{"id":121330,"date":"2015-12-26T02:02:39","date_gmt":"2015-12-26T02:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/12\/26\/the-anatomy-of-rage\/"},"modified":"2015-12-26T02:02:39","modified_gmt":"2015-12-26T02:02:39","slug":"the-anatomy-of-rage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2015\/12\/26\/the-anatomy-of-rage\/","title":{"rendered":"The Anatomy of Rage"},"content":{"rendered":"

maggie-stiefvater<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

rap-ariot<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

maggie-stiefvater<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

This post is going to be a mess, because I\u2019m just \u2026untidily angry right now. It began with a series of tweets I made today about my ever-broken Datsun. The mechanic had told my husband that he was \u201cworking on that Datsun just as fast as I can because now that I\u2019ve met her I can\u2019t wait to get that little girl behind the wheel again.\u201d <\/p>\n

Little girl. <\/p>\n

As I tweeted that I was 33 and had earned each of those years and thus preferred to be referred to as \u201cDanger Smog-Dragon\u201d or \u201cRage-Mistress\u201d or \u201cEphemeral Time Lady\u201d or \u201cMaggie Stiefvater, #1 NYT Bestselling Author of the Raven Cycle,\u201d a well-meaning fellow replied that perhaps I should \u201cuse [my] words, politely but firmly, to his face\u2026\u201d He further observed that he\u2019d told his wife that \u201cyou know, Honey, unless you\u2019re willing to SAY THAT to (those people), NOTHING is going to change\u201d.<\/p>\n

(note: please <\/i>do not go search for this fellow on twitter to rage at him; this is not about him. He is set dressing, made more appropriate to the conversation at hand by the fact that he probably is a perfectly nice guy who really didn\u2019t mean disrespect).<\/p>\n

I told TwitterMan that I was tired of have to use my words.It\u2019s been 33 years of using my words. Why is it my job to continuously ask to be treated equivalent to a male customer? Why is that when I arrive at a shop, I\u2019m reminded that I have to push the clutch in if I want to start my own car? It\u2019s 2015. Why is it still all sexism all the time?<\/p>\n

I discovered that I was actually furious. I thought I was over being furious, but it turns out, the rage was merely dormant. I\u2019m furious that it\u2019s been over a decade and nothing has changed. I\u2019m furious that sexism was everywhere in the world of college-Maggie and it remains thus, even if I out-learn, out-earn, out-drive, and out-perform my male counterparts. At the end of the day, I\u2019m still \u201clittle girl.\u201d <\/p>\n

Possibly this is the point where some people are asking why this tiny gesture of all gestures should be the one to break me. <\/p>\n

Here is the anatomy of my rage. <\/p>\n

Step one: It is 1999 or 2000. I am 16. I go to college. A professor tells me I\u2019m pretty. A married man in the bagpipe band I\u2019m in tells me he just can\u2019t control himself around me: he stays up nights thinking of my
\nskin. Another man tells me he can\u2019t believe that \u2018a little bitch\u2019 like me got into the competition group after a year of playing when he\u2019s been at it for twenty years. After becoming friends with a professor\u2019s daughter, I\u2019m at her house sleeping on the couch, and I wake up to find the professor running his hand from my ankle bone to my thigh. I pretend I\u2019m still asleep. I\u2019m 17. \u201cIf something happened to my wife,\u201d he tells me later, \u201cI could be with you.\u201d At my next visit to her house, I see the wife\u2019s left a book on the kitchen table: how to rekindle your husband\u2019s love. <\/p>\n

Step two: It\u2019s 2008. I finally buy the car of my dreams, a 1973 Camaro, and make it my official business vehicle. The first time I take it to put gas in it, a man tells me, \u201cif I were your husband, I wouldn\u2019t want you out driving my car.\u201d I tell him, \u201cif you were my husband, I\u2019d be a widow.\u201d The car requires a lot of gas. I get cat-called every other time I\u2019m at a gas station. Once, I go into the gas station to get a drink, and when I come out, a bunch of guys have parked me in. They want, they say, to have a word with me,
\nlittle lady. We play automotive chicken which I win because I would rather smash the back of my \u201973 Camaro into their IROC than have to stab one of them with the knife on my keychain.<\/p>\n

Step three: It\u2019s 2011. I\u2019m on tour in a European country, on my own, escorted only by my foreign publisher. I am at a business dinner, and say I\u2019m going to my room. My female editor embraces me; my male publicist embraces me and then puts his tongue in my ear, covering it with his hand so that the crowd of twenty professionals does not see. My choices are to say nothing to avoid making a scene in front of my publisher\u2019s people, or to say FUCK YOU. I apparently was never offered the choice of not having a tongue in my ear.<\/p>\n

Step four: It\u2019s 2012. I buy a race car. Well, a rally car. Someone asks my male co-driver if I\u2019m good in bed. Someone asks me if I got sponsorship because someone was \u2018trying to check the woman box.\u2019 People ask me if I drive like a girl. Yeah, I do, actually. Let\u2019s play a game called: who\u2019s faster off the start?<\/p>\n

Step five: It\u2019s 2014. I\u2019m driving my Camaro cross-country on book tour. It breaks down a lot. I\u2019m under the hood and a pick up truck stops beside me. \u201cHey baby,\u201d asks the driver, \u201cdo you need any help?\u201d \u201cYeah,\u201d I reply, \u201cdo you have a 5\/8 wrench?\u201d He did not.<\/p>\n

Step six: It\u2019s 2015. It\u2019s sixteen years after I learned that I was a thing to be touched and kissed and hooted at unless I took it upon
\nmyself to say no, and no again, and no some more, and no no no. My friend Tessa Gratton points out that a male author used casually sexist language in a brief interview. She is dragged through the muck for pointing out how deeply-rooted our systemic sexism is. The publishing industry rises to the defense of the male author as if he has been deeply wronged. I tweet that the language was indeed sexist, though I didn\u2019t think it was useful to condemn said male author. A male editor emails me privately to ask me if maybe I wasn\u2019t being a little problematic by engaging in the discussion?\n<\/p>\n

Step seven. Still 2015. Someone very close to me confesses
\nthat her college boyfriend keeps trying to push her past kissing, and she doesn\u2019t want to. I tell her to set boundaries, and leave him if he doesn\u2019t. A month passes. This week I find out she just had sex for the first time after he urged her to have several glasses of wine. She doesn\u2019t drink. She was crying. She says, \u201cI didn\u2019t say no<\/i>, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been sixteen damn years. I\u2019m tired of having to say no. I\u2019m tired of the media telling me that it\u2019s mouth breathing bros and rednecks perpetuating the sexism. No: I can tell you that the most insidious form is the nice guy. Who is <\/i>a nice guy, don\u2019t get me wrong. I carry my own prejudices that I work through, and I don\u2019t believe in demonizing people who aren\u2019t perfect yet \u2014 none of us are. But the nice guy who says something sexist gets away with it. The nice guy who says something sexist sounds right and reasonable. <\/i>The nice guy\u2019s not helping, though. It\u2019s been sixteen years, and the nice guys are nice, but we\u2019re still things to be acquired. We are still creatures to be asked on dates<\/a>. We are still saying no, still shouting NO, still having to always again and again say \u201cno, please treat me with respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was just invited to a car show; the well-meaning guy who asked wanted me to bring my souped up Mitsubishi. I clicked on the event page. It\u2019s catered by Hooters. I\u2019m not going. Yeah, it\u2019s a little thing, but I have a lifetime of them. I\u2019m taking my toys and going home.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t wait to get that little girl behind the wheel
\nagain.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I call complete bullshit on these stories they were simply made to make men look like pigs when most if not all of these did not happen<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

My friend, I invite you to come to any of my events this year:\u00a0http:\/\/maggiestiefvater.com\/appearances\/<\/a>\u00a0and say this to my face. I would like to see the expression on your<\/i> face when you\u2019re saying it, so that I can understand. And then, I\u2019ll tell you these stories with the actual details, and perhaps a dozen more, and I would like you to look at the expression on my<\/i> face when I tell them, so that you <\/i>can understand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The cool thing about this exchange will be that one of us will be telling the truth. The cool thing about the internet is that they already know which one of us that is. Do you know why? Because you have become just another one of those stories.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

maggie-stiefvater: rap-ariot: maggie-stiefvater: This post is going to be a mess, because I\u2019m just \u2026untidily angry right now. It began with a series of tweets I made today about my ever-broken Datsun. The mechanic had told my husband that he was \u201cworking on that Datsun just as fast as I can because now that I\u2019ve … <\/p>\n

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