enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

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Please excuse this entry - don't read too much into it. Working out some thoughts. Feel free to comment though. :)

So I woke up this morning feeling better. Not 100%, but better. Thanks for your good wishes sent my way. I'm going to take care today and hopefully I'll kick this cold. Last night I grabbed an apple and some water and went to bed. Those things seem to have helped. It's only a little cold, anyhow. :)

So I was thinking about more pernicious things as I awoke, as well.

You see the thing is that the conversation with the older Australian woman had an impact on me. She has a 28 year-old daughter who is in a solid long-term relationship that she feels might work out, but she asked me if I'd heard of the "man drought."

I'd never heard the expression, but apparently it is being bandied about in Australia these days. As she unrolled the story in front of me, I was amazed. It is exactly what I have experienced.

So apparently the idea is that men in in Aus. these days find women in their 20s perfectly acceptable - cute, fun, etc.

Men slightly older are happy to date them. A girl might date a guy until she is 28, say, and he might be 32 at that time, for example. If the relationship doesn't work out he's in fertile territory. He's lost some of his boorish boy manners, he has more money...he's eligible.

For her things change. She might mourn the loss of the relationship for a couple of years (HELLO! My life!). She might lose her confidence. She might also meet a guy but if that relationship doesn't go anywhere she's in her dreaded 30s. Her ex-boyfriend in his 30s has no problem - he skates around having a grand old time for a couple of years, and then even up to age 40 and beyond he can access the market of 20-somethings (young, fresh, pert). As the women gets to 35 it's game over for her. She's no longer considered suitably eligible given her dwindling fertility, and guys even in their early 40s perceive themselves as entitled to younger women with fresh bodies and probably less money and education, i.e. girls they can still impress with little effort.

Yeah. That sounds familiar.

So what really struck me about what the woman was telling me, is the comment that she made about Australian culture and that I would extend to Canadian culture: these are women-hating cultures.

This comment was ringing in my ears, and as I lay in bed last night before drifting off, and lay in bed this morning before showering, I realized the degree to which I believe this.

The more educated I've become the harder I've had to work to be treated with any kind of respect. Even though I'm young and not unattractive, I feel constantly judged as inadequate. I'm being told by my male friends that I should change my hair, dress differently, not tell guys about my education or athletic experience until a suitable time has passed. I'm told "dumb yourself down, pretty yourself up, or be alone."

And at work, I'm the only woman. I mean, I'm the ONLY woman in an entire quantitative unit now made up of six. I mean, they couldn't find another one in all of the graduates and applicants, given that women now outnumber men in Canadian universities? That makes a half dozen or so women in my entire division of 30 people, say, and you won't be surprised to hear that two of those are secretaries, one works on social, disabilitiy and child issues, and the other works on special projects (read communications). (Investment, programming and macro issues are of course left to the boys only.)

And when we look around us all we see are single women in their 40s and 50s raising children alone and being made to feel as though they likely need to have botox or get a boob job to have a chance of landing even some jerk who, too, has children (though little responsibility for raising them). C. has commented to me that when he looks at dating site women you can always tell the women with children: they're the ones with the sexier pictures and cleavage showing, he says. In his view it's sad and embarrassing for them. But is it their fault? I mean, THE HOUSEWIV#S OF OC? Do you know, I actually had a guy on the dating site last year tell me that even though *he* has kids, he wouldn't consider a woman eligible if *she* did. I realized that given that a woman likely has CARE of her kids, this would diminish slightly the fun that he could have with her. How offensive! How bloody offensive.

I know that Fifi will jump to the defense of dudes. And she would be correct. No doubt there are some wonderful dudes out there, even in Canada (though lord knows I haven't met any of them).

When I think back to the last couple of years of online dating, it's no wonder that it wasn't helping my self-esteem. More than once a guy literally wrote to me that I was an "outside option because I'm too old," even though these guys were guys whom I shouldn't have even considered as potential dating material for me. They were always older or near to my age. They felt entitled to something younger and fresher. And why? What had they done to deserve the sun the moon and stars? What had they done?

And then all of the other times when guys would initiate something and then drop it, I suspect that it's just that they had a "better" offer. That might have meant prettier or smarter or more interesting. More likely it meant younger and cuter. I don't know.

I realize that Italy is not the answer. I keep on holding out hope that there will be some miraculous guy who will appear in my world who likes me just as I am, and who doesn't think of my age as a deficit. I'm not expecting it, but I still hope for it. But in my world I don't feel appreciated as a woman. I feel as though I have to be something else in order to be attractive. I feel as though I need to be "mannish" to do my job and be appreciated. I mean, HELLO! should I be surprised that the only two women in my branch who are in leadership positions are not exactly feminine cookies. They're about as feminine as M@ck trucks. It's the same as was in the Dept. of Econ when I was struggling through my Ph.D. So did these women start out that way, or were they forced to become so?

I'm not asking for pity here at all. In fact, I don't really feel sorry for myself. I don't want to be in a relationship with someone who doesn't want me to be me. There's got to be someone out there - however rare he might be - who can fill the position adequately. Until then I'll do my own thing.

But the more and more I think about it the more I can see it. I have denied for a long time that women are limited in our society. On some level I've felt that women are often responsible for their own positions, to a significant degree. I don't know why I've believed this. Perhaps it has mostly been a certain guilt over feeling that one is asking for special treatment otherwise. I've always had the idealistic view that merit and hard work would win in the end. I no longer believe this at all.

Yeah, I think you could say that I am pissed off. Pretty pissed off. The only man who has made me feel valued and attractive and interesting just as I am, is a 60 or even 70-something French man who owns the house in which I live. Why should I at 38 be left only to connect with men twice my age?

It's really annoying, I must say.

So let me caveat this by stating that clearly I am not speaking of all men. I'm speaking of the average in a generation. What I'm stating is possibly an exaggerated account. But if you think about it, and when I think about the kind of attention I get from males at home on the street or in bars (I mean, at home I only feel that I can go to that one pub alone, because it has an artsy, bohemian atmosphere), I want to cry. I would never go to the popular hangout spot across the street from my favourite pub, because I know that I'd have to fend off advances from sleazy men who would then call me a "bitch" if I told them that I wasn't interested. I've actually had men stand behind me in a bar and evaluate me, saying that I'm ugly or that I have a nice ass or whatever. They know full well that I can hear them, but they don't care. They don't care about being cruel or offensive. They think they're entitled.

Maybe I do need to move to France. Even so, I realize that women are mostly screwed over in one way or another the world over.

Sorry. This was a meandering entry. It probably doesn't make much sense. I figure that it's better to get one's anger out on a computer screen, however, than to have it spoil a beautiful day in bella Italia!

The thing that I love about being in Italy is that when you walk down the street men do look at you. In the bars they look at you. They even talk to you. But when you rebuff them I find that they're cool about it. It's expected. They smile and move on. Maybe I'm naive, but it seems so. I feel I can sit in a restaurant or on a terasse by myself and no one will think that I'm clearly lonely and desperate and there to pick up a man. Amen to that. At this point, I really don't want one. I'm starting to hate them. That's not good. Really, not good. I'm going to have to talk to my aunt the feminist sociologist. She seems to have settled down a bit in her anger at men. She's in a relationship with another one. And lord knows she has never dumbed herself down or sexed herself up for anyone. Amen to that.

8:34 a.m. - 2008-09-17

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