So I was reading this post at this blog (so happy to have found it and I added it to the blogroll) and wondering why the types of verbal assaults that dizzy describes, such as that or this type of stuff, doesn’t happen to me more often.
No, seriously, I’m not looking for trouble, but I’m wondering if I have sunk so far into the muck of settled parenthood, getting along to go along with the dominant paradigm of working-outside-the-home-momhood and trying to get through the day with the shreds of my sanity intact that I’m only noticing 5% of the insulting things that happen to me on a regular basis. And what happened to my anger? I’d like to have it back. It’s exhausting being angry all the time, but it’s exhilirating, too.
I have definitely experienced all sorts of verbal harrasment, but not as frequently as I used to. It may be that years of suffering these unwarranted intrusions have made me oblivious a lot of the time, worn down from the constant onslaught. But I think it’s also that now I am in my late 30s I have moved from “potentially fuckable and thus subject to any and all pestering that any idiot male chooses to provide” to “eh, not old, but why bother.”
Part of me is really enjoying this slide into the invisibility of females over 35. Part of me is just pissed off. Look, I don’t need the hassle, but when even the lack of hassle pulls you into the swirl of the patriarchy and assigns you your rank therein, it’s annoying as hell.
There’s just no escape from the assholes.
August 25, 2007 at 11:21 am
[...] to ahunt for pointing me to Gangly Thoughts, and to a post about hitting that Certain Age where the invisible sign around one’s neck that reads ATTENTION ALL MEN: PLEASE COMMENT ON [...]
August 25, 2007 at 12:08 pm
There seems to be a correlation between an immature preference (only interest in women under, say, 35) and the unawareness of recent developments in understanding concerning the actual personhood of women (necessary to make such comments). I’m not sure how the causal arrow works.
Rest assured, though, that the typical older man is thinking Smokin’! and keeping his yap shut. Feel free to be angry on either count.
August 25, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Thanks again.
I remember well the days when I believed my worth was based in large part on my face. (Fucking adolescence.)
Married very young, and post-kid #3, never had much time to think, let alone worry whether other men thought I was “worth it.” Maybe because the BH never seemed to find any part of his social “status” in the “hotness” of his wife, I was free to make the effort only for him. Still do the 15 minute “fox-up” prior to his arrival home.
You’ve given me so much to think about. Would it have been so easy for me to blow off public masculine opinion had I NOT been so secure in my husband’s admiration? Would it have been so easy to accept the loss of tone and “breast mass” and so on?
Dunno, and now that you’ve got me thinking about it, I’m leaning towards doubtful.
It is a bit of “ouch” here, but again, I’m grateful for the eye-opener.