The split is as old as time. Us on one side. Them on the other. It’s amazing that both sides have survived this long. They aren’t like Us, and We aren’t like Them. Oh, sure, we’re supposed to look at our similarities, not put Them down for being different (as They love to do to Us). But They are different, and there’s no way around it. And because They are so different it feels sometime like there’s no common ground between us.
Sometimes it’s like They’re a whole different species with likes and dislikes, ideas and mannerisms that just don’t make any sense. They can be infuriating both by accident and by choice, and when They choose to be infuriating They’re especially good at it. There are times We just want to live without Them.
But We can’t, and worse yet, They have an irritating habit of always being right. It doesn’t matter how well educated and intelligent We are — They always know better. They’ll tell Us we’re wrong if it will embarrass us in front of other people, but wait until later to tell Us if We were already embarrassing ourselves. No matter how sure We are of something, They’ll prove us wrong. Think it’s not against the law to leave the toilet seat up? Think again. I’m sure somewhere there’s a statute against it and it’s only because We are so unfair that it’s never enforced.
One of Their most insidious weapons is the purse. A seemingly simple and practical bag that could otherwise be used to carry nails and wrenches and maybe an old shoe, They fill it with flowery checkbooks, make-up and an assortment of other things most of Us refuse to even touch. They do this so when We need something like a pen or a key They can say “Just look in my purse” and then We have to go through everything. And They only ask Us to hold/carry their purse when there are lots and lots of other men around. Because not only does it embarrass the man holding the purse, it embarrasses every man within a 100 yard radius.
I know They go into changing rooms only to make Us stand outside in the Ladies’ Department, holding their purse for hours on end. It can’t really take that long to try on a new pair of earrings. They probably nap or call their mothers or read a romance novel…
But what would We do without Them? Our socks would never match. We’d be right when We shouldn’t be. Floors wouldn’t get swept (but then again they wouldn’t get dirty because all the piles of clothes would provide a protective covering). Gifts wouldn’t be given, weddings wouldn’t be attended and bake sales wouldn’t be worth going to. And I would continue to wear the same clothes for the rest of my life.
More than that, though, without Them most of our businesses would close. A couple of weeks before each Arts Council event I put up about 120 posters in Albion and the surrounding communities. Business after business, town after town, I may meet three men. Not that men aren’t important or involved, but just as it’s women who keep our homes and our lives running, they keep our businesses, our schools and our churches going as well.
And They are probably right that We don’t appreciate all They do. There may even be a germ of truth to Their assertion that We aren’t always the easiest people to live with either.
And despite all the things that do make such a (wonderful) difference between Us and Them, we share the same hopes and dreams. I don’t know but what They may even hold more tightly to dreams, fight even harder for a better life and a better world for our children.
Experts say that when a family is considering a move to a new community, it’s the wife who usually makes the choice. As one of Them, she has different criteria for what makes a good community. Health care, schools, child and elder care, churches, culture, green spaces, shopping and many other factors mean more to one of Them than to one of Us.
It’s easy to overlook what matters to Them. But in the home and in a community alike, not listening to Them, not caring about what They care about, is a recipe for disaster. It takes two to Tango, after all — just please don’t make Us hold the purse!
In recent columns I’ve discussed the social and political organization of Plains Indian tribes, observing that, unlike in tribes to the south and east, here it was largely egalitarian and democratic. People’s merit counted for much more than their gender or position at birth.
I was asked recently if that meant women could be chiefs. And the answer is yes, but it was unusual. The Crow Nation was at one time led by a woman chief who was respected for both her wisdom and her skill as a warrior by both Natives and Whites. But women chiefs were the exception rather than the rule, and women who did become leaders were like the Crow woman — they dressed, hunted and went to war like men.
More common, at least in written reports, were men who dressed, acted and lived as women. Native Americans believed that a person’s spirit — as opposed to their physical sex — was the true determinate of their gender. This was very disconcerting to missionaries, who did their best to discourage this practice. But “two spirits,” as these people were often called, held an important place in the social structure of tribes. Men who lived as women were labeled “berdaches” by the French and widely considered to have special magical powers, powers connected with the Moon.
Indeed, a young man who had a vision of the Moon during his vision quest would then be required to dress and act like a woman. Berdaches were valued; they brought a man’s physical strength to women’s roles and this could prove a great help to the women in the tribe. And they didn’t bear children so they were able to devote all their time to their work. They were the marriage counselors of their tribe because of their unique insight into both men and women; they could thus resolve miscommunications and disputes with great success (they themselves appear to have married either women or men depending on their personal preference). Among the Lakota Sioux, berdaches would be asked to give secret names to babies; their magic was thought to then protect these babies from evil sorcery.
The belief that these people had special powers was wide-spread. There’s an account of a war party that encountered a berdache tending a garden. The berdache stood up and the attackers shot their arrows at him/her. But their arrows simply bounced off. The war party immediately turned back for home, realizing that there was powerful magic protecting this person, a magic they wanted nothing more to do with.
A Navaho berdache visited Washington D.C. with an anthropologist in the later 1800s and despite being muscular and well over six feet tall, was taken for a woman. He/she was able to observe White women dressing and commented that with their false teeth and padded bosoms they went to as much effort to appear pretty as he/she did.
Although not often chiefs, Native women were not considered inferior to men. Women in the Iroquois tribe chose that tribe’s chiefs and if a chief did something to displease them they would remove him from his position. Women were the spiritual leaders of the Wichita tribe in Kansas. And Native women, because they had children and thus intimately understood the value of limited material resources, owned everything except their husbands’ clothing and weapons. To divorce her husband a Native woman had only to put his things outside her tipi or lodge.
White disapproval of men living as women and women living as men, as well as their disapproval of women occupying leadership positions or having property rights rubbed off on Native society. Both women and transgendered individuals lost much of their social status in the 1800s.
I once heard a Sioux woman mention that her reservation church had recently taken a strict stand against women holding leadership positions and especially against same-sex marriage. She had stood up during a service and reminded her people of their long and proud tradition of making room for everyone in the “hoop of their nation” and pointed out that berdaches had always been an integral part of their society. But in this day and age her people’s attitudes have changed, and she ended up leaving her congregation, a sad example of a people who once believed that everyone was both equal and valuable succumbing to bias and intolerance.