The Sensitive Man

It's Halloween, and since I'm feeling unusually enormous, what with being 38 weeks pregnant and all (not to mention the fact that it's flipping cold outside), my dear spouse happens to be outside handing out the treats this year.  I saw him through our front door, and even from the back, he looked slightly forlorn, as if he had been left out of the clubhouse.

I waddled my way down the stairs and out to the cold, concrete slab that passes as a front porch to sit with him for a few moments.

"Sometimes I feel like the local deviant," he told me.

I frowned.  "Yeah, I know," I said.  "I picked up a bit of a vibe that you might be feeling that way.  What's up?"

"Well, you know.  The being-a-man thing.  And having a ponytail."

It's true.  He's a man, and he has a ponytail.  His hair is much longer than mine; thick, wavy blond hair of which I am perpetually envious.  I have many fortunes in life, but great hair is not one of them, which may go some way to explaining why I am consistently attracted to people with gorgeous hair.  But I digress.

"You know what, though?" I said to him, hoping I was being reassuring, "You're a kind, sensitive man.  That has to count for something, right?"

His turn to frown.  "I think that's part of the problem."

I wondered if he was right.

The more I come to terms with the ways in which women have been wounded by societal stereotypes, oppression, and control, the more I see the ways in which the way the world happens hurts men, as well.  The more I deal with my own issues and grow in compassion around the ways in which I'm expected to demonstrate my worth and value in the world as a woman, the more I can see the issues that men face, and the more I feel compassion for them.

My spouse is a tall, distinctly masculine-looking man, yet has some traits that are not so traditional.  He is our regular household cook.  He loves to bake, and has often mentioned opening his own bakery one day.  He increasingly takes care of many of our household tasks.  Besides his long, blond ponytail, he is soft-spoken, gentle, kind, and much more patient with young children than I am.  He shares his toys with our friends' children when they come to visit and has fascinated little ones over and over with his collection of old spinning tops, light-up airplanes, and stacking block towers.  I feel so fortunate that he will be co-parenting our child with me.  I wish that his gifts in these areas could be more broadly shared, but I find that they often are not, in part based in a fearful bias around adult men interacting with children that aren't theirs.  Time and again, this fear seems to permeate our society's collective subconscious.

I don't know what to do to help change this.  It doesn't make sense to me that someone who demonstrates nurturing qualities is suspect of ill intentions, simply because of belonging to a particular sex or having a particular gender identity.  Yet I know that I have made similar assumptions about others.  An aspect of humanity is that we all tend to make snap assumptions about us based upon what groups people belong to (or appear to belong to).  Sometimes I think the best and most meaningful way to challenge these assumptions is in being in the world just as we are, even if it's challenging or lonely.

All I can think to say to him is that maybe he can set the tone of any interactions he has at our front door, and that maybe they'll all take their cue from him.  And, I think to myself, maybe I can look at my own behavior and not assume ill intent from people based on their sex or gender.

Now he is at the front door, handing out candy and joking with teenagers, who are walking away and wishing him a Merry Christmas instead of Happy Halloween.  His face seems a little lighter as he comes up the stairs once again from our front door, and it seems that maybe he is having a good time after all.