Home Wrecker

Thank you Oprah and Rielle Hunter for re-framing the feminist discussion: “Are women property?” Most people would say that women are not, but when we enter this discussion it turns out that men are.

Hence language like: home wrecker and a husband stealer. But notice that in these discussions—on the air and all the next day at the water cooler—it’s always the women getting bashed—and mostly by women.

Infidelity brings out the most anti-woman beliefs in the most feminist women. We blame a woman or both women in the social construction of infidelity.

The “other woman” is a thief, home wrecker and man stealer. On the other hand if we determine that she’s not the bad one then certainly the wife is because she didn’t “hold onto her man”. In either case the man is just a piece of valuable property to be kept, owned, held or stolen. Kind of like a check book with a penis.

Oprah for all her big talking and her embracing of the pseudo-psychological and the empowerment of women still misses the basic geometry: Infidelity is a triangle. Three human beings, equally flawed, equally trying, equally noble, equally victims, equally responsible.

Clergy and the Other Woman

Yes, a big story in yesterday’s New York Times. Front page with amazing photo of a priest baptizing his own child. An article about clergy—Catholic and others—who have had sexual, romantic and intimate relationships with women who were/are parishioners. Relationships with adult women which violate vows of celibacy and perhaps vows of marriage. Trouble in Riverside City.

We react with...what? Indignation? Surprise? The worst thing we do is wonder about the women. But why are we surprised? That is our own complicity in these affairs.

I am reminded of dear Hester Prynne, heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Scarlett Letter.” If you ask people what that book is about they will tell you that its about a woman caught in adultery or about a woman who has a child with a man while her husband is away and her penance and punishment is to wear the Scarlet “A”, and yes it is also about how she lives out that fate.

Here is the part we forget: Hester Prynne did have an intimate relationship with a man, and that affair did result in a baby—the devilish girl, Pearl. But there was a man too and that man was Hester Prynne’s pastor. Her lover, her partner, the father of baby Pearl was Hester’s minister, the man charged with her spiritual guidance and the spiritual formation of the community.

So, really, who is the sinner in that story? And why do we always think of the woman? It’s true even now. We blame the woman—both women. When a man has an affair the other woman is condemned for “taking” another woman’s man; blamed for making him stray, and for breaking up a home or family. But we also and often blame the wife too: Her man would not have strayed if she was (insert favorite adjective here: sexy, smart, pretty, attentive, supportive…) Enough. Yes, she is also blamed.

It’s a set up of women. Both women. But what about the man? For Hawthorne’s story what about The Reverend Mister Dimsdale?

Why do we do this? Is it a backhanded way to say that men are so weak they can be lured? That they can “stray” like a dog or a chicken? Or is it something more dangerous and dismaying for women. No matter what happens we blame the woman: the one who is active and the one who is passive. We blame the bad one and the good one. We blame Eve over and over and we forget that Adam came first.

Another Other Woman

Yesterday I had dinner with a friend of a friend. We were introduced because we are both artists and women with management careers as well. My friend who knows I am always in that “this or that” tug of war with work said, “You should meet Mary; she has the same struggle.”

So we had dinner and I was delighted. She’s smart, funny, thoughtful and spiritual. We talked through dinner about our careers, the challenges of having two kinds of work that we love, the big step to getting studios, the building of our portfolios. She mentioned her husband, his support for her as an artist, how they talk about these career issues. I asked how long they had been married. “It will be 16 years this month,” she said.

So I asked, “How did you meet him?” And there was a long pause.
“Well", she said slowly, "when we met we were both married to other people.”

Yes, she was the other woman. It’s 16 years later and they are happy—and so are the exes. A gift this dinner. She is the counterpoint to those who say, “It never works out.”

The Other Woman

The past two days Dear Abby, the advice columnist, has run letters from and about the “other woman” (OW). Most are scathing—the hatred runs so deep. A few are guilt-ridden, apologetic, defensive. Some are from men—the “other man” and the guilty spouse who is having an affair with OW.

I read them. I make myself read them and I make myself feel the anger and shame all the way through. I don’t want to pretend I was not the OW and I don’t want to defend it. I can explain it to myself and I can rationalize and now—years later—I can say that this is what became of the relationship, and I can enumerate all of the reasons and “issues”. I have lived all the parts of this equation. None of them are good, none of them are faultless, none are without pain.