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Show in my father's house/ 370a3 My mother did not understand her own power, nor that she wielded it unconsciously. And so there was no one to see me through the rites of passage. I believed that men had all the power without also having the necessary noblesse-oblige to make the system work smoothly. It was clear to me that if I, the opressed party, was to survive at all, I must learn to out-manipulate, to keep the upper hand in my relationships with the opposite sex - without letting them know it, of course. It became a chess-match, and I was often concerned for, even fond of my opponent. I closed my eyes to the psychological bloodshed of the battle. While alone with them, I inquired after their personal lives. How men loved to talk about themselves - as long as they could project an image of utter strength and invulnerability. But this was, perhaps, their greatest vulnerability, and I played upon it - not without sympathy. I genuinely cared for their problems: the boy who could not play football because of unchecked scoliosis, the other one whose father had focused on his older brother and ignored him. They pretended not to care and let me profess the caring in their stead, as though I was equipped with all tender feeling, and they equipped with all strength and invulnerability. But they did not know that my tenderness was a commodity, one of my few wiles - the only way I knew to behave with men. In public I was not so kind. It was as though I waged war to avenge all the social hurts of my life. My remarks cut deftly, almost invisibly - a reference to a confided weakness, an implied comparison Tbetween failure and someone else's success. Surely the reader will know something of these petty social |
