The Involuntary Misandrist Marlowe Granados In DESIGNS FOR LIVING, columnist Marlowe Granados dispenses sound advice in a noisy world. Send your rants and pleas to [email protected] for Marlowe’s consideration. Dear Marlowe,For a while now, I’ve been steadily losing my ability to endure men. It feels involuntary: a shudder of exasperation that courses through me without warning while a man is speaking. This wouldn’t be too much of a concern except that it’s getting in the way of my ability to work under male bosses.It never happens right off the bat . . . I guess I have to get to know them first. The first time it happened, the anger developed slowly, and my manager’s behavior somewhat warranted my response. Now, though, I notice the feeling coming out around almost every man in my life, including my father. I just began a new job, and my frustration grew so much by my third training shift that I actually snapped and talked back (which I would ordinarily say is a response completely removed from my sunny, people-pleasing disposition). My boss is a good guy and caring, but I can’t help but fixate on the times when I feel he is not only making unfair and inaccurate estimations of my intelligence, but also searching for/inventing things to call me out on, like asking me random math questions. I am a biologist by training, and this job is in retail.He doesn’t dislike me and has told me that he thinks I’m extremely capable. I just can’t stop bristling when he gives me instructions or advice, or even when he speaks in a certain tone that sets me off. It’s embarrassing. I feel guilty, but I’m tired of smiling and nodding when all I want to do is scream. Any advice to help me get over myself?Gratefully, An involuntary misandrist Dear Involuntary Misandrist, In the 1949 George Cukor film Adam’s Rib, Katherine Hepburn stars as a lawyer representing a woman who shot her husband in the shoulder when confronting him with his mistress. While discussing the case with her secretary, Hepburn remarks, “A boy sows a wild oat or two, the whole world winks.” The line captures what I had not been able to pinpoint about my feelings in certain mixed company. What got under my skin was this wink. A chummy and sometimes gleeful pat on the back for behavior that at the very least can be obnoxious. When I was fifteen or sixteen, unsupervised and acting like a street urchin in New York, I was hanging around someone who was considered a “purveyor” of downtown culture. A couple of guys hung around him, too, who were a few years older than me. One night they were feeling cocky and one of the boys spat on my girlfriend while we were walking. Not just a little spit—the amount that one saves for when there’s a target in mind. I was indignant. My friend took napkins to her jacket to wipe it off and was too sweet to know how to respond. I remember being so disgusted while our Purveyor did nothing but shrug it off with an amused grin. He would gesture towards the boys and say, “They’re the future of New York!” And I remember stamping my foot and screaming, “They’re from Bel Air!” I did not know the word misogyny, and I did not entirely understand feminism, but I still claim this memory as my villainess origin story. All that fire and no power at all. I remember looking around thinking everyone there was stupid, shallow, and none of this was cool—a disenchanted turn for a teenager who had put this kind of world on a pedestal. The curtain was drawn on the facade that was some sort of cultural authenticity, when really it was just a hierarchy of men that would pass the baton from generation to generation, and me and my friend were decoration, easily crushed and stepped on. If that is the beginning of my story, I can only say that the experiences since have accumulated into a tightly wound ball of yarn that will inevitably keep growing larger over the course of my life. I know the exact feeling you describe. I guess it’s something like a seething, insurmountable grudge. Each experience compounds, and on my very worst days it’s like tickling a bear. This is all to say that how you are reacting to men at large is very normal, and in fact healthy. There are some people out there who will invariably grate on you, and as platitudes go, men can be very irritating! There’s something in the air, where complaints about misogyny are made to seem passé and unfashionable. Since I have better style than most of those naysayers, I am pleased to report that it is perfectly fine to complain about misogyny and to not let anyone make you feel bad about it. Personally, it is my belief that if you’re going to be earnest about anything, it should be hope and anger. Of course, I can sit here and say “Don’t take it! Leave!” but that advice isn’t up to the complexity of living in the world and needing a job. Some people need small reminders that what they’re doing is not only annoying but bad etiquette. For some reason, if you say someone lacks decorum it makes them straighten up their back more than if you accuse them of any kind of systemic impropriety. I guess people don’t want to seem undignified. If he asks you a math question, just say, “I’m not in the mood to entertain today” and go off to do a task. There is a certain skill that forms after a number of these inconveniences that I will call “withering unaccountability.” There is nothing more terrifying than a woman who can go from sunny to cutting at the drop of a hat—and with nothing to pin on her! Get to know your anger from all angles. A little rage can be enlivening.
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A Violent Enterprise Adewale Maja-Pearce British colonialism casts a long shadow over modern Nigeria.
The Long Crisis on Rikers Island Brendan O’Connor How New York City lost control of its most infamous jail complex.
The Long Crisis on Rikers Island Brendan O’Connor How New York City lost control of its most infamous jail complex.
Poems for the Unemployed: ap1.doc Grayson Del Faro [ ] blood runs green and the [ ] one i will let let me / i will let it run me good and green into its pockets until i don’t run at all / i will simply fall in / i am a whole entire [ ] but i can be yours for a small monthly fee [ ] it could all be / every red cent around [ ] how do i [ ] / how do i convince you i tell you that “I am the ideal candidate” [ ] that i give more than i can, that i would even [ ] suck up [ ] my own desire, as if i desire more labor, less time / as if any desire were left un-bled-dry / it ripens with age but in the dire [ ] we realize it gets squeezed my experience includes a childhood best friend’s mother / she restocked hallmark cards at walmart / babysitter-less we went with and worked too, ripping the bags apart and letting the glitter fall on us, shining like [ ] we lit up this way / [ ] help her to [ ] herself / to finish her degree and make good on her ascent to some grace / more than good, when we left she would give [ ] money for our time / so time and time again i turned minutes untimidly [ ] dimes / no wonder of its worth, to [ ] fair / when she slipped those few little green dollars into my glittery fist, i came to be [ ] / my eyes sparkled more than my hands that was my first [ ] at least i let her be my first boss / more than cash i [ ] think she paid us in light / years later she said she cried when i stopped being friends with her son / these eyes still glimmer but dull hands [ ] not / when [ ] ends, it ends [ ] [ ] me / you can do any vile thing you want to me isn’t that what you want to hear / the sinister minimum slipping into acceptance is [ ] fault / isn’t it a fault line / at least a fault of mine is mostly that [ ] of my best is yours / yet still i see over all these [ ] flat words [ ] that can’t get a rise / not even from a sun / as if the idea [ ] is set in bloodred stone that never is my everyday [ ] evergreen without your leverage pressing me into profit / professionally i confess i learned how to convert stress into jewels [ ] worth something but never precious / i proffered them / they sold / they didn’t weigh me down like words [ ] / some born like burdens / i babysat as a teenage boy / it was unlike [ ] only [ ] for me [ ] it could’ve been [ ] beauty but it was ugly crying and [ ] / i mean me / also the babies / i had my first beer then / bitter, bidden by my uncle [ ] a smile [ ] as a part of [ ] life: the white-washing a wood fence [ ] like babysitting [ ] this included: those weekends of work and family / my aunt taught me how to knead pizza dough, how to drive stick it stuck in mind and it didn’t suck then but nevermind time [ ] is drained and now i’m begging not to be [ ] any more than you will let / let me be
Vivian Maier Considers Heaven from a Bench in Rogers Beach Park Chicago Shane McCrae In Heaven nobody will be alone In Heaven except for me and nobody Nobody calls nobody comes My nobody expands across the country The way a parachute expands across The sky it does if you’re right under it In Heaven they’ll throw me in the lost And found where I guess everybody goes At first now that I think about it what Will be my special place apart I wonder Or will they leave me in the lost And found box after they have scooped the heaven- ly out a permanent person in a tem- porary place roles are reversed in Heaven Nobody calls nobody comes In Heaven I expect the children are A kind of furniture nobody sits on Like flowers in Manhattan maybe sometimes They’re brought to God and God says This one And that ottoman is sent back to life A baby and for some this seems to never Happen I think I’m such a child returned Most things in my life seemed to never Happen before they happened now they seem to Have never happened though they have for the time Being I am for now I’m stuck in most Things having never happened I’m A lamp shining in an abandoned building But for a lamp I think that would be Heaven
