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Divorce and Death

I heard from my lawyer today. Apparently she’s sent on my copy of the divorce decree, as well as some ancillary documents relating to the settlement. I’m reminded how strangely casual the actual divorce has been. I was initially nervous about proving the Decree, the process whereby you officially request to be divorced. As the Petitioner, that would normally have been my ex-wife’s responsibility, but as she moved out of town shortly after I left her, my lawyer offered to have me prove the Decree up as a courtesy. It would have been more of a courtesy had she consulted me before offering to help out my ex-wife; we were still in negotiations at the time, and I was a little peeved at having a bargaining chip so casually thrown away. And, to be honest, I wasn’t happy at being forced to do something nice for a woman who tried to destroy any vestiges of independence in me. Also, I had read that the process of proving up the Decree was emotionally difficult; I heard stories of women (all the stories I read were written by women) breaking down and crying, or forgetting when they were married. In contrast, I found it easy and almost brusque. I approached the bench with my lawyer, who asked me some basic questions, such as the date of our marriage and whether my ex-wife was pregnant. She framed these questions in a yes or no format. After about ten or so of these queries, the Judge simply said, “The divorce is granted. Good luck to you, sir.” And after being excused from the bench, we left. And that was that.

I do wonder if the emotional difficulties I’m having is related to my divorce. It doesn’t feel like it. The two years between my realizing I wanted to leave and the actual separation were hellish, and the year or so before that even more agonizing. I honestly feel I passed through the emotional trials then. The day I left, driving away was a relief. There was uncertainty, to be sure, but also hope. I had no idea then of the financial difficulties facing me. All I knew was that a very dark time in my life was passed. That once again, I had survived, perhaps not unscathed, but still standing with pride in myself.

How different I feel today. And yet the divorce still seems easy. I feel no real pain to think on it, or even our marriage. No, my pain seems to have another source, a hole in my soul that I cannot find the source of nor any end to, which I had covered up with thought of sexual hedonism and the delight of watching women around me in my daily life. This solitude is forcing me to stare into that particular abyss, and I fear not only what I may find there, but what that discovery will do to me as a person. I’m anxious that the death of who I am now that seems to be all that inevitable will lead to the creation of a new self that I can be proud of. Images of remaining broken and dying alone haunt me daily.

Feminism Revisited

I've reconsidered my prior post on feminism.

The comments in this thread, especially this comment by Tigtog, have cooled my rage considerably. Realizing my mistake and seeing that feminism is really about women’s struggles, I now understand why the role of men is limited, and concern about men’s issues so incidental. The position is reasonable.

Having said that, I must also reject the notion that simply improving women's status in society will free men. It's not enough to merely release one's grip on privilege; one must also develop a new way of relating to society and the world, a new way of vigorously building one's personal conception of the good life. That takes more than giving up old ways and old roles, more than just tearing down concepts of masculinity. New ways, new roles, new conceptions are needed. And these are things that feminists, and especially feminist women (leaving aside the argument as to whether men can be feminsts), cannot provide. Nor will the sort of changes they seek, in and of themselves, provide them.

Tigtog expresses hope that I may be an “ally”. In a way, perhaps. I have my own struggles, and that’s where my energy must go, but there will surely be areas where my efforts will coincide with feminist work. And feminist theory may at times be useful as I search out the solutions to my problems as a man. But there are many areas that I must address that feminists have nothing to do with, or even that may place me in opposition to them on this or that issue. It will perhaps be natural for them to consider me at best a fair-weather friend, even if the goal we share is the same.

So, I’m still turning away from feminism, but on different terms and for different reasons. Instead of anger, I’m feeling more melancholy, the sort of quiet sadness that tinges acceptance of the Way Things Are.

Curiously, this change of heart, slight though it may be, has calmed me a fair deal. It is rather like a pin prick in a balloon, allowing built up pressure to subside. I’m no less alone, but much of my anxiety is gone. It’s strange that I should find comfort in these circumstances, but there it is.

Alone

So, yesterday I drove away my last friend.

She was someone I met online, playing World of Warcraft. We became good friends after a rocky start, helping each other in our trials both in and out of game. She’s responsible for re-introducing me to feminism, at a point where I still thought feminism was equivalent to misandristic hate speech. When I really began to struggle with it, she backed away. Finally, she responded to my pain by informing me that she took pleasure in seeing a man feel what she’d felt for so long. Her last words to me were a dart calculated to wound.

So now it’s down to my dog and I. That’s the great thing about dogs – no matter how bad things get, they’ll always be by your side.

Still, the pain never seems to stop these days. Even moments of pleasure are just faint things overlaying the pain, not replacing it for an instant. The dryness of it seems to have a purifying aspect, and I’ve given up trying to hold onto my identity, and just letting it burn down. Here, with no direction, no goals, utterly alone, this is the time to retreat from life for a bit, and let the pain and solitude do their work.

Why I'm Not a Feminist

So, I’ve been investigating feminism recently, as my last blog post, at least, shows. After reading quite a bit about it online, and in a couple books I picked up, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not a political movement that I can support, and in fact, should oppose.

I don’t say that lightly. As I intimated in my last post, I’ve begun to see how pervasive and institutional sexism is. Even that statement is too simple. The only way I know how to describe my distress over the past couple of days is to compare it to Neo in the (first) Matrix. When Neo, after seeing the truth of the Matrix and his own rule in a system that dehumanizes every person he’d ever known, violently rejects it and begins to vomit, his reaction is a parallel to intense emotional pain I’ve been in for the last couple days. I haven’t been vomiting, but I have been tearing up several times a day. Not quite crying, though; so perhaps I’m not at the vomiting stage yet, but just before.

I presumed that feminists would be eager to help a man through this experience, and help him reconstruct his identity along anti-sexist lines. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Consider this quote from Feminism 101: “What it boils down to is this: Men, not women, need to be the ones creating the spaces to discuss men’s issues.” Surely it’s obvious that that idea promotes gendered thinking? Contrary to feminist rhetoric, it is, in fact, not a movement about ending sexism, but only about ending social barriers to women. And where does that leave a man whose whole identity has been stripped, forced to see how everything that he thought was good and just and true isn’t, if not gasping on the floor, calling for help, and watching the very women who led him into this state of affairs, walk on by, with no comment other than, “How do you like it?”

But the fact that feminism echoes the language of the supposed patriarchy to men by saying, “Be tough and deal with it yourself”, is only the tip of the movement’s sexism. Consider this statement by Tia: “Your opinion, as a man, about the extent and nature of the problem is not valuable when the specific problem pertains to women's experience.” Experience is the only thing that matters to feminists. And not just experience, but women’s experience. Men literally do not matter. But Tia goes further. She also explains to men that our experiences, even if they did matter, are already known and, presumably, accommodated by women. “When you tell us about the male perspective on the issue…consider that we already understand.” Is it possible that some men also know the female perspective? Not according to feminism. “Simply because minority groups, coming from an insider perspective, are in a position to understand their issues in a way that privileged groups, as outsiders, never can.” This is clearly discrimination, this assumption that gender equals knowledge and insight, but discrimination against men, feminists say, is less important, perhaps even okay. “The same power dynamics that create privilege have created a hierarchy of prejudice so that discrimination against a privileged group is not the same as discrimination against a minority group.” This is, I suspect, the justification for preventing men to sue under anti-discrimination laws; it’s okay for men to be fired because of their sex, because our privilege is what allowed us to get work in the first place. This is a thought articulated by Michael Rosenfield, attempting to defend the injustice of Affirmative Action: “[R]emedial affirmative action does not take away from innocent white males anything that they have rightfully earned or that they should be entitled to keep.” The assumption behind this statement is that no white male could have earned anything without privilege. That is, white men are by nature inferior to women and minorities, and only an unjust social system keeps them from their rightful, subordinate place. Little wonder feminism has spawned a white supremacist backlash.

All of this conspires to create a situation where a woman speaking to a man can never be wrong. If he agrees with her, he’s a model of understanding; if he dares to disagree, she will quickly remind him of his place by saying the familiar refrain: “You’re a white male, and can’t understand.”

But in the real world, among people of genuine goodwill, sexism is sexism, regardless of the subject. In the case of feminist sexism towards men, it leads to post after post along these lines. Note how it is the woman who teaches the man about the nature of things, despite the title. One wonders what she learned from him. Perhaps how to reason a man into obedience to his subservience. Too strong? Consider this line from a pro-feminist paper on engaging men in feminist issues(note that this link is to a Word file):” This work must be done in partnership with, and even be accountable to, women and women’s groups.” Imagine what the reaction would be if we turned that statement around: “Feminism must be done in partnership with, and even be accountable to, men and men’s groups.” The fact that there is no doubt about the tone the reaction would take makes the sexism underlying the original statement clear.

It’s unfortunate that when I sought to reorganize my identity along more anti-sexist lines, feminists turned away. Unfortunate because it didn’t have to be this way; feminists do not have so many male supporters that the loss of one more is a trivial matter. But by being so intentional about hanging a “girls only” sign above the door to gender equality, they have marginalized themselves. This is probably for the best, considering the ways they have betrayed their own stated ideals.

Moving Past the Male Gaze

When I first became acquainted with the feminist notion of the Male Gaze, I found it a bit too focused on advertising to really appreciate it. However, having read this short excerpt from Norah Vincent’s Self Made Man, I feel like I understand and agree with the concept much more (although I still sigh at the hyperbole feminists seem to be compelled to engage in – really, where are these men who, upon seeing a woman, see a “piece of pussy to be put back in its place”?).

In consequence, I’ve been noticing how my own gaze lingers on women in a way that it doesn’t on men. I’m starting to try to look at women in the same way I look at men, but even considering doing this actually brought me to tears. I hadn’t realized how much I rely on the presence of women to brighten my surroundings. It’s as if, not being able to drink in the sight of women around me, my life becomes gray and lifeless. And certainly, I remember having the will to go to class, when I was still in college, only by knowing pretty girls were in my class.

This all leads to the deeper question of why I rely on women so much to make my life bearable. Do I hate my life so much? And I hate to admit that the answer is yes. Take away women, and my life feels utterly empty. Obviously, that needs to change. Fortunately, the virtue of an empty room – or life – is that it can be filled.

The other thought brought on by reworking my gazing habits is how that affects pick-up. A lot of the techniques I’m learning involve being friendly and meeting the eyes of women you come across. I don’t think that crosses the line into the bona fide Male Gaze, in and of itself. It does mean, though, that I’ll have less time to notice and react to IOIs, though. Which may be a good thing, as adaptability is the name of the game. I also think that the proper attitude to cultivate is one where I’m not actively looking for invitations by attractive women to approach them, but am able to recognize and act upon such invitations when they appear. This is something that, I think, also feeds into feminist ideas of men giving up ideas of entitlement to a particular reaction by women, by being more attentive to what women are actually communicating with their body language.

Male Socialization

One of the things I find really interesting about pick-up is the way that so much of it isn’t really so much about seduction or even dating as just learning basic social skills. Reading about, and getting to experience for myself, the way women will, for instance, put a man who approaches them into a difficult social situation as a way of learning what he’s really like (although reminiscent of the writings of Shan Yu). I’m honestly developing a healthy respect for the other sex’s social prowess.

Along with that, though, I’ve been considering how it is that men don’t learn these social skills. As a “soft essentialist”, I’m happy to accept that men and women are going to deal with social situations differently, but it does seem like men are given the shaft when it comes to being social. Compared to women, we’re children. This is a fact which may explain the frustration a lot of men feel, a frustration that leads them to accuse women of being inherently deceitful and manipulative. I don’t think this is true, generally, but a reflection of how ignorant men are of social situations.

On the other hand, women can be so relentlessly social that they never show an ability to be themselves. They go beyond being social to being obsessive-compulsive. In effect, they’re “social robots”. And that’s something that women can learn from men; to not have to define yourself in relation to people, to be fine on your own, to be able to hurt someone’s feelings when it’s the right thing to do.

But that’s an extreme. I think men as a group need the most work. And as a society, we need to do a better job of teaching our boys to keep up with the girls in social skills. I think that if we try, we’ll find men naturally developing a uniquely male approach to being social. In fact, this is a process the pick-up community has already started.