I’m A Feminist. Yet A Bully Got The Better Of Me
I’m a feminist. I’m also a conflict-avoider, people-pleaser, all around “good girl”. Which means I bite my tongue and leave more killer thoughts unspoken than is healthy. Exhausting, I know.
Here’s a recent example.
Three days after having my insides scraped off, I met a pompous man who denigrated women in general and women in nursing in particular, as well as offended any basic sense of fashion. Yet, I remained silent. I even paid for his rant-infused dinner. This, despite a two-generation family history in nursing. Not to mention a strong sense of personal style.
It went down like this.
Bloated abdomen, fuzzy head and hormones in chaos, I accompanied my partner to a dinner with his cousin’s new boyfriend. Three days earlier, I had had my insides scraped off to remove any haywire bits of my endometrium — the joys of it — yet felt brave enough to step into the sweltering August heat like an empowered woman. Empowerment had never felt this nauseating.
Fashionably late, we finally arrived at the meeting place after 20 minutes of searching for a parking place and another 20 of walking at the pace of a toddler. And then I saw the man who would make my evening a nightmare: 6 ft tall, light brown yet receding hair framing a roundish face, skinny legs in jeans tight enough to raise eyebrows among emo teens, and an even tighter shirt over a growing belly. But his shoes were really the first sign of trouble; they were a velvety red, each adorned with an undulating and oversized green-brownish tongue and a snake-like decorating belt. Custom made, no doubt about it. Meet Mr. Flashy Shoes at his zenith.
Introductions made and first killer thoughts formed, we set for some more endless walking, navigating the narrow and busy streets of old town Bucharest in search of the perfect restaurant to meet Mr. Flashy Shoes’s exacting standards. As to be expected, we settled for the flashiest place around: loud music, loud colours, loud prices. Just up his alley.
My abdomen was only getting worse, with what felt like hundreds of little swords stabbing my insides. How I hated that man and his shoes.
Conversation stalled but he didn’t notice, too busy talking about himself and his glorious achievements, as well as other people’s stupidity in comparison to said achievements.
Not surprisingly, hate for women dripped from every story.
For example, he dwelled on his meeting with a “stupid pharmacist, a woman,” who dared to correct him — a doctor, after all — and who demanded to be treated with respect. In response, Mr. Flashy Shoes proudly recounted how he threatened to use his “high-level contacts” to have her sacked for her impertinence, like the man of (imagined) power that he was.
More disturbing was the way he hushed his girlfriend into submission, with words, gestures and dismissive looks. A typical dialogue between them that evening was:
Girlfriend: “And I think that…”
Mr. Flashy Shoes, cutting the air with his hand to shut her up, the man is speaking now:
“Let me explain, I’ve explained this to you before and I know best.” Insert after any of the following: his international meetings with science luminaries (which turned out to amount to one conference at which he was one of many participants); his in-depth knowledge of the medical field (a later internet search revealed it to amount to a worrying pattern of failed medical practices and health businesses); and his prowess at skiing (which we could not verify in August, but a pattern had emerged by then anyways).
One hour into the conversation, my brain was numb, all energy put into keeping Mr. Flashy Shoes’s annoying voice at bay and ignoring the swords turned machine guns in my abdomen.
And then I heard him say: “Nurses, who are at the bottom of the chain and the least educated in the medical system, dare tell doctors off when they are wrong. They’re so stupid and the worst of the worst.”
I felt my blood turn to fire. And, for a satisfying moment, I imagined myself stabbing him with a fork.
***
I come from a family of nurses. My grandmother, my mother and my aunts have more than 100 years of nursing experience among them. The trials and tribulations of their profession were a constant presence in my childhood. I saw them fretting over patients, finishing grueling night shifts only to start grueling days caring for their families, and taking work calls outside their regular hours. One of my aunts has even gone back to work months after undergoing surgery for breast cancer.
As a child, I was a regular fixture in the nurses’ office at the hospital where my mum worked; that’s where I would do my homework, eavesdrop on conversations and wander into patients’ rooms — with their consent, rest assured — for some lighthearted banter.
***
Yet, when I heard Mr. Flashy Shoes offend a profession that I knew well, I remained silent. Blood-boiling and anger-dripping, yet dead silent. To the point that even such a self-important man, consumed by his own pomposity and illusions of grandeur, remarked on it.
Hours later, in the car, I almost screamed at my poor, confused partner all the things that I should have told that ridiculous man:
· The long hours nurses put in and the disrespect they often get from a lot of doctors and quite a few patients, as well as the toll those hours take on their health and their family life
· The many years of schooling required. In Romania, for example, it’s not uncommon for nurses to do a three-year postgraduate diploma and a three-year bachelor degree, before getting certified to practice
· The growing recognition of nurses, in practice and in the literature, as the backbone of national health systems
I should also have recounted the personal stories of professionalism and care:
· of the head nurse who, days earlier, put me at ease before my surgery
· of the male nurse who treated my naked and scared body with so much respect and consideration
· of the nurse in the operating room who made me laugh before getting me on the cold, unwelcoming table
· of the nurse monitoring my post-surgery evolution, who held my head and stroke my back when I was feeling nauseous
· and of my first encounter with the US medical system years earlier, through a nurse practitioner who did everything in her power to put an anxious and sick visiting student at ease
***
But for all these stories, and for the anger and the clenched teeth, I kept quiet. Being a good girl is an all-consuming affair; avoiding conflict a life purpose. That anger still stings. And it’s more directed at my silence than at Mr. Flashy Shoes’s words. Having stayed quiet shames me. Not only because it goes against my feminist ideals. But mostly because it feels like a betrayal to his girlfriend, who, before meeting him, had spent years trying to get out of a physically and emotionally abusive marriage.