I'm no scholar, and all I have are blustery opinions, but in my opinion: communication is different now.
Now as opposed to when? I'm not sure. Like I said, I don't have, like, hypotheses or studies to back them up.
I suspect that, before the internet burgeoned into an assault of information at our fingertips 24/7, we seemed to be no more comfortable with vulnerability than we are now, but at least a little more accepting of, or accustomed to, its sting and the subsequent balm of mutual humanness that we couldn't escape afterward, as though it would break us. We learned a lot from each other. Directly. Eye contact. Side hugs, and witness to tears, and tasting the vapor of each others' agonies, and making them part of ourselves.
And I know that, for Younger Me, I valued sitting in a room with people, sharing ideas and experiences. Even those who differed fundamentally from me. Especially those. I still do. But where tempers and iron wills and opinions and stupid petty little stupid things begin to trump the relationships that should be safe zones for perspectivizing them... it would be so easy to value it all less, the processes of communication and vulnerability. They are so much more rare and precious than they've ever been, and I don't value them less. So the flipside is that, when these "trumps" happen, they hurt me more deeply. I am far less patient with them than I've ever been. I am less inclined to forgive them. And I am not sorry for it. Maybe I should be; maybe I will be. But not today. Not tomorrow, either.
With regard to patriarchy/rape culture, there's so much blood in the water. It's an active minefield, strewn with body parts: women who are expected to bear the responsibility of educating men who have never tried to learn, and men who have wandered onto the field with genuine interest and humility and inklings of their own ignorance, only to be blown to pieces at their first misstep and left to mourn themselves on the battlefield. Because we women will not mourn them.
Do we owe them our grief? those few seekers, caught in the crossfires of the "trumps" and landmines? Do we draw them a map? I'm not far enough along in any journey to ponder that question. It is a sacred space still.
But I know that broadening a conversation used to mean talking about what's happened to us, and maybe you could read this book, too, because it has some great info. And anymore, discussions of patriarchy, rape culture, and women's issues come to the table already devolved into staunch sides of a battle: I can't understand if you don't help me understand! versus You've been on Earth this long without understanding, so, clearly, you've never made an effort to understand, and it's not my responsibility to teach you!
And truly, anymore, I am so tired. I am weary and heartbroken with all of this, and with myself, because I am too tired to be anyone's teacher, to tell you my stories in hopes that you'll take something from them, to consider withholding them for my own sake and know that you might continue in your lack of enlightenment and blame it on that woman who wouldn't tell me anything about it, so how am I supposed to know. I am so tired. And it is difficult to have grace with 45- and 50- and 70- and 30-year-old men who are so, so ignorant of patriarchy's reach that it is hard to believe it isn't willful. And it is difficult to have grace for me, too, who would give you anything, but I will not give you what I can't confirm will be as meaningful and transformative for you as it was for me. Not that I could ever know. Not that it could ever be, maybe.
But then I remember: I, as a thirty-three-year-old woman, who has been an object of patriarchy for her entire life, dealing with it daily, like any woman: even I didn't see it this clearly until the savagery of rape blew my life out of the water.
The pain that I feel and the hurdles I face, as a target of patriarchy, are the very pains that men will never face; and that's kind of the point of it all. Women - the undermined in patriarchy - carry a unique perspective by our pain. Talk about tensions and contradictions. It's no advantage, as we all know, but our stories matter to the men around us. Even if they reject them. Even if they use them against us. There will always be that one searcher among the mob. And the surest way he'll touch the hem of a robe is by drawing near to a spoken truth.
Is it our responsibility to educate? or more men's responsibility to take initiative? I'm too tired to answer that question. Somebody else can answer it for me, until I figure it out.
For now -I'm not sure if it's a getting-older thing, or if it's reflective of how communication has morphed, or maybe all or none of the above - maybe it's just all in my own head, where I am right now: but I lament. How long. How long must we keep all the balls in the air? - patience with each other, as God is patient with us flung high and away alongside I do not have it in me to be patient for one more day. depleted. raw. tired. How long will this conversation be dominated by trumps, on both sides, while we scream at each other for our lack of middle ground.
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