A while back I got tagged for this meme.
MY PERFECT MAN.
It's impossible to write or read that phrase without wanting to cringe. Not just the heterosexist assumption -or the dubious status of that word 'perfect'. It's just one of those sentences, along with 'I can explain' and 'I accidentally pushed a marble up my right nostril when I was sixteen', that are inherently embarrassing. Fact.
So I couldn't decide whether I'd like to declare that my perfect man doesn't exist because nobody's good enough, or ironically list every pedantic requirement I can spontaneously concoct, or simply post another picture of Hugh Laurie looking stubbly and pale and intellectual and distant and sexy, or just talk about MY PERFECT WOMAN instead.
All of those would be equally do-able.
But for once I'm taking a meme more seriously than perhaps it could ever be worth. I'm going to tell you what would make a man my perfect man.
Being (pro-)feminist.
'Man is a political animal', they write in textbooks all the time. Interchangeable with 'rational', 'scientific', 'social'. The curious thing about this rational, scientific, social, political animal is that he has constantly proved himself, to carry over the generalising 'he', a venomous, appalling, needlessly violent, malicious, murderous WOMAN-HATER.
The bad news, which is not really news at all, being that even men who are not overtly misogynistic contribute more or less directly to the hysterical hatred of the 'other' (sex) to the point where people can write books with titles like 'Men are from Mars, women are from Venus' and be taken seriously. That's one piddly little example. I could spend my lifetime listing others and I'd never exhaust the inventory.
I don't need to, because there's a handy little word to effectively sum it up: patriarchy.
So that the most radical and convincing thing a man could ever do, in the context of this perfect-man-for-me-shit, is to be, unequivocally, actively, painfully, wholly consciously be counted of his own free (hah) will of this number, this thing called 'feminism' that is so reviled, so un- (as opposed to mis-) understood.
Because hair colour, sense of humour, taste in music? Those are all negotiable. Or even non-negotiable. Those are all small things, secondary things compared to this.
This is what is important. If you think I'm exaggerating beyond all hyperbole, and that it's really very simple, and you can name lots of men you, why, personally know! who qualify for this ONE criterion, think again. You can probably count them on one hand (or finger, if we're reading by joints). If at all.
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5 comments:
D and I just went through this... I was worried that he did not share my concern for feminism. I could not have been with even a man who was indifferent. It's one of my most fundamental beliefs, and it does effect a relationship. I mean, a heterosexual relationship is inevitably affected by how each person views the opposite sex.
*is proud of you*
Is it the starting P?
Or the ending T of
the perfect `what,'
That needs to appreciate
the feminist thought.
If it thus comes with a guarantee,
That elusive, finger countable, he,
Will that spell from T to P,
Perfect in every sense it is meant to be?
Hi.
I think I want to eat you.
aishaa: i am proud of you too. this bears repeating!
first rain: hel-lo, did you write that yourself? :]
roswitha: rare, medium or welldone, ma'am? :o
Write that myself, did I?
Wait let me ask him...
Are you guilty? Reply.
Only of acting on my whim.
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