ASSETS & LIABILITIES


"You're interesting, awesome, talented, beautiful, exciting..." - these being the reasons why he did not want to be involved with me. "It's OK that you're a strong woman, there's nothing wrong with that..." Gee, thanks for the tolerance. I suppose appreciation would be a bit much to ask?

The scenario was typical: Boy meets me, boy becomes enfatuated with me, boy realizes I take up space, boy runs like hell. What was atypical in this situation was the guy's honesty about the dynamic: He actually admitted feeling intimidated by me. Although he acknowledged this feeling very well might be the product of his "shit," he did not seem interested in cleaning up his feces.

Alas, my very assets appear to be what most men view as my liabilities. I believe my experience is typical, and I believe it is a product of social training: According to our spoken and unspoken rules, women must not develop to our maximum potential. We're supposed to starve ourselves; shave ourselves; use paint, expensive creams, and surgical knives in our faces to erase ourselves; avoid "too"-heavy weights to minimize ourselves...all to maintain that pre-pubescent, doe-eyed, blank slate of a look. We are discouraged from developing our minds to the point of being intellectually aggressive; our voices to the point of being heard loud and clear; our presence to the point of taking up full space; and our strength to the point of being a physical threat.

Men grow accustomed to and, over time, dependent on girls and women living at half-mast. So when men encounter women such as myself who run full steam ahead, I find they have a panic and bolt repsonse, seeking refuge in the arms of some safe young lass who plays by the rules (accompanying manual included).

Everything that makes me unappealing to most men, however, is exactly what makes men totally hot to most women. Women, after all, have been encouraged to crave a developed human being: He started his own organization by the time he was 21? Cool. He wrote three books by the time he was 29? Excellent. He started his own band? Amazing! He says what he thinks, fights against injustice, and kicks the ass of people who mess with him? Buy me a ticket Ð I'm flying out to spend the rest of my life with him!

But when the shoe is on the other foot Ð when the woman is the accomplished one Ð chances are the man is gonna buy a ticket, alright...a ticket outta there. In a society where a man's ego is cultivated to depend on a woman's secondary role, where a man's sense of self is based on a woman's lack of self, an indominable woman is an expendable woman. A woman with less is one a man wants more.

My friend Angela is bright, creative, playful, drop-dead gorgeous, funny, eager to learn and grow....Fact is, if I were a lesbian, I'd be panting after her. Angela is a gal who can wear a Jackie Onasis dress with bushy armpit hair and sparkling silver Halloween socks. "So why don't I have a boyfriend?" she complains.

Whoever takes on society requires to some extent that everyone around her take it on as well. If a gal cracks ongoing jokes and gets a crowd roaring, her boyfriend has to share ÐÊor not even get any of ÐÊthe spotlight. The gal has overcome her training not to be aggressive in her humor. Can the guy overcome his training not to get more attention than his partner? Can he handle all the socialized implications baring down on his ego? Will he?

For every doctrine with which society thunks women over the head, there is an inverse doctrine with which society thunks men over the head. I believe both sexes suffer from these limited roles. But I also believe that unlike men, women have gotten the short shaft in terms of the basics Ð personal space, economic opportunity, and personal safety.

For this reason, I feel women generally have been more willing to butt heads with society and change things. I don't believe any feminist revolutionary actually has desired or enjoyed the constant battle. And men, I believe, have enough of the goodies that they're not going nuts without personal revolution. So why take on the internal chaos and external threat that goes hand-in-hand with transfomration?

A few years ago, a friend of mine spent the summer with me and left various books of hers in my bathroom library. I picked up The RulesÊand began reading. I thought it was a joke book. I thought it was hilarious. Then I found out that women all over the country had formed groups to study it. That book was beyond serious; it was a threat to female sanity. My laughter took on a homicidal edge.

What really pisses me off is women downplaying or erasing our assets because men aren't doing their work. It makes things worse, girls! In a society where men can get sex without transformation, they'll never fucking change. What more, if we have to minimize ourselves to be around men, are we really "getting a man," or are we getting an insecure limp-ass Ð a dead weight adding burden to our already burdened lives?

Once upon a time, not so long ago, I felt apologetic about amazing things about myself. Over and over again, men had treated my assets as liabilities, breaking up with me because of the many qualities distinguishing me from a doormat. Though I did not want or try to change myself, I did grow to feel shame for being powerful, outspoken, and passionate. I also came fo feel beholden Ð indebted and ingratiated on some level Ð to men who tolerated those qualities in me, to men who did not try to steam-roll over them.

I once spoke with a man who claimed all men benefit from patriarchy Ð even the nice guys. "How?" I asked. "In a world where so many men rape women," he replied, "a man can get brownie points just for not being a rapist. A husband can get brownie points for doing something as basic as putting away dishes." The dude was right.

Because of the plethora of asshole men, I came to find myself searching for a non-asshole. How sad is that! Alas, I find the phenomenon is quite common: OK, he doesn't listen to me, but he doesn't hit me when he gets mad/No, I'm not attracted to him, but he listens to me/I sure as hell don't enjoy his company, but he splits the housework...Fuck that shit. I wantÊÐ no, I demand Ð an artistic, spiritual, playful, intelligent, sensitive, drop-dead gorgeous man. On a motorcycle. So eat me.

During a two-year break from men, I did a major attitude check. I decided it was time for me to treat myself as the hot goddess that I am, regardless of what kind of men may exist on the planet and what they may think of my bodacious being. "One of the things about equality is not just that you be treated equally to a man, but that you treat yourself equally to the way you treat a man." (Marlo Thomas).

Forget about men's attitudes towards me. I've got an attitude towards men. The tables have turned, my friends. My assets are my fucking assets, and the only liabilities I see now are the limp, threatened egos of men who can't hold a flame to my fire. Rather than squelch my spirit to make room for The Man, I amplified it to make room for The Woman. I got louder, sillier, and smarter. I became unabashedly more demanding, outspoken, and aggressive.

On that note, I transformed into The Hunter, becoming as much of a go-getter in my sexuality as I've been in the rest of my life. I decided what I wanted and got my butt out in the world to find it. I began shopping for men like I shopped for clothes: If it didn't fit, damn thing was out the door.

I became the entitled one, the one around whom men had to revolve, as if the whole world were radical feminists and the losers had to get with the program. I found men responding to my attitude shift, chasing after me in the very places they condemned me in the past. Suddenly I was the one being panted after. Whereas men used to complain, they started to apologize. Lo and behold, I found myself in the driver's seat of my love life.

I haven't found a guy who can hack the long haul; but the fact is, I'd rather live with the fullness of my being and see men as occasional bed-warmers than I would live in some corner of my Self with a steady squeeze. I know that as long as patriarchy reigns over the state of male-female relations, my man-loving radical feminist being is like an orchid in the arctic.* But I'd rather be a solitary, breathtaking flower any day than petals frozen to the ice of the tundra.


* Thanks to Kay Leigh Hagan (author, Fugitive Information) for this image.


This article was first published in Clamor Magazine

©1996 by Loolwa Khazzoom. All rights reserved. No portion of this article may be copied without author's permission.

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