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"WHY'S EVER'BODY ALWAYS PICKIN' ON ME?"
This entry was posted on 2/27/2008 1:29 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
When a Texas gal reaches adulthood with such role models as Molly Ivins, Ann Richards, Liz Smith, Lady Bird Johnson, and a whole host of frontier women who fought off Indians and Santa Anna's army with babies on their hips as role models, you learn a thing or two about what it takes to be a Tough Broad.
We like Tough Broads in Texas. Even the men like 'em. ESPECIALLY the men like 'em.
And if you choose a career, like I did, that was male dominated--(back in the 80's I was riding into urban war zones and viewing autopsies and hanging out at the gun range with cops to research thrillers, and women on the job had to be TOUGHER than the guys if they wanted to earn their respect)--well, the first thing you learn in Tough Broad School is:
DON'T WHINE.
In a man's world, any hint of whining is considered a sign of weakness. Talk to any of the women who broke barriers in the armed forces, law enforcement, fire fighting or other macho fields, and that's the first thing they'll tell you.
In fact, when women were first breaking into law enforcement--and I expect it's probably still true to some extent--the best, in fact, the ONLY way to earn the respect of their peers was to show that they could and would fight.
By that I mean, in a difficult arrest with a subject that was violent, the women who jumped right in there and gave as good as she got bloody nose be damned were the ones who drew the admiration and support of their male colleagues. Until she indicated an interest in doing that, then she was likely to find herself alone when the time came that she called for back-up.
Just last Sunday, the NY Times Magazine ran the first part of an amazing series of articles--by a woman reporter, incidentally, named Elizabeth Rudin--documenting what it is like for American soldiers fighting in the worst mountainous areas of Afghanistan, on the border with Pakistan, where the Taliban is holding its ground. It was a bloody, violent assignment and the fact that they allowed her to go out with them on grueling, dangerous patrols speaks volumes about what a Tough Broad she was herself.
And one of the things Rudin said was that if, say, an Apache helicopter pilot was a woman, the men on the ground were actually reassured by the sound of her voice coming over the radio. But she also pointed out that the female pilots most admired by the soldiers were the ones most aggressive in going after insurgents who had the Americans under fire.
"We killed two guys together," said one battle-hardened soldier after calling in airfire against two insurgents that had him trapped. The female pilot had been dogged about pursuing the insurgents through thick brush where they could hide, and didn't quit until they were dead.
I doubt very seriously that this woman whined about how hard her job was.
This week, Hillary Clinton has been making a very big deal about her campaign's assertion that Barack Obama gets a free media pass, while they're always picking on her.
Time and time again, she has brought up the Saturday Night Live skit last weekend as some sort of proof of this bias. At the debate last night, she actually used it to sarcastically suggest that MSNBC might want to give Obama a pillow to make him more comfortable (one of the jokes on the skit).
Then, in response to a question by Brian Williams by saying, "Well, could I just point out that in the last several debates, I seem to get the first question?"
And right then, across the nation, every man watching and every Tough Broad watching gave out a collective groan, because what they heard in Hillary's plaintive question was WHINING.
The important thing to remember, here, is that IT DOES NOT MATTER IF IT IS TRUE.
In fact, I have been one of Hillary's long-time admirers. She is a Tough Broad, no question about that. And I wrote earlier that the reason she'd won in New Hampshire was the Sistuh-vote--women who'd heard men on T.V. howling about Hillary and were sick of it because they had to put up with the same crap in their lives. Of course there is a media bias against Hillary--not all mysogynistic, mind you. Some of it goes back to all kinds of Clinton shut-downs of media access at the White House.
But in a man's world, and let's face it, it still is one--then it doesn't matter whether the injustice is REAL.
What matters is HOW A WOMAN HANDLES IT.
Men--and most women, truth be told--measure strength by how someone stands up to assault, whether real and physical or symbolic. They look for grace and strength.
Back when I was first trying to prove myself to the law enforcement officers who had agreed to help me research my books, I could see that there were "tests" that they used to judge how tough I was. (Tough Broad cops did the same thing.) The thing is, if I had shown any sign of weakness, they would have decided not to trust me with the gritty details of their jobs. I had to show them that I could take it, that I would not recoil in horror. They couldn't trust me otherwise.
When I was taken into the Southwest Institute of Forensic Sciences to view autopsies--this was way way before anything like the Discovery channel--I was watched closely to see my reaction, though I didn't realize it at the time.
Lying on the table was a 12-year old boy who had taken a shotgun blast to the head at close range. The medical examiners were trying to figure out if it was a suicide or homicide.
At the time, I had a 12-year old boy at home, my son, Dustin.
This child's face was intact. He looked like he was asleep. But the top of his head, and the back of it, was gone. Just gone.
I felt my knees go weak, and I remember thinking, "I will be DAMNED if I embarrass myself by hitting the floor of this morgue."
So I reached out quietly and steadied myself against a sink, took deep breaths, and continued questioning the doctor.
I didn't know it then, but the cops who'd taken me there were taking my measure.
I passed.
After that, every door I needed opened to me at the Dallas Police Department swung wide. Over beers, cops told me things that I know their own spouses didn't know. They trusted me to understand, and I always tried to honor that trust when I represented their profession in my books. I'm told some of my biggest fans have been cops.
What I'm saying is that in any kind of field where a woman is trying to prove herself up to the job, IT DOESN'T MATTER how tough she is.
What matters is HOW TOUGH SHE APPEARS.
Like I said, ask any female soldier, cop, or fire-fighter, see what they tell you.
This whole past week, Hillary has been whining. She's been whining about how the media doesn't like her. She's been whining about how Obama's mail-outs have been unfair. She's been whining about how this job should be hers, dammit!
But last night, if you ask me, she slammed shut many doors of undecided voters who wanted to support her but weren't sure.
Because she whined.
Is it fair? Of course not. But in the world of the Tough Broad, what the hell difference does THAT make?
The last column Molly Ivins ever wrote, she was dying of cancer.
SHE WAS DYING.
Did she write about that, or whine about how chemotherapy and exhaustion had sapped her strength and muddled her thinking? Or how it was desperately unfair, that she was only 62 and had so so much more to say?
No.
She called out for all of us to fight against the Iraq war and Bush's so-called "surge:"
"We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell. Think of something to make the ridiculous look ridiculous. Make our troops know we're for them and trying to get them out of there. Hit the streets to protest Bush's proposed surge. If you can, go to the peace march in Washington on Jan. 27. We need people in the streets, banging pots and pans and demanding, "Stop it, now!"
By GOD, that was one Tough Broad!
I would vote for Molly Ivins in a heartbeat. Nobody raised hell better than her.
But I will not vote for a whiner.
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