When I was at the Washington Post and male editors got into some turf war over something, we reporter/hirelings would often joke about how the guys were repairing to the conference room for a Schlongfest--otherwise known as whipping our one's dick, slapping it on the table and announcing, "Mine's the biggest!" (Women editors could play this game, too, but were obviously disadvantaged.) It was more sophisticated than that, of course; these were grown-up men we're talking about, highly intelligent and accomplished in their professions. Still, a schlongfest was pretty much what it amounted to: the Alpha Male usually got his way or, on rare occasions, a new Alpha Male would be established after the bloodletting was over. Meanwhile, out in the newsroom, we would snicker amongst ourselves and--among us women--secretly gloat in our belief that women would never do anything so dumb.
It ain't true, ladies. When it comes to turf wars, women, too, revert to the rules of the playground. The only difference is that instead of comparing dick size, women (and here's the interesting part) resort to "shaming" behavior, in which one grown-up talks to other grown-ups as if they are children who have been doing naughty, naughty things. As in this classic of the genre, an e-mail I got this week on a loop I used to participate in. The title: "Cease and Desist." The message:
"I want to convey my deep sadness, disappointment and apologies to all of you for allowing a small group of individuals to use this member loop that belongs to you to stage some sort of demonstration. I am particularly saddened to see, for the first time in the history of our organization, a board member participate in such a self-centered, childish and disrespectful act.This loop belongs to all of you, and I cannot allow this acting out behavior to continue."
Now what, you ask, could have prompted this? Did somebody use the C word? Talk about their sex life in graphic detail? Talk about somebody else's sex life in graphic detail? Advocate overthrowing the government? Start dunning folks to buy Pampered Chef?
No, ladies; the crime here was that somebody (the "board member" in question, now a former board member) brought up a book for discussion that wasn't on the "approved topics" list. (This organization, by the way, is a volunteer group "dedicated to improving the lives of mothers through support, education and advocacy" and by promoting "the value of the work all mothers do." Yeah. Well.)
The interesting part here is the language. "Saddened to see." "Childish and disrespectful." "Disappointment." "Inappropriate." We've all heard stuff like this before, though rarely after, say, the age of 21 or so. Your mommy knew how to do this. Maybe, if you went to Catholic school, you could name a few nuns who were gifted in the finger-shaking and tongue-lashing department. Nurse Rachet, from "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"--now, she could dish it out. But what this reminded me of the most was the scene in "Dumbo" where all the fussy old lady elephants band together to exclude Dumbo and his mommy for a) looking different (Dumbo) and b) behaving "inappropriately" (Dumbo's mommy). But surely that's not all. Why else does this sound so familiar? Oh, yeah--now I remember. It's the kind of thing men say to women when they want to keep them in line. As in, "She's a bitch." (Translation: not ladylike.) As in, "Nice girls don't (fill in the blank)."
You gotta hand it to the guys here. A schlongfest is pretty straightforward: either you have the biggest dick in the room or you don't. Women, having no external genitalia to compete with, are forced to more subtle methods. We do the moral version of the schlongfest: my morals are so much better than yours; your behavior is so much more inappropriate than anything I would ever do; it's so unfortunate you have descended to such petty behavior. We don't compete over who has the biggest dick; we compete to see who has the highest moral standards. This is nothing unusual. It's the pattern of oppressed groups everywhere--to borrow the same language that's used to keep us down and apply it to each other.
So, okay, enough of this. No belaboring the subject; the worst thing to do when people behave badly is to keep hanging out with them, because your reputation will suffer. But it occurs to me, however, as I leave the building (so to speak) that women have no need of men to oppress us when we do such a damn fine job of doing it to ourselves.