The shittiest thing you can say to me, about, is “what do you want me to do?”
Not the one that really wants to know, like “teacher I’m pathologically incapable of reading the directions so please tell me what they are” or “I’m not sure what you’re trying to do in this scene,” or “I’m sorry how can I let you know I love you right now?”
You know the one. The one that actually means “you are burdening me with criticism and I want you to know just how irritating and unfounded it is.”
Sometimes it’s got a “well” on it. “Well, what do you want me to do?”
Yesterday at church the minister preached a well intentioned sermon on the body, on how culture makes us feel alienated from our bodies. You know all of us. This silly culture of our sure does objectify all our human bodies. He even gave some examples. The NFL. Medications that make it seem that our bodies shouldn’t age. Yup. That about sums up that universal human experience of being objectified.
Is it just me? Is that incredibly tone deaf? Like, sorry you feel tangentially moved by the fact that the NFL objectifies players. That must be an interesting intellectual track for you to meditate on. Excuse me while I don’t fall down in spasms of empathy before I walk back out into a world of invisible systematic dehumanization. Please don’t feel compelled to mention it. After all. Objectification is something we can all relate to.
Listen, folks, you do not have to tell me that I might be having too sensitive a reaction to a good and in many ways empowering sermon. I come pre-equipped with ladysystems, so I am programmed to doubt my feelings EVEN AS I AM HAVING THEM. I am that good.
So it wasn’t as the bitchy feminist caricature that I am known to be that I went to talk to the minister after church. I told him that I was upset, and that I wanted him to know that I felt alienated by his implication that the experience of objectification of the body is the same for all of us. That his failure to mention the difference was an omission that really hurt.
“Well,” he said, “I’m sorry that you feel that way. But it didn’t bother any of the other women.”
Woo! Patriarchy Supermove #1. ‘You are the only one.’ I countered deftly with Start Crying.
I hit him with my awesome catalogue of lady moves. I said something empathetic. I said something flattering. 'Oh, it must be hard for you having to talk to such a varied audience.' 'You can’t please everyone all the time.' Doing a great, sniffling job of undermining my own complaint.
“Let’s just say, he said, "that my sermon wasn’t hurtful in general, but that it hurt you.”
Something in the way those words made me feel small when I had gotten the courage to go over and say I felt small made me break protocol.
“Actually,” I said, inarticulately through my snot, playing with the ripped velour cover on the lectern, “that’s not good enough. Please acknowledge that this is a thing. That thinking about objectification is a luxury for you and an everyday reality for women.”
He said that I was making him feel terrible. BOOM Supermove # 2 Reversal!
He said that most people found his sermons to be liberating. Supermove # 3 Crazify!
I countered with some hard core sniveling and backpedaling. I am the Clarence Darrow of self doubt. At one point I said that it was my fault for not realizing that he isn’t immune to criticism, and that I should learn to consider that.
The video game voiceover in Patriarchy Smackdown came over the PA and was like FINISH HER!
So he said “What do you want me to do?”
I stood there for a while, and I said “I’m so embarrassed now. And I don’t know what to do. And he said, with real compassion in his voice “I’m going to give you an out. Let’s say this conversation is over.” And it was.
And it’s not. Now my safe space is all fucked up. Now I’m embarrassed to see this guy.
I’m ashamed of what HE thinks of ME. I’m thinking about my commitment to dance and sing at church unselfconsciously and how much harder it is going to be to carry that out. My body feels gross. I feel gross.
And here’s the shitty part. It’s on me. I get to do the work. I get to try to find a way to get myself to keep dancing and praying with abandon, I get to push myself through it. I get to hold two realities in my head, like women do. The one that feels true and the one that is constantly reinforced as true. I get to try to not feel stupid. I get to wonder if I should ever have said something in the first place. If I was acting out of line. If I should be embarrassed of myself.
I get to be horrified that this person who I really admire and whose work and advocacy are vital can speak with voice that knocks me down every day. I get to hold my admiration against my feeling and wonder if my feeling is wrong.
I get to fold myself like a taco and protect my vital organs. Smaller and smaller.
What do you want me to do?
I want you to know.
I want you to think of it, even though you don’t have to because your job is to minister.
A minister takes on care and knowledge that it is his privilege not to have. He knows about the hungry, the poor, the abused and the dead. And you have to know about me.
And if you don’t, when I say that I’m here, you have to accept it.
That’s the life you chose.
I never even have to ask ‘what do you want me to do.’ People tell me all day. WEAR that dress, honey. Smile. Shut up. Bolster my ego. Sit down. Make me a sandwich. Suck my cock. Lighten up. Calm down. Make me feel better. Don’t make me angry. Don’t embarrass me. Shave your armpits. Take a joke. Get out of my way. Stop talking. Get over it.
There are people who don’t do “what do you want me to do?” There are people who know. I want you to affirm my experience. And when they don’t know, they can sit with you in your reality and just be sad that you’re sad, which gets the job done. They aren’t threatened by what they don’t know. They aren't more defensive than they are kind. There are people for whom the fact that you are hurt is enough. I want my spiritual leaders to belong to this group.
That’s what I want you to do.
