One Bitter Motherfucker

This guy who is sitting ahead of me with two political science birds is a pompous ass. Every story is about him and his wondrousness, his wisdom, his numerous and meaningful experiences. Yet another example of the training the women in his audience have recieved. He leans forward onto the table, his laptop and his oversized headphones and his elbows taking up all but tiny triangles of the cafe table. Their coffees perch precariously in the remaining space, and the two girls sit back in their chairs, smiling mildly and giggling at all the right moments. He pontificates on what constitutes the middle class, who can be considered "the university type" and counters any short story they manage to express with a renewed volume in his voice, increased physical movements. When he's got their attention, he drops to a low rumbling tone, barely breaking for breath, so as to not allow them a moment to interject. He has been trained to be male, to protect himself with a guise of power. The women he appears to command have equally been trained to protect themselves through soft voices and demure body language. The girl in the purple shirt looks as though she wants to challenge him from time to time, to call him on his shit, to shut him down. The girl in the turquoise shirt flips her hair nervously from time to time, and now, as she tells a story, she holds her own despite numerous attempts by mr. man to state the answer to a dilemma she poses. "oh well that's because of this" "no because there's no that there, it's more like this" "probably because of this then" "no, it's not really like that either..." But again, the training overcomes her, every phrase ending upturned, like a question-statement, like a wispy little flower. The man claims truth with progressively larger prefacing terms to begin each sentence - because, probably because, it could be that, well maybe, i don't know but... - but at the end of every sentence, his voice ends on a low note, like a thump. like the period at the end of his sentence was a boulder landing in dry dirt. 

I hate a culture that strangles the voices of both men and women. What does this man's voice sound like when he is uncertain? How can he ask for help? How far will he try to carry his performance, how much does his mask call him to perform the violence and domination and oppression it embodies. Do these women even know how to speak with fortitude? To say what they mean without sounding apologetic or appeasing? What will they do when they have something of value to contribute to a room full of men trained not to listen? What will they do when they know what to do? HOW can society function based on a system of gender identities that delegitimates and silences fully 50% of the population? More if you consider the fact that men who speak effeminately are ignored, children are ignored, women over 40 are ignored. We are trained to recieve people in very specific ways, and those ways trap us in a destructive culture. If we do not find a way to hear every voice, the whole fuck-off world will eventually eat itself, the way it has been, slowly, for all of human history. 

I fucking hate this fucking world. GAH.