May 11, 2004

the Matalin planet

I've been reading Mary Matalin's Letters to My Daughters, because I was interested to see what she said about marriage. She is, after all, a master of the art of finding conjugal happiness in differing viewpoints. I haven't gotten that far yet, but from what I've been reading, I can only conclude that maybe Republicans really are another species. Maybe I need to read something by her husband, James Carville.

My first hint was when she mentioned being passionate about George Herbert Walker Bush (or rather, his politics). She says later that "Poppy" tended to inspire a deep abiding loyalty in his people. I can actually imagine that (a tihng I can't imagine his son doing) but I have trouble connecting the word "passion" with anything about George Bush pére.

Second, she stresses over and over to her daughters that boys are another species entirely and you will never understand them so don't waste time trying, that you will often have to remind yourself why you love your husband but you will have an instant soul-deep connection to your girlfriends and you will totally understand each other. (She does at least concede that a woman ought to keep a few male friends around "as sounding boards and a male viewpoint".) And, oh yes, that post-puberty boys are interested in nothing but sex. To all of which I can only say, "Huh?"

It's been my experience that, while there usually are differences between men and women or boys and girls (and I won't speculate how much is genetic v.s. societal), the differences are dwarfed both by the similarities between the sexes and by the differences between individuals. I do much better with men when I assume that they think and feel as I do. Maybe sometimes they cover it more or differently as they've been trained to, but as even Matalin admits, the underlying insecurities are usually pretty much the same. It's true sometimes I have to remind myself why I love Rudder, but I think that would be true for anyone I lived with of any gender. Sometimes people are just annoying, whether pointers or setters.

I can't say that I understand my girlfriends (a word I dislike, incidentally, but one Matalin uses frequently) but not my male friends. Take Egret and T2, for example; Rudder and I agree that we both understand him better than her. (It may have something to do with her being the only non-engineer of the four of us.) That doesn't mean I don't like her, sometimes for the very traits I don't understand. I don't understand several of my friends, but if there's any trend it's that mostly I find the male ones a little more comprehensible. I don't particularly find not understanding how someone's mind works to be either an indicator of their sex or a bar to friendship.

Granted that sex is pretty high on the list of preoccupations for teenage boys (and girls) but even at that age it's not the only thing. I'm pretty sure that when I was that age discussing books with my male friends, they weren't really always and only thinking about getting me horizontal, especially as several of them had girlfriends they were perfectly happy with at the time, whom I did not notice them runnning off from our converstions to go and snog. Sometimes they were actually thinking about books.

Another thing I find weird is the implication that menstruation is always accompanied by weird hormone storms and painful cramps. It can be, certainly, but it strikes me as bizarre to assume it always is. Most of us really don't turn useless for a few days every month. We keep going to work, we get work done, female athletes don't skip practices. Granted, sometimes I'll be well into the middle of a tirade before I realize it may have hormonal causes, but even then, I don't get upset by things that wouldn't normally upset me. I just react more, er, vividly. I can count on fingers of one hand the times I've had bad menstrual cramps. (I do get stomach cramps more often.) Matalin's story of incredibly painful cramps that started with her very first period and lasted as long as it did, and that are instantly cured by "two Advil and lots of water", suggest a psychosomatic cause to me. This is bolstered by the idea she absorbed from her mother that mentrual subjects are "incredibly private and never to be discussed with any male", including the man with whom she's had two children. Before anyone jumps all over me, I don't think that psychosomatic pain is any whit less painful or easier to get rid of than physically caused pain. When it's there, it's real. (I've got IBS, which is also exacerbated by stress, so believe me, I know.) Telling young girls that they will lose all sense of proportion as they bleed strikes me as a bad idea, though I would certainly warn them they might. I do like her strategy of telling her daughters to think about things before they do or say them at times when hormones might be raging.

What with the alien boys and the Monthly Visitation, parts of this book sound so much like an adult version of "Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret," that I keep cringing. She's dead on, I think, with the parts about lying (summary: Don't.) and loyalty (summary: Do.) and the glimpses of life in a campaign and in the White House are interesting, so I'll keep reading. If I want a guide to friendships between the sexes, though, I'll go back to Little Women for one that rings a lot truer to me. After all, once Laurie got the (tactfully glossed over) sex thing out of his system, he and Jo maintained their friendship. I don't think Matalin's attitudes are really a reflection of her party necessarily. After all, I've got Republican male friends. It makes me sad to hear such stereotypes from such a smart and successful woman, though.

NB: To be fair, I should note she's also got a lot of good things to say, about everything from work to patriotism to travel. Also, since I'm still getting comments, I should also note that she's got (obviously, if you know who she's married to) a laudable capacity to respect people whose political views differ from hers. She's been known to attack the other side during campaigns, but apparently she's learned from her mistakes.

Posted by dichroic at May 11, 2004 04:10 PM
Comments

"I just react more, er, vividly. "

i agree fully with that assessment!!

Posted by: lcubed at May 12, 2004 09:54 PM

Sounds like a really interesting book - thanks for your take on it all!

Posted by: Keri at May 13, 2004 03:50 PM

Catching up on you :-) I haven't read this book, but I really agree with you on a lot of your assessments. I agree that the sexes seem, to me, to have a lot more similarities, and differences tend to be more from individual to individual, rather than one sex to the other. (I have a hunch that most perceived general differences between genders are more socially reinforced in nature...) One point, though. Menstruation. I have never had major mood swings due to my cycle (though I love your description of "more vivid," that seems to be where I sometimes find myself). However, I have endometriosis, which really has caused horrendous cramps (painful to the point of making me pass out) ever since I first started menstruating (plus extremely heavy bleeding). Now, Advil had no affect on them whatsoever, and a double dose of ibuprofen made them only slightly more livable, but they are certainly real (and medically proven). I've since learned some good preventative measures (mainly, exercise, and avoidance of certain foods), but that's all beside the point. Just wanted to point out that hers really may not have been psychosomatic at all. I completely agree with your point that a daughter should be told that she *might* have to deal with these things, rather than she *will.*

Posted by: Melissa at May 17, 2004 10:46 AM
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