All,
I had witnessed an incident the other day that is another nail in the coffin of being male. I was at a Walmart the other day and was waiting in line for my purchase. There was this oriental couple in front of me and the husband turned to look back and I saw a face that I have seen a quite a few times in my life. It was an oriental version of the caucasian hard beaten man, like the type that you see in some of those Appalachian coal mines and similar hard occupations, a face of a certain type of hard beaten man. A face that tells me that he is someone who could be civil with strangers but not with his family.
Sure enough, as soon as the wife put her purchase on the counter, he inspected it. He first lifted up the panties his wife selected high up so everybody watching could see it, inspected it closely, said something not too good sounding in Vietnamese. He then put it down to lift the price tag, lifted it up again and appeared to complain to her about the price. He then repeated the same with another 2 pairs of panties, high up, inspect, complain, high up, inspect, complain. All this time with a type of scowl I seen only on caucasian men. The wife was both passive and embarassed and bowed slightly with every completion with every complaint. He didn't make her take them back but paid for the purchase anyway.
I had a dad in my neighborhood of the family whose children played with my younger siblings. His favorite word was "no". He was hard with his family but civil with strangers and co-workers. Corporal punishment was a daily occurance there with his large brood and sometimes his wife. This was at a time that there was no such animal as child and wife abuse in law or rarely enforced. He had that face. Be he mellowed later and lost that face, I even worked with him at a shop awhile. He was nice to me then. But his childeren did not fare too well later in life. There were drugs, early pregnancies with his daughters with no discernable father, police problems. One of his sons was the first recipient of my states's "Three strikes your out" judgement and sent to prison for life with the largest "years" sentence in my states's history.
I saw in that man in the store through the looking glass darkly, at an image of my future turning into a hard beaten man, a real crankcase after being civil all of these years! Of turning into someone I really feared as a kid and I was turning into. This was a confirming incident that made me thinking that I was going into the right direction with this transistion and not turning into a bitter, complaining crankcase. I just don't want to be a guy any more, I have had it!
"Please Jesus, my redeemer, help me with the rest of my life here on Earth. I want to someday enter Your Kingdom with my soul whole and restored. In Your Name, Amen."
How about your confirming incident?
Joelene.
