Theodora Goss' blog post speaks to the differing ways that men and women view certain (not all) situations and why, and with her permission I repost it for you here in its entirety (saving only the illustrations, which unfortunately did not want to port).
-Stephanie Osborn
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com
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On Bluebeard
By Theodora Goss
This blog post is really about how differently men and women can perceive
certain things, but I didn’t think that would make a very good title. And
Bluebeard does come into it, as you’ll see.
Some time ago, a friend of mine whom I will call Nathan, because his name
is Nathan, and I were having a conversation. Nathan is a big, strong guy, about
twice my size. He told me that when he had lived in New Orleans, he had loved
walking around the city alone, late at night. I said to him, “Nathan, I’ve
never walked around a city alone late at night.” There was a moment of silence,
and then he said something like, “Oh, right. Sometimes I forget how different
it must be for a woman.”
I’m writing this post in part because there have been conversations
recently, in the media and on the internet, that have made clear how
differently men and women can perceive certain words and actions. Some of those
conversations have been about the literary world I live in, particularly the
fantasy and science fiction corner of it. And the point I want to make,
centrally in this blog post, is that something that may not seem threatening to
a man may seem profoundly threatening to a woman. I’ll give you an example.
Scenario: A woman passes a man on the street. He says, “Hello, beautiful.”
How the man perceives this: “I paid her a compliment.”
How the woman perceives this: “Is he going to attack me?”
How the man perceives this: “I paid her a compliment.”
How the woman perceives this: “Is he going to attack me?”
I don’t know if this is true for all women, in all circumstances, but if
I’m the woman in that scenario, particularly if I’ve been walking down that
street absorbed in my own thoughts, as soon as I’m spoken to I will immediately
check my surroundings. What time of day is it? Is there anyone else on the
street? How threatening does the man seem? (Although I have to add, if I am
completely honest, that I never walk down a street lost in thought. I used to
when I was younger. I’m smarter now.)
When I teach my class on fairy tales, I ask students about the moral of
“Bluebeard.” Charles Perrault gives us a moral, clearly marked “moral,” at the
end of the tale: “Curiosity, in spite of its appeal, often leads to deep
regret. To the displeasure of many a maiden, its enjoyment is short lived. Once
satisfied, it ceases to exist, and always costs dearly.” I ask my students, is
that really what we learned from the story?
No, they tell me. That moral doesn’t make sense. If Bluebeard’s wife hadn’t
been curious, she would never have known that he had killed his previous wives.
And although he tells her that he’s going to kill her because of her curiosity,
and we can infer that he killed most of his other wives for the same reason,
what about the first wife? Why did he kill her? Clearly this is a man who
simply likes killing his wives, and will eventually think of a reason to kill
again. So, I ask them, what is the moral? And eventually we come up with
something like this:
“Make sure you know whom you’re marrying, because your husband may be a
serial killer.”
If you’re a woman, and you’ve lived for a while in the world, you’ve
learned to be cautious. You’ve learned that you don’t know who people are, or
what they’re capable of, until you’ve known them for a long time, and sometimes
not even then. If a man is bothering a woman, it’s easy for another man to say
“Ignore him. He’s just a creep.” Or “He lacks social skills.” But the woman in
that situation has to approach it by thinking, what is the worst case scenario?
What is the worst that could happen? And then she has to act based on that
supposition. Often that means acting swiftly, decisively, with maximum effect.
Because you have to establish, definitively, that you are not to be messed
with.
She will be told, “You’re overreacting.” But she will also know that if
something does happen, if there is a worst case scenario, she will be told,
“You should have paid attention to the warning signs.” Either way, she faces
the possibility of being blamed.
Let’s go back to that first scenario, with the woman walking down the
street. If the man who thought he had paid her a compliment knew that she was
assessing him as a potential attacker, he might blame her: he might say, why
didn’t she realize that I was trying to be nice? What he wouldn’t know is how
many times she had been approached on a street by a man who said, “Hello,
beautiful,” and then continued with a sexual proposition. For an average woman,
it would be a least once, but probably more than once. After a while, if you’ve
been living while female, you get a sort of PTSD. Most women have been through
assaults of various kinds. (I once looked up from reading a book in the public
library to see a man masturbating on the seat across from me. I think I must have
been about fourteen?) Most women have dealt with some sort of silencing or
discrimination. (When I was at Harvard Law School, there were male students who
argued that women who were going to take time off to have and care for children
were taking up space that should go to qualified men.) This history conditions
how they respond, whether to a compliment on a street or to male writers who
talk about them with a lack of respect (see the latest SFWA scandal). (It’s
also worth knowing that women talk to one another: we know when a male writer
regularly hits on young female writers at conventions.)
“Bluebeard” has been interpreted in a variety of ways, but its simplest
meaning is a cautionary one, to women. What it really says is, be curious, be
bold, protect yourself. Considering the things women have to deal with, it’s
scarcely surprising that they have learned this particular lesson.
I know I’ve put a lot into this blog post, and parts of it may not fit
together with perfect logic. But it represents a series of things I’ve been
thinking recently about differences in perception. If you’re a man and want to
work or socialize with women, it’s probably worth considering how their
perception may be different from yours, and what may lie behind that
difference.
http://www.stephanie-osborn.com
