Tuesday Scribblings

The September 26th edition of thoughts & commentary on seemingly random things

Back story: a few weeks ago, I started Tuesday Scribblings, a regular post for the thoughts & commentary on the personal, regional, and global events and stories that are rattling around in my brain. Paid subscribers get access to more personal stories at the end of the post.

There was a fine mist falling as I went on a walk this morning. Whenever it’s a grey, misty day I think about the times I’ve visited England, how everything is damp and dewy but not necessarily sopping wet. It makes me want to curl up with a book and a cup of hot tea, or pull out my stationery and letters overdue for a response. As I type this, I’ve got Earl Grey with honey and almond milk in a big mug, and the air purifier is humming on the shelf. I can hear the clothes dryer gently thumping as my freshly laundered towels spin inside. The jasmine and ylang-ylang aromatherapy blend I sprayed on my pulse points this morning lingers; it’s based on a spray a friend gave me called Happiness. Am I happy in this moment? I finally addressed an outstanding task this afternoon and feel lighter as a result. But happy? Maybe not.

I’m still thinking about the essay I read earlier this week by Lyz Lenz on Ashton Kutcher, and how he represents a certain kind of man we all know.

He is not the toxic bro, but he’s friends with him. He supports him. He calls out the nameless, faceless bad guys, but not the ones he’s friends with. Phantoms are easier to fight than buddies, after all. He’s the type of guy who benefits from patriarchy while still being the good guy because he’s not as bad as the rest of them. It’s building a life to look good, without actually doing the radical work of being good. He’s #NotAllMen, the ones who don’t actively do harm, but maybe don’t actively do good, either.

It might be unfair to lash out at these kinds of guys. But in so many ways they create the environment where the others thrive. This type of guy is the cytoplasm of the patriarchy, the fluid that holds it all together.

I remember some of the men I knew when I lived in California, the ones who would support me and other women if we told them about the disgusting things a mutual guy friend/acquaintance said or did, but left it up to us to directly address the situation. I remember how often I heard phrases like “Well, he was drunk at the time,” or “If I had been there I would have stopped it,” or “Wow, that doesn’t sound like him.” What was worse was when Mr. Cytoplasm turned on the gaslight and asked if I remembered everything right, was I really sure what had happened, if I’d been drunk myself. I would avoid that guy, along with the more openly disgusting guys, after that.

Then I remember something that happened at my high school that no one else seems to remember. Because I have yet to find a classmate who also remembers this traumatic event, I question my own memory. But my mind goes back to this story over and over again—a story involving an off-campus party with alcohol and the rape of two teenage girls—and I wonder: if that all really happened, did those two women ever find justice?

Here’s what I remember of the story that was told to me: a teacher left his classroom unsupervised for several minutes and one of the students inserted a videotape into the TV and video player in the room and pressed Play. The video had been shot at a recent party hosted by one of the more popular upperclassmen.