Women Ain’t Getting Their Hands Dirty
An anecdote for men
March 8, 2023, Women’s Day. Today at the gym, “Master the pull up” workshop. Was it a pun-intended kind of coincidence? I don’t know, but there were three women to every man attending.
Before starting on the bar, the trainer — a caring Greek guy — passed around the liquid chalk powder you are supposed to spray on your hands to improve grip, reassuring us all that it did not stain.
Men, no problem. Women, they hesitated to get their hands dirty.
Men poured the liquid powder without really considering whether drops were falling on or off their hands, or on the floor. Women aimed at their hands through an endogenous microscopic lens, and then over-manicured the chalk distribution on the palms of their hands.
After the chalk ritual, men were probably revisiting one of Rocky Balboa’s movies, checking whether the chalk scene belonged. Women were in alert- mode, fingers and hands tensed out, like they might just got infected with chicken pox, trying their best to avoid the spread of the deadly chalk.
Given the care and attention women were taking to keep the chalk off their clothes, the trainer reassured once again that the powder did not leave any permanent stain, a sort of “Olly olly oxen free” expecting to free the self-conscious women without losing the game. Ça va sans dire, it didn’t work.
Dear Men,
Thanks for trying, I know your heart is in the right place.
Let me unpack this for you.
Before they can even walk, women are reminded obsessively and sometimes violently, 24/7/365, to keep their clothes not just clean but in pristine condition. They have to learn how wear anything effortlessly and still making it look like it had never been worn. Whether they are going out to play or to church, the recommendation is on repeat, to the point that you feel your mother’s reprimanding look towering over you even when your have become a grown-up woman yourself. If that wasn’t enough to traumatize us all, girls and young women are also surrounded by other women who are worried and constantly checking their own clothes (and reputations) for stains: breastmilk, blood, lipstick, and everything life throws at them.
The fear of getting/being dirty pierces through our clothes and trespasses our skins and souls, becoming an unforgiving moral compass set to force its way through our identity and every aspect of our lives.
As it often happens, the road to hell is paved with well-intended, under- cover generational trauma. Amen.
Asking a woman to be casual about making her own clothes carelessly dirty is perjury. It is like breaking an oath you swore in front of all the women who came before you, it somehow violates your own identity. Men thinking that cleaning one’s dirty hands on one’s shirt is just a natural thing to do, should think twice about their own biases too.
I am not saying that men do not have their fair load of trauma to overcome, maybe you feel the pressure of marking territory or getting your hands dirty to prove your worth or something? I do not know.
I also do not want to victimize women and deny the quantum leaps we have made in emancipating ourselves. I am just saying that women’s reactions are not necessarily frivolous.
What to some might not look like a big deal, for us might be a major fear, whose seeds were planted way before our time, and whose roots are often stronger than our own comprehension.
