Short Take: A Cold, Hard Pass

The argument is that it’s sexist, if not downright misogynistic, to use the “nuts and sluts” argument, that a woman is batshit crazy, to oppress women. All the unduly passionate tell me so, and make it clear that one can never, but never, seize upon the tool employed for centuries to silence women. So what then does one call this?

Thanks for not raping us, all you ‘good men.’ But it’s not enough.

It started with “don’t be bad guys.” Then be good guys. Shed your toxic masculinity. But even that wasn’t good enough for Victoria Bissell Brown, who apparently decided to lose her shit on the pages of the Washington Post.

I yelled at my husband last night. Not pick-up-your-socks yell. Not how-could-you-ignore-that-red-light yell. This was real yelling. This was 30 minutes of from-the-gut yelling. Triggered by a small, thoughtless, dismissive, annoyed, patronizing comment. Really small. A micro-wave that triggered a hurricane. I blew. Hard and fast. And it terrified me. I’m still terrified by what I felt and what I said. I am almost 70 years old. I am a grandmother. Yet in that roiling moment, screaming at my husband as if he represented every clueless male on the planet (and I every angry woman of 2018), I announced that I hate all men and wish all men were dead.

Her husband sat there in silence. Whether that’s good or bad can’t be known, given that the dynamic between spouses isn’t the sort of thing outsiders could possibly know. But what can be known, what is known, is that Brown thought it appropriate to put her breakdown into words, and the WaPo thought it appropriate to put her words on its pages.

No, of course she doesn’t really wish all men were dead. No, she’s not a threat to human life. I think.

As my rage rushed through the streets of my mind, toppling every memory of every good thing my husband has ever done (and there are scores of memories), I said the meanest thing I’ve ever said to him: Don’t you dare sit there and sympathetically promise to change. Don’t say you will stop yourself before you blurt out some impatient, annoyed, controlling remark. No, I said, you can’t change. You are unable to change. You don’t have the skills and you won’t do it. You, I said, are one of the good men. You respect women, you believe in women, you like women, you don’t hit women or rape women or in any way abuse women. You have applauded and funded feminism for a half-century. You are one of the good men. And you cannot change. You can listen all you want, but that will not create one iota of change.

He’s a good guy, and that’s not good enough because he’s still a guy? There is a message in here, and it doesn’t reflect well on Brown, since there’s no evidence that she’s been elected as the spokeswoman for all female hysteria. But if this reflects some hidden angst seething within you, then there’s bad news for you and for the allies who thought being that passive wuss who placated your feelings by silently listening with tears in his eyes while nodding his head in empathy.

It’s not good enough, dear woke allies who believe that concealing and repressing their manly desires will gain them the appreciation of the better smelling sex.

And as for the women who share Brown’s hysteria, more bad news. It’s not that most men don’t want to be good guys, don’t want to hurt your feelings, don’t want to treat you with gentility and concern, but we also don’t want to stop being guys. We like being guys. It’s who we are. Bacon. Football. Cars. And if that’s not good enough for you, not sufficiently feminine to make you stop wishing all men dead, then there’s nothing more we can do.

It’s not that we don’t appreciate that this moment in time has brought out the disinhibitions that allow you to go on a hysterical rant like Brown’s. For this brief moment, you can get away with a psychotic breakdown without being called “psychotic.” If it’s a catharsis you need, have at it. We can watch the game while pretending to listen.

But if you seriously believe that it’s not enough for men to be “good men,” but women, then you’re going to be very disappointed. Sorry, but we don’t want to, and you can’t make us, especially by going full batshit crazy. We may not be able to call an unhinged woman “unhinged” in this politically correct moment, but make no mistake about it. This was bonkers.

33 thoughts on “Short Take: A Cold, Hard Pass

  1. DaveL

    As an old Sergeant-Major of mine once said, “When she goes outside in winter in a T-shirt and shorts, I just go downstairs, turn on the TV, and don’t say a word.”

  2. L. Phillips

    So, after 50-odd years of stress attempting to become what he is not out of love, fear or both this is his reward? If there is any testosterone left in his body he may be needing a good criminal defense attorney.

      1. DaveL

        In all seriousness, though, if it’s misogynistic to call it “unhinged” or “hysterical”, then in the interests of gender equality, it should be called exactly what it would be called if a man had been screaming, full-out and spittle-flecked, for 30 minutes: spousal abuse.

  3. Kathleen Casey

    “…You are unable to change. …” Each of us is clueless and obstinate about something. It’s individual. Personal. Unique to each marriage. Ideology and stereotypes are a minor factor if a factor at all. Just my opinion.

    I don’t have a twinge of shame about the meanest thing I ever said to him. Because it got personal. Whatever it was. So I went after him. He shut his yap, too.

    1. Patrick Maupin

      There’s often no shame in a good rant, but there’s seldom a reason to write an article about it, either.

  4. Ayoy

    “It’s not good enough, dear woke allies who believe that concealing and repressing their manly desires will gain them the appreciation of the better smelling sex.”

    *gulp*

    … this poor guy is nearly 70… y-you think he can handle the Red Pill??

  5. B. McLeod

    Once upon a time, if a person was nuts, it was their problem. Now, when a person is nuts, it seems to be everybody else’s problem.

    1. SHG Post author

      It’s a great gig. Anyone can be nuts, but you can’t call a woman nuts because that’s sexist. So when a woman is nuts, there’s nothing to be said about it. How they pulled this bullshit off is remarkable, but they did.

  6. Rxc

    I’ll say it again. They all crazy, every one of them, each in her own unique and individual way.

    And calling this statement “sexist”is not an argument against it, because it is based on 68 years of observation and data.

  7. Richard Kopf

    Scott,

    Joan uses extortion.

    If I am bad, and I frequently behave badly–screaming sluts & nuts when watching CNN–she says I can’t use her tractor.

    Do you believe it?

    I argue with her and tell her that her manipulation is elder abuse. She just snickers wickedly. That’s when I cave.

    All the best.

    RGK

  8. Casual Lurker

    Spurred on by Professor Bissell-Brown’s WaPo Op-Ed, which falls squarely within the curtilage of our wheelhouse (here at the ‘rest spa’), I’m sufficiently motivated to endure “Trial by CAPTCHA”. Please excuse its length, as I was on a caffeine-fueled roll…

    My perspective is a little different (and likely skewed by what we see on a near daily basis). People go “batshit crazy” (to use your term) all the time. It keeps us in business. However, on weekends* we see a higher number of guests, a comparatively high percentage of them women. The reasons aren’t too clear as to why a particular demographic often predominates. But there’s plenty of speculation.

    One popular theory is, for women that work, resentment bottled-up during work hours then gets dumped at home, during off time. The flip side is that women who don’t work, and largely have the home to themselves during the week, must then endure their husbands/boy friends/S.O.s during the non-working weekend.

    “For this brief moment, you can get away with a psychotic breakdown without being called ‘psychotic’.”

    Maybe for those women whom have chosen a “passive wuss” as their S.O. But enough men, especially those that look forward to a relaxing weekend, often don’t hesitate to call 911**, and have those psychotic women delivered to our facility by the cops/EMTs.

    It should be noted that, after taking a full history, many of the women that are admitted were marginally stable to begin with, and it didn’t take much to push them over into full psychosis. In all fairness, I should also mention that in many cases, alcohol consumption was a significant contributor to opening the floodgates.

    None of this is new. But, in cases of cohabitation, based on admission interviews, #MeToo is beginning to facilitate a noticeable increase in domestic strife, and seems to bring out the worst in all involved.***

    I can only imagine what was going through Mr. Brown’s mind, as he sat there looking “hunched and hurt”. But I’d venture a guess it included thoughts like “time to download and print a set of commitment papers, just in case this becomes a frequent pattern”.

    While it’s presently a politically incorrect third-rail to even mention any gender-specific conditions, such as PMS or the much more severe PMDD (Pre-Menstrual Dysphoric Disorder), to ignore those conditions as a possible cause or contributor helps no one, and can result in a much longer stay, if left untreated.****

    In the case of someone who is well past post-menopause, as would be a woman nearing her 70s, a large range of geriatric conditions that tend to be prevalent in that age group also have to be screened for, and are frequently found to be a significant contributor to an altered mental status. In the early stages of some of the possible conditions, symptoms tend to be transitory, such that unexpected outbursts, in an individual not normally prone to such behavior, may be mis-attributed to them “just having a bad day”.

    “…since there’s no evidence that she’s been elected as the spokeswoman for all female hysteria.”

    DANGER WILL ROBINSON! These days, the word “hysteria” is being equated with the “N-word”, and we’ve been administratively advised against its use, whatsoever. (A while back the APA officially abandoned its use and recommends substituting several “more granular and precise” terms, depending on the conditional symptomatic specifics).

    As to how WaPo came to publish Professor Bissell-Brown’s screed, I suspect that in their competition with the NYT for ‘woke’ eyeballs, they’re in a race to the bottom to narrow that gap. ◊◊◊

    *Weekends are always fun! I cannot tell you how much I look forward to Monday mornings — as we near the end of the 72 hour hold on many of our weekend guests — leaving us just enough time to get a 3 PC cert’ panel to rubber stamp evaluate those in need of a longer stay. (In NY we’re only required to have a 2 PC cert’, but our internal policy is to use three).

    **It’s the one’s that don’t initially call 911 that are often more problematic. As the noise ramps up, someone (usually a neighbor) eventually calls the cops to intervene, with one party landing in jail and the other in the ER.

    ***This is long enough already, so I’ll skip going into the potential neurosis or worse the sons of the ‘woke’ will likely develop, should they follow Professor Bissell-Brown’s recommendation that fathers inculcate their sons with #MeToo propaganda.

    ****We used to regularly screen for conditions such as PMDD, including a full endocrine workup, etc., but have been “strongly advised” by higher-ups to avoid doing so, if at all possible. The reasons could be economic, as they so often are. But the-powers-that-be have declined to be specific, which is often a tell.

    1. SHG Post author

      Friday night fights are going to make the DSM-6 a very interesting read, but it’s going to be really hard to treat people when you’re limited to fantasy diagnoses.

      1. Casual Lurker

        I wasn’t suggesting that weekend altercations among domestic partners is indicative of a clinical pathology. Merely that those altercations, regardless of whenever or whatever prompted them, often brings to the surface an existing, untreated condition. Some of those weekend warriors are prone to getting themselves worked up about the cause du jour, thus triggering the underlying condition. With #MeToo (and related, peripheral issues) being front and center in the minds of a particular demographic, it’s often the catalyst that gets latched on to. Mind you, not the cause, just the vehicle.

        The weekend serves only to provide a convenient pressure vessel, with sufficient time for the parties to interact in a volatile fashion. Hence, the reliable surge in weekend admissions. (For many, home life is far more stressful than work, in spite of frequent claims to the contrary).

        According to the cops/EMTs, they only bring us a tiny fraction of those they see and deem in need of immediate psychiatric help, referring most to outpatient clinics. Of those they do bring in, we keep fewer still, most for only a few hours.

        But once we rule out drugs, alcohol, an occasional odd allergic reaction or exposure to environmental pathogens, we then have to look at the full range of possibilities. As I pointed out, among those we keep for more than 24 hours, those individuals were found to be marginally stable, usually having a personal or family history of serious mental illness.

          1. Casual Lurker

            There was no weaseling. I may not have been as precise or as eloquent as possible in my initial post. But hey, it happens. (I’m blaming it on too little sleep, too much coffee, and too many distractions around this joint).

            If you take exception to a particular point, do tell. Otherwise, I’m headed to lunch. I’m looking forward to a BLT, with plenty of extra B. Yum!

    1. SHG Post author

      There are so very many things I’ve done for which I’ll never be forgiven, “hysteria” is the least of my problems.

  9. Nemo

    It strains my comprehension that (assuming, arguendo, she was telling the truth) she couldn’t see that she perpetrated domestic abuse upon her husband for circa 30 minutes, and then bragged about it in a national-level media outlet.

    What I cannot for the life of me get my mind around the probability that not only will she deny she did that, but she’ll likely have droves of defenders. Unreal.

    Regards,

    Nemo

    P.S. At least you didn’t say “girls” this time.

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