The Female Man

IV

I committed my first revolutionary act yesterday. I shut the door on a man’s thumb. I did it for no reason at all and I didn’t warn him; I just slammed the door shut in a rapture of hatred and imagined the bone breaking and the edges grinding into his skin. He ran downstairs and the phone rang wildly for an hour after while I sat, listening to it, my heart beating wildly, thinking wild thoughts. Horrible. Horrible and wild. I must find Jael.

Women are so petty (translation: we operate on too small a scale).

Now I’m worse than that—I also do not give a damn about humanity or society. It’s very upsetting to think that women make up only one-tenth of society, but it’s true. For example:

My doctor is male.

My lawyer is male.

My tax-accountant is male.

The grocery-store-owner (on the corner) is male.

The janitor in my apartment building is male.

The president of my bank is male.

The manager of the neighborhood supermarket is male.

My landlord is male.

Most taxi-drivers are male.

All cops are male.

All firemen are male.

The designers of my car are male.

The factory workers who made the car are male.

The dealer I bought it from is male.

Almost all my colleagues are male.

My employer is male.

The Army is male.

The Navy is male.

The government is (mostly) male.

I think most of the people in the world are male.

Now it’s true that waitresses, elementary-school teachers, secretaries, nurses, and nuns are female, but how many nuns do you meet in the course of the usual business day? Right? And secretaries are female only until they get married, at which time, they change or something because you usually don’t see them again at all. I think it’s a legend that half the population of the world is female; where on earth are they keeping them all? No, if you tot up all those categories of women above, you can see clearly and beyond the shadow of a doubt that there are maybe 1-2 women for every 11 or so men and that hardly justifies making such a big fuss. It’s just that I’m selfish. My friend Kate says that most of the women are put into female-banks when they grow up and that’s why you don’t see them, but I can’t believe that.

(Besides, what about the children? Mothers have to sacrifice themselves to their children, both male and female, so that the children will be happy when they grow up; though the mothers themselves were once children and were sacrificed to in order that they might grow up and sacrifice themselves to others; and when the daughters grow up, they will be mothers and they will have to sacrifice themselves for their children, so you begin to wonder whether the whole thing isn’t a plot to make the world safe for (male) children. But motherhood is sacred and mustn’t be talked about.)

Oh dear, oh dear.

Thus in the bad days, in the dark swampy times.

At thirteen desperately watching TV, curling my long legs under me, desperately reading books, callow adolescent that I was, trying (desperately!) to find someone in books, in movies, in life, in history, to tell me it was O.K. to be ambitious, O.K. to be loud, O.K. to be Humphrey Bogart (smart and rudeness), O.K. to be James Bond (arrogance), O.K. to be Superman (power), O.K. to be Douglas Fairbanks (swashbuckling), to tell me self-love was all right, to tell me I could love God and Art and Myself better than anything on earth and still have orgasms.

Being told it was all right “for you, dear,” but not for women .

Being told I was a woman.

At sixteen, giving up.

In college, educated women (I found out) were frigid; active women (I knew) were neurotic; women (we all knew) were timid, incapable, dependent, nurturing, passive, intuitive, emotional, unintelligent, obedient, and beautiful. You can always get dressed up and go to a party. Woman is the gateway to another world; Woman is the earth-mother; Woman is the eternal siren; Woman is purity; Woman is carnality; Woman has intuition; Woman is the life-force; Woman is selfless love.

“I am the gateway to another world,” (said I, looking in the mirror) “I am the earth-mother; I am the eternal siren; I am purity,” (Jeez, new pimples) “I am carnality; I have intuition; I am the life-force; I am selfless love.” (Somehow it sounds different in the first person, doesn’t it?)

Honey (said the mirror, scandalized) Are you out of your fuckin’ mind ?

I AM HONEY

I AM RASPBERRY JAM

I AM A VERY GOOD LAY

I AM A GOOD DATE

I AM A GOOD WIFE

I AM GOING CRAZY

Everything was preaches and cream.

(When I decided that the key word in all this vomit was self-less and that if I was really all the things books, friends, parents, teachers, dates, movies, relatives, doctors, newspapers, and magazines said I was, then if I acted as I pleased without thinking of all these things I would be all these things in spite of my not trying to be all these things. So —

'Christ, will you quit acting like a man!')

Alas, it was never meant for us to hear. It was never meant for us to know. We ought never be taught to read. We fight through the constant male refractoriness of our surroundings; our souls are torn out of us with such shock that there isn’t even any blood. Remember: I didn’t and don’t want to be a “feminine” version or a diluted version or a special version or a subsidiary version or an ancillary version, or an adapted version of the heroes I admire. I want to be the heroes themselves.

What future is there for a female child who aspires to being Humphrey Bogart?

Baby Laura Rose, playing with her toes, she’s a real pretty little sweetie-girl, isn’t she?

Sugar and spice

And everything nice —

That’s what little girls are made of!

But her brother’s a tough little bruiser (two identical damp, warm lumps). At three and a half I mixed sour cream and ice cubes on the window sill to see if they would turn into ice cream; I copied the words “hot” and “cold” off the water faucets. At four I sat on a record to see if it would break if pressure were applied evenly to both sides—it did; in kindergarten I taught everybody games and bossed them around; at six I beat up a little boy who took candy from my coat; I thought very well of myself.

V

Learning to

despise

one’s

self