on stage. and he will say - isn't this a funny thing? they know they're upset, but they won't tell you why! you're just supposed to guess!