Poles Apart

by Terry Fallis

  I was mad because I began to see my chosen injustice everywhere around me, every day. In advertising, media stories, TV shows, movies, and books. I heard it in daily conversations with my own family, friends, colleagues, professors, and perfect strangers. It was everywhere. I was immersed in it. Society was immersed in it. I perhaps became a little too invested in the cause. Friends started avoiding me or censoring what they said around me, lest they offend my precious principles. My male friends stopped commenting on attractive women when we were together. In hindsight, I was not great company for a time back then. Come to think of it, my three most recent girlfriends might suggest that all these years later, I’m still not much fun to be around.

  I know this all seems a little strange, a little weird. I know it seems far too earnest – that I’m far too earnest. It often feels that way to me, too. But that’s how I felt back then, how I still feel today. I can’t help it. I can’t just turn off anger over an inequality that is so insidious and pervasive yet is accepted by so many. And it bothers me that society considers a man’s feminism to be so strange, to be so aberrant. If I were as deeply committed to environmental protection, or nuclear disarmament, or animal rights, it would not be weird at all. But a man who feels deeply about women’s equality is immediately suspect – “He must have ulterior motives.” “He must be trying to meet women.” A staunchly feminist man simply does not fit within the accepted order of the universe. But there you have it.

  I still couldn’t believe I’d met and spoken with Beverley Tanner in a rehab hospital in Orlando. I replayed our conversations in my mind. She seemed to have tapped a spring of beliefs and emotions that, while not exactly dormant, had not been this close to the surface for some years. (I had botched three relationships in the last two years with women who certainly wouldn’t consider my opinions on the topic to have been anywhere near dormant. But everything is relative. On the other hand, I’d spent the last few years writing stories for cosmetic magazines. Go figure.) One seldom has an awakening like the one I had while at university. Having a second, eighteen years later, seemed even rarer.

  I lay in bed, not sleeping. It was close to three in the morning and I was unable to shut down my brain. I couldn’t stop thinking about the aging feminist icon rehabbing quietly and trading barbs with my sophomoric father in an Orlando hospital. I thought it must be a sign – meeting Beverley, I mean, not my sophomoric father. As unusual as it was for a youngish man like me to have gravitated toward women’s equality as a cause so many years ago, I liked the feeling that came with this renewed sense of purpose, this renewed sense of mission. But I was no longer in the student movement, surrounded by equally committed people who could muster a protest rally and devise creative chants in the perfect marching cadence, all on a moment’s notice. Those days were gone. That was years ago. I’m on my own now.

  So how to seize this moment before it slips away, and act on the interest and energy Beverley seemed to have reignited? How can I capitalize on it? How can I contribute, now? What can I do? Those were the questions swirling in my head as I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.

  And when I snapped awake again just a few minutes later, I found the answers sitting right there, waiting for me. Only one question remained unanswered: Why the hell was there a giant nut and bolt coming up through my kitchen floor?

  CHAPTER 4

  I’m a writer. So I’ll write. That was the answer. Simple and clear. Still, it took me a while to figure out what it actually meant. I cycled through the possibilities. I could write articles and submit them to newspapers and magazines where they would surely be rejected and never run. A feminist man writing about women’s equality was kind of a “man bites dog” story, but still a little too strange to yield much traction in the mainstream media. No. I guess I could write a collection of essays or even a book on the issues as I saw them and then join the ranks of millions searching in vain for a literary agent or publisher. No. Wait, I could always self-publish it. Yes, I suppose I could, but then what? Selling self-published books is extremely difficult, even one as captivating and scintillating as the tome I would write about gender equality. No bookstores would stock it. No one would know about it. I’m pretty sure my parents would enjoy the book. Hang on, come to think of it, I’m really not sure my parents would even read the book, let alone enjoy it. So, no. What else have I got?

  It took some web surfing for the idea to land. I probably should have thought of it sooner. I turned it over in my mind, considering the opportunity, examining it from various angles. Hmmm, it might just work. Why not a blog? Yes, a blog. I could write a blog exploring women’s equality. Blogs are increasingly popular and influential, drawing a growing number of subscribers. It was a nimble platform that would allow me to make timely comment on current events and related issues in the news. A blog. Yes, that might be just the ticket.

  You might be wondering what made me think I could write blog posts that would be of interest to anyone. There were other feminist bloggers out there. Lots of them. Lots of really good ones. What could I contribute that was different, more compelling, more meaningful, more effective, more powerful than what already existed in the online world? Well, the obvious short answer was, I had no freakin’ idea. I really didn’t. I certainly wasn’t convinced I had anything more or anything different to offer than that which was already out there. But I wanted to try. I felt I needed to try. I was eager to recapture the passion of my university years, when I felt I belonged to something. And I wanted to staunch the feeling of drift and ennui that accompanied a career that had not panned out the way I’d wanted. I was motivated again. I feared that if I didn’t leap now, my rekindled ardour might flag. I needed to act. In the end, the idea was rooted in my desire to get off the sidelines and do something. It was really to satisfy me. I had no expectations that anyone would read my blog, let alone consider it a worthy contribution to the feminist ferment. I just wanted to do it, to do something, even if it were just for me.

  My mind turned again to Beverley Tanner as the digits on my bedside clock approached 4:30. I decided to try to take a page from her playbook. I liked the notion of humour as a weapon in the fight. I would try to leaven anger with humour. There still wasn’t a great deal of “funny” in the women’s movement. I’d try to laugh at patriarchy to weaken it. I’d write short, thoughtful, balanced, reasonable, readable posts about a range of equality issues in the hopes of building support among men and women who perhaps didn’t think of themselves as feminists, even though they probably were. The idea would be to motivate the silent majority of feminists to do more than privately support equal rights. So in each post, I’d try to have some kind of a simple, personal call to action. In my wildest dreams, I wanted my writing to spur even a modest behavioural change in my readers, or at least cause them to think, if only for a moment or two. That was the extent of the plan. It was clearly an “easier said than done” moment, or perhaps even an “are you crazy, you’ll be crucified” moment.

  But do I sign my name to it? Do I shove myself forward as the blogger? This wasn’t easy. I went back and forth on it. I knew that in the blogosphere – yes, that’s what they call it – the idea of transparency was important. On the other hand, I didn’t want the fact that I was a man writing a feminist blog to overshadow what I was writing. Without going all Marshall McLuhan on you, as the medium, I didn’t want to become the message. Besides, the anatomy of the blogger shouldn’t be important or even relevant. Rather, it’s all about the words, the message, the cause. Secondly, I truly believed that a man should not be seen to be out front on feminism. That would be just like a man to try to take over the women’s movement. We’d taken over everything else in history, in society, in the world, why not feminism, too? No, I don’t think so.

  So I made the call. It would be an anonymous blog. No one would know I was the author. I wasn’t after recognition. I just wanted back that feeling I’d had years earlier. I just wanted to help move the yardsticks toward the goal of gend
er equality. Oops, check that. I wanted to help “make some gains” toward the goal of gender equality. I was obviously rusty after my fifteen-year hiatus from the movement. Never, ever, should one employ football metaphors in the service of women’s equality, particularly when the Lingerie Football League is still with us (I’m not kidding). Never.

  I finally fell asleep around 5:00 and didn’t open my eyes until 10:30. The name for the blog presented itself shortly thereafter. It was staring at me in Beverley’s inscription in my book. I wanted something optimistic and forward-looking. And even though it was to be an anonymous blog, I liked that my own name would be buried in the blog’s moniker. No one would ever know. I waited for an hour to see if I still liked the name I’d lifted from Beverley. I did. And I liked that she was somehow part of it, now. So I signed in to Wordpress.com using a fake name and newly minted Gmail address and created a blog with a simple, clean look. The masthead read Eve of Equality. I liked it. It spoke of positive change in the past, but also clearly indicated that we hadn’t yet made it to the promised land. Yeah, I liked it. On the blog’s “About” page, I simply wrote “Eve of Equality is a feminist blog offering thoughts and observations on a spectrum of issues that touch women’s equality.” Broad enough. Bland enough. Anonymous.

  I decided to host the blog separately and privately from Wordpress.com. It just made me feel like I had more control over it. So I arranged for hosting services locally with a smallish firm creatively called OrlandoHosting. I did it all online and by email using the same fake name and Gmail address I’d used with WordPress to create the blog in the first place. It did require a phone number, which left me a little uneasy. But after some hemming and hawing, I provided my cell number. The hosting fees were reasonable, and the blogger reviews I read on the Internet spoke well of OrlandoHosting. Good enough for me. Twenty minutes later, the online infrastructure was ready. I had only to write a blog post, hit the big blue Publish button, and it would be live.

  I spent what was left of the morning browsing through the top-ranked feminist blogs on the Internet. I found a wide variety of bloggers representing women academics, man-hating extreme feminists, countless women’s advocacy groups, young women, older women, straight women, LGBT women, women homemakers, women entrepreneurs, women athletes, women lawyers, women politicians, women teachers, women of science, women of medicine, women chefs, women union leaders, women civil servants, women against porn, women for porn, and many, many more. (I’ve just barely scratched the surface here.) And they all, every last one of these women bloggers, considered themselves feminists. It was a very crowded space reflecting not just the urgency of the need, but also the breadth and complexity of today’s women’s movement. And I found all these in just the first few pages of a standard Google search.

  However, even after digging deeper and switching to other search engines, nowhere, and I mean nowhere, did I find an anonymous feminist blog featuring thoughtful, informed, occasionally amusing, but still serious posts, written by a youngish feminist man pining for his days in the student movement. Against all odds, there was nothing that even faintly resembled my vision for Eve of Equality. Great! There was obviously a gargantuan hole in the anonymous feminist blogosphere that needed filling. The particular audience seeking just such a perspective demanded and deserved satisfaction. Well, I’m your man, er, blogger.

  When I left my apartment later in the afternoon to head back to the hospital, I noticed two workers varnishing the beautiful newly installed wooden front door to the establishment downstairs. Green garbage bags enveloped and protected what seemed to be oversized door handles. They were making progress. It wouldn’t be long now. A line of young people, mainly women, okay, almost all women, snaked out of the side alley and curled onto the sidewalk in front of the building. They were all holding forms of some kind in their hands. I figured secret job interviews were underway in the secret business below my apartment. Kitchen staff? Waiters? Okay, a bar or restaurant, perhaps? Pounding music seeped out of the establishment.

  A big guy, a really big black guy, in a black suit with an earphone stood off to the side where the line ended. I couldn’t help but stare at the last young woman in the line. She was quite stunning. Beautiful face, short auburn hair, and a body that actually conformed to the unrealistic standards fashion magazines have been setting for decades. And there it was, another sneak attack of what I’ve come to call my “principle-personal paradox.”

  No matter how committed I am to women’s rights, no matter how deeply I feel about gender equality in my head and in my heart, still I couldn’t help but be struck by the sight of what society considered an attractive woman. I don’t know whether it’s purely visceral, hormonal, or instinctive, but it happens, quite often. I’d catch myself staring, and force myself to look away. Sometimes I’d weaken and sneak another peek while she was still in my field of view. It made the high-minded progressive liberal in me cringe and complain. But it was difficult not to look sometimes, not to appreciate physical beauty. I sometimes wondered whether it was an offshoot of aestheticism, the noble search for true beauty. But just as often I thought there might be a more primal sexual angle to it. Who the hell knows?

  The principle-personal paradox. My principle-personal paradox. My brain hurt thinking about it. I felt guilty and conflicted, but I don’t want to overstate it. It wasn’t exactly like the monk who flayed himself and bled over impure thoughts. But still, I didn’t feel good about it when it happened.

  She raised her eyes and caught my lingering look.

  “Job interviews?” I asked.

  “You could say that,” she replied.

  “Keep walking, please,” commanded big black suit earphone guy. “Nothing to see here.”

  I was about to make a crack about the CIA or the movie Men in Black but decided against it. I had serious reservations about this guy’s sense of humour. So I just walked on by, slipped into my father’s car, and pulled into traffic.

  Dad and I made our way slowly along the Red path until we found her, as usual, writing, sitting alone on one of the benches spaced along the walking trail. It was a beautiful day. Cotton ball clouds hung in a cobalt sky. Thankfully, it was not overly hot for Florida.

  “Looking good, Mrs. Tanner,” Dad said, enjoying his little jibe as he continued up the path.

  “Now, Billy, I think we can dispense with that archaic, outmoded, value-burdened prefix. You can call me Beverley, the way Everett does. I’d say we’re now on a first-name basis. Wouldn’t you?”

  Dad kept shuffling but aimed a strained smile back at her as he passed.

  “Whatever you say, little lady,” he wheezed.

  “Dad, don’t you think it’s time to retire ‘little lady’ from your repertoire?” I asked.

  “Ha. There’s more where that came from. I’ve got a million lines like that” was all he said in reply.

  “You say that as if might be an attractive attribute,” Bev said, almost, but not quite, under her breath.

  Dad just laughed and continued walking. As we’d negotiated, I sat down with Beverley. We’d agreed that if Dad walked two more benches up the path, he could turn around and drag himself and his walker back to join us.

  “He’s incorrigible, unrepentant, and unreconstructable, if that’s even a word,” I said.

  “He’s your father,” she replied. “In my experience, many men of his generation, perhaps most men his age, hold similar views.”

  “Yeah, but I doubt many of them seem to be quite so proud of them as Dad.”

  “Everett, the stroke has already dealt a blow to what he perceives to be his own power and masculinity. Perhaps he’s overcompensating with his mouth.”

  “His post-stroke mouth seems just about the same to me. I’m more concerned about the brain that’s sending the words to it.”

  “He clearly loves you. I can see deep down that he’s a good person. I see him helping others around here and doing his part. I know he sent a cheque the other day to the Flor
ida Hospital for Children. And he’s clearly not an imbecile. Look how he’s brought Chevrolet Jenkins out of his embittered shell. That took some doing. Besides, I’ve had some interesting conversations with your father when you’ve not been around,” she said. “The foundations are strong. We can work with that. He’ll come around, in time.”

  “The operative phrase being ‘in time,’ ” I replied.

  We sat in silence for a while as I pondered her assessment of my dad. She might well have been right. But did he have to make it so difficult?

  “You sure write a lot of letters,” I said.

  “I try to write one a day. Lord knows I’ve got the time,” Bev replied. “At least until, you know …”

  “Until what?”

  “You know, until I throw that final big clot.”

  “Beverley, please,” I protested.

  She closed out her letter and slipped it, and her pen, back into her canvas bag.

  “You must have a lot of friends and fans,” I said gesturing to the letter as it disappeared from view.

  “Don’t I wish. No, I’m long forgotten, and happy to be,” she said. “I only ever write to my son.”

  “I didn’t know you had a son. Wikipedia doesn’t even know you have a son,” I said.

  “There’s a lot Wikipedia doesn’t know about me.”

  “So you really do have a son?”

  “It’s a little-known fact I’d like to keep little known.”

  “Right. Does he visit often? Will we get to meet him? How old is he? What does he do?”