Why Men Think They Can Always Beat Women
Nick Cave, God's whispers and intuition. Why does a guy challenge an athlete? Playing against Serena Williams. Son and mixed soccer. I want help, but I don't give it.
Faced with the different wars and disasters in the news, the obvious question that arises is what we can do. Often, too little can be done, and that generates great helplessness and anxiety. That also — at least partly — explains why people are increasingly avoiding the news.
What do we do about helplessness? Almost nothing. We feel bad and keep scrolling. So, I wonder: is it worth writing about parenting and other — at times, rather bourgeois — concerns while millions of people live in a world that is hell?
Yet something tells me it is worth it. Following my intuition and doing as Nick Cave says in his newsletter:
I don’t know what decisions you are facing, but my thoughts are that you should be intuitive and playful in your choices and determined in your application. We are always full of worry until we begin the task, but I have found, in the end, things tend to find their way. Trust your intuitions, they are the whispers of God, the righteous and ushering force, moving us ever onward.
Here we go.
Complaining about everything
Around me things are fine, but they could be better. Lorenzo, eldest son, age five, complains permanently: about going to kindergarten; about going to soccer but also about training being over; about not being at home and being at home.
I understand and assume that it is part of a stage of his growth (and maybe a personality trait), and I have no doubt that it is tiring and even disappointing (for both parties, right?).
You're there juggling to make sure you don't miss anything and what comes back is constant lamentations and that feeling that whatever you do is never enough. How long will this last? And is it like this because of something he absorbs from us, his parents?
I wonder what it's like in other families. One friend tells me that the same thing happens to his daughter, who is 9 years old, and another tells me that the same thing happens to his two sons, two and five years old.
Ultimately, what worries me is his well-being, for which I feel responsible: what am I doing wrong (we will always do something wrong as parents), what could I do better for my children?
These questions will accompany — or haunt! — me all my life. Instead of making me feel more desperate, writing this gives me peace of mind. I guess, because the fact that this is going to accompany me implies a future perspective and, therefore, that already gives me some hope.
Of course I can beat that girl
A video of 22-year-old athlete Alahna Sabbakhan recently went viral. A friend of her boyfriend, who wasn't even a runner, showed up at a training session to challenge her: “He refused to believe that a woman could beat him in a race,” said the U.S. athlete.
Sabbakhan ran the 400 meters as part of her training. The result was as obvious as it was embarrassing: the guy held the pace until the halfway point, when the athlete accelerated, as is usually done in these competitions, leaving the guy far behind the 57 seconds she needed to complete the course.
Her time was pretty good for a practice run, said Sabbakhan, whose best time is 53 seconds (a big difference at the elite level).
Sabbakhan, who started running at age five, is used to this kind of challenge: it's been happening to her since childhood. “A lot of boys wanted to compete in the playground because they thought they could beat me.”
It is not the first time
Something equally ridiculous happened a few years ago with Serena Williams, winner of 23 Grand Slam tournament singles titles — one fewer than Novak Djokovic, the men's record —, four Olympic golds and number one in the WTA ranking for 300 weeks.
In 2019, 12% of men in Britain — compared to 3% of women — considered that they could win a point from Serena, who took it with humor: five men could not return her serve, in an event that she used to fight for gender equality.
Why do men who are not even athletes, sitting on their couch, believe that they can compete and even beat elite female athletes who train every day? Where does this assurance that men feel over women come from?
On social networks I read a woman commenting that the desire for male domination and superiority is not only in sports and, moreover, starts at a very early age: “Men want to dominate in all areas.”
She recalled that when she was in 4th or 5th grade she liked to draw. Well, there was a boy who also drew but he took his “art” very seriously.
Then some of the boy artist's friends challenged the girl. “I never claimed to be better. And I was like, ‘No, I just draw horses. I like horses and that's it, hahaha. I have no interest in proving to you or anyone that my ‘art’ is better.’ They couldn’t understand that.”
…
All of this redefines the importance that (hopefully) one of Lorenzo's soccer training sessions a few months ago could have had for him. Because of the Christmas and New Year vacations, there were few players at the academy where he plays. So, they set up a mixed practice with boys and girls of different ages.
The team that had three girls of eight and nine years old dominated the other, where there were kids like Lorenzo, 5 years old, and others between seven and nine years old.
My hope is that Lorenzo and all the other boys have internalized that there is nothing wrong with a woman being better than a man (at whatever).
I hope that their thought process — even if unconscious, as it happens to many of us — differs from what drove the ridiculous guy to challenge the athlete: “I’m sure I’m better than this girl because I’m a boy.”
In need of help
As usual on Fridays, after dropping Lorenzo off at kindergarten, I do groceries at the street market in Varkiza, the neighboring village where we live, in the outskirts of Athens.
I load up on fruits and vegetables for the whole week. León — my youngest son, 20 months old — cries out for olives, bananas, tangerines, oranges and everything else he sees, while insisting on waving at a vendor who pretends not to see him.
I get a little stressed: León, who pooped, tries to get out of the stroller and I'm afraid his diaper will overflow, plus I don't want him to miss his nap time.
As I put the bags in the car, I notice a guy who works in the market setting up and taking down stalls, that is, an assistant who does not serve the public. He's sitting less than half a meter away, I almost brush past him, but he never looks up from his phone. He's engrossed in TikTok, like a kid hooked on crack. And I think to myself: “Maybe without his phone, this guy would have offered me a hand?”
On the way driving home, I try to organize this idea in the context of our current screen addictions.
Suddenly, a guy on the side of the road is waving cars down — waiting for someone to stop. I see two parked cars. It seems to be a mechanical problem but I can't understand what’s happening. Why is there a guy and two cars? Brake? I hesitate but I don’t: “What if he wants to rob me? If León wasn’t in the back, maybe I’d stop,” I tell myself, probably to feel better.
And then I think that when you are in need, or in need of help, the (supposed) lack of consideration, solidarity or empathy of others is always clearer.
That’s it for today.
Many thanks to those who share the newsletter and welcome to those who receive my mail for the first time today (this is the archive of everything I’ve published in Recalculating so far).
Let’s be in touch, as usual. You can always reply to this email.
See you in two weeks!
With love,
Nacho
🙏 Many thanks to Worldcrunch for translating and editing this newsletter.
