Poles Apart (10 page)

I finally fell asleep around 5:00 and didn’t open my eyes until 10:30. The name for the blog presented itself shortly thereafter. It was staring at me in Beverley’s inscription in my book. I wanted something optimistic and forward-looking. And even though it was to be an anonymous blog, I liked that my own name would be buried in the blog’s moniker. No one would ever know. I waited for an hour to see if I still liked the name I’d lifted from
Beverley. I did. And I liked that she was somehow part of it, now. So I signed in to Wordpress.com using a fake name and newly minted Gmail address and created a blog with a simple, clean look. The masthead read
Eve of Equality
. I liked it. It spoke of positive change in the past, but also clearly indicated that we hadn’t yet made it to the promised land. Yeah, I liked it. On the blog’s “About” page, I simply wrote “
Eve of Equality
is a feminist blog offering thoughts and observations on a spectrum of issues that touch women’s equality.” Broad enough. Bland enough. Anonymous.

I decided to host the blog separately and privately from Wordpress.com. It just made me feel like I had more control over it. So I arranged for hosting services locally with a smallish firm creatively called OrlandoHosting. I did it all online and by email using the same fake name and Gmail address I’d used with WordPress to create the blog in the first place. It did require a phone number, which left me a little uneasy. But after some hemming and hawing, I provided my cell number. The hosting fees were reasonable, and the blogger reviews I read on the Internet spoke well of OrlandoHosting. Good enough for me. Twenty minutes later, the online infrastructure was ready. I had only to write a blog post, hit the big blue Publish button, and it would be live.

I spent what was left of the morning browsing through the top-ranked feminist blogs on the Internet. I found a wide variety of bloggers representing women academics, man-hating extreme
feminists, countless women’s advocacy groups, young women, older women, straight women,
LGBT
women, women homemakers, women entrepreneurs, women athletes, women lawyers, women politicians, women teachers, women of science, women of medicine, women chefs, women union leaders, women civil servants, women against porn, women for porn, and many, many more. (I’ve just barely scratched the surface here.) And they all, every last one of these women bloggers, considered themselves feminists. It was a very crowded space reflecting not just the urgency of the need, but also the breadth and complexity of today’s women’s movement. And I found all these in just the first few pages of a standard Google search.

However, even after digging deeper and switching to other search engines, nowhere, and I mean nowhere, did I find an anonymous feminist blog featuring thoughtful, informed, occasionally amusing, but still serious posts, written by a youngish feminist man pining for his days in the student movement. Against all odds, there was nothing that even faintly resembled my vision for
Eve of Equality
. Great! There was obviously a gargantuan hole in the anonymous feminist blogosphere that needed filling. The particular audience seeking just such a perspective demanded and deserved satisfaction. Well, I’m your man, er, blogger.

When I left my apartment later in the afternoon to head back to the hospital, I noticed two workers varnishing the beautiful
newly installed wooden front door to the establishment downstairs. Green garbage bags enveloped and protected what seemed to be oversized door handles. They were making progress. It wouldn’t be long now. A line of young people, mainly women, okay, almost all women, snaked out of the side alley and curled onto the sidewalk in front of the building. They were all holding forms of some kind in their hands. I figured secret job interviews were underway in the secret business below my apartment. Kitchen staff? Waiters? Okay, a bar or restaurant, perhaps? Pounding music seeped out of the establishment.

A big guy, a really big black guy, in a black suit with an earphone stood off to the side where the line ended. I couldn’t help but stare at the last young woman in the line. She was quite stunning. Beautiful face, short auburn hair, and a body that actually conformed to the unrealistic standards fashion magazines have been setting for decades. And there it was, another sneak attack of what I’ve come to call my “principle-personal paradox.”

No matter how committed I am to women’s rights, no matter how deeply I feel about gender equality in my head and in my heart, still I couldn’t help but be struck by the sight of what society considered an attractive woman. I don’t know whether it’s purely visceral, hormonal, or instinctive, but it happens, quite often. I’d catch myself staring, and force myself to look away. Sometimes I’d weaken and sneak another peek while she was still in my field of view. It made the high-minded progressive
liberal in me cringe and complain. But it was difficult not to look sometimes, not to appreciate physical beauty. I sometimes wondered whether it was an offshoot of aestheticism, the noble search for true beauty. But just as often I thought there might be a more primal sexual angle to it. Who the hell knows?

The principle-personal paradox.
My
principle-personal paradox. My brain hurt thinking about it. I felt guilty and conflicted, but I don’t want to overstate it. It wasn’t exactly like the monk who flayed himself and bled over impure thoughts. But still, I didn’t feel good about it when it happened.

She raised her eyes and caught my lingering look.

“Job interviews?” I asked.

“You could say that,” she replied.

“Keep walking, please,” commanded big black suit earphone guy. “Nothing to see here.”

I was about to make a crack about the
CIA
or the movie
Men in Black
but decided against it. I had serious reservations about this guy’s sense of humour. So I just walked on by, slipped into my father’s car, and pulled into traffic.

Dad and I made our way slowly along the Red path until we found her, as usual, writing, sitting alone on one of the benches spaced along the walking trail. It was a beautiful day. Cotton ball clouds hung in a cobalt sky. Thankfully, it was not overly hot for Florida.

“Looking good,
Mrs
. Tanner,” Dad said, enjoying his little jibe as he continued up the path.

“Now, Billy, I think we can dispense with that archaic, outmoded, value-burdened prefix. You can call me Beverley, the way Everett does. I’d say we’re now on a first-name basis. Wouldn’t you?”

Dad kept shuffling but aimed a strained smile back at her as he passed.

“Whatever you say, little lady,” he wheezed.

“Dad, don’t you think it’s time to retire ‘little lady’ from your repertoire?” I asked.

“Ha. There’s more where that came from. I’ve got a million lines like that” was all he said in reply.

“You say that as if might be an attractive attribute,” Bev said, almost, but not quite, under her breath.

Dad just laughed and continued walking. As we’d negotiated, I sat down with Beverley. We’d agreed that if Dad walked two more benches up the path, he could turn around and drag himself and his walker back to join us.

“He’s incorrigible, unrepentant, and unreconstructable, if that’s even a word,” I said.

“He’s your father,” she replied. “In my experience, many men of his generation, perhaps most men his age, hold similar views.”

“Yeah, but I doubt many of them seem to be quite so proud of them as Dad.”

“Everett, the stroke has already dealt a blow to what he perceives to be his own power and masculinity. Perhaps he’s overcompensating with his mouth.”

“His post-stroke mouth seems just about the same to me. I’m more concerned about the brain that’s sending the words to it.”

“He clearly loves you. I can see deep down that he’s a good person. I see him helping others around here and doing his part. I know he sent a cheque the other day to the Florida Hospital for Children. And he’s clearly not an imbecile. Look how he’s brought Chevrolet Jenkins out of his embittered shell. That took some doing. Besides, I’ve had some interesting conversations with your father when you’ve not been around,” she said. “The foundations are strong. We can work with that. He’ll come around, in time.”

“The operative phrase being ‘in time,’ ” I replied.

We sat in silence for a while as I pondered her assessment of my dad. She might well have been right. But did he have to make it so difficult?

“You sure write a lot of letters,” I said.

“I try to write one a day. Lord knows I’ve got the time,” Bev replied. “At least until, you know …”

“Until what?”

“You know, until I throw that final big clot.”

“Beverley, please,” I protested.

She closed out her letter and slipped it, and her pen, back into her canvas bag.

“You must have a lot of friends and fans,” I said gesturing to the letter as it disappeared from view.

“Don’t I wish. No, I’m long forgotten, and happy to be,” she said. “I only ever write to my son.”

“I didn’t know you had a son. Wikipedia doesn’t even know you have a son,” I said.

“There’s a lot Wikipedia doesn’t know about me.”

“So you really do have a son?”

“It’s a little-known fact I’d like to keep little known.”

“Right. Does he visit often? Will we get to meet him? How old is he? What does he do?”

“These questions and more on the next Jerry Springer show!” she intoned in her best
TV
announcer voice. “Everett, please. Let’s return to my earlier statement that my son is a little-known fact that I’d like to keep little known. Period. Full stop. End of story. Next topic?”

“Okay. Got it. He’s off limits. I hear you. I feel you. I can take a hint,” I replied.

“Well, it was hardly a hint – more like a sledgehammer declaration – but I do appreciate your powers of perception and discretion.”

“Those are my strong suits.”

We sat in silence for a few moments.

“Um, I do have a favour to ask,” I said.

She released a very big sigh.

“Everybody wants a piece of me.” She threw her hands up. “It never stops.”

“Oh, um, well …” I stammered.

She looked at me, puzzled.

“Everett, I’m kidding! I’m the funny one. Remember? Where are the vaunted powers of perception I just commended?” she chided me. “I will always say yes when committed men feminists ask for my help. So ask already.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, shaking my head. “You really got me there.”

“Yes. Yes, I did. More than I intended. Now how can I help you?”

“It’s nothing, but if I were to start writing short essays, would you look at them, and tell me if you think I’m on the wrong planet?”

“And are you going to write these little missives on a topic that might be described as in my wheelhouse?” she asked.

“That’s certainly the plan. If they’re not in your wheelhouse, I’ll be badly missing my mark.”

“What prompted all this?” she asked.

“Let’s just say that I recently met someone who rekindled my interest in the issues that, um, reside in your particular wheelhouse. And I want to do something about it for a change and not just think about it. For the last fifteen years or so I’ve been doing far too little
thinking
and even less
doing
.”

“That sounds quite serious. This person sounds like she’s had a real impact on you. You’re very lucky to have met her. She must be extraordinarily gifted and wonderful in every way.”

“Oh, but she is, she is. Every other relationship I’ve had has ended because of my feminism. But this one is different. I’ve really fallen for her, hard. I’m not sure I can live without her,” I said dreamily, looking at the sky.

Her head snapped my way as she shot me a look of – well, let’s call it a look of concern tending toward horror.

“Gotcha,” I said, winking and smiling. “Speaking of vaunted powers of perception.”

“Touché,” she replied, shaking her head.

“When I was caught up in the student movement, I was very rarely writing about the issues. That seemed too passive. I was running around organizing marches, and leading workshops, and booking school buses, making placards, and getting parade permits. There was so much to do. But I never really wrote about what we were fighting for. There wasn’t time,” I explained. “Well, now I have time. So I’m going to write.”