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Letters—

Damn!  You got me!  Pulled me right back into the argument! Just when I had contentedly committed myself to simply working for a living, knitting and decorating, exercising, being with family and friends, organizing my family photographs and dedicating myself to genealogy projects and having occasional new experiences and wonderful meals (but not eating too much!).

I was innocently stuck inside on a snowy day, sitting at my computer with a cup of coffee, my garden covered with nearly 2 feet of snow, trying to grow old gracefully and not bother too much with ‘raging at the dying of the light’—or raging at anything else that used to get my goat (coffee—rather than issues—being the main stimulant I still choose to use to raise my blood pressure these days.)

I was thinking about music and art and literature—reading old articles in Word Worth… ostensibly avoiding those emotionally loaded hot-button issues of my youth, the ones that inspired me—the ones I wrote letters about and rallied about and sometimes marched about: clean, renewable energy; civil rights; high quality education and teaching children to think; a stable, clean, life/health-friendly environment; universal medical care; a living wage; fair priced housing; prison reform; and yes, of course, you guessed it, among many other issues—women’s rights...all those issues that, as recently as the 60s and 70s were considered by many—including elected officials—to be low priority, so-called “women’s issues” —worthy of consideration only after decisions about building new missiles and making war, lowering taxes and punishing those who made garments out of old glory were put to a vote.

I must admit that I never saw the billboard that is the subject of your article (excepting as depicted in Word Worth.) I wish I could have seen the aforementioned billboard before reading your article and understood what my reaction to it would have been without your take on it. 

The billboard picture displayed really seemed fairly innocuous to me and your article seemed to begin as a fairly innocuous piece, as well, which I thought might move towards a definition of respect.

But I was halfway through your discussion when I found something in its tone that was disturbing in a familiar way.  Here is a description of my reaction.  You wrote: 

• A short article about kindness and respect.  (Good.  I’m for both of them.)

• An article touching on respect for women.  (Good, I am very much in favor of that, as well.)

• An overview of one mans sojourn into understanding changes wrought by the women’s movement. (Glad you have chosen to make the journey.)

• An article about how you learned not to open doors for women.  (An historical anecdote—But: Oh dear! How 60’s of you!)

• An article about how you were made aware that real respect is regard for another person as a human rather than a sexual being. (Okay, probably a slip of the pen—I understand, but an odd turn of phrase none-the-less!  )

• An article suggesting that a billboard that states, “Teach your son to respect women,” could cause you to have to unlearn what you had learned all these years about respecting women.  (What?)

• An article about how a billboard that states, “Teach your son to respect women,” caused you to reflect that there should also be a billboard stating, “Teach your daughters to respect men.” (?)

And there it was: A familiar but somewhat illogical sequence: From kindness and respect in general…to respect for women in particular…to ‘I learned to respect women a long time ago’…to will I have to change again? …To ‘it isn’t fair!’

Something underlying the whole argument reminds me of the Rodney Dangerfield lament:
“I don’t get no respect!”

You are right, of course.  I agree that respect can be a “fuzzy” concept.  I also agree with what I believe is an unstated premise of your article that there are many women who do not have much respect for men, as a whole. Respect should “go both ways” —further than that, in fact! We should all learn to respect one another.

We should all teach all of our children, our sons and our daughters, nieces and nephews, students, neighbor kids, etc, etc. to respect themselves, to respect one another, to respect men and women, mothers and fathers, spouses and lovers, boys and girls, the heterosexual and the homosexual, the weak and the strong, the rich and the poor, the tall and the short, the fat and the thin, the outdoorsman and the “indoors-man,” the healthy and the sick, bank presidents and plumbers, people of other nationalities, other religions, people who make different clothing choices, food choices, housing choices, hobby choices…in short-all others…

I can’t imagine that anyone would truly disagree with you: Respect should go “both” ways. But I think the point you make is something like a preacher saying he is for love and ‘agin’ sin!

In the best of all possible worlds, a billboard stating, “Teach your sons to respect women,” would be equal to and carry much the same connotation as a billboard stating, “Teach your daughters to respect men;” and any man or woman reading either billboard would simply agree and drive on (except for those of us who rarely look closely at any billboards because billboards are at odds with our aesthetic sensibilities.) But this is not the best of all possible worlds and I believe that you may have somewhat willfully missed the point.

At first, I really did not want to respond to your article for many reasons—mostly because I feel that your point of view is so reminiscent of a 70s partially enlightened liberal man, and I have become weary of dealing with older folks who I feel are either unable or unwilling to understand the women’s movement.

I know that your article is yours and you have a right to your opinion and that my response to your article and to the billboard is mine, and that we may have to agree to disagree, but I am hoping that I might write something that will cause you to modify your view none-the-less.

As an aside and a tangent: I really despise billboards!  They are a plague upon the earth. Here is my song about billboards, sung to the tune of “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music:

“A Drive in the Country When the View Is Of Billboards and other Ugly Miscellany”
Cigarette butts and straw wrappers, old sneakers on phone wire,
Crushed beer cans and pop cans and TP and truck tires,
Half eaten hamburgers, wrappers that cling;
These are a few of my most disliked things…

10 foot high billboards for casinos and lawyers,
Canadian lap dancers and other annoyers,
Signs selling Penzoil and hot chicken wings;
These are a few of my most disliked things…

You get the idea…..

I dislike a lot of things that are at odds with my sense of the environment, but then, like any card carrying tree hugger, I am probably not the ideal audience for most billboards…and I am very likely not the target demographic for this billboard either…but I digress.

Even though I dislike billboards, I none-the-less would rather see this particular billboard than others because I feel there is a need for its message.

The need is this: In our society, there is still an enormous underlying pool of disrespect for women.  You may not think so, but because you are male and have courageously decided to understand some of what the women’s movement has striven for in the past, you may be less likely to notice that disrespect for women is still rampant. 

I can see it clearly every day and it takes many forms and ranges greatly in its degree of intensity. Sometimes the disrespect I see is subtle and mildly judgmental, sometimes it is superior and dismissive, sometimes it is mocking in jokes and teasing,  sometimes it is ignorant and takes for granted, sometimes it is angry and threatening, sometimes it is hateful, destructive and violent.  Disrespect for women is an international ill which routinely takes on horrifying proportions in some parts of the world (burqas, beatings, female circumcision, the murder of baby girls, etc., the absolute lack of legal and human rights) but it is not gone from our good ole American Apple Pie and Mom society, and it can take on a range of mild to pretty horrifying proportions here, as well.

Some symptoms and effects of that disrespect in our own society include:

• Unequal pay for equal work

• Glass ceilings

•  Violence against women

• Bullying

• Threatening

• Injuring

• Raping

• Murdering

• The climate that allows such behavior:

• Households and working climates, clubs, etc., in which people joke about violence against women   

• Households and working climates, clubs, etc., in which people joke about women’s intelligence

• Households and working climates, clubs, etc., in which people make jokes in which women are treated as sexual objects

• Homes in which men assume their wives should do the majority of the work involved in raising children

• Homes in which men assume their wives should do the majority of the house work-cleaning, washing, ironing, cooking, serving, picking up, shopping, organizing and more

• Homes in which men assume their wives should do whatever they do not feel like doing

There is a reason why there is a billboard that addresses teaching boys to respect women and why there is not a billboard that addresses teaching girls to respect men.

While I do not claim that all women in our society have respect for men, that women do not find fault, that women do not feel hatred or do not bully or do not commit violence against men and even kill them, I do claim that there is considerable evidence that the men in families, in relationships and in society in general are far more likely to bully, injure or kill women than the reverse.  There is a reason why there are anonymous shelters that house mostly women and their children escaping violent fathers, stepfathers, husbands and boyfriends.  There is also considerable evidence that boys for whom violence is modeled in their childhoods are more likely to condone and/or commit violence towards women and children in their adulthood than those boys who do not see violence in their childhoods.

A little early in the women’s movement for a Billboard teaching daughters to respect men, don’t you think?  Girls have had to “respect men” for forever…but this “respect”  connotes for women the concept of fear. From my standpoint, and the standpoint of women who have been able to make good their escape from, say, a Texas Mormon stronghold of polygamy, the concept of girls respecting men has a connotation that is both frightening and sickening.  Where in our society is there a situation in which a young boy fears that he must accept that his life’s partner will have multiple husbands.  Where is it in this society is there a place where a 14 year old boy must submit to marrying and having sex with a 75 year old woman on a cot with others watching?

I make the judgment that the disrespect for women still in evidence in our society is considerably more significant and more destructive than the disrespect for men in evidence in our society.

I think it is fair to say that in any society where there are inequities among groups of people, it ultimately becomes necessary to address them.  I also think it fair to say that it is logical and fair to address the most significant issues first and put less significant issues on the back burner.

I too, was around (and growing into my sense of self as a woman) at the time when the issue of opening or not opening doors for a woman was debated. While I never thought this to be a significant issue in the movement towards more equal rights for women, I did understand the point as an emblem of control versus independence…I sincerely hope that forty years after that great debate, the issue of whether or not to open a door has become, for most people, no more that a consideration of the situation of the person for whom one is opening a door—Is that person smaller or older or more burdened with packages, or even just farthest from the door—and that one does not refrain from or indulge in opening a door based on the sex of the respective opener and “open-ee.”  (I open doors for men and women alike, and I hope you do to.)

I am not quite sure why you used one of the least consequential concerns of the women’s movement as the starting-off-point for your argument in behalf of a billboard promoting respect for men.  There were so many issues in the women’s movement.  To use this open-the-door issue, rather than a truly substantive one, may unintentionally carry the implication that you do not view the women’s movement as substantive.  I suspect that you find the billboard troubling on some other level.

I also think that your need to share your version of the shallow old “lady-whore” story from your youth makes it appear that you need to wedge in just a little denigration of women before you move on to your salient points. (How would you take the statement:  “Treat a man like a boy-toy and a boy-toy like a man?”)

I think you probably didn’t mean to say that you learned to view women ‘as human rather than sexual beings.’   I believe that what women hoped for in those days was not that we no longer be seen as sexual beings—quite the contrary—but that we wanted not to be treated as sexual objects.

In the late 60s and early 70s, exploration of sexuality was a big deal for both women and men-Lots of people were reading Masters and Johnson and all kinds of American and international, ancient and contemporary sex handbooks; many churches distributed useful information about sex to prospective couples.  Contraceptives became available to women as well as men and women found it far less dangerous to explore their sexuality and to experiment with technique.

There also began to be an explosion of available books about other women’s health issues: childbirth, breast feeding, menopause, and aging. Women could make more educated choices about important sexual aspects of their health and feel more confident about these choices.

Women began to realize that it as not always wise to accept a doctors paternal advice (as ‘don’t worry about it, honey’) about all aspects of our health…we began to take our own responsibilities for our health more seriously as we realized that many “scientific” medical related health studies (such as those about the heart and circulation, for example) had used only male subjects and therefore that findings about such issues did not apply equally to women and to men...the differences in our bodies needed to be taken seriously outside of sexual differences…we needed to ask more questions…evaluate recommendations, seek other opinions.

Speaking as a woman, and for many reasons, I hope to be regarded for the rest of my life as both a human being and as a sexual being …just not as a sexual object.

I also feel it is not genuine for you to say you fear that you may need to unlearn what you have relearned—or learned all these years. I do not in any way understand how this bill board would cause anyone to feel that he or she should unlearn anything. The irrationality of that conclusion made me suspect, instead, that there was something you found threatening about the billboard.

Learning is life-long, I hope. We build on what we have learned before.  If the billboard challenges what you know, then you have the opportunity to learn something new. Learning anything as we age is a privilege for those of us still sentient and energetic enough to be able to exercise our minds.

I thought your purportedly self-aware, self-revelatory, self-effacing toss-away line feigning innocence and presenting in passing the notion that you have an old complex wandering about (your) brain that is trying to stir up trouble between the sexes may have some grain of truth in it.  The direction of your article may be nothing more than acknowledging the importance of a plea to treat women with respect and at the same time, taking an opportunity to dip Mary Anne’s pigtail in the inkwell. The thing is, I am not convinced that your intent is really to ‘cause trouble between the sexes.’ (Why would we need that?)

I also do not understand why the billboard carries troubling inferences for you. I don’t think you really mean that.  Of course we have to learn to treat men and women as individuals; I believe that is the direction we are moving: To have universal standards that acknowledge the worth and dignity of all living things—of men and of women, of children, of the old, of animals, of plants. To have respect and to use all of my senses and all of my powers of observation and understanding to treat each person as I find him or her, within the limits of my abilities…a balancing act between my needs, essential but necessary selfishness as a human being and my desire to respect others and to be of service to them.

That is not going back.  That is going forward.  The women’s movement, for which your article chose the shorthand of doors and sex, was addressing so many issues.  Back in the 60s and 70s, much of the thrust of the movement was toward recognizing that women as a group were not limited, nor less than men, legally, intellectually, spiritually, or physically; but underlying the focus on issues regarding women as a group has always been the notion of each woman’s value as an individual.

I fear you raised the open-door issue, exhumed denigrating remarks, spoke beguilingly about causing trouble between the sexes and threatened confusion and inability to change-much as people sometimes do, when they are tired of changing and tired of growing and tired of adapting and they want something for themselves and are afraid that they are loosing something and that somebody is getting something they are not…

And, I think it a little precious of you to use the bill board to talk about general kindness and respect as if there should not be a billboard urging respect for women…if the billboard doesn’t talk about daughters respecting men, it isn’t fair?   That we should always and only talk about everyone respecting everyone?

I think the real key to your article rests on your statement, “Does it mean that women respect men already so they don’t need reminding? Ummm.  I don’t think so.”

“Ummm?”  “Reminding?”  What does this mean?  Please fill in the blanks! It is my guess that the billboard caused you to experience some of your unresolved feelings about the women’s movement: making the real thrust of your article that you feel or fear that many men, including yourself, have given (up) more than they want to women and it is not fair.

If it weren’t for the importance of the subject of the billboard, your article would be in part—funny, and, in a way, sad.  You are very likely a good man who has made some significant strides in understanding women but you have apparently not experienced sufficient personal growth to be free from the pangs of jealousy when something is not ultimately about you.

This billboard asks that we teach our sons to respect women because of the inequalities that still exist in this society amid a general climate of disrespect that lead to pain and suffering ranging from financial hardship to violence and death.

Although I still have much to learn about respect, I was fortunate enough to be helped to begin my lessons at about age five, from a rather terrifying song in the wonderful old musical, South Pacific:  “You’ve got to be taught, before it’s too late, before you are six or seven or eight, to hate all the people your relatives hate. You’ve got to be carefully taught.”  (Yes, Virginia, children do understand irony.)

Many of our sons are still not being taught to respect women—before it’s too late—by the way their fathers treat their mothers: Does Dad listen to his wife or dismiss what she says? Does he appreciate what she does? Does he help her around the house? Does he value her ambitions? Does he feel threatened by her successes?  Does he tell her what to do? Does he walk away from her concerns? Is he faithful or unfaithful?  Does he belittle her? Does he threaten her? Does he hit her?

The billboard you write about may not instruct anyone to share the tasks and responsibilities of the household and not get mad or passive aggressive. It may not state that many women need time and support to follow dreams, too. It may not say, “Listen to women.” It may not say, “Don’t threaten!”  It may not say, “Stop beating your wife!”  It may not say “rape is not a husband’s privilege”…or the prerogative of a date.  It may not state “no” means no; you are not right because you are bigger; you are not right because you are louder.  It may not state that women who are assertive are not bitches.  The billboard doesn’t talk about why there are shelters for women and children who are so fearful for their safety that they have to run and hide. But that is what it is about.  It is about a climate in which many boys are still raised, by men and women alike, with expectations that women should be somehow subservient, that not only are women objects for sex, but they should also do the housework, raise the children, agree with their husbands and support him in all he does.

One might reasonably argue the effectiveness of the billboard's prose…if, considering the social ill it is addressing, does it target the right demographic group?  Is that the right message to send?  What evidence do we have that this reminder will have an impact?  Etc., Etc., Etc. Based on your response to the billboard, one might think that liberal white males will read the billboard and it will make them feel threatened.

Apparently you do not perceive the world as a potentially dangerous place for many women, where angry, fearful men, still limit and destroy the lives of women.  It is true that there has been a gradual evolution in the way in which women in this country are viewed and treated my men.  Much has changed since the 60s.  But much has remained the same.

The question at hand is really not a question of whether or not men need respect. Of course they do. But the questions are instead—To what degree have women achieved respect in our society? Are women as a group and individual women respected in society at the same level as men are? What is the nature of that respect—what evidence of this respect do we have? This is really an issue of equality; and most important, what happens to women if men and women in society do not respect them?

So—To what degree are women respected? Are women and men “equal before the law?” This is hard to measure.  But one young (aged 40) male colleague of mine said about your article, “Is he kidding? Women still don’t even have equal pay for equal work!  Look at the statistics! That is a question I ask my (11^th grade history) students: ‘What is one thing that women still don’t have that men have?’  Answer:  Equal pay for equal work.”

He is 40 years old—born when the proverbial bra hit the fire— male, identifies himself as conservative, and yet, though young, he knows that women are not “there” yet.  In the world of work, respect pretty much translates itself into dollars (If you don’t think so, try to live on, “Nice job, honey,” and see how you like canned cat food).

Even though employment and earning power have improved greatly over the years, in many industries and clubs and in much of politics, women are still butting their heads against the glass ceiling.  In spite of laws to the contrary, in many lines of work women are still suffering sexual harassment just to bring down a decent paycheck. And it is still true that women with children are passed over for work and for promotions more often than men with children. 

But I believe the issue of most concern to the billboard is about respecting women’s bodies and personal space—their psyche—their essential being.  And until our society ceases to foster violence against women, I am not ready support your billboard for men.

     

I read Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Freidan and Gloria Steinham, Erica Jong, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Wolf, and so many others (and Iron John, too.)

My early childhood memories include the separate entrances for women to important social clubs in the area (where much business was said to be done) —clubs that women, in those days were not allowed to join.

I had been raised to be an intelligent companion for an intelligent man, a woman who could understand him and his life—a sounding board, a cheerleader, a capable mother for his children and good homemaker.

I was a young adult at the time of the myth of the “burning of bras” —which some say never really took place—and the issue of the freedom to dress comfortably. I always thought that this was a particularly funny myth—making it appear heinous and real that women were out to destroy the manufactured containers for those most cherished of 50’s American male sexual symbols and how equally amusing it would be for the buying public if Playtex Living Jock Straps had been advertised on television. (Uplift and separate.  Cross your balls!)

The job that I retired from was one in which the hiring interviewer asked me if I had a boyfriend or planned to get pregnant … the job was apparently not to be available if either were the case.

I was working in the days when “working women” were distinguished from working men as a breed apart as we tried to negotiate equal pay for equal work and I witnessed early efforts to break the “glass ceiling.”

I was a working mother as women urged and pleaded and went on strike in their own homes to find a way to bring about some fair division of labor between spouses in a shared household.  It was hard for women to work from 8-5, help children with their homework, play with them, support them emotionally, tend to the children when they were sick, ferry them to doctor and dentist appointments, cook for the family, do dishes, shop, clean, garden, do laundry, iron, strip and re-make beds, clean the refrigerator and stove; etc. etc. The extra income was needed, but so was the help around the house.
—JG, Holland, NY, USA

We've received a total of two letters on the other side of this issue, from the columnist's sister and co-worker. Even though they do not seem to speak to the article, we are publishing them in the interest of balance. They are unedited.

• I enjoy Wordworth very much, but I must say Charles Miess is my favorite writer.  I don't always share Charles' point of view, but his last column, A Matter of Respect, was excellent.  I am a wife and mother, and I believe gender should have no bearing on kindness or respect.
  —EB, Bowmansville, NY, USA
   

• What a GREAT story by Charles Miess "Matter of Respect".  It made me think about all the mixed signals we send to men.  I'm going to make sure my daughter and all her girlfreinds read this.  We need to respect each other no matter what sex we are!  Thanks for sharing this story/editorial with us.......
  —CB, West Seneca, NY, USA

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