Goerwitz

An essay by Sam Goodwin (1986)

In Chapter 3 of Green Paradise Lost, E.D.G. quotes Becker extensively. I couldn't resist comparing my development with the development of male attitudes described.

Yes, I found something special in me that couldn't be explained in physical terms. But rather than calling it "intelligence" or "soul" and regarding it as exclusive property of humans, I called it "consciousness" or "awareness" or "ability to feel and experience," and regarded it as an attribute that sets people and animals apart from "inanimate" objects and plant life. Only when I got to Introductory Biology in college did I learn that scientists distinguish animals from plants by their ability to move around in order to obtain food. I almost accepted the idea that this mind-soul-spirit was separate from the body, but I don't think I was ever really comfortable with it.

I agreed that the human body was usually unattractive—even disgusting—but that did not mean it should be neglected, ignored or scorned. It meant that we should keep up the uphill struggle to keep the body healthy and clean. Nature had played a joke on humans by giving them bodies that could be beautiful if properly cared for, but which would be ugly if not fussed over—nourished well, rested well, exercised well, and scrubbed well!

Given that context, a funny thing happened. In the world where I grew up, men were the dirty, carnal, uneducated, less-privileged persons. Men spent their days engaged in dirty, sweaty jobs such as pitching hay, cutting wood, digging ditches, shoveling manure and dealing with big dirty things like horses, cows, hogs, tractors, trucks, farm machinery and the greasy innards of automobiles. Some spent so much time with cows that they smelled of cow-dung even when dressed up for Saturday night. It was not unusual to see a man whose hands and arms were completely black with axlegrease—and black streaks on his face, as well.

Regardless of how dirty they got, they took a bath once a week. Winter or summer, the sweat stood on their bodies increasing and fermenting for seven days, and they shaved once a week. Nobody ever attained a gracefully shaped beard, but everyone of them normally carried a face full of stubble.

They talked dirty and they talked crude. Only occasionally did I see a man wearing a white collar, necktie and suit while engaged in his daily occupation. Men dressed up for Saturday night and Sunday and usually came out looking like a turtle wearing someone else's shell. God's image?

My father was more refined than most, but I didn't notice. He was such a puzzle that I gave up trying to figure him out and only saw what was ugly about him.

My mother, whose formal education had stopped with completion of eighth grade, was gentle, civilized, well read and usually correct in her speech. She never used big words for show, but she was not afraid of a big word when one was best suited to do the job at hand.

Women worked at the comparatively clean and comparatively safe jobs in the house. The dirtiest jobs were making things clean—clothes, dishes, floors. Women and their clothing were normally much less dirty than men.

Occasionally you heard of a woman getting injured—hand in meat grinder or wringer—but much less often than men. Men were always getting cut or jammed fingers. I knew several who had fingers missing. One man had a scar across his face from a double-bitted ax, another was missing an arm; one was missing a leg and I knew two who went through most of their lives with permanently damaged backs.

I actually believed that women were special people—specially deserving to be sheltered from the dirty, dangerous world of "men's work." If I had ever heard of Freud's theory of penis-envy I would have rejected it on two grounds: (1) Boys and girls were not allowed to see each other's genital equipment; and (2) the male organ was neither pretty to look at or to smell. Since boys were told to carefully avoid letting their genitals be seen by girls or women, it was reasonable to assume that said organs must be offensive to those special female people.

Who were the mind people? Who were the body people? My mother read books and magazines at least as much as my father. My mother read to me and was the one to whom I addressed my child's questions. My grandmother taught me the beginnings of reading and arithmetic at home. Every teacher I had through nine grades was a woman. Obviously, there were some childhood experiences not shared by Aristotle and me.

As I learned about sex, the idea of "submissiveness" as natural or desirable for women never occurred to me. When I first read the word "prostitution" and figured out from the context what it meant, my reaction was—a man must be really at the bottom of the barrel to have to settle for such an obvious substitute for love.