I started doing this a couple years ago and haven't ever talked about it with anyone before. Let me just say, it's crazy. I do it on running paths also. And when men, or a group of men running shoulder to shoulder who can't form a line for a woman to pass from the other direction are ready to run right into me, I hold still and sharply say, "Excuse me!" And they look so baffled, like why haven't I moved and why am I talking to them. I don't know if my experience is different than what it would be for other women because I'm so small, but ***, I just have to tell you it's nuts. It's maybe why I write like I do now.
Like your other work that doesn't explicitly cover my gross world of classical music, what you write here has so many specific applications to my field.
Hi, I hope that you carry a small canister of pepper spray with you while out & about. I have modified my xmas presents from fire extinguishers to also include 'personal size' pepper spray for all of my extended family members.
Thank you Celeste! This is like one of those posters we stared at in the 90s and all of the sudden a 3D picture jumps out at you. I have so many examples popping out at me. Just recently my husband and I decided to go down to one car. I noticed he was taking the car whenever he needed it without asking me, yet when I told him I needed it he would groan loudly. It took pointing out to him every time the two things happened before he said, I think we need a second car. Also, you can have a group of women that really like each otherโs company, but as soon as a man enters the mix, the whole dynamic changes. Itโs like heโs a magnet. The attention shifts toward him even if the women donโt like him!! I love the way this article points out that while this is baked into society, we can change it!! โค๏ธ
Agree re the magnet thing. Being on a group holiday with complete strangers a few years ago, the only male in the group was the focus of the time there. Was not what I was after.
This came after a tense week where I asserted my preference over my husbandโs. It didnโt go well. There were 3 days of stonewalling and silence because my husband was so bent out of shape over it. On my part, I played into it by tiptoeing around on eggshells so as not to make it worse. He โgot over itโ, but have we addressed the underlying issue? Not at all. After nearly 40 years of marriage, I know what his reaction will likely be, and I donโt want to deal with the tantrum. This is what it looks like on the micro level, and it saddens me that in order to keep my marriage intact, this is what I have to do.
That sounds hard Becca. My husband has started reading this substack every Sunday. Every Sunday we have these conversations which are really amazing. We each share our perspectives on the article. He thinks itโs the best substack on Substack. Frankly, after 30 years of marriage, itโs been kind of astonishing. I hope this week is better! โค๏ธ
This is all painfully true. It perfectly describes my 20 year old son. I'm going to share this with him but here's the problem: I don't think he'll read it. I've tried to raise him as a good feminist ally but he's not blind, he sees what mothers do and he's seen what dads do, and he knows which role he'd prefer. And who can blame him.
I had this conversation with my husband about him expecting our kids to center him too- I term it the โhail the conquering heroโ expectation. I said thatโs patriarchy! That you want our kids to be overly excited that you want to spend time with them and will drop anything theyโre doing when you get home shows that you think youโre the most important person in the house.
And I have seen in my lesbian friendsโ relationships that their treatment of each other is SO far elevated compared to many of my straight friends. I do NOT overly praise my husband for very basic things, and I tell my friends Iโm annoyed when they act like him parenting or taking care of me is overly impressive, grocery shopping and cooking for our family is a minimum standard that women meet every day without any praise; my grandma praised him endlessly for cooking everyone breakfast and cooking the ham for Motherโs Day.
Yes great example - the expectation to be centered definitely extends to kids too (even Dax mentions thinking the kids should throw him a parade every day he doesnโt leave)
I grew up innately more comfortable as a tomboy, but as I hit my pubescent years, I thought I was going to break the mold of being an "annoying female." I wasn't going to nag, I wasn't going to pick nothing fights, plus I loved more then-considered masculine things like video games and geek culture. It was only fairly recently I realized that all of this was still centered around the male gaze, and not me being my authentic self.
Incidentally, I literally read this in a moment where my partner (who is currently making a very genuine effort to stop being such a patriachal asshole), assumed I would take care of his dinner during his online game night while not registering the fact that I told him I had already eaten and his request was interrupting what I was doing. I guarantee if it had been the other way around, he wouldn't have gone out of his way. Or, to his credit, a few months ago he wouldn't have. There has been a notable shift in his priorities.
I think we all went through that โnot like other girlsโ phase, because we had observed the attitudes of the people around us towards anything associated with girls and women. Instead of questioning the attitudes, we go through a phase of going along with devaluing women and girls, too. Eventually you realize it isn't about what women and girls do, it's about the fact that it's women and girls doing it and the hatred is for whatever isn't male.
Oh for sure. A year ago I took a bellydance class just to try something new and I was astoundedbby how viscerally uncomfortable I felt doing such feminine movements. Then I was more revolted realizing that I immediately felt better about it because there was one male in the class... didn't matter how extremely feminine he was. I had to unpack that one for a while ๐คฆ๐ผโโ๏ธ
How great that your partner is now making an effort to uncover his patriarchy-induced blindspots. If I may ask, what changed that started this shift in his priorities?
I ask because I wonder how we can present these issues to our male partners without causing them to become super defensive, but while also being firm about what we need from them.
I wish I could tell you that it was easy, but sadlyโฆ it was about as painful as you would expect it to have been. He did not want to be accountable for my feelings, he did feel like accountability was the same as blame, all that textbook stuff (Iโve written a fair bit about this, though itโs not all about him, per se). He kept trying to logic me out of my feelings. And it made me feel completely insane, because weโd have the horrible fights where he would just try to gaslight me into thinking that my feelings were somehow my own fault and that he wasnโt related to them. But, I suppose the reason that I never left him was because I knew that if I could reason with him, logic would win in the end because heโs a logical person. A few of the things that helped ground him were reminding him that me having feelings doesnโt always equate to fault or blame to him, and also, that when things are tense, logic beats emotion zero times, because people arenโt logical when theyโre emotional. You have to deal with the feelings before you can have a calm conversation. We also did some theater of the mind, after some fights, where we talked about how things would have gone if he had prioritized taking care of my feelings before trying to have a conversation about what happened or went wrong, and I think that show-donโt-tell is one of the prime things that made him realize that, oh, if I had just done this, the entire blowout wouldnโt have happened. But it did take YEARS to bash through this wall, and a lot of spite on my behalf for feeling like breaking up would be too easy (for him). Perhaps Iโm a little masochistic too? Hahaโฆ
Thank you for sharing your experience, it sounds like it was a very challenging time. You're brave and strong for hanging in there through those tough times. I understand what you mean about men feeling blamed and then either shutting down or deflecting. I think it comes from a deep sense of shame too.
Theater of the mind is new to me, but sounds like something I'd like to try!
I'm fortunate that my partner is generally very easy to get along with, in the sense of 99% of the time he's a gem, but that 1% makes me insane sometimes. One of the biggest problems for a long time was that we had the talks but he never changed. He does love me a lot, but having someone keep making promises they don't keep is a nightmare.
I definitely recommend the theater of the mind! I think that really showed him that he wasn't being blamed and our last fight was genuinely me being overly sensitive about something, so playing it out where we prioritized calming me down first, then allowed for the more calm discussion about why this happened, what triggered me, and all that, where he didn't feel unfairly blamed.
It also is important to notice that willingness to listen. If a man's not hearing you at all, that's a big ol' red flag. I once asked my partner if he had ever considered, in an argument, that I might be right or have a valid point, he was like "huh... no." And after that he did start considering that I am my own person with my own agency and feelings, and my world does not revolve around him (even if he does default to that programming occasionally still).
Damn, that part about your partner having never considered that you might be right or have a valid point in an argument hits hard. So his response was always to automatically shut you down. I guess that was an easy way to avoid looking at himself too. At least he answered honestly, so you could work together towards a solution.
Anyway, super glad to hear that things are better in your relationship now!
Centering men has, at times, been a literal survival skill. Even today, it can function as a career-defensive tactic. In his New York Times article, โWomen Know Exactly What Theyโre Doing When They Use โWeakโ Language,โ Adam Grant notes that womenโespecially Black womenโare often punished for being perceived as assertive. His suggestion is not for women to change, but for men to learn the value of โweak languageโ themselves.
For enslaved people in the United States, centering menโespecially white menโwas a matter of life and death. The character Jim in James by Percival Everett captures this perfectly: โWhite folks expect us to sound a certain wayโฆ The better they feel, the safer we be.โ
Recently, while coaching a Black woman in an entry-level role, I saw how this legacy still lingers. She clearly knew the answer to a question but offered two or three hedges before stating it. I shared how, in some contexts, that instinct once ensured safetyโbut here, I wanted her to practice centering herself and her knowledge. We all benefit when workplaces become environments where everyone can speak with confidence and be secure in their own expertise.
Thank you for the references and the personal example. It's the same ole stereotypes that women who want to succeed, to break thru the glass ceiling, have faced for .. ever.
If a man is pushy, he's assertive; the woman is labeled a B .. tch, etc
A man can wear the same suit to business meetings with no issues. If the woman shows up in the same attire, others question her. If she wears a PANT SUIT! well.. we've all seen that!
A 'fat ~50 year old dude' in the business world is considered successful. The same woman is considered unattractive & so on.
Men can (used to, at least) conduct business over golf or the men's club. Intentionally exclusive, meaning "TO EXCLUDE". (my highly accomplished, capable & skilled wife dealt with that crap for years!)
Look at how long it took for 'old' women to get lead movie roles (or ANY roles at all)! Old male actors are 'seasoned'.. they're gritty and their senior appearance add gravitas. Women? Let's get some 40-something and get wardrobe & makeup to make her look older.
Thank you! This is so fascinating. It is amazing to me that we socialize half our population to believe that one of the most important human survival traits - our ability to connect with each other - is a weakness and a liability. Itโs like we are teaching half the population that eating food is a weakness. And so they avoid food and become weakโฆ
If we follow the dotted lines BACKWARDS, don't fret! There's cigarettes, little red pills & all the rest that women of the 1950s used to 'stay skinny'. (sarcasm, of course!)
This is an excellent article! You bring needed clarity to so many things from perspectives I havenโt thought aboutโa result of my own indoctrination in a male centric world. Thank you!
This has already been working itself up to be my favorite Substack publican and this post just made it undeniable. Thank you so much. Thank you for the reminder that we donโt have to settle for this shitty ass script. Even though I โknewโ this already, this post has altered my brain chemistry ๐
One of my nephews- a 20 something at the time, told me that he was going to get married. He was a single child & the parents were NOT the best role models so I asked him in a curious and caring way ... "Why do you want to marry her?" (I didn't know who she was)
His reply "She cooks for me, does my laundry, etc etc" (they were not cohabitating)
The correct answer, imo, was "Because I love her & she makes me feel special & complete" or something to that effect.
needless to say, their marriage was annulled in 6 months.
Conversely, our son is a phenomenal husband and dad to two great kids. So, there IS some hope!
This article is so amazing Celeste! I eagerly gobbled up every word. What a wonderful cast of characters. You teach me so much. Thank you for the work you do.
There are so many quotes I could pull that I loved from this piece, but maybe this one got me the most:
๐๐ค๐ง ๐๐ฃ๐จ๐ฉ๐๐ฃ๐๐, ๐๐ ๐ฎ๐ค๐ช ๐จ๐ฉ๐ค๐ฅ ๐ข๐ค๐ซ๐๐ฃ๐ ๐ค๐ช๐ฉ ๐ค๐ ๐ฉ๐๐ ๐ฌ๐๐ฎ ๐๐ค๐ง ๐ข๐๐ฃ ๐ค๐ฃ ๐จ๐๐๐๐ฌ๐๐ก๐ ๐จ - ๐ฉ๐๐ ๐๐ข๐ค๐ช๐ฃ๐ฉ ๐ค๐ ๐ฉ๐๐ข๐๐จ ๐ฎ๐ค๐ช ๐ฌ๐๐ก๐ก ๐ง๐ช๐ฃ ๐๐ฃ๐ฉ๐ค ๐ข๐๐ฃ ๐๐จ ๐๐๐จ๐ช๐ง๐.
I started doing this a couple years ago and haven't ever talked about it with anyone before. Let me just say, it's crazy. I do it on running paths also. And when men, or a group of men running shoulder to shoulder who can't form a line for a woman to pass from the other direction are ready to run right into me, I hold still and sharply say, "Excuse me!" And they look so baffled, like why haven't I moved and why am I talking to them. I don't know if my experience is different than what it would be for other women because I'm so small, but ***, I just have to tell you it's nuts. It's maybe why I write like I do now.
Like your other work that doesn't explicitly cover my gross world of classical music, what you write here has so many specific applications to my field.
Hi, I hope that you carry a small canister of pepper spray with you while out & about. I have modified my xmas presents from fire extinguishers to also include 'personal size' pepper spray for all of my extended family members.
Thank you Celeste! This is like one of those posters we stared at in the 90s and all of the sudden a 3D picture jumps out at you. I have so many examples popping out at me. Just recently my husband and I decided to go down to one car. I noticed he was taking the car whenever he needed it without asking me, yet when I told him I needed it he would groan loudly. It took pointing out to him every time the two things happened before he said, I think we need a second car. Also, you can have a group of women that really like each otherโs company, but as soon as a man enters the mix, the whole dynamic changes. Itโs like heโs a magnet. The attention shifts toward him even if the women donโt like him!! I love the way this article points out that while this is baked into society, we can change it!! โค๏ธ
Agree re the magnet thing. Being on a group holiday with complete strangers a few years ago, the only male in the group was the focus of the time there. Was not what I was after.
This came after a tense week where I asserted my preference over my husbandโs. It didnโt go well. There were 3 days of stonewalling and silence because my husband was so bent out of shape over it. On my part, I played into it by tiptoeing around on eggshells so as not to make it worse. He โgot over itโ, but have we addressed the underlying issue? Not at all. After nearly 40 years of marriage, I know what his reaction will likely be, and I donโt want to deal with the tantrum. This is what it looks like on the micro level, and it saddens me that in order to keep my marriage intact, this is what I have to do.
That sounds hard Becca. My husband has started reading this substack every Sunday. Every Sunday we have these conversations which are really amazing. We each share our perspectives on the article. He thinks itโs the best substack on Substack. Frankly, after 30 years of marriage, itโs been kind of astonishing. I hope this week is better! โค๏ธ
100%. And then my husband would feel insulted when I said I didnโt feel emotionally safe.
Hugs! Thatโs the minimum for me. Feeling emotionally safe. I wonโt stay with someone that canโt give it.
I know Iโm a strangerโฆbut it sounds like maybe your marriage and your husband get more respect and consideration than you do.
The stonewalling and silence are abuse. I hope you know that. Your husband is abusive.
This is all painfully true. It perfectly describes my 20 year old son. I'm going to share this with him but here's the problem: I don't think he'll read it. I've tried to raise him as a good feminist ally but he's not blind, he sees what mothers do and he's seen what dads do, and he knows which role he'd prefer. And who can blame him.
I had this conversation with my husband about him expecting our kids to center him too- I term it the โhail the conquering heroโ expectation. I said thatโs patriarchy! That you want our kids to be overly excited that you want to spend time with them and will drop anything theyโre doing when you get home shows that you think youโre the most important person in the house.
And I have seen in my lesbian friendsโ relationships that their treatment of each other is SO far elevated compared to many of my straight friends. I do NOT overly praise my husband for very basic things, and I tell my friends Iโm annoyed when they act like him parenting or taking care of me is overly impressive, grocery shopping and cooking for our family is a minimum standard that women meet every day without any praise; my grandma praised him endlessly for cooking everyone breakfast and cooking the ham for Motherโs Day.
Yes great example - the expectation to be centered definitely extends to kids too (even Dax mentions thinking the kids should throw him a parade every day he doesnโt leave)
I grew up innately more comfortable as a tomboy, but as I hit my pubescent years, I thought I was going to break the mold of being an "annoying female." I wasn't going to nag, I wasn't going to pick nothing fights, plus I loved more then-considered masculine things like video games and geek culture. It was only fairly recently I realized that all of this was still centered around the male gaze, and not me being my authentic self.
Incidentally, I literally read this in a moment where my partner (who is currently making a very genuine effort to stop being such a patriachal asshole), assumed I would take care of his dinner during his online game night while not registering the fact that I told him I had already eaten and his request was interrupting what I was doing. I guarantee if it had been the other way around, he wouldn't have gone out of his way. Or, to his credit, a few months ago he wouldn't have. There has been a notable shift in his priorities.
I think we all went through that โnot like other girlsโ phase, because we had observed the attitudes of the people around us towards anything associated with girls and women. Instead of questioning the attitudes, we go through a phase of going along with devaluing women and girls, too. Eventually you realize it isn't about what women and girls do, it's about the fact that it's women and girls doing it and the hatred is for whatever isn't male.
Oh for sure. A year ago I took a bellydance class just to try something new and I was astoundedbby how viscerally uncomfortable I felt doing such feminine movements. Then I was more revolted realizing that I immediately felt better about it because there was one male in the class... didn't matter how extremely feminine he was. I had to unpack that one for a while ๐คฆ๐ผโโ๏ธ
How great that your partner is now making an effort to uncover his patriarchy-induced blindspots. If I may ask, what changed that started this shift in his priorities?
I ask because I wonder how we can present these issues to our male partners without causing them to become super defensive, but while also being firm about what we need from them.
I wish I could tell you that it was easy, but sadlyโฆ it was about as painful as you would expect it to have been. He did not want to be accountable for my feelings, he did feel like accountability was the same as blame, all that textbook stuff (Iโve written a fair bit about this, though itโs not all about him, per se). He kept trying to logic me out of my feelings. And it made me feel completely insane, because weโd have the horrible fights where he would just try to gaslight me into thinking that my feelings were somehow my own fault and that he wasnโt related to them. But, I suppose the reason that I never left him was because I knew that if I could reason with him, logic would win in the end because heโs a logical person. A few of the things that helped ground him were reminding him that me having feelings doesnโt always equate to fault or blame to him, and also, that when things are tense, logic beats emotion zero times, because people arenโt logical when theyโre emotional. You have to deal with the feelings before you can have a calm conversation. We also did some theater of the mind, after some fights, where we talked about how things would have gone if he had prioritized taking care of my feelings before trying to have a conversation about what happened or went wrong, and I think that show-donโt-tell is one of the prime things that made him realize that, oh, if I had just done this, the entire blowout wouldnโt have happened. But it did take YEARS to bash through this wall, and a lot of spite on my behalf for feeling like breaking up would be too easy (for him). Perhaps Iโm a little masochistic too? Hahaโฆ
Thank you for sharing your experience, it sounds like it was a very challenging time. You're brave and strong for hanging in there through those tough times. I understand what you mean about men feeling blamed and then either shutting down or deflecting. I think it comes from a deep sense of shame too.
Theater of the mind is new to me, but sounds like something I'd like to try!
I'm fortunate that my partner is generally very easy to get along with, in the sense of 99% of the time he's a gem, but that 1% makes me insane sometimes. One of the biggest problems for a long time was that we had the talks but he never changed. He does love me a lot, but having someone keep making promises they don't keep is a nightmare.
I definitely recommend the theater of the mind! I think that really showed him that he wasn't being blamed and our last fight was genuinely me being overly sensitive about something, so playing it out where we prioritized calming me down first, then allowed for the more calm discussion about why this happened, what triggered me, and all that, where he didn't feel unfairly blamed.
It also is important to notice that willingness to listen. If a man's not hearing you at all, that's a big ol' red flag. I once asked my partner if he had ever considered, in an argument, that I might be right or have a valid point, he was like "huh... no." And after that he did start considering that I am my own person with my own agency and feelings, and my world does not revolve around him (even if he does default to that programming occasionally still).
Hรถp, that was a bit of a monologue ๐
Damn, that part about your partner having never considered that you might be right or have a valid point in an argument hits hard. So his response was always to automatically shut you down. I guess that was an easy way to avoid looking at himself too. At least he answered honestly, so you could work together towards a solution.
Anyway, super glad to hear that things are better in your relationship now!
Centering men has, at times, been a literal survival skill. Even today, it can function as a career-defensive tactic. In his New York Times article, โWomen Know Exactly What Theyโre Doing When They Use โWeakโ Language,โ Adam Grant notes that womenโespecially Black womenโare often punished for being perceived as assertive. His suggestion is not for women to change, but for men to learn the value of โweak languageโ themselves.
For enslaved people in the United States, centering menโespecially white menโwas a matter of life and death. The character Jim in James by Percival Everett captures this perfectly: โWhite folks expect us to sound a certain wayโฆ The better they feel, the safer we be.โ
Recently, while coaching a Black woman in an entry-level role, I saw how this legacy still lingers. She clearly knew the answer to a question but offered two or three hedges before stating it. I shared how, in some contexts, that instinct once ensured safetyโbut here, I wanted her to practice centering herself and her knowledge. We all benefit when workplaces become environments where everyone can speak with confidence and be secure in their own expertise.
Thank you for the references and the personal example. It's the same ole stereotypes that women who want to succeed, to break thru the glass ceiling, have faced for .. ever.
If a man is pushy, he's assertive; the woman is labeled a B .. tch, etc
A man can wear the same suit to business meetings with no issues. If the woman shows up in the same attire, others question her. If she wears a PANT SUIT! well.. we've all seen that!
A 'fat ~50 year old dude' in the business world is considered successful. The same woman is considered unattractive & so on.
Men can (used to, at least) conduct business over golf or the men's club. Intentionally exclusive, meaning "TO EXCLUDE". (my highly accomplished, capable & skilled wife dealt with that crap for years!)
Look at how long it took for 'old' women to get lead movie roles (or ANY roles at all)! Old male actors are 'seasoned'.. they're gritty and their senior appearance add gravitas. Women? Let's get some 40-something and get wardrobe & makeup to make her look older.
The list goes on & on.
Thank you! This is so fascinating. It is amazing to me that we socialize half our population to believe that one of the most important human survival traits - our ability to connect with each other - is a weakness and a liability. Itโs like we are teaching half the population that eating food is a weakness. And so they avoid food and become weakโฆ
We quite literally DO teach one half of the population that eating food is a weakness--we call it diet culture.
Ha ha so true!
If we follow the dotted lines BACKWARDS, don't fret! There's cigarettes, little red pills & all the rest that women of the 1950s used to 'stay skinny'. (sarcasm, of course!)
Damn, this is just an outstanding article. Thank you for writing it!
Thanks. Always enjoy your investigations into our gendered world. Still much to learn for a 70 year old man/boy.
My god, you are so gifted. You look at things from angles I would never perceive. Iโm so grateful you do! Thank you for all your work โค๏ธ
Agree 100%. Are you working on a book? If not you should.
This is an excellent article! You bring needed clarity to so many things from perspectives I havenโt thought aboutโa result of my own indoctrination in a male centric world. Thank you!
What can I say? Everything I have been thinking but could not isolate. Absolutely precise.
I know! The way she lays everything out is so perfect. Such great writing
This has already been working itself up to be my favorite Substack publican and this post just made it undeniable. Thank you so much. Thank you for the reminder that we donโt have to settle for this shitty ass script. Even though I โknewโ this already, this post has altered my brain chemistry ๐
REQUIRED READING! Excellent!
(Aside: Honestly donโt know how anyone can be married. To anyone.)
One of my nephews- a 20 something at the time, told me that he was going to get married. He was a single child & the parents were NOT the best role models so I asked him in a curious and caring way ... "Why do you want to marry her?" (I didn't know who she was)
His reply "She cooks for me, does my laundry, etc etc" (they were not cohabitating)
The correct answer, imo, was "Because I love her & she makes me feel special & complete" or something to that effect.
needless to say, their marriage was annulled in 6 months.
Conversely, our son is a phenomenal husband and dad to two great kids. So, there IS some hope!
This article is so amazing Celeste! I eagerly gobbled up every word. What a wonderful cast of characters. You teach me so much. Thank you for the work you do.