Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Why Men Suck

Sandra Tsing Loh, essayist/humorist, has an polemic disguised as a book review/essay in the July/August issue of The Atlantic. (A lot of slashes in that sentence.) I actually had the issue in my “Stuff You Need To Get To” pile, but I was alerted to Tsing Loh’s essay on one of the Slate Gabfests. So, several days later, I actually pulled it out and read it today. I’ve always enjoyed her work on Public Radio International’s “Marketplace”-she would do a weekly, loosely financial commentary on the week’s news called, predictably, The Loh Down.

Hoo boy.

Girlfriend’s a little bit ticked off.

First of all, as the Gabfesters pointed out, memo to The Atlantic-if you need or want or plan to give a writer an assignment to consider a pile of relationship books and make a statement, such as it is, about men and women and the state of the relationships thereto- could you not give it to the woman in the middle of a divorce? Thanks.

(I should mention that Tsing Loh is up front about her divorce-she mentions it in her very first sentence. So at least there’s that. She was still, in my opinion, the wrong person to write this.)

So she begins her piece by alluding to her own divorce, and bringing out the standard list of mommy complaints that you can read in a dozen other magazines and books-life is too busy, I’m harried, I have to do my job and do all this other stuff and there’s never enough time and blah blah blah, blah blah blah. Now, obviously, she isn’t making this up-anyone with children can sing you this same tale. (I do resent the automatic female tilt these rants get. Men do this work, too, or they should, and yes, we worry about it-does our kid have friends? Is our family normal? Do we need more play time? Less TV?. We just don’t TALK about how much we worry about it.)

Tsing Loh then admits, frankly, that she doesn’t have the energy to do the work to save her relationship. I can sympathize, to an extent. We all have trouble finding this energy. But really? You’re just going to throw it away, because you’re tired? Who among us isn’t?

She progresses to ask, essentially, why do people get married?

She describes, in the course of mentioning the books that the article is purportedly about, the contradictions about marriage-nearly half of all marriages don’t last, yet we keep doing it-America worships freedom, yet looks down on people who exercise it by getting divorced-and more of the difficulties-it’s hard to arrange a date night when you have kids. Again, I can sympathize-it’s all true. Tsing Loh’s sense of defeat is palpable-in nearly every sentence, you hear her murmur-why bother?

She then chronicles a Girl’s Night Out dinner with some of her fortysomething friends-one contemplating divorce, one seemingly headed there, and one still a swinging single-and the revelation that, along with Tsing Loh, a second member of the crew is considering the Big D. She unfolds the complaints of the other women at the table, then slides into a pseudoscientific, made-for-Glamour-magazine accounting of the supposed four personality types, here called Explorers, Builders, Directors, and Negotiators.

Of course, this is a hit job-we don’t hear from Tsing Loh’s, or the friend’s, husband about their grievances. And this is really what gets my goat about the whole essay. Not that I expected her to include her husband’s perspective-I can’t see how that would end well-but her thesis seems to be along the lines of Homer Simpson’s-trying is the first step towards failing, so don’t try. I am sure she has felt disaffected, ignored, left behind, unappreciated. So have I. So have all married people. Maybe it is indeed best that they split up. I don’t know.

But I can’t believe that she was allowed, or even willing, to write this piece given what she is going through. For years, the battle of the sexes raged over equality-women wanted the same chance to earn and share child rearing with men. Now that this goal is not achieved, but at least closer to being achieved, men read from women like Tsing Loh that this still isn’t enough. Living life-raising kids, keeping appointments, changing the oil in the car, running a household-is really, really hard-for everybody. My life is continually filled with the feeling that I don’t know what is going on. Articles like this certainly don’t help.

7 comments:

  1. Geez... maybe the editor thought it would add an angry edge or she would have insight and be funny.

    Not too smart. You are correct too... divorce is a two way street and both sides need to be represented in an article.

    I think that there is entirely too much male bashing these days anyway. They have become the butt of the joke in commercials and sit coms... which I don't even watch anymore because they are so lame. I hear it from women all the time at work and walk away.

    And you know I'm a saint and never do that! ;-) Okay... I do, sure, when I am ticked off but only to close personal confidants. Not in the general public. It's not funny. It's sad.

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  2. "Hoo boy.

    Girlfriend’s a little bit ticked off. "

    I would give my left hand to hear you say that in person.

    Nik and I were talking about you the other day..."We should have dinner with Mike and his wife..."

    We were drunk, of course, but just so you know you were on our minds.

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  3. That's sweet, drunk or not.

    And tell Nik, would you, to get back on the stick, blog wise, and quick?

    I miss her presence.

    I'm not sure that isn't a terrible idea, actually.

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  4. Wow. Great post. I just want to go on record as saying men are awesome. You know...a mess, and flawed, and often just plain wrong. But also awesome.

    You wrote, "I am sure she has felt disaffected, ignored, left behind, unappreciated. So have I. So have all married people." Yep. Right on, brother. When I'm not worried about all the ways my husband is not adequately taking care of me (the list is so long), I'm worried about all the ways I'm not good enough for him (also a shockingly long list). It's just not easy. And yet. We keep at it.

    I don't judge others when a marriage doesn't work out, except to say that, as Ananda girls says, every relationship is a two-way street. Good luck to any brave souls making their best effort. They need support and encouragement more than articles like this. The Atlanic is in my unread pile. I'm going to dig it out and read this first hand.

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  5. "It's just not easy. And yet. We keep at it."

    When you wrote this, were you thinking about the end of The Great Gatsby, like I was when I read it? Or was it just me?

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  6. Just you. But, I'm happy to have my writing compared to the single greatest work of American literature any day of the week. When Nick says the rich are "careless" there is so much there there. Who wouldn't want to be without a care? Who would?

    In other news, I can't find my Atlantic, even though I have a subscription. Which means the subscription ran out (I have a history of ignoring the "urgent" envelopes telling me my subscriptions are running out) or my three-year-old is reading way, way above age-level.

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  7. LOL!

    Don't you love their little trick of sending you the "Renew Now" letter, and then you actually look, and you have like 10 months left! That drives me mad.

    Conde Nast: Portfolio was a really neat business magazine for non business people that I was going to recommend to you, but I just learned it went under!

    I wonder if our kids will file "magazine" and "newspaper" next to "record album" as "stuff my parents tell me used to exist, but I don't believe them."

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