"Et Tu, Brute?"

The last thing you expect to encounter, in an armload of novels from the library, is an assault of hypocrisy. Unless, of course, you're deliberately courting such things by reading certain nonfiction. 😏

But this is a different kind of hypocrisy.

It has to do with women, and the perception of "oppression" or "abuse" or "harassment," or...

...whatever victimization the feminists want to latch onto this week.

Because, as so often is the case, this "victimization" is one in which women are fully cooperative.

Hook. Line. Sinker. And Lingerie.

No, I'm not talking about the Victoria's Secret catalogue. I'd imagine those ladies get paid a handsome amount of money to get pictures taken in underwear, and if asked directly, they might well claim it's their way of "owning" their femininity and a stroke on the side of "body image pride."

But you can't go anywhere, have a conversation online or off it, nowadays without having to hear a litany of incessant whining about how it's "unsafe" for women to so much as take a walk anymore by themselves in public, in broad daylight. That men will ogle them, follow them, try to see where they're heading, or accost them, in subtle or not-so-subtle ways...and that it's barbaric. When I was a girl, we were told to "ignore" the construction workers and other guys who would whistle and/or feel free to make comments about our physical appearances as we walked by. We were told that's just the way "some men" were, and that it was a shame, but if we didn't reward the behavior, it'd stop.

The fact that apparently it hasn't stopped, after all this time, is appalling. I'll grant you that.

But let's also talk frankly about the other side of the coin, shall we?

Yes, there is another side. And yes, I'm sure you can see it coming. And I'm sure you're braced already to lambaste me from here to heaven and back for daring to even suggest that we women sometimes are our own worst enemies when it comes to men respecting us...or even us respecting each other.

I'm not going to go into the argument that women should remember to put clothes on before they go out in public...and some don't. That's a dead horse that no one will tolerate beating anymore, at least not without screeching your ears raw in protest. 

What is bothering me today is how much of what's in print--in novels clearly designed for a female audience--betrays that we really don't respect ourselves much, either.  

Again, I'm not talking nonfiction.

I'm talking novels.

And not erotica, either.

I ran into an instance this past weekend that about curdled my coffee.

I started a book that was supposed to be a cute rom-com. By an author from whom, if the gushing blurbs can be believed, the rom-coms are always cute, always funny, and always a bright spot in one's reading life.

Only by the time I was in chapter five, I couldn't go any further.

Why?

A conversation between our heroine and a guy who the reader knows is going to be the hero. Meeting unbeknownst as to whom each other is, as two strangers at a bar. Flirting.

Nothing wrong with that...except in the form the flirting takes literally seconds into their exchange.

When the heroine says something along the lines of that it's okay because it's "just flirting," and "no one's going to see each other's undies," and then she expresses relief at that because she doesn't know if she wore "cute" ones or not. But it's when she follows it up with a line about "guys probably don't care about that" that things go south. (Pun intended.)

When our "hero" comes out with, "How do you know I'm wearing any?"

And the next line is our heroine feeling a "hot flash."

And I sat for a moment, mouth open, unable to believe what I'd just read.

Ladies. With all due respect?

If some strange guy at a bar comes out with a line about whether he's wearing underwear or not?

How is that attractive?

How is that even okay?

Some strange guy at a bar starts talking underwear, that's not flirting.

That's perv territory.

That's me picking up my drink and heading to the farthest corner of the bar that I can get away from him.

It's not cute.

It's not sexy.

It's creepy.

It's everything we claim we don't want men to be.

Everything we'll crucify them, in the court of public opinion, for.

Yet there it is, in black and white, supposedly put in for...what?

Laughs?

Titillation?

Hints of horizontal mambo to come?

And how do we not see how completely hypocritical such things are to put in women's fiction?

Let me say it again: this isn't content in some girlie magazine that a guy's going to use for fantasy purposes.

This is supposedly flirting language. By a woman who initiates it. In a book aimed at women.

A book not even being sold as "hot" or "spicy."

So...if we think this is cute, and sexy, and flirtatious...

...why isn't it okay for men in real life to behave the same way?

I'm not saying it is.

But neither is it okay for us to put such things on the pages of our books, giggle about them...

...and then vilify men when they think things like that are okay to say to us in real life.

They're not.

But they're not okay for us to say to ourselves, or each other, either. 

Not even in "fiction."

Not even in "fun."

All the "me-too" crusading in the world won't instruct anyone to treat us as anything but objects if we write books in which we treat ourselves as such. Or men as such.

Let's stop being hypocrites on the page--and in what we show the world of ourselves.

Because objectification ain't gonna stop...

...until we do. 

Thoughts?