Thank you for all of your responses and concerns. First some history: 10 years ago a woman I cared deeply for in Germany caused a great deal of pain in my life. To make a long story short, at the enlightened end of the spectrum she wanted me to be a bodhisattva and I wanted to be a buddha. She accused me of not loving her because I would not satisfy her terms of the relationship, and I became very confused and eventually lost. The entire experience has had a lasting impact on my ego.
Recently another woman that I care deeply for has asked me to be somebody that it is very difficult for me to be, but that is not a lie. This post is partly my ego reaction to the pressure and the fear that I feel when facing this situation. Your responses have helped me to further move through the challenge that I am facing. The bitter tone of this post is also a manifestation of the frustrations my ego has been dealing with.
A few general remarks are perhaps also warranted. I do not believe in a universal notion of gender equality. Because gender identities are sociological and personal responses to biological relativities it is impossible to talk about ‘gender’ in essentialist terms. It is only possible to talk about gender in terms of normatized ego-relations.
‘Gender equality’ as an ego-relationship (rather then as a legal mandate) is a purely central and western European/Anglo-American phenomenon. To talk about such a relationship as if it is has a ‘universal mandate’ is to practice a Eurocentric and in my opinion colonizing attitude. It is, in my opinion, much more beneficial to describe the preferred gender ego-relations as those that are ‘gender-balanced’, an idea which Jadie eluded to here.
Yes, this post was sexist and hetero-normative. It was meant to be so, not only because I was bitter but because I find what I described here to be an important characteristic of normative gender relations in all parts of the world in which I have been, not because every relationship (or even necessarily most) demonstrates these characteristics but because specifically these characteristics help to define the normative boundaries of gender relations throughout the world. I have found that in these definitional relations women employ an intuition in their decision making processes that men do not normally employ. This employment includes a degree of ‘testing’ of the men in their lives—particularly their lovers. Testing might be too strong of a word, and perhaps more closely it should be the idea of probing, pushing, gently persuading, or even on the greater consciousness end of the spectrum ‘manipulation for wilful purposes.’ And in fact the way in which a man reacts to these kinds of actions is part of the respect and love the woman affords him. Men do not always understand the motivation for these actions (in fact they are not always aware that it is happening) but because of their love they agree to participate—which brought me to the point of my post. The love that agrees to follow a woman’s intuitive ‘manipulations’ (but I need a word to describe it that is not negative by implication) must entail a great deal of trust on the man’s part. This has been my experience. Feel free to disagree or to argue against it. Feel free to be offended by it. Hell, feel free to unfriend me if you so desire, but that has been my experience of normatively definitive gender relations. Until we begin to discuss fundamental (and in some cases essential) differences between men and women we will come no closer to achieving a more harmonious gender balance in our lives. That opinion could change—although I doubt it--but that’s what it is right now.
Again, thanks for your comments.
