Respect is something you have to earn, and it is not guaranteed

The title of my blog post is probably confusing. Elana, this is a Gender and Humor class. We focus on women and those in marginalized communities who are funny-why are you talking about men? This entire blog post, believe or not, was inspired by a text from my dad.

My dad and I don’t see eye-to-eye on much. When I was much younger, we were a lot closer. We did everything together: weekend trips to Pittsburgh, watching live baseball games, making late-night runs to Waffle House on school nights, make vegetarian chili and scrambled eggs for breakfast, lunch and dinner. But something changed when I got to high school. My junior year was when I decided I couldn’t go to medical school-I was passionate about it, but I knew that my government was in dire need of assistance. Whenever I brought up politics, it was always the same thing: “You have to be careful, Elana. Politics will consume you. You’ll have to fight twice as hard as everyone else because of who you are and where you’re from.” Honestly, I just got sick of it. Why couldn’t he be happy for me? I figured out what I really wanted to do in life, but he couldn’t see past how difficult this was going to be for me. I knew it was going to be difficult-why wasn’t he just supportive?

When you’re furious at someone who you have trusted your whole life, what do you do? Do you yell at them? Do you say nothing? Do you tell someone else and pray they don’t say anything? Or do you say something so vile, so venomous, to their face, because you can’t take it anymore?

I’m not proud of it. But I had to do it. I don’t even remember what I said. All I know is that we haven’t been the same since.

The text I got from him recently probably won’t register as anything bad to anyone reading this, but for some reason, it rubbed me the wrong way.

Call me this weekend.

Why does this make me upset? It’s not anything threatening, there’s no malice or anger behind the words. So, what is it? When I read that text, I immediately thought that he believed he deserved more respect from me. He’s helping me pay for school-maybe I should call him more often.

But that message made me not want to call him. Why should he demand more respect from me when he can’t even respect my own life decisions?

When Phoebe talked about “man-bun dude” (MBD), she said he was basically cheating on his girlfriend with her, but he still tried to play it off like it was no big deal. He decided to complement her and praise her, hoping this would keep him in the clear. Yeah, hell no, buckaroo. Sit your ass down. She said the following:

“I know I’m all these things, which is why I’m out on these streets getting attention from dudes. You have a girlfriend. This was so disrespectful to pull some B.S. like this. We’re too old for this nonsense. You know better, and you ought to do better by her and by me. If you truly believe I’m all these dope things, then you wouldn’t have wasted my time. Don’t you try doing this raggedy-ass stuff like this again. Your girlfriend doesn’t deserve a guy going around getting random women’s numbers.” (2 Dope Queens, “Make Man Buns Great Again”, 10:10-11:05)

I realize that this isn’t what happened to me at all, but the same principle applies. She didn’t need MBD to tell her what her worth was, just like how I don’t need my dad telling me where my plans could go wrong. We both know our own worth, and we most certainly don’t need others to remind us of our struggles and our achievements.

So how does a man deserve respect? Can they not say nice things to you? Are they not allowed to criticize you? A man deserves respect when he doesn’t expect respect as an answer to their actions.

I’ve met plenty of men here who deserve respect. Chris, Conner, and Jim all tease me, but they have all told me that they are proud of me. I know my dad says he’s proud of me, but I know he’s expecting a “thanks” in return, like I needed him to say something positive about me to feel the same way. My male friends here don’t say nice things to me because I’m a woman, or because I’m Jewish, or because of anything else that makes up my background. It’s because they see me as a leader, a friend they can trust. I don’t get everything right, but they don’t care. When Jon Stewart told Jessica Williams how proud he was of her and how capable she is of achieving anything she wants, he never said anything about overcoming her background or any obstacles that are caused by being a woman of color in comedy. He instead praised her ability as someone of equal standing (28:00-29:15). I’m sure the two of them didn’t agree on everything when they both worked on The Daily Show, but that shouldn’t matter. I know for a fact that I don’t agree with my guy friends about everything, but they still want to be there for me.

When we talk about feminism, I just want us to remember what real feminism looks like. It’s people who acknowledge you’re a woman, but don’t assume being a woman is an obstacle or an improvement. It’s the people who see your personality and who you are on the inside, who know that you are capable of doing so much, not because you’re a woman or despite being a woman, but because you truly are capable.

As a wrote this, I burst into tears a few times. This was incredibly difficult for me to write, and this is one of the few posts that I will write that isn’t funny. But I know that not writing this would have been even harder on me.