Douglas and Nanette — the Wisdom of Hindsight

This is an article written to express my sincere thanks to Hannah Gadsby. For making me understand not for the first time but even deeper, that, honesty has value, thinking differently than others has value, resilience has value, stories have value.

I rewatched two stand-up comedy shows today. Both being works of Hannah Gadsby, one of my newly found pearls while surfing the internet ocean. She just got greater and funnier the second time I watched them. What observational, bold, accurate, and hilarious finds!

She truly deserves all of the praise and attention. I in fact felt that she is greatly underappreciated.

Hindsight is a gift. Hannah said.

Yes. As one of the self-acclaimed feminists, I owe myself and many fellow sisters this guilty confession.

I named myself an ID that started with Picasso Loves Me, when I was 19 on Skype, and have been using the same ID throughout the years. Yes, I have read about Picasso’s story as portrayed by the media, that he was this casanova genius artist who just had a little hobby: being a womanizer. Hardly a shortcoming. How naive of me and everybody else.

One of my favorite movies of all time is Annie Hall by Woody Allen, whose films I watched quite a few and still do. I even subscribed to a question when the accusation was first brought to the public eye with an underlying wish that Woody Allen was innocent. Even after the “metoo” movement peaked and his own son went openly against him. Note, his son won a Pulitzer award for going after Harvey Weinstein in reports. Doesn’t it sound the alarm?

And I’d defended the GOOD MEN in various ways, either by going extra length or by having sugarcoated my criticism as compliments and said “oh they don’t know what they are doing they are people like you and me, people make mistakes” or by downplaying the seriousness of their misogyny like it’s easy to fix once they’ve come to a realization. Like they don’t have a mind of their own and are puppets to their hormones or their peer pressure. So they shouldn’t be held accountable for their actions of ignorance.

FUCK THAT.

So as a woman, I held my grudges in when: I heard people saying words like freeloader for paid sex (白嫖)like they don’t know what the word means; I acted like I didn’t hear it when a male coworker confessed his rape fantasy of a female colleague we all knew in a social game at the dinner table (not that it matters if we personally knew her or not); and, the times when I had to change the subject quickly when men approached me and told me to smile more like it’s their fucking business to make sure women do smile and please them when men are around at all times.

Another time, when I asked a coworker and consulted him on a project issue, he said it with such casualty like you had that issue with that particular person maybe because you didn’t put your photo on, hinting that I got this level of success because these men liked my photo? Like it’s a fucking compliment. (To that asshole, open your fucking eyes and see how much of a smart, hardworking, and overall a great person I am to work and discuss serious projects with, while I am busy making my own contributions to the world you are being a dickhole for assuming women merely got their career success for they can use their fucking body as an appeal and a tease on a man because you have none of these)

And the male coworkers that insisted that I should consider staying with them in the same apartment during a work trip despite the fact I was the only female on the crew(and clearly I wasn’t being a team player when I turned this kind offer down, apparently it could save money for the company and easier to play poker games and ask dirty questions and flirt, maybe even have shots of sleeping around. Doesn’t hurt to try, right).

Let’s be clear. Some of these men have daughters of their own.

Let’s also hope they would be good dads and not wish that upon their own kids. I wouldn’t wish their daughters to grow up and go to work and get asked by male colleagues especially married men with daughters that ever.

And the times I lost count of when I needed to cope by silently said in my heart fuck you every time a man asks me if I live alone (some of them are fucking married, or have girlfriends, and some of them are just so much older and we hardly knew each other at all) like it’s any of their fucking business when in reality I just ignored the question completely and dragged them to my WEISUONAN list room there and lock the fuck up and lose my fucking key to ensure that I wouldn't be seeing them the same. Of course, it happened very quickly and they won’t be able to tell that I did all of them in a mil second (well, arrogance can make you dumb)and from then on they are just laughable absurdly looking gross walking dicks to me.

(Excuse my French.)

And these are all the men that are by definition GOOD, we are not even at the brim of the bad ones here. And yet these happen to if not 100% of the women, then at least 80–90% of the women all year round and are making me so sick and appalled each time I hear such comments.

I felt like if I, like Hannah, were ever in a room of men and men only I would be deadly afraid, how could they have said these words without running them through their mind and questioning their absurdity first.

I’ve been a feminist my whole life, and that doesn’t make my life in a misogynist world any easier. And I’m already so much luckier than a lot of my sisters out there.

Sexist comments, nasty glances, jokes at the expense of women’s dignity, and unseen pressure of being the caretaker because apparently it’s your job to serve me and make me feel like a man, and if you don’t appreciate it then they can find a way to portray you as the one who doesn’t play team spirit and clearly that’s bound to throw your ability and skills into question.

It was a men’s world. It still is.

Many women haven’t been awakened, some are being used to fire each other out and play the hunger game. There are misogynist women who do even more horrible things to other women just to please men (who mistreat them)so they can make their men stay. Some men are so good at manipulating women into catfighting and making them succumb that you have to give them credits because, damn, aren’t they smooth.

Note: there’s a specific academic term for this: tug of war. While I understand that talking about conflict among women seems to confirm negative stereotypes about women as catty and petty, and we know indistinctly that, women, as an underrepresented group in many industries, infighting isn’t going to get us anywhere, it’s important to be fully aware of this type of trick that sexism plays on women.

So girls, stay united! As for working women, please hear this:

It’s not your fault that the men at your company consistently progress up the career ladder more quickly than women do. it’s not your fault that last year’s review said you needed to speak up for yourself, and this year’s review says you need to stop being so demanding. It’s not your fault that you came back from business trip ready to dive back in, only to find yourself frozen out of major assignments. And it’s not your fault that the woman you thought was your mentor has been arguing against the promotion you seek. Plenty of things may happen to you that are your fault, but gender bias isn’t one of them.

Origin: Joan C. Williams & Rachel Dempsey & Anne-Marie Slaughter Stewart. (2014). Four patterns working women need to know. NYU Press.

The assumptions that you are either a doormat (because too “girly”)or a bitch (because too “bossy” )or just a typical second sex (because you are a woman, you are naturally inferior to men) thus you are not right for a promotion (while the men who have absolutely no prior experience in your expertise got the promotion because of their “potential”) are wrong, not you.

When you were just 6 or 7-year-old, you read about women fighting their courses in books for the first time you would be like awww, I feel bad for these women having to fight so hard to get their rights back. It’s history, so glad it’s done with by now.

But no. Not at all.

Prepare yourself, because you are in for a massive, giant, gigantic, enormous culture shock.

Respect is something that you either give and get in return or it is NOT for you.

I have ZERO respect for assholes. There’s ZERO humanity in misogyny.

Misogynists do not deserve the respect we give them. So don’t give them the attention they want, if they choose to stay that way, let them roll in their dirt and watch their body and soul slowly rot. It’s fine.

On the other hand, know that it’s not getting easier, not even after you learn about the whys and hows.

As to Hannah, I just want to say:

I adore you. You are a heroine.

2020/09/04