“You’re a man-hater," he said. I’m not. But I had to work with him...
I couldn’t change his mind, but I could change my response.
“Ohhhh… So you’re a man-hater,” he said.
Whoa… Whaaaa?!
Not so!
The accusation landed like a gut punch. I wanted to punch back.
But he and I had to work together.
Fortunately, my decades of therapy, coaching, meditation training, et cetera, rushed in to keep me from a triggered, career-compromising reaction. Instead, I was able to harness my anger (and disappointment) and deliver an even-handed, clear-headed response.
Plus, I learned some important things about myself.
🔸 The National Debate on a Micro-level
“As above, so below.”
~ Hermes Trismegistus, Hermetic philosopher suggesting that laws and phenomena of different planes of existence mirror one another
It was the day after the election. Sentiments everywhere were running raw. Conversations among family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances ranged from conciliatory to confrontational. In professional settings, people seemed cautious, wanting to speak candidly, but also to not let the conflict of politics jeopardize their work relationships.
To wit: I was engaged in a discussion with my practice colleague from an online course when this occurred.
He and I had been speaking about how we’d each been limited by biased corporate and social policies over the years. In response to his related question, I candidly shared a few factual examples:
My father believed women don’t need college (my sister and I paid for ourselves, while dad paid for the four boys).
The bank sent me home without the mortgage application because “We need your husband at the table” (though I made more money, and he and I weren’t married).
You get it: many women of-a-certain-age have similar (and worse) tales of woe.
In delivering my remarks, I probably indulged in a bit of trope-ish, resentment-lite eye-rolling, which I do in the safe company of friends who know I’ve taken steps to heal these old wounds.
🔸 1 + 1 = h8
“So you hate men,” he concluded. Without pausing, he raced on to prescribe (aka: man-splain) how I needed to “let it go” and “release my hate” and yada yada ya.
I had stopped listening because, well…
🔸 You see the irony, right?!
What I dislike at a visceral level (hate?) are precisely the sort of masculine tendencies (not exclusive to men) that HE was demonstrating IN THAT VERY MOMENT — building flawed, self-serving narratives that stack up unverified assumptions about others, and repeating them authoritatively until they’re accepted as “the truth.”
I laughed and pointed out the irony.
He wasn’t seeing it. And more to the point, he wasn’t having it.
“This explains so much,” he continued, with growing confidence in the accuracy of his diagnosis of “my problem.”
I’m pretty sure “my problem” was how, in the context of our stated commitment to be co-coaches, I had not only received his feedback about me; I had also shared my feedback about him.
He didn’t love that part. But until now, he’d never put voice to his resentment, though I had noticed how he regularly redirected our discussions to focus on “my problems,” rather than his.
Now his resentment was given justification by this new storyline that said: (Molly) was not a colleague giving feedback per our agreement; (Molly) was a man-hater responsible for his unhappy experience of her unjust feedback!
I tried to verify MY impression of HIM. But there was no turning the lens of analysis back on him. So we continued with the lens on me.
🔸 The Angry Woman Trope
NOW I felt angry.
“See,” he said, “even now, you’re angry.”
Duh. He said it like my anger was wrong; I knew better.
Anger is a clarifying emotion, warning you that a boundary has been crossed.
I tried one more time, with humor, to point out the irony of his affect and how it precisely matched the patterns of paternalistic, father-knows-best, rescuer-to-my-feebleness bloviating I’d dealt with for so many years. (Yup, I was mad.)
I further explained that my current experience of anger was not a hold-over grievance, but a current—and welcome—experience of boundary-flagging in response to his pedantic disposition in this very moment.
“No, I don’t hate men” I countered, my voice steady, two octaves lower, and my eye contact direct. I was aware of not speaking too fast, nor posing questions that he could misconstrue as seeking his validation.
“What I don’t like is misogyny,” I continued. “And YES, I’ve been the recipient of a fair share of it over decades. But that doesn’t make me a man-hater. It does, however, make me highly attuned to man-splaining when I hear it.”
In response to this, he doubled-down: “I think you’re just resisting my feedback.”
In my experience, “You’re resisting my feedback” can, indeed, be me resisting your feedback; it can also be me saying, “I'm not willing to gaslight myself in order to agree with you.”
I’d LIKE to report that, with my decades of professional experience in recognizing fruitless discussions, I chose the wise, self-honoring path that granted him the grace to carry on with his unconscious, self-serving bias toward me—and his hero-to-my-damsel perception of himself.
I’d LIKE to say that I simply vowed in that moment to limit our relationship to efficacious, work-a-day courteousness, ended the discussion, and got back to worthwhile work.
🔸 Past Its Expiration Date
Nope. I CANNOT report that I let it go...
You see, in relationships, I have a tendency to ignore good sense when it’s in competition with my commitment to save the relationship at any cost. Relationships are central to my value system.
In those Product/Process/People assessments, I almost always score big on valuing relationships, connections, bonds with people. (Let’s be honest: it’s a rather feminine – and not exclusively female – trait.)
This means I keep toxic relationships long past their expiration dates.
So I continued in the conversation, remaining cool, but persistent. I was trying to appeal to what I assumed was his inner fair-mindedness and self-awareness. I spoke under the assumption that he, too, valued our equality and mutual commitment to professional connection and co-coaching.
He didn’t.
How do I know?
He told me.
He said: “You’re the one with the problem,” and “I keep my own guidance,” and “I’m just here to help you.”
My appeals were an effort to re-establish our CONTEXT for interacting. I referenced our co-coaching rules of engagement—the way players check the rules pamphlet to settle a disagreement. But all that did was reveal that I was playing Scrabble, and he was playing Battleship!
He thought he was here to save me; so my authentic self-possession appeared to him as annoying resistance.
🔸 My Blindspot
Pattern recognition is a talent of mine, EXCEPT when the pattern is negatively impacting me. I’m masterful at facilitating a room of 5, 50 or 500, and keeping track of who is motivated by what and to do what.
Where I have a big ol’ blindspot is where my own best interests are at stake. I have a high threshold for pain (physical and emotional). This makes me very S-L-O-W to recognize when toxic patterns are at play and harmful to me.
Eternal optimism? Fairy dust wishful thinking? Religious grooming resulting in over-accommodation? I digress…
I’m like the frog boiling away in the pot; the heat has to get really HOT before I jump out of a relationship.
🔸 Explaining Air to Fish
Meanwhile, back at the table with my colleague, I noticed my breath was a bit shallow and my heart beat a bit rapidly.
Anger.
I suspected my irises were narrowed and my nostrils slightly flared. My jaw, too, was jutted.
🔸 Old Self-Talk Returns
All those years of therapy let me know that I was triggered — my neocortex (logic brain) was going off-line and my amygdala (reactive brain) was taking over, activating old patterns of self-talk:
“Gotta convince Dad I’m good enough”
“Gotta prioritize their need over my need, or I’m selfish”
“Gotta be kind and allowing toward others, not look too smart, or I’ll make someone uncomfortable and get kicked out of the family/ church/ fraternity/ job/tribe”
With my sense of clarity and security shaken, I shifted my manner and mannerisms — from easy-going and convivial to highly-focused on maintaining logic-within-emotion.
I didn’t want to sublimate my emotions. I trusted them and — like Peter Parker trusting his spidey-senses — I wanted to listen to the intelligence in what I was sensing, and to choose my next move with care.
I also wanted to make things right — meaning I persisted in my ill-founded hope that there was a middle ground that would please this colleague, while not requiring me to gaslight myself.
He was a like fish, and I was trying to explain air to him.
🔸 Mirror. Mirror.
So I continued:
“To be clear, what I ‘very much don’t like and will call out readily’ (hate?) are the actions of partners and peers who set rules that handicap me based on their unconscious bias about what THEY deem ‘appropriate’ for ME.”
Yuck! I truly dislike the word APPROPRIATE - it's thinly-veiled, moral superiority.
For levity and another effort to find common ground, I added, “This is often met with resistance-in-reverse. Perhaps like what’s happening between us right now! Isn’t THAT funny?”
He did NOT think that was funny.
Instead, he thought (and said), “Like I said, you’re angry and you don’t like men. But if you’d just stop resisting my feedback,” he continued, confident of his premise, “I could help you solve your problem.”
Flashbacks to several uninvited physical encounters ran across my mind, and I swallowed against a wave of nausea.
🔸 Cut My Losses. Choose My Wins.
After an hour, I finally accepted how truly fruitless this discussion had become. My protracted effort had been to find middle ground; to be seen as I know myself to be; to engage in co-learning; to preserve a working relationship.
I say to my kids, when tolerating the intolerable in others, “Leave it. They’re going to their graves that way.”
My efforts had failed. And it was time for me to stop focusing on him, or even on our working relationship.
Now what?
🔸 Shift It
I shifted my focus to me.
Firstly, I noticed I felt… unsettled.
Feeling unsettled isn’t a BAD thing. In fact, I’ve learned to embrace unsettled feelings and thoughts as a helpful call to explore my triggers, heal old wounds, and reclaim my clarity, direction, and power in a situation.
🔸 #BuhBye.
“When someone shows you who they are, believe them.”
~ Maya Angelou
Secondly, I acknowledged to myself that, disappointingly, his interest was NOT to be in a co-coaching relationship. His focus was exclusively on “fixing me” — and on doggedly avoiding having the learning lens turned on him (or as he said it, “I’m not the one with the problem.”).
Next, I chose to give up my crusade to convert his biased perspective about me. His commitment was to see me as his needy, fix-it project. His bias seemed to cast me as femme-fatale in his hero narrative — kinda like: “I’ll take care of you, whether you like it or not” (wink). This meant that, to him, my questions and explorations appeared as “problems,” rather than as part of my proactive commitment to grow.
Then I let go of any notion that my relationship with him could be a source of MUTUAL growth.
“Not gonna happen,” I concluded.
🔸 But I Didn’t Stop There…
Finally, I welcomed this unsavory interaction as an exercise for my own learning:
I got curious, asking myself…
WHY is this so disturbing to me? He had shared his perspective about me; I had thanked him for his candor; I trusted myself to be honest with myself; but his feedback didn't ring true for me. Why is that not The End?
WHAT was still lingering that had me feeling so angry—and powerless—in the discussion?
HOW was this familiar: these words, this accusation, this feeling?
WHERE do I want to go from here—giving myself permission to mind my own counsel.
🔸 Many, many journal pages later…
In my youth, “getting it wrong” would be punished and shamed (it was even scary to be seen as getting it wrong!). This means I will twist myself into a pretzel to please others, handing over my authority to people who “surely know more than I do.”
In my panic to correct how others see me (and stay in the tribe), I over-invest in misaligned relationships—ones that serve the other, but not me.
Not for the first time, I needed to welcome these feelings (and flashbacks) to the fore, give them a hug, and ask them to give back the joy stick they’d been withholding in my life!
🔸 WOW! Key Takeaways
After ALLLLL that, I felt grateful (actually grateful) for the altercation.
I understood (again) that one way people avoid taking responsibility for themselves and their experiences is by unconsciously PROJECTING their feelings onto others [me].
I reaffirmed that feminine strength—which is not exclusive to females—is about listening, allowing, making space, drawing out, et al. Some will call this weak because, for them, strength is only pushy, dominating energy.
I was reminded that feeling unsettled by an experience is actually a very cool teaching tool; if I’m willing to look.
🔸 My Big Ah HA!
And best of all: I found a way in an unhealthy, unsupportive relationship to find my voice, set my boundaries, trust my gut, and be in choice about the kind of work relationship I wanted.
Put These Ideas to Work
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