Your example lady… she who wanted to faint to get attention… is only playing into their confusion and dismay and making life unutterably more difficult for the rest of us.

Men in power fear women because we don’t play by their club’s rules. They can’t anticipate what we’ll do next because we weren’t raised to be like them. An assertive, competent woman terrorizes men from the Boomer generation and before… and, probably, many men from Gen-X, too.

We also have the added “burden” of the basic play of our sexes on each other. Most men are taught by their environment and experience that women are sex objects and need to be approached on that level. It’s very hard for them to break that habit and relate to a woman in a sex-neutral way. They are truly confused by a woman who is not playing in that universe. I believe a lot of their acting out (bitch, who the fuck does she think she is?, she’s emotional) is because they can’t figure out HOW to relate to a woman in a world-neutral way.

And, THIS is what scares them to death… so much so that they have had to diminish this ability by labeling it: “women’s intuition.”

I knew a man once who kept harping on me that if I couldn’t explain HOW I reached my conclusions in a neat, linear way then they weren’t of any value and he couldn’t accept or use them.

What I didn’t know then is that we DO reach conclusions in a logical way: we simply reach them faster than thought.

I remember my frustration when I knew as certainly as I was standing there that I was correct in my conclusion, or theory but, not being able to tear it down into progressive ideas I was unheard, invisible… diminished.

As women we need to begin to own what we know. We do not have to EXPLAIN how we know it, we simply have to stand in our shoes and hold onto our own power, our own “knowing,” our own way of being.

So many women don’t know about any of this. Those of us who do, need to share and educate…

And, yes, we can change the world-as-it-is if we create a community of women.

perhaps the term ‘bitch’.. as offensive as it is to some of us.. is now sadly associated with those women who exhibit maturity, responsibility and a solid work ethic.

hard won characteristics such as these deserve a kinder reference..

And what is a woman? etc, etc……