About a week ago I read an interview between Tarkovsky and a female journalist that has been troubling me ever since. In it Tarkovsky expresses what my initial defensive instincts told me was a chauvinistic, dated form of sexism, but at the same time I couldn't help in part feeling some truth to it on a more personal and vulnerable level. He and the interviewer argued about his belief that the main purpose and inherent nature of women is self-sacrifice and that "they only find their dignity in a male-female relationship in total devotion to the man." He continued on about the unnaturalness of an independent, solitary woman and the lack of satisfaction she will feel trying to live as men do.
The arguments struck a chord with me as I have been struggling to break free into my own independence, finally finding the courage to reject the comfort of the relationship I was in and make my own way. Surprisingly, I have not had a single regretful thought about doing so. On the contrary, the battle has been in defending and justifying my actions to my peers, in which I've only had partial success.
I have always related better to predominantly male perspectives in life and my interests and passions have always had more male than female followers. In my youth I often felt misogynistic because I was constantly struggling to just be, but was unable to cater to gender expectations. One of my girl friends, who likes to typify people, especially into their prospective male and female roles, has a way of unintentionally making me feel freakish, like a male mind walking around with female genitalia. Numerous times in conversation she'll begin a sentence with "all women" but then realizing her audience, she'll stutter and change her phasing to "most women" instead. But her generalizations rarely reflect the true inner differences between genders, but instead precipitate themselves in a more materialistic form. As so, I'm considered the oddball exception because I don't like shopping or dressing up, because I've never owned more than ten pairs of shoes, because I refuse to be swooned, wined, or dined in or by cliches, etc., etc.
But something I've noticed in her, and other women, is a self-subjugation to cliche, materialistic gender definitions (i.e., chick-flicks, make-up, first dates) while ostentatiously rejecting their more sacrificial roles (i.e., housewives, soccer moms, nurturers) out of fear of being pigeonholed into second-class citizen stereotypes. I listen to her tell me about how much she wants both a family and career, and how opposed she is to becoming just a housewife, with the sole subservient job of taking care of her husband and children, but at the same time she's one of the most maternal and selfless people I have know, to the point of admirability in my opinion. So why does she shun this, especially with the illusions of a "career"? She's a passionate reader and before she was in her relationship, told me multiple times how much she'd love to write. But her "career" isn't as a writer, which would be a step towards independence, but as an engineer, working in the mostly male, highly competitive world of selling and manufacturing large scale technology. This sort of career doesn't give her anymore independence, but on the contrary just makes her more subservient. She struggles to amalgamate her (very girly) personality into such an environment, so she's reading a book written by a woman, which gives pointers, helping to teach women how to survive in the male-dominated business world. I read the back of the book and was repulsed by how forced it sounded and how it seemed unnatural (for both sexes actually). Tarkovsky is quite right in this regard, that in trying for equality she's denying her true self.
So how do I see myself fitting into all of this? I have always thought of myself as independent and a loner, but at the same time, always aspiring for contact and connection. I do not see my passions as those of a woman trying to prove herself in a male world, but as whole-heartedly my own interests trying to find a place to root themselves. But I am struggling with my newfound solidarity and it is this confused apprehension that makes me vulnerable to the rigidness of Tarkovsky's views on women. But after much thought, I have come to some realizations...
I cannot live without feeling needed. A life lived in complete solitude in and of itself would mean nothing to me. This is my nature; I have to accept it. I was able to leave the relationship I was in because I suddenly felt that I was needed elsewhere. But now that that outreach is lost too, a void has swept over me and I now feel vacant and purposeless. I can absorb myself as much in my writing, reading, or film studying as I want, but in the end they will never be enough. But as I said before, I have no regret about leaving the relationship I was in, because that too would never have been enough, as increasingly, his need for me felt as impersonal as box of chocolate and flowers would. Impersonal in the sense that his unconditional acceptance of me gave me no challenge, no desire to be anything more than what little I felt I was. I remember offering him the link to my blog, and him shrugging it off saying it didn't interest him, that he "didn't like to read that kind of stuff." As so, my desire to feel needed is not a mere craving of company but a desire to have worth and purpose. There, I could have been anyone and so my contributions to the relationship were minimal; since so little was asked of me, I got lazy and did nothing.
However I hope my desire to have worth is not merely limited to being in a relationship. I feel that I could find just as much dignity in a family or friendship bond, though lately I feel a lacking in those regards as well.
The last time I returned home to my family, I was laying in bed having just woken up, and I could hear my family all together in the nearby kitchen. I laid there for some time listening to their banter and suddenly felt that I wasn't in my bed at all or even in the house, but rather like a ghostly presence I was spying on the daily routine which goes on when I'm not there. I know both my mother and sister have asked with hope, if I would move back to Chicago now that I broke up with my boyfriend, but at that moment, I was suddenly struck sad as I realized how I wasn't needed at home either. My sister's boyfriend moved in right before I moved out nine years ago and quickly assumed my role in the family as the moderator and pacifier between my mother and sister. My company is enjoyed there (heh, sometimes) but not needed.
And as for my friends, as much as I may care about them or they about me, I feel no two-way deep affinities or can't-live-without connections. There are bonds and there are affections but they have always felt fragmented and slightly awkward.
But do my needs have to be so attached to humans? I want to answer no, but I'm not sure if that's being completely honest. I often attribute my struggles to communicate not as a desire to share but more as a desire to learn how to express myself, to create. Could these creations be enough in and of themselves? I'm not sure yet. The emptiness I've felt these past weeks from these realizations has led me to thoroughly contemplate the point in continuing my existence. There would be no better time than now to end it; no life would significantly be affected by my departure; there would be a pause but soon they would resume in exactly the same manner as they do now. But yet I stall and with surprise find myself once again picking up books, watching films, learning, and desiring to express myself. My life is empty now, no one can convince me otherwise, but something is still puzzling me, something unsettled.
I feel that so easily I could devote myself to one person or one task, wholly, and not regret it, and that I have absolutely not aspiration or need to prove my worth to the world. This is very much in line with what Tarkovsky said was the difference between the genders (males have something to prove, women need someone to nurture). All I'm saying is that my role as a nurturer is not tied to a desperate hunt for marriage, but rather more broadly and yet fastidiously, that I refuse to settle and that any love I have for anything or anyone has to be whole and absolute. In other words, I'm an idealist, the kind of idealism that dooms me to be miserable eternally and perceived as insatiable and sometimes cruel.
The arguments struck a chord with me as I have been struggling to break free into my own independence, finally finding the courage to reject the comfort of the relationship I was in and make my own way. Surprisingly, I have not had a single regretful thought about doing so. On the contrary, the battle has been in defending and justifying my actions to my peers, in which I've only had partial success.
I have always related better to predominantly male perspectives in life and my interests and passions have always had more male than female followers. In my youth I often felt misogynistic because I was constantly struggling to just be, but was unable to cater to gender expectations. One of my girl friends, who likes to typify people, especially into their prospective male and female roles, has a way of unintentionally making me feel freakish, like a male mind walking around with female genitalia. Numerous times in conversation she'll begin a sentence with "all women" but then realizing her audience, she'll stutter and change her phasing to "most women" instead. But her generalizations rarely reflect the true inner differences between genders, but instead precipitate themselves in a more materialistic form. As so, I'm considered the oddball exception because I don't like shopping or dressing up, because I've never owned more than ten pairs of shoes, because I refuse to be swooned, wined, or dined in or by cliches, etc., etc.
But something I've noticed in her, and other women, is a self-subjugation to cliche, materialistic gender definitions (i.e., chick-flicks, make-up, first dates) while ostentatiously rejecting their more sacrificial roles (i.e., housewives, soccer moms, nurturers) out of fear of being pigeonholed into second-class citizen stereotypes. I listen to her tell me about how much she wants both a family and career, and how opposed she is to becoming just a housewife, with the sole subservient job of taking care of her husband and children, but at the same time she's one of the most maternal and selfless people I have know, to the point of admirability in my opinion. So why does she shun this, especially with the illusions of a "career"? She's a passionate reader and before she was in her relationship, told me multiple times how much she'd love to write. But her "career" isn't as a writer, which would be a step towards independence, but as an engineer, working in the mostly male, highly competitive world of selling and manufacturing large scale technology. This sort of career doesn't give her anymore independence, but on the contrary just makes her more subservient. She struggles to amalgamate her (very girly) personality into such an environment, so she's reading a book written by a woman, which gives pointers, helping to teach women how to survive in the male-dominated business world. I read the back of the book and was repulsed by how forced it sounded and how it seemed unnatural (for both sexes actually). Tarkovsky is quite right in this regard, that in trying for equality she's denying her true self.
So how do I see myself fitting into all of this? I have always thought of myself as independent and a loner, but at the same time, always aspiring for contact and connection. I do not see my passions as those of a woman trying to prove herself in a male world, but as whole-heartedly my own interests trying to find a place to root themselves. But I am struggling with my newfound solidarity and it is this confused apprehension that makes me vulnerable to the rigidness of Tarkovsky's views on women. But after much thought, I have come to some realizations...
I cannot live without feeling needed. A life lived in complete solitude in and of itself would mean nothing to me. This is my nature; I have to accept it. I was able to leave the relationship I was in because I suddenly felt that I was needed elsewhere. But now that that outreach is lost too, a void has swept over me and I now feel vacant and purposeless. I can absorb myself as much in my writing, reading, or film studying as I want, but in the end they will never be enough. But as I said before, I have no regret about leaving the relationship I was in, because that too would never have been enough, as increasingly, his need for me felt as impersonal as box of chocolate and flowers would. Impersonal in the sense that his unconditional acceptance of me gave me no challenge, no desire to be anything more than what little I felt I was. I remember offering him the link to my blog, and him shrugging it off saying it didn't interest him, that he "didn't like to read that kind of stuff." As so, my desire to feel needed is not a mere craving of company but a desire to have worth and purpose. There, I could have been anyone and so my contributions to the relationship were minimal; since so little was asked of me, I got lazy and did nothing.
However I hope my desire to have worth is not merely limited to being in a relationship. I feel that I could find just as much dignity in a family or friendship bond, though lately I feel a lacking in those regards as well.
The last time I returned home to my family, I was laying in bed having just woken up, and I could hear my family all together in the nearby kitchen. I laid there for some time listening to their banter and suddenly felt that I wasn't in my bed at all or even in the house, but rather like a ghostly presence I was spying on the daily routine which goes on when I'm not there. I know both my mother and sister have asked with hope, if I would move back to Chicago now that I broke up with my boyfriend, but at that moment, I was suddenly struck sad as I realized how I wasn't needed at home either. My sister's boyfriend moved in right before I moved out nine years ago and quickly assumed my role in the family as the moderator and pacifier between my mother and sister. My company is enjoyed there (heh, sometimes) but not needed.
And as for my friends, as much as I may care about them or they about me, I feel no two-way deep affinities or can't-live-without connections. There are bonds and there are affections but they have always felt fragmented and slightly awkward.
But do my needs have to be so attached to humans? I want to answer no, but I'm not sure if that's being completely honest. I often attribute my struggles to communicate not as a desire to share but more as a desire to learn how to express myself, to create. Could these creations be enough in and of themselves? I'm not sure yet. The emptiness I've felt these past weeks from these realizations has led me to thoroughly contemplate the point in continuing my existence. There would be no better time than now to end it; no life would significantly be affected by my departure; there would be a pause but soon they would resume in exactly the same manner as they do now. But yet I stall and with surprise find myself once again picking up books, watching films, learning, and desiring to express myself. My life is empty now, no one can convince me otherwise, but something is still puzzling me, something unsettled.
I feel that so easily I could devote myself to one person or one task, wholly, and not regret it, and that I have absolutely not aspiration or need to prove my worth to the world. This is very much in line with what Tarkovsky said was the difference between the genders (males have something to prove, women need someone to nurture). All I'm saying is that my role as a nurturer is not tied to a desperate hunt for marriage, but rather more broadly and yet fastidiously, that I refuse to settle and that any love I have for anything or anyone has to be whole and absolute. In other words, I'm an idealist, the kind of idealism that dooms me to be miserable eternally and perceived as insatiable and sometimes cruel.
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