I've seen it over and over. Even among educated men, men who know better than to be dismissive, men who are enlightened about worldly things, when women start talking about women-helping-women, their eyes glaze over. I hear the non-verbal, "yeah, yeah, yeah" oozing through their body language. Mind you, that's what I see/get from American men. Some American men. Let's just say, in Japan for the most part, I don't often actually talk with men about the women-helping-women phenomenon I'm lucky to be a part of. Saying this in Tohoku would instantly make me less productive. I would be one of those radical, American, femi-Nazis promoting western ideas about women, and that, in Tohoku, is a no-no.
Sitting in a restaurant surrounding by several men, I'm not really a part of their conversation as much as I am researching their "friend" recommendations on Facebook. I'm half-listening, half-reading, sending friend requests to those they tell me about. Then I hear it. One of the men says,「女のくせに」and I look up. The man who runs the restaurant quickly jumps in. "We're not talking about you, Amya-san." I mumble an "Uh-huh" and go back to my Facebooking, but I know what I heard. I'm furious.
The translation of that potent phrase encompasses several ideas. There's no literal translation. Rather, it's a combination of "She's only a woman" and "She should know her place" and "What the hell would she know" and "Too big for her britches" and more insinuations putting her down because she's a woman.
Men would never say about another man, "He can't possibly succeed because he's only a man." People around me just assume my male colleagues will succeed. The same is not true for me, or for the women I work with. When women try things, bold, brave, difficult, and different, the assumptions are "Good luck with that, sweet pea," and "Should you really be doing this?"
Before leaving for Japan, men (Americans) said to me, "How are you going to do this on your own?" and "I'd divorce you if you did what you're about to do." The latter, I ignored. I wasn't married to the man who said this, and that made his statement irrelevant. The former infuriated me. Did he say this to my male colleagues? No. If I can't even get some American men to take me seriously, how can I possibly expect men elsewhere to give me the benefit of the doubt that I'll actually make a difference? Get things done?
The statistics I'm shown outlining instances of depression and isolation (those with bordering tendencies of agoraphobia) have to do with men. Not women. Women take care of the men who won't leave their homes. Women get out and shop for food. Women say to me, "I don't have time to be depressed," and "My children depend on me to be okay."
Why then, is there resistance to the idea of women-helping-women? Why is this so threatening? What buttons get pushed that makes this idea of positive change and mutual support among women bothersome? I have no answers. That societies all over still are threatened by what women can accomplish--the absurdity of this is exhausting. I can deal with that later. For now, I will focus on getting things done.
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