A couple posts back, I mentioned N, a new girl I was dating. It actually didn’t work out, and the reasons for that gave me a lot to think about. One major reason that has given me a lot to chew on, was that it seemed like she really didn’t like men very much. She had formerly identified as a lesbian, and though she’s been dating men for the past few years, she nonetheless still holds them in fairly low esteem.

I gathered this through two types of comments. The first type was when she would comment on how I was “such a man” when I did certain things. So, if I asked if she wanted to grab dinner on Sunday night, I was being “such a man” for trying to make plans around my schedule instead of asking about hers. The second type of comment, which was actually meant as a compliment, was when she would tell me I was “not at all like other men.” So, if I talked comfortably about fluctuations in my sexuality, or if I spoke about my consciousness of my male privilege, I was rewarded with a comment about how unlike other men I was.

What I don’t think N understood was that I found these comments hard to deal with, whether she meant them positively or negatively. It’s not that I explicitly disagreed with them. In fact, I agree that men, on average, tend to expect women to accommodate their needs more often than the other way around. I think this is something that, as a society, we need to work on—men’s and women’s needs should be valued equally. So, I wasn’t really upset when she said that, but rather took it as a reminder of ways I could improve. Likewise, I agree that men, on average, are not comfortable talking about their sexuality or their privilege, and I’d like to see them do more of each of these things.

No, it wasn’t the content of the comments that bugged me, but rather, the frequency.
Not a day went by when I didn’t hear at least one of these comments about how I did or didn’t exemplify my gender. And that started to bug me, for reasons that I had trouble putting my finger on, since I didn’t disagree with the comments themselves. What I realized, eventually, was that it wasn’t the negativity that bothered me, but rather the negativity in the absence of any positivity. See, I think men screw up all the time. For that matter, I think women screw up all the time (in different and sometimes similar ways). But I also think men can do things really well some of the time. The protectiveness that men display for the women in their lives, while obviously predicated on problematic assumptions that women are weak, nonetheless can lead to noble and brave behavior in the face of danger. The willingness to put their own needs first can lead men to stick up for what they believe in and not tolerate mistreatment. And the focus in male friendships on companionship and activities, rather than intimate disclosure, can be really convenient when I want someone to go to a softball game with, but don’t really feel like talking a lot.

Sometimes I identify with men more than other times. Sometimes, I feel like my experience as a woman for sixteen years, and then as a trans person for the last seven, has been so totally different than the experiences of other men that it’s hard to imagine what I share in common with them. Other times, I find myself thinking how similar I am to other men, and how much I like being grouped in with them. But whether or not I identify with men, I certainly don’t see them as negatively as N seemed to. I don’t spend a big part of every day thinking about how much I dislike them, and it was really hard to be around someone who did. I found myself spending the entire time questioning how I was, or wasn’t, measuring up to the negative stereotypes she had of men, and that was no fun at all.