[prospecthearts]

I am presented by a bit of a puzzle in my personal life that I could really use your opinion on. I need some help thinking here.

I am an American living in Rome with my Italian guy. So, today started with a fight with my man that has been very common for us.

In the past year I have really grown tired of his overt, unconscious sexism (which generally takes the form of making comments about how women look, usually critically and and about their sex organs or clothes or their worth as related to their attractiveness–and his remarks about women on the street exceed those about men by an enormous margin). Yet when I try and point it out he gets really defensive and says I’m being a “feminist,” definitely a terrible thing in his book (he doesn’t seem to understand what that means to me, which is gender parity and not man-hating). He doesn’t agree that he does this and he thinks it is perfectly justifiable to “have tastes and opinions.” So this morning in the entertainment news i saw that the actress Halle Berry is going through another contentious divorce and I mentioned that Halle Berry just loves to get divorced. And he says, “But she’s ugly!” I laughed because it is just such a strange response, and not something I think most people would agree with. And he went crazy about how every time he says anything about women he gets lectured and scolded and he’s not even able to have an opinion. I just stayed silent because I’m stumped–he just cannot see that 75% of the time when he makes a comment about a human, the human is female, and it is almost always derogatory about her looks and her value being related to her beauty, cloaked in some justification about his personal taste.

I know that he is a product of Italian culture, which is very focused on female beauty; just turn on any news stations and most of the commentators are women in these ridiculous outfits. He has a kind of blindness and self-righteousness about it that might be impenetrable. So he’ll look at these bawdy newscasters (the males ones are older, in suits) and say, see, women have more opportunities than men! Or he’ll say, most of my guys friends have been more hurt and manipulated by women than women ever were by men! Or he’ll say, the most evil people in my life have always been women! Or, we’ll watch a TV show and there will be a rapist that I’ll malign and he’ll say, see, YOU hate men (I don’t hate people, but I do hate rapists). Or we’ll watch several different shows that have plot lines about violence against women and if I complain about it he says, it’s just fiction, the real world is not like that, there is no such thing as sexism. I’ve even asked him to try and equally criticize men and women and strive to comment on men’s outfits and genitals and worth as much as he does women–but he doesn’t see the problem.

He’s got this chip on his shoulder about “women” (which he once justified because “nobody would date him” in high school); and the end result is that I have to walk down the street and endure these comments, and when I point it out or tell him for the millionth time what I hear and how offensive it is to me, I’m accused of being aggressive, moralistic, and imbalanced.

Ideologically he is close to my ideas. So, it is frustrating to have reasonable conversations about this that are also productive and revealing. On the very intellectual level we seem the same. When we talk about it and he is calmer he sees I am not a “raging feminist who hates men,” and we both agree on the parity argument. And he has very solid reasoning about it all. I simply don’t appreciate being subjected to this language and the way he casually interfaces with women in the world. But he starts talking about his “right to an opinion” and I just don’t know where to go from there. Sometimes he really convinces me i am a “crazy feminist,” when the truth is I’m very mild. And this morning when I was trying to think of which women friends in my life to talk to about this, I just knew they would go crazy when they heard this because I’m the only one who would put up with this for so long……

I’m seriously at a loss. I guess I’m just supposed to live with it but it bothers me so much. I find his comments about pussies, clothes, attractiveness, blow jobs, etc to be unacceptable. But I cannot get through to him at all. This has gone on for years. I’ve thought about documenting his comments just to substantiate the vast and derogatory emphasis of his observations about women. But I know he will completely flip out. I could really use some fresh thoughts on this. I’m stumped.

Can you tell me what you think?

Thank you!

[AskApril Masini]

I don’t think you’re going to change him. So the question is, what are you willing to change about yourself, in order to be okay with who he is, warts and all, or is this a deal breaker?

First, I think you need to get out of the mode you’re in where you’re right and he’s wrong. It’s a non-starter, and nobody wins if you back off into your separate corners and come out swinging. So decide not to be right. Just different. 😉 Second, find your sense of humor — even if you have to dig really deep. For instance, you can tell him that he’s probably the only person in the world who thinks Halle Berry is unattractive! Take it a step further and buy him some glasses as a good humored joke — since his eyesight must be off if he thinks Halle isn’t pretty. Taking the pressure off of being right or politically correct, allows you (and him) to enjoy your differences, instead of fighting about them. Third, take a wider view of his comments. If he says that a woman is unattractive, ask him about what he does like. If he says she has an ugly figure, tell him you really like her shoes — would he like those shoes on you? In other words, take his negatives, and spin them into positives.

If you can’t work with him, then be honest about it and decide what you’re going to do — but don’t expect him to make the changes you want, directly. Instead, look to yourself to do the work. And don’t expect anything from him. If you get changes from him because you’ve made some changes of your own, great — if not, you’ve had an opportunity to grow.

Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any more questions.

[Member]

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