Yeah? And what else?

 
 Some women on one of these social media sites called me hyper-masculine because I was in the Navy or because I fly airplanes or whatever. I give that an eye roll and a tongue click. Please.  That's funny to me because when I was first in the Navy I was chastised for being too feminine, too empathetic, not hardened enough.  And you know what?  In my first NEC trajectory that was true.  No doubt. But I honestly think that a lot of the guys sincerely appreciated that I wasn't.  In that rough, gotta be tough world, there were times when a guy swimming up out of his haze of shock and pain saw a female face bending over him, whispering to him, it meant something. It helped him. It did. Ultimately, it hurt me too much to continue. I took too much of their pain inside me and couldn't do it any more.  I was too soft.  That is why I radically changed career paths. It was not easy.  But I did it.  I've written about all of that before.  No need to rehash it.

Anyway, believe me, flying airplanes is not masculine coded. And lots of women fly planes.  Have done so right from the beginning. So phooey on that. I mean, really.  Is driving a car masculine coded? A tractor? How about handling a team of horse and wagon? Plowing behind a mule? Women do and have done those things routinely.

But it did annoy me to be called hyper-masculine by other women.  If you are a guy reading this, how would you like it if other men called you hyper-feminine? Ew, no!  Right? Especially if you weren't in any way, but maybe liked to do something some see as female coded like... I don't know... sewing your own clothes, even though there have always been tailors.  You'd be a bit peeved.

This reminds me of what Nora Vincent wrote in her book,  Self-Made Man: My Year Disguised as a Man. When she was herself as a woman, other women considered her "butch."  But men, believing her to be a man, thought "he" was very effeminate. So maybe the wannabe mean girls gossiping about the crab who escaped the bucket think I'm masculine, but all the guys know I'm a feminine female from topknot to toenail.

 I was tempted to say to one harridan, hey, lady, give me five minutes alone with your husband and he'll forget your name.  Ten minutes alone with me and he'll forget his own name!  Haha.  But I didn't.  Rule No.1 when dealing with internet nuts is don't engage!  Walk on by. Anyway, why would I want to have anything to do with that gleeb's husband? Probably has breath so bad that it would scorch the paint off a Buick.  

I don't know if men police other men's behavior the way women do other women, but there is a certain type of woman who allies with others of her ilk to drag down women who attempt to excel...at anything really, but especially at things...beyond.  Not all women, but there is that type.  I think they are full of themselves.  They think they are the cat's meow and the bee's knees and they absolutely do not like it if some other woman outdoes them. If it's making a better rhubarb pie, it's bad enough, but if you become a heart surgeon or an astronaut, Katie bar the door because they are coming after you, going to do whatever they can to drag you down, belittle you, humiliate you...whatever they can think of.  Well, that doesn't work with me, nor with women like me, of which there are plenty, in various fields, various accomplishments, achievements and successes, but we are all sisters in character.

Books my newsman relative left to me.

A job I took as an undergrad was freelancing articles for a national magazine. I didn't know how to go about reporting and writing articles so I asked my newsman relative, of whom I've written, who retired after 40 years on a major metropolitan newspaper.  He counseled me, helped me revise and edit. I learned a lot from him and when I got a piece to the stage where he said, "It'll do," I submitted it.  My articles were well-received by the editor, often becoming cover stories. I even got quoted in Time magazine, was a guest (via phone) on WOR-AM, appeared on some CNBC show, had agents call me wanting to shill me to other outlets. And what did the women staffers on the magazine say to me?  Well, one, in a very bitter tone, told me that everything had been just fine until I showed up and started writing these blockbusters.  Blockbusters.  Her word.  I didn't consider them "blockbusters" just stories my relative said were adequate.  I considered them half his, anyway.  Other women gossiped that I was an alcoholic (oh, please!), a drug addict, and, of course, that I was a lesbian.  When somebody's car was hit and damaged in the parking lot they accused me of doing it even though my car didn't have a scratch on it.  I'd rushed and had it repaired, you see.

Sigh.  Well, that whole experience soured me on wanting to have anything to do with journalism.  And also wised me up to a certain type of woman.  Not all.  There was another girl there, a full-time staffer, who was very good, certainly far better than me because she was doing it all on her own, not having a pro to coach her, and whom the other women and even the men, attacked viciously, so viciously that she quit, which was the goal of the harassment. Never underestimate the nastiness of underachievers, second-raters and the lazy. She and I were friends, allies against the malevolent midgets. When I dropped by the office to hand in my copy, we would have lunch.  The other staffers had done such a number on her self-confidence that she would start crying telling me of the abuse -- and it really was abuse -- she was subjected to and wondered if she was any good. I told her, truthfully, that I thought she was the only good writer they had and I read her stuff with interest and to help me to learn how to organize and present complicated facts in a readable style. Oh, yeah, she was accused of being mannish, too aggressive, by the other women.  Hyper-masculine, if you will. Same old same old.

As an aside, one of the "no fairs" of life:  I had a journalism pro, bound to me by family ties, to help me do well in a job I was only doing as a temporary side gig.  I had no intent or desire to become a journalist. Yet the person who wanted that as a career, had the J-school degree, had no such connection, no one to coach her.  She was on her own with no helping hand. And probably a mountain of student loan debt. I never heard from her again after she quit and, thinking about her now, for the life of me I can't remember her name. I hope that she has had a successful career, the one she deserved.

Musing on all this, I got thinking about my boy-crazy era.  I've mentioned before that I posed as an artist's and photographer's model and I really got a kick out of doing that, especially being a photographer's model, both professional and amateur. As I've written, I started  posing when I was still in high school and kept at it through college.  I think I liked posing for the amateurs more than the pros because those guys got so excited. I could tell. What a vanity high that was.  If my mom knew what I was up to she would have killed me. My dad would have killed the guys. And that there, bub, is a big difference between the female and the male. Mom would have yelled at me, informed me that she had brought me into this world and I shouldn't make her regret doing it and then grounded me.  Dad would have had a come-to-Jesus meeting with the boys and explained the lay of the land and their precarious position in it. But first he would have winked at me. 

Anyway, I don't think any of those guys would have considered me hyper-masculine. 

Not even, I'm sure.