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Nov 6, 2023Liked by Joe Burnham

Thank you for explaining the causality for the situation we all find ourselves in. And thank you for shedding light on the reality with which most women who want relationships with men are faced: find a benevolent dictator or find someone from whom kindness can be teased. And I'd like to say that even when women work assiduously on themselves and on building with men relationships that are egalitarian, these old ways of doing things, that no longer serve, can still undermine us all. While we all need to work together to effect change, those with the most power are in the best position to accomplish the most. This applies to all repressive social dynamics.

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Thank you Sara, and you’re welcome for attempting to do my part in a much broader struggle.

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Also these comments was from the what we can see tread don't know how they ended up here in the history tread. But I agree that stuff is lost doing thing for the sake of tradition which is why we must establish why we did something originally first. But with that being said you really think men generally gave women protection and provision just for purpose? You sure it couldn't be for somthing else like legacy? Or Love? Also don't we teach men to be self determined before getting into a relationship? Aren't there alot of wemon even in the past that done great things without men? Dont we also encourage men to get a good women? Now I can see the issue with arrange marriages dealing with self determination but this goes for both the man and the women.

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Oh, I don’t think it was just for purpose, but I think purpose (which ties into legacy) is a piece of that.

As for teaching men to be self-determined, no, I don’t think we do. Perhaps we demand that they be self-reliant, to have a job and all that in place, but so often that’s just a matter of learning how you can work the system to survive, which is a far cry from self-determination. I’d actually say most American’s aren’t self-determined and society doesn’t invite or what us to be that way because that would make us horrible cogs for the corporate machine.

And yes, there are women who have done things without men. But an exception doesn’t make a rule. That’s why I focus on the idea of opportunity for all rather than highlighting an exception.

On the good woman, I guess the question then would be, “What makes for a good woman?” I know what I find desirable, but I also know that something very different from what our society cultivates and it’s certainly not the things my parents would look for.

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I'm a little confused here? Did your lady freind initiate the divorce sp she could find herself? Did she not who she was at 25 before she got married? Is the unseen thing you holding back given advice? What mansplianing exactly did you prevent yourself from doing? What exactly was the positive effect? How did the 50 year old benefit exactly? This was a very vague post.

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I think the short answer is it's none of our business as to why she and her ex divorced.

As for the post on the whole, I would say much of it is vague because you've got a blindspot when it comes to reality for many women.

The lack of opportunity for self-determination, the need to constantly calculate everything about yourself in hopes of gaining approval in a male dominated world, how huge it was on her part to say that she disagreed with something she thought I approved of.

So at that level, me not mansplaining, didn't crush the self-advocacy that every fiber of her being was trying to tamp down. It honored her voice, her thoughts, her opinions. Which is something she's experienced very little of in her life.

It was good for me, because it reminds me of the power dynamics we experience throughout society, ones where I'm naturally positioned at or near the head of the table, not because of who I am, but because of the body I present in.

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I would agree I have a blind spot in understanding a women realty cuase I'm not a women just like wemon have a blind spot for men. But the question here is what excatly is the lesson here? Just that we accept we can't understand eachother? I think that's been agreed upon already. Are any men today really trying to fix women? Aren't men leaving the women alone the biggest trend now?

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I’d say women, on the whole, understand men a whole lot more than we understand them, largely because they have been taught from birth to have to navigate a world largely organized by men. Just like Black people have to navigate a White world.

So what is the lesson? I would suggest, when we discover that we have blind spots, we recognize them and seek to gain more understanding so we can navigate around them. By the time we get to Friday, I’ll have a few book recommendations.

Now, this isn’t so we can fix women, as if they are broken, rather, it’s so there is greater awareness and we can also adapt our behavior so we can support their right to self-determination, just like we want our right supported.

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