MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone!

Feminist Rant: part deux

See, here’s how I think. (I know, always a scary introductory sentence, isn’t it? )

I’ll give them credit, Oprah and Dr. Phil and the like have made some important contributions to our society, but Philisms like “if momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy” are dangerous and downright insulting to mature women.

(Mature. Women. Two important, distinguishing words that have nothing to do with the number of years a female has been alive.)

Maybe the Dr. Phil quote was initially intended as empowering permission for females who martyr themselves and unknowingly cause damage to their families by doing so. In that respect, great. But the problem is that quips like that get twisted and wielded into weapons by women who seem to believe that pushing men down is the way to raise themselves up.

“If momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy” offends the hell out of me as a woman and a mother in the context that I hear it frequently used and abused — always by females, by the way.

First of all, it suggests that an unhappy woman will somehow infect everyone around her and make them unhappy as well. Maddeningly there’s significant argument for this, as I see it happen an atrocious amount. I’ve written about it before – I believe one of the most immature and selfish things anyone can do is intentionally use their emotions as license to behave without consequences. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard women cackle about how they’re having a bad day and everyone around them “better watch out”. Boasts and laughter about how bitchy they get with PMS. What the hell is that about? The maturity level of that absolutely boggles my mind.

But even more disturbing to me is that I read the “If momma ain’t happy” thing as saying that it’s the equal responsibility of the man (and the family) to make sure the woman is happy. It’s not. It’s her responsibility. Period. There’s no arguing this point with me. Nobody should be saddled with the job of making someone else happy. Everyone will lose. Contributing to the happiness of someone is fantastic, but trying to create something that isn’t already there, in an environment where it isn’t recognized and may not even be welcome (because then you don’t have the excuse of being unhappy), is damaging and useless for all.

Jan was perfectly happy. Jan was entirely capable of telling Ben if she wanted help putting up the Christmas lights. But before she had a chance to even think if she wanted help, Mary projected onto Jan what Mary felt – and even more selfishly and insultingly – what Mary felt that Jan should feel.

Had I been Jan, I would have turned to Mary and told her just that. In fact, I’ve done that with other Marys in my life, when I was younger and full of anger and pride, and it made for awkward moments for everyone else in the room. But my daughter is far more thoughtful and mature than I was at that age.

An interesting thing is that not saying something in a situation like that can be interpreted many different ways. You may read the below account and think that Jan should’ve spoken up – hell, I would’ve thought that a few years ago. Surely when Mary was scolding and belittling Ben, Jan as his girlfriend could have stepped in and said something, otherwise her silence is permission and acceptance of it all, isn’t it?

Maybe. But if Jan had spoken up, wouldn’t she have been doing the same thing that Mary was doing?

Believe me, there have been MANY times over the years, when Mary has done similar, that I wanted to sit this otherwise warm, generous, big-hearted woman down and told her to cut it the hell out. Told her that she was being disrespectful and insulting to my daughter, and that Jan was perfectly capable of speaking for herself.

Wow, how hypocritical that would’ve been, huh? The irony is so blatantly obvious, it’s like an elephant in the lap. And yet the vast majority of women I’ve known, including myself at times, have completely missed this logic.

I have a permanent groove in my tongue from biting it so often, but the most respectful thing I can do for my daughter is let her fight her own battles. Let her find and choose her own voice, and not make mine louder than hers, in her own life. If Jan had said anything in Ben’s defense the other night, she would have been disrespecting and belittling him just as much as his mother was.

Jan has such a powerful and nurturing personality that I’ve often had concerns that maybe her relationship with Ben is more mothering than I would’ve wanted for her in a future marriage. But seeing things like this gives me great hope. Whether she consciously realizes it or not, she’s giving Ben the support and room to figure out and express his own voice, and not telling him what it should be. That’s one of the best definitions of confident, unselfish love, that I can imagine.

And you know what? I believe that it makes the woman who stands silently, seemingly passively, by her man, far more impressive and powerful than any woman who publicly belittles men to draw attention to herself.

I have more self-righteous ranting I want to do about this – I can’t help it. It’s just such a huge and prevalent issue, and I think if females would get a clue, and males would step up and not tolerate this behaviour, we’d all be far better off.

But right now I’m going to go bake cookies with my husband.

Feminist Rant: part 1

This will be Jan and Ben’s first Christmas in their own home, and I’m excited for her. It’s been really cool to watch her find her groove as an adult woman, and unapologetically enjoy tradition and domesticity at the same time as maintaining fun, adventure, and independence. She has a great head on her shoulders and knows that being a modern women doesn’t have to mean being the complete opposite of her grandmothers and great-grandmothers.

She wanted to host some kind of a holiday event at their place so they invited Ben’s family and our family over for supper and decorating. After we ate, the males drifted toward the TV and the females sat around the table decorating homemade gingerbread cookies and houses that Jan had baked and assembled the night before. Cob came over and decorated cookies too, man-style, by impaling Mr. Gingerbread onto a toothpick stuck in a Jube-jube, and creating red blood and guts with sprinkles and mini M&Ms.

“Hey, I’m confident enough in my masculinity to sit here and do this, but only because food is involved,” he stated in his deep baritone, then grinned and asked his sister to pass the marshmallows.

Doc took my chair after awhile and finished decorating a house with Jan, while I stole his camera and took pics in a pathetic attempt to capture the memory. Once the houses and cookies were dripping sugar and candy (and edible gore, thanks to Cob), attention shifted to the tree waiting bare in the corner.

Jan unpacked the new light strings and was walking toward the tree when Mary, Ben’s mother, called for him to come help Jan put the lights on. Ben, who was across the room, continued the conversation he was in the middle of with his father and Ari.

Mary called for him again. Ben continued talking, oblivious to his mother.

Half a breath later, Mary launched into a lecture of her adult son. In front of his guests. In his home. Which he pays for with his money, earned at his job.

“Benny, Jan wants you to come help her with the lights so you have to come help her right now!” she yelled. And then she said one of those phrases that makes me want to strangle someone. “Just remember that in a relationship if momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy, and Jan isn’t happy so you should come over and make her happy – that’s your job.”

I looked at Jan, who was already looking at me, and an entire conversation passed silently between us. Out of respect for my daughter and her boyfriend, I bit down on my tongue. Hard. Again.

For some reason, despite knowing her for five years now, Mary still doesn’t seem to have a clue about her future daughter-in-law. Jan is perfectly capable of making herself happy, and certainly does not need to be spoken for. Whooboy! If EVER there was ANYONE who is entirely comfortable and confident voicing her own opinions and needs, it is my daughter. She is small and pretty and looks as girly-girl as they come, but she doesn’t take shit from anyone. Anyone. And yet Mary repeatedly directs her son to do what she thinks Jan wants, as if Jan isn’t capable of speaking – or knowing – it for herself.

So self-confident and strong is Jan, that she shrugs off way more bullshit than she ever bothers to respond to, and she’s only nineteen. I, on the other hand, needed almost 40 years to get to that point, and some days I still fall short. Like this day, when Mary was pushing all my buttons. Jan just shrugged and rolled her eyes, but it took everything I had not to launch into Mary and cut her off at the knees.

Ben took his time but came over to help Jan, and Mary eventually shut up. I unclenched my fists, and the evening continued pleasantly enough.

… until we were sitting around later, and Mary was talking about something. Her husband gently interjected a correction and further context, as someone who shared the experience often does when a story is being told, and Mary shook her head, got a disgusted look on her face, waved her hand at him, and… shushed him.

Emphatically, rudely, and loudly, this woman actually shushed her husband, a grown man, in front of his children and their guests, and told him to “be quiet”.

I stood up and left the room. I had to. I went to the bathroom for appearances sake, but I really just needed to get away before the bubble of judgment in my throat escaped and I stuffed a Christmas tree up her ass, angel and all.