In defense of men

It is very PC right now to rail against men.  And I know that there have been many egregious acts against many innocent women by many not-so-innocent men.  I am not in defense of those men—they deserve everything the ‘me-too’ movement can throw their way.  But I feel compelled to speak out in the defense of those other men—the majority, I would argue.

My mother was unable to be my supporter, my defender, my mentor for many reasons which require a complex memoir which I hope I have the skills to execute one day.  Suffice it to say, that although she was a beautiful, passionate, creative woman, she found it difficult, if not impossible, to put herself in her children’s, or anyone else’s shoes.  It was always, always about what she was feeling, what she wanted, what she needed.  And so, I needed to find solace elsewhere.  It was often older women.  But sometimes, it was men.  Mostly older, too.  Maybe it was because my own father died at 56.  Prodigiously young, these days.  Although, at the time, I thought he was quite old and didn’t realize the severity of his sentence until I passed 56.

One of my many older men G was tall, dark and handsome.  In his defense, he did not pursue me.  I pursued him.  Maybe he reminded me of my father, who was then living, but in another country with my mother and baby sister.  I missed him tremendously. 

G handled the unequal balance between us with great care.  I, 21, lonely, awkward and unaware of my intelligence and creativity; he, 32, a doctor with well-earned confidence.  He never cut corners with me.  He encouraged me to travel and pursue my education and explore my American roots, my country of birth in which I had not lived since I was twelve.  But he also did very practical things for me.  He played me LPs (yes, we had those back then) of B.B. King, Muddy Waters and Billie Holiday.   They made me long to go back to America.  A country that produced music like that was a country I wanted to know more about.  He helped me out with money when my scholarship and waitressing money didn’t stretch far enough.  He told me I was very sensitive, intelligent and how much he enjoyed my observations on Australian life.  I saw things the way a foreigner did, noting customs and unique ways of doing things that others took for granted.  I was destined to have an interesting life, he said. 

I didn’t believe it for a minute.  I knew I would be stuck in Australia for the rest of my life, and that if he knew the crazy thoughts that ran around and around in my head, he would not be saying these things.  Of course, now that I have realized that crazy thoughts are par for the course for human beings, and that after living and working in four continents, and having relationships with men in each of those, I see that Australia would have been a great choice, but too late because I am no longer eligible to immigrate back.  He was very fond of me, I think, but didn’t love me the way I loved him.  I only learned many years later that he was struggling with his own sexuality at the time.  Bisexuality was little known in the 1970s, let alone homosexuality.  Neither was something you admitted to your girlfriend, let alone anyone else.  It was, after all, an unnatural crime in those days, or worse, a mental illness, as my gay brother now reminds me.  But still, G was generous and mostly honest.  But more than that, he listened to me, heard me, understood me and pushed me to do things that frankly terrified me.  He saw the fledgling beauty of my heart and my soul at a time when I was struggling with my fears and intense insecurities about who I really was.  I compared myself to other women my age who seemed so self-assured and settled, with their long-term boyfriends, their cars, their dogs, their world-wide adventures, the seeming solidity of their perfect families, with mothers who baked them their favorite pies and hand-wove blankets to keep them warm at University, and fathers with many connections, who backed them up with money before they ran out.  I, on the other had was floating, dangerously isolated and depressed, before I met G.

 After I reluctantly left G, upon his insistence, to visit my family in Israel whom I hadn’t seen for a long four years, I thought my life of adventure had begun. I see now that those 12 years in Australia were also part of the grand adventure that was my life.  I lived on a kibbutz in northern Israel for a few months, then went to England, fully expecting to go back to Australia and to him.  But no, he said.  I am not your answer.  You need to keep going.  Keep exploring.  Find out who you are.  I was so upset at the time.  Why couldn’t he just love me the way I loved him?  Why couldn’t didn’t he beg me to come home, the way they did in the movies and great novels?  

But he didn’t ask me to come back, and so I got a job in London, and later enrolled at the London School of Economics to get my Master’s Degree.  I went to America for a summer vacation, fell in love and wanted to move there after my degree.  He helped pay for my plane fare to start a new life there, even though we were living in two different countries and there was no benefit to him.  He knew that America would be a good match for me, and knowing how poor I was, with no family support, he sent me the money that enabled me to return to America, the country of my birth.  He was one of the truly good men.

And then there is my husband, with whom I have been with these past 38 years.  He has always celebrated my successes.  He was never threatened by my creativity or my rise on the career ladder.  He was proud of each accomplishment and cheered me on.  He shared his strength with me without boundaries and made me stronger.  He never cheated on me, nor I on him.  He still thinks I am the best of the best.  But the truth is, he helped make it so.  And I, with his support and love, helped make him the best he could be. We are a team.

And then there are the men with whom I work.  I think it helps to not work in the political arena or the entertainment industry, where men who lust for power gravitate, and the unequal power they obtain somehow gives them permission to act like jerks.  Or worse, like predators.  Are those kind of men attracted to those high power jobs or do those high power jobs create those kind of men? Probably a bit of both.  I know for sure that some women are attracted to men of power, (maybe those who feel powerless) so much so that they throw themselves at those men, and maybe those men then think that they have such a highly sexual power that no woman can resist even when there are women who say “no”.  They can’t even fathom the ‘no’ because they are so enamored by the heights they have achieved.  They become enamored by the myth of themselves.  Because deep down, they feel like tiny cockroaches who have somehow fooled the world.

Some of the good men, thrown by this “Me Too” age, are worried if they have perhaps done wrong things, too, without even realizing it.  They are collegial and generous, and nervous about what is okay, wondering if they have inadvertently crossed a line.  But it is not a fine line, I explain to them.  A colleague who sometimes flirts, or smiles, or hugs, is not the same as a colleague who creeps up behind you and grabs your breasts.  Or says crude things to you. Or locks his office door to trap you.  Or shows you porn on his computer.  Or rapes you in his car.  That is not a fine line.

I have always worked in social services and education—community colleges in particular—where those who are drawn to power do not linger.  Yes, of course I’ve had the ‘me too’ experiences.  When I was 13 there was the man in the park who waved a hose at me, which I suddenly realized was not a hose, but was his unmentionable body part.  I ran home crying and my mother, in one of her nobler moments, comforted me.  She must have had many of her own ‘me too’s,’ although we never discussed it.  And there was my first boss who chased me around the kiosk where I worked for him.  I was 16, and he was old—maybe 30 or 40 or 50—and was trying to grab parts of my teenage body.
  
And there was l’etranger in France who grabbed me outside la toilette in la pension and was going to do me great harm, I am sure, but for my full-throated, uninhibited shriek which sent him scurrying back down the dark stairwell. 

And there was the one man, the anomaly I pray, in the Jewish social services community, and God I am so wanting to say his name, but for the fact that I never complained and never reported him and now he is dead and who knows what innocent family he’s left behind.  I was applying for a job and he was the top man then.  Basically, he said I was not right for the job, but perfect for his mistress.  He didn’t say it exactly like that.  He took me out for lunch first, after the job interview, which we both agreed was not the right match for me.  He told me his wife was an invalid.  He told me he had a vacation home on an island.  He told me that he wanted me to come there to spend time with him because I was such an intelligent and interesting woman. And beautiful.  I was shocked at the time, but also flattered that he thought I was so interesting and intelligent.  And beautiful.  That is the main tool of predators:  the insecurity of very young women.  I told him I already had a boyfriend (my husband to be) and he said, ‘so what?’  That is when I knew I was in seriously dangerous territory.  I left that lunch and didn’t say a word to anyone about that highly respected leader in the Jewish community. It kept me off edge for years, not knowing when I would see him at business meetings, but when I did, I pretended nothing, nothing had ever happened.  The man who won all sorts of awards and accolades.  There are probably buildings named after him.  And family members who think of him as a hero.  Now I wish I had said something.  Although who knows who would have believed me.  I was a little nothing social worker.  He was a big Jewish leader.  It’s too late.  Sometimes, it is just too late.

But wait.  This is in defense of men.  Here is the main thing.  It is not a fine line.  Between decent men and the egregious ones.  The decent man would never, ever grab your body parts from behind, and then chase you around the perimeters of your desk.  The decent man would never suggest you become his mistress immediately following a job interview, when he is married and you are at least 30 years his junior.  The decent man would not wait outside a toilet in a darkened hallway in France, or any other country, and wait until the light goes out to grab you. 

A decent man would help you become the best person you could possibly be, with his total support.  A decent man, while he may be sometimes baffled by you and wonder about your internal roller coaster and how different you are from him, and how he can never predict how you are going to react to anything, basically respects you and wants to be part of your team.

Most men, I posit, are basically decent.  And I love every one of those men.  As for the others.  Let them eat cake.  They deserve the ‘me-too’ movement.