The Art of Whining

Last updated on: May 13, 2016 at 8:31 am by Anne Kennedy

The Art of Whining 2016-05-13T08:31:09-04:00 Anne Kennedy

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Amongst the many podcasts to which I have become addicted is the Art of Manliness Podcast. I listen to it as I putter about cooking and doing laundry and cleaning. Yesterday, indeed, I stood in the kitchen barefoot (though not pregnant, you will be sad to hear) concocting a vast pot of soup as my Usual Charitable Act for the church. There I was, a lady, in church, so perhaps a church lady, or, better yet, an Excellent Woman, cooking soup, speaking relatively kindly to my children, listening to the Art of Manliness Podcast. Gosh I love whichever century this is called.

The great thing about this podcast is that it’s not really about how to be a man. It’s about interesting topics–like the Natural History obsessions of Teddy Roosevelt, the importance of thinking rationally, and yesterday, the voting culture of men at the turn of the 19th century. The men on this podcast are all very calm sounding, and interesting, and they think things with their minds that are worth thinking about. I am always, as a woman, most edified.

So this morning, scrolling around Huffpo as I am wont to do, because I am filled with self loathing, I found this, which really explains so much about where we are. This lady, and the two ladies she interviews–and right there I need to stop because I know I’ve been micro-aggressive with the slinging about so wildly of the word ‘lady’, I should say ‘woman’ or what’s the other one, ‘cis-female’? I can never keep them all straight–want to pass on their world view, as indeed do we all, to the next generation. That would be to their daughters.

Writes our gentle author, “The other day my six-year-old daughter came home from school and said that they were doing a new unit in her classroom on inventors. She told me that the book that they were using was called “Great men inventors.” Then she made me proud. She told me that she had asked the teacher why they weren’t studying any women inventors.” [emphasis hers]

She goes on, “My approach is pretty simple: I engage her in open, honest, developmentally appropriate conversations about issues—including everything from the real names of body parts and what transgender means, to unequal pay and unfair treatment in the work place.”

Sounds delightful. And I’m sure the teacher wakes up every morning eager and charmed to be corrected by this tiny Andromeda Veal. I know I love it when I’m sitting surrounded by a gaggle of children, and any single one of them raises the hand to correct me and question what I’m doing. That always opens my ears right up to the plight of the poor, the downtrodden, and the woman CEO who makes less than her male counterpart because the world is so horrifically unfair.

Consider, for a moment, the contradictory nugget of these ladies’ world view. First off, they don’t need men. The first interview makes that abundantly clear. The men are Not Required. They can Do It All By Themselves. But what is the It? What are these little girls being taught? From the article, and from glancing around society in general, the highest calling of pure womanhood, as far as I can tell, has devolved into a great Whine about how unfair it all is. “Why are we only studying men?” “Why don’t I make as much as you?” “Why are you identifying me with my gender?” “Why are you so controlling and mean?” The little girl featured in this article would like to be President and be Wonderful, but straight out of the gate, before she even has time to make it through the first grade, she is being taught whining, disrespectful, insolence.

So also the second child, who, under her mother’s careful tutelage, amazed the whole room in the following scenario [emphasis certainly not mine], “A few months ago, she was attending church with her grandfather and she asked, ‘Why are there no girl priests?‘” Continues our gentle author, “It started a wonderful conversation about religious gender inequality and I was thrilled that to her equality is “normal,” inequality is “strange” and “noticeable” (and I was glad she had the confidence to speak up)!”

Sounds wonderful. I can imagine that everyone was completely charmed by the precocious observations of this most clear thinking child. I know I would have been delighted, had I been there, though not for the same reasons as the women in this piece.

Setting aside the philosophical substance of these women’s feminist ideals, nurtured so painstakingly into the souls of their little girls (against their inclinations, sometimes–one of these children showed a preference for traditional clothing and role models, I imagine the offensive color was pink, and had to be coaxed back to the moral superiority of the muted gender neutral ideal) it’s the tone that’s so striking to me, especially after listening to four hours of the Art of Manliness.

Thing is, the men in the Art of Manliness, and indeed everywhere in the west, barring the exceptional horrible abuser, is deeply and profoundly respectful of women. There is no whining about anything in the Art of Manliness. There is no hue and cry about how unfair life has been, even when, perish the thought, life has been unfair. Did you know, sometimes life is unfair to men also? Sometimes men get a bad deal. Sometimes women go before them and use up all the oxygen in the room. Indeed, that horrifying patriarchy, so abhorrent now a days, often included the man dying first so that all the women and children might live. But what is life, when there’s equality to be grasped?

Imagine the little boys in this little girl’s class, when she raises her hand to “confidently” (and by that I mean disrespectfully) correct the teacher. If they have their rational wits about them, they will steer clear of her in all realms of their school life. They won’t eat lunch with her, they won’t play with her, they won’t want to work on this project with her. She will have become isolated to herself, and perhaps even angrier, then, in her isolation. And tragically, she probably won’t know why. She will wonder why the boys are so awful, all the time being nurtured and coaxed into awfulness herself.

Just to puff myself up, and divulge my gift to humanity, I’ll relay what my eldest wishes she could do with her life, or at least as of yesterday, because it changes every day. She wants to travel the world and write, and be very poor, and have sixteen children, and make them behave. Besides being a lot more interesting than grinding the men under her heel, I think her aspirations are more useful than the desire to be president. She understands where true power dwells, and, by the mercy of God, she isn’t prepared to whine about it.

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