DUMBING DOWN AND SILENCE ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW
This morning I was thinking about how I've been expected to DUMB DOWN at various moments in my life. (If you've been reading this blog you know that I am using the word moment to mean anything from an instant to a long period of time, an era.) I think this is something that women are expected to do more than men. And I think women correctly perceive that in moments dumbing down is actually a survival skill. For instance it allows you to survive a meglomaniac boss and pay your rent.
Luckily, although I absorbed the concept of dumbing down, and have realize I was cooperating or collaborating to be not the best I could be, unlike some young women my mother didn't actually lecture me to do so. I learned that other teenagers mothers DID, telling them to stifle their intelligence, to not be intellectual, to let him "win," as well as pretend helplessness in order to prove their femininity. My mind rebelled against these notions, but for a long time I acknowledged that I was not exactly independent and what right then did I have to express contrary opinions and still be kept ?
NOT BEING AS TALENTED AS YOU ARE as a writer, can also happen in writers groups and in literature and creative writing classrooms. I recall one star pupil at a local community college where I studied writing who always used to preference her presentations of short stories with a whinny, "It's not very good but...."
Actually she was a very good writer, but I had to wonder why she chose to enter into the competition with a handicap like this phony self esteem problem. Perhaps it's that some women are afraid to compete and be seen as not nice, not... well... women.
For here goes the opposite problem. The competitive person who is hellbent on winning (whatever it is, the love of a professor, etc.) even if they have to play dirty, who uses psychological warfare among their companions and peers to get the advantage. I met a couple women like that in college.
Competition itself isn't the problem then. It's not even especially a feminist issue. It's the dirty play.
The other day, in a particular moment, someone startled me by asking me "The question about you is are you stirring the shit or trying to smooth it." I blurted, "Well I'm not a kiss ass, I'm more of a political activist as a type of person." But later I realized that I was being challenged about telling what I know though it might anger some people and really challenge the status quo or KEEPING SILENT, which is another way of DUMBING DOWN! A nd I wish I would have had this more thoughtful comeback; "Actually I don't believe any shit should exist at all!"
C Christine Trzyna All Rights Reserved 2008
