Don't Dumb Down: A Clarification

Here's an extra post today because I think we have all hit on a very delicate topic. This topic is so very delicate because it is right at the nasty, zig-zag tear between men and women in the battle of the sexes.

I hate the battle of the sexes myself, and although I will joke about pompous men and rail against men who use women, I try not to participate in general man-bashing. It can be difficult because when women are badly hurt by men, we talk about those men with other women. When we hurt men, we don't tend to talk about it quite so much. I was 35 before I was convinced that some women (and not just prostitutes) really do date guys for their money. It sounded like a myth, and I'd never ever heard a woman admit she ever did any such thing.

The Canadian writer Margaret Atwood apparently asked a group of men what they feared about women. The men said, "We're afraid they'll laugh at us." Then she asked a group of women what they feared about men. The women said, "We're afraid they'll kill us."

When the power differential is that wide, it's hard not to take sides. But I don't really want there to be sides. I want us just to be sons and daughters of God, loving and helping each other. I don't want see women making men blush, and I don't want to hear men sneering at women.

Femininity has always been devalued, and it is not exactly valued today. (Does the hard stare of the woman in the photo look feminine to you? And does she look at all valued?) Meanwhile, men have always been challenged by other men to prove how masculine they are. Some men thrive on this competition--they don't seem to mind all the mindless wrestling they do as boys--whereas some men hate it. They feel constantly outclassed.

Now, being nice to people, especially the shy, and listening to people are often considered feminine attributes. And, in general, women are better than men at sympathetic listening. But if we were brought up to believe that this feminine talent of listening is shameful and that Real Women speak their minds at all times, like men, then women are going to do just that.* And since men try to one-up men all the time, why shouldn't women try to one-up men, too?

The fact is that men don't like one-upping, at least, they don't like it all the time. In fact, men frequently tire of all-male one-upping company and just want to relax. If they don't see a woman as just more competition in the great One-Upping that appears to be life, they like to be around her. But if a woman always seems ready for a scrap, no matter how good-humoured and "intellectual", the men may very well flee.

I don't like one-upping myself. Arguing theological points with the boys in the office is fine, but I don't like it during nice social events. Put it this way: I have enough confidence in my own intelligence not to have to take it out and show it to everybody everywhere all the time. It's appropriate to argue for Lonergan's cognitional theory in a classroom or public discussion group; it's not appropriate to argue for Lonergan's cognitional theory at a dinner party when everyone else would rather talk about hunting. This rule, incidentally, holds as true for men as it does for women.**

If challenged directly, I admit, I am happy to knock a chap's socks off with an answer. I was challenged, the other day, to give a definition of the soul. My interlocutor obviously thought he had me stumped. So I told him that Thomas Aquinas defined the soul as the form of the body. He sat there and thought about it. And I left it at that.

Leaving it at that, I think, is key. You make your point, and you move on. You do not triumph over your vanquished conversational foe. You do not act like you are some kind of superwoman because you managed to get a flush hit on an actual, real live man. Who cares? If we really thought the feminine was as valuable as the masculine, we wouldn't care. Why is taking a man down a peg so much more of a glorious victory than taking a woman down a peg? Or more glorious than turning a charged encounter into a peaceful one?

Anyway, I write all day long. I don't even bother telling my friends about myself anymore because I assume they've read it already. Instead, I ask them questions. How are they feeling? What have they been up to? What do they think? What can they advise? How do they do the very talented things that they do? I really want to know. And it is really wanting to know about another person that renders you charming in their eyes. And asking people intelligent questions, instead of giving intelligent answers they didn't ask for in the first place, is not in any way a "dumbing down".

*This is once again a case of "knowing yourself". If you tend to be too quiet in company, it pays to make an effort to speak. If you tend to dominate conversation, it pays to make an effort to listen.

**If the general conversation is indeed about something you honestly know a lot about, certainly contribute. Don't dominate the conversation, get overly excited, slap down the competition or bore for Britain, but shine on, you crazy diamond.

And, yes, that woman really went to Boston College. Go, Eagles.

Awesome Autumn Vegetable Soup

Darlingses, I am not even going to bother pretending this soup feeds only one person It feeds six or seven people quite well, which I know because my mum makes it for Thanksgiving Dinner every year. I love this soup dearly. So here it is, and you can experiment with making it smaller. You can even make it Lenten (if such a soup could ever be considered Lenten) by subsituting leek stock for chicken stock. If you do that, though, you might need to add a little more salt. The recipe comes from Canada's milk marketing board. You need a blender, a cuisinart or a hand-blender.

Awesome Autumn Vegetable Soup

2 Tbsp butter
2 medium onions, coarsely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
3 medium carrots, coarsely chopped
2 ribs celery, coarsely chopped
1 small zucchini (courgette), coarsely chopped
2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
2 medium tomatoes, peeled and chopped
3 Tbsp chopped fresh parsley (or 1 tsp dried)
2 cups chicken stock or leek stock (see leek stock recipe below)
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp salt (or to taste)
1/4 tsp pepper
2 cups milk

1. Melt butter in a large saucepan. Add onions and garlic. Cook until fragrant but not brown.

2. Add carrots, celery, zucchini, potatoes, tomatoes, half of the parsley, stock, thyme, salt and pepper. Bring to boil, cover, reduce heat and cook 25 minutes or until veggies are very tender.

3. Puree soup in blender, cusinart, food mill, or with hand blender. Return to heat. Add milk. Cook until heated thoroughly. Do not allow soup to boil. Taste and add more seasoning if you think it needs it.

4. Garnish with the parsley.

This is a simply heavenly soup. I haven't tried it with leek stock instead of chicken stock yet, but the leek stock recipe is easy: just wash and roughly chop 2 leeks, cover them with 3 cups or so of water, and bring to a boil. Simmer for 20-25 minutes, and then strain. Throw the leeks out. The clear liquid will magically taste amazing. Use 2 cups of it in this recipe.

And Don't Do His Homework

So the husband and I are working our way through a series of Coen Brothers' films. On Tuesday night we watched Barton Fink, and it took me a day or so to really process the kooky thing. But one performance haunts me now, and it's that of Judy Davis as Audrey Taylor, the Southern secretary to a famous Southern writer named W.P. Mayhew (loosely based on William Faulkner).

The film is set in 1941, so Audrey has fantastically feminine 1940s clothes. But she has the misfortune to be Mayhew's mistress as well as his secretary, and he's an abusive drunk. In one scene, Mayhew, having gotten drunk at a picnic lunch, slaps Audrey in front of Barton. Barton, the self-appointed playwright of "the common man", is furious. But Audrey tells Barton that she understands Mayhew and that Mayhew is a great man. He needs her and can't write without her. Blah, blah, blah. Emotionally abused women tend to talk like that.

Now Barton is having a terrible time with writer's block and loneliness. He calls up Audrey, one of the only nice people he knows in Hollywood, and begs her to come over. He sounds insane. And probably because he sounds insane, Audrey comes over. She says she'll help him with the film script he has to write; she does it all the time "for Bill".

It turns out that Audrey more-or-less writes all of Mayhew's film scripts. And Barton, who is a huge Mayhew fan, is suddenly horrified when he realizes that Audrey might have been writing Mayhew's books, too. After much hemming and hawing and pleas for understanding Audrey admits it. Barton goes ballistic. And then they go to bed and— . Well, anyway, things don't end well for Audrey.

It was a day before I remembered the Episode of the Essay. Dear me, what are the statutes of limitation on a high school essay? Twenty years? Thirty? It was definitely over twenty-five years ago.

I had a big crush on a boy in high school. A huge crush. And this boy was not into me at all. I didn't understand why not when I was so smart. We would have long intellectual arguments in which I would defeat him and he would curse me out for a feminist. At the time I thought intellectual victories were a way to win a man's love. (Ah, ha ha ha. Well, I was a teenager, what do you want? Men in the movies love sparky women who best them in arguments.)

Our friends knew I had a crush on him, and he probably did too. And one day he called me up, frantic, because he had an essay due and he hadn't started yet. I talked him through the planning of this essay. I asked him about the books. I asked him about his thesis, his arguments, his conclusion.

"Can't you just write it for me?" he whined.

"No, I can't just write it for you," I said, although thrilled above all else that HE NEEDED ME, me and me alone. "But come over here and I'll see what I can do."

So he came over with his books and his miserable notes, and I got out a sheaf of typewriting paper and turned my typewriter on. (These were still typewriting days, you see.) And we wrote the darned essay "together".

Afterwards, I was disgusted by the whole thing. We went to two different schools, so there was no way I was going to get into trouble. It's not like my crush object was going to confess. But I knew I had done something very wrong, and I knew my crush object had behaved shamefully. It's not pleasant, having a crush on somebody like that.

And, of course, I had my reward. The crush object was sounding off one day to a female friend of mine about what a gentleman he was and how he always treated girls well.

"Well, what about Seraphic?" she said.

"What about her?" he said.

(I was in the room, by the way.)

"She's a girl, and you don't treat her well."

My crush object clicked his tongue.

"She's not a girl girl," he said, and his words went into me like bullets. They lodged in my brain. When, ten years later, my therapist remarked that I was a very feminine woman, I was startled. I said, "What?" I was probably wearing my blue-and-black mediaeval goth top and ankle-length black velvet goth skirt at the time. And I was, in fact, a very feminine woman. But this fact had been completely obscured for me by a teenage boy--one who got nice girls to do his laundry at university--who couldn't have given a damn.

And so I'll augment what I said to Modest Millie, girls: not only don't bake them brownies, don't do their homework, either. If you let boys take advantage, they surely will. And you won't have just them to blame.

Update: And here's something else for Singles at my other blog.

The Books are IN

Hello, my poppets! The latest news from my publisher is that Seraphic Singles has been printed and delivered to... Well, some have been delivered to the Novalis office, and Dayle the PR woman is sending copies to reviewers. I shall get copies my very own self, too. A boxful may be flying its way over to me right now.

Meanwhile, Novalis has made an advertisement from some film footage I sent them. If you haven't seen it yet, go here. My accent is so southern-Ontario I am embarrassed. This is not logical, because what else would my accent be, eh? But I am more used to hearing Scottish, English and Polish voices these days, so listening to the flat Ontarioness of me was very odd. Thank goodness they did not include the bits with me singing and squabbling with B.A. Incidentally, do I say "aboot"? Americans say Canadians say "aboot", but I can't hear it. I think I say "abowt".

But enough about me. The book will be available for sale on March 1, and both Novalis and Chapters-Indigo are taking advance orders. And of course there will be copies available for sale at the book launch on March 25 at the Duke of York Pub in Toronto from 7-10 PM. Dayle promises that this will be a par-tay!

Stay tuned for any new book news. I have got a television interview lined up with Salt + Light TV, so the Seraphic Single message should be hitting the Canadian airwaves by April.

Meanwhile, if anyone has an "Auntie Seraphic" question, it may be very helpful for other readers. Confidentiality is so guaranteed, I usually give writers a pseudonym to hide even their nom de blog! Thanks to Alisha, for linking to "Modest Millie's" question on facebook. This brought a ton of visiting readers!

By the way, if you have already pre-ordered, let me know. That would be awesome.

Update: Two very seraphic readers have started a Seraphic Singles fan page on Facebook. YAY! Wasn't that nice? I've never been the subject of a facebook fan page before. How exciting!

What I Miss

One of the problems with writing for Singles when you're married, I've discovered, is that people say to you, "But you're married." It drives me crazy because, like, you know, I know I'm married. But before I was married I was Single. I was Single for a loooong time. I had a whole Single life going on. And I decided to spend it at grad school and, when I was done with grad school, living with my parents and writing a lot. And I enjoyed living with my parents. My parents are cool.

Eventually someone might eventually ask me what I miss about the Single life. I hope somebody does, actually, because it would be a recognition that being Single (and sleeping alone) is not outrageously terrible 24/7. I hope I wouldn't turn into a pillar of salt, though, like Lot's Wife. Poor Lot's Wife looked back nostalgically at her homeland, and whammo. Since then turning into a pillar of salt has been a metaphor for getting stuck in the past.

I definitely won't get stuck in the past because I am loving my present, poppets. It rocks. I have a cute husband and live in one of the coolest apartments in Scotland. I live just outside of one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, and there are several boxes of books sitting in an office in Toronto, each book with my maiden name across it. It rules to be me. But I will admit to missing one or two or ten things from my Single Life, so I will list them here so that you can ponder what it is you love about your Single Life.

1. I miss living with Mummy and Daddy.

2. I miss seeing my brothers and sisters and nephews on a regular basis.

3. I miss my ole buddy Trish.

4. I miss my buddies known collectively as Les Girls.

5. I miss wandering into the Catholic Register offices to chat and hear the stories behind the stories.

6. I miss wandering into my old theology school and seeing what's going on with my former profs.

7. I miss calling up my buddy X when I'm having a crisis, and then calling up Y when talking to X doesn't do the trick.

8. I miss coffee, but that's mostly because I gave it up for Lent. However, I also miss the coffee machine in my parents' kitchen, and its massive thermos-jug, and pouring Tim Horton's coffee into a mug while my mother shouts, "Is that MY mug?", and staring out the window to see if there are any blue jays or cardinals hanging out in the backyard.

9. I miss family life in general. My mother-in-law lives up North and my uncle-in-law lives down South, and that's it for my in-laws. For someone who comes from a family of 7 plus grandmothers, it's kind of weird not to have family around.

10. I miss getting my monthly paycheque in the mail and putting into the bank all by myself. This may sound odd, but it is the truth.

11. I miss Mum doing all the laundry and most of the cooking. I agree that this is infantile. Just being honest here.

12. I miss Graziano's cappuccinos at The Annex Live.

13. I am livid there's no point in my applying to join the Toronto Temperence Society (a private club for cocktail drinkers).

14. I miss getting actual paper copies of the Catholic Register and cutting out my columns for my scrapbook.

As you can see, most of the things and people I miss I'm missing not because I'm married, but because my marriage means living in Scotland. But I won't be nagging at B.A. to pick up sticks and move to Canada because our life is here, and we love it. You'll notice that I didn't say anything about missing the architecture, urban sprawl, the subway and Toronto's teeming millions. Oh, wait, though:

15. I would kill for some decent Chinese food.

The Importance of Female Friends

Okay, I know this is a topic I write about a lot. But it is near and dear to my heart because not only do I think it is hard to live a Single life without friends, I think it is hard to live a Married life without friends.

Benedict Ambrose is a marvellous husband, but the one thing he cannot be is a female friend. He has not yet grasped the principles of female solidarity, and he is prone to give advice when I don't want advice but womanly sympathy and total agreement that I am right and somebody else is wrong. But that's okay. He's a man. If he weren't a man, I wouldn't be here in the Historical House making scalloped potatoes and hanging up socks on a laundry line made from a computer cable.

One feminine ritual I absolutely love is called "Coffee". In Canada we call this "Tea", but in Scotland "Tea" can mean "Supper," so here we tend to say "Coffee" if we mean warm beverage plus cake, not a full meal. Yesterday a female friend came over for coffee, and we had a nice chat. Then this morning I walked over the fields to my neighbours' for coffee, and the female neighbour and I had champagne and a nice chat and then lunch with her husband. And on Thursday I will meet other female friends for several cups of tea in a teashop. Female friendship involves a lot of hot drinks these days.

Another thing about female friendship is that you eventually begin making friends with women much older and much younger than yourself. I was in university for a very long time indeed, so I tended to make friends much younger than myself. But now that I am a married lady in the UK, I am making friends with ladies much older than myself, too. And this is a very good thing because sometimes I need advice about living in the U.K. that only British ladies know, e.g. where can a girl get her hair done well?

That is all I have to say today, so I will take the wrappings off the commbox and let you all chat about what you and your friends do for fun. Before I married and still lived in Toronto, I enjoyed going to pyjama parties although I was by far the oldest guest and fell asleep before everyone else.

Auntie Seraphic and Scared Bunny Face

Dear Auntie Seraphic,

You've written before that Nice Men are extremely annoyed when a lady looks at them like a frightened rabbit. I've discovered lately that I do just that. While I smile at nice men who ask me to dance or whatnot, I smile what my friend terms a "Please-don't-eat-me smile." I've caught myself in the mirror and thought about how I hold myself when meeting men (or it may be people in general, but I think it's worse with men) for the first time, and it's quite true: I look scared stiff.

Since you don't know me I know you can't tell me why I do this (and for the record I have a lovely dad, good brothers and wonderful guy friends, and I haven't dated yet, so no traumatic experiences behind it). I was just hoping that, since looking scared is apparently a fairly common problem, you might have some practical advice on how to not look so, without necessarily knowing what causes the look-of-terror.

Scared Bunny Face

Dear Scared Bunny Face,

Nice men come up to you and ask you to dance and whatnot? Poppet, you are ahead of the game: A. these are nice men and B. they come up to you. I have readers dying to be you. Obviously you look approachable, and that is great.

Now what men have written to me is that they hate it when women look at them like they (the men) are potential killers. Frankly, some men like girls with big, timid eyes. It makes them want to hug you and say, "Don't worry, little bunny! I'll take care of you!" But let's assume you aren't looking at nice men like a sweet little bunny per se but like a sweet little bunny about to be pounced on by a big murderous OWL.

Personally, I always used to look at strange men like they were potential killers. But then I had my Heidi Klum Moment of Revelation, and it was that men like women who have big toothy smiles. What set Heidi Klum apart from a host of supermodels in their Victoria Secret undies and wings, in the eyes of my then-boyfriend, was her big happy smile. So my first piece of advice is to practise flashing a big happy smile at people. Enlist a friend for practice. Get her to pretend to be a nice man.

Friend: Wanna dance?

You: (flash big happy smile) Sure!

Friend: How's it going?

You: (flash big happy smile) Great! You?

Friend: So you enjoying the party?

You: (flash big happy smile) I am now!

Yes, at first this will feel fake. But do it often enough and it will become your natural, spontaneous reaction to nice men. (If you have trouble telling bad men off, create a different scenario in which your friend says something rude, and you scowl and say "Get lost.")

My next piece of advice is to watch the movie called Swingers. Make sure it is the one with Vince Vaughan and is in the comedy section, not the yucky section in the back of the store. Swingers is the most brilliant movie I have ever seen about men and how they feel about meeting women.

Essentially, going up to women can terrify men. You may not know this, but sometimes when nice men go up to women to say "Hi", women are really, really rude to them. In Swingers, the hero tries to talk to a woman at a party. She asks him what kind of a car he drives. When he tells her, she walks away. Ouch! Harsh! But this kind of thing actually happens to guys.

My favourite scene is the one in which Vince Vaughan's character gives the hero a pep talk ending with "You're a Bad Man. A Bad Man. Bad Man." Although reprehensible from a Christian Ethics 101 point of view, it is screamingly funny. It is so funny, that if you remember it when guys come up to you, you will have no problem with your big happy smile. Bonus: he talks about the girl the hero wants to talk to being like a little bunny rabbit.

Finally, when I first laid eyes on the man who would in less than eight months (!) become my husband, I was nervous. I was really nervous. But when I saw his incredibly LOUD tweed jacket, I firmly thought, "Just A Friend." The thought that Benedict Ambrose, aka Mister Tweed, was Just going to be A Friend calmed me right down. I smiled and let him lead me away for a meat pie and ale in the nearest nice pub. I revised this hardline "Just A Friend" attitude later, obviously.

Here's my CR article on the topic of talking to boys. I hope it is helpful!

Grace and Peace,
Seraphic