the art of manipulation

my mother- my mother is a complex woman as i have come to suspect most women are. she is both the strongest and most helpless woman i know. she has been the breadwinner, the ruler of the household, and the one to count on for as long as i can remember. she is also the most emotional and irrational person i have ever had to deal with. that is my mother. the rock of our family that cannot so much as pump her own gasoline. well, will not pump her own gasoline anyway.

my mother has perfected the art of manipulation. she perfected it long before i was born. she has always been able to get my dad to do anything she wants even though he may be grumbling the entire time. other people too, but especially men. i remember being a little girl and going to my mother whenever i wanted something. not that she would actually do it for me, but she would go to my dad and get him to do it. and he did every time. at some point she began to train us girls in the sacred art of feminine manipulation. "feminine wiles" as my boyfriend refers to it now.

she began to make us go to our dad first and try to get him to do whatever it was that we wanted. it never worked. eventually we would have to go back to her as always and get her to talk my dad into it. she, of course, never failed.

at some point i gave up in my ability to manipulate. i just could not, for all of my mother's efforts, get others to do what i wanted. and then, later on in my teen years, i began to get angry at my mom for not doing things for herself and at my dad for not standing up to her. i didn't respect or understand the necessity of this interaction in their relationship. also, i failed miserably in my many attempts to manipulate and i've always hated everything that i'm not good at. sports for instance.

my disdain made me believe that i had escaped the fate of so many women. all of those women that flutter their eyelashes just so, pitch their voices into a sweeter cadence, act helpless and weak. as a feminist that disgusted me anyway and i wanted nothing to do with it.

but a woman cannot really hope to escape her fate or her childhood training. my feminine wiles have somehow snuck their way into my interactions and manage to manifest themselves without my conscious awareness. just ask my boyfriend. but now, instead of denying my heritage i go with it. i have no choice really. i was born and raised for this it seems. i have even been told that somehow, i also have a southern accent whenever i am asking ever so sweetly for a favor. now, i don't normally have a southern accent but my mother does. i think, if i were to tell her, she would be so proud.