My Wife, the Feminist

It all began when my wife Shelly went back to school. She had grown tired of being a stay-at-home mom, and when our daughter, Alicia, began high school, Shelly figured that it was time for her to finish her degree and join the workforce. She had never been much of a student in the first place (which is why she dropped out of college during her freshman year), so it was somewhat surprising to learn that this is what she wanted to do with all her newfound free time.

She began taking classes at a university just down the road from our home. She was excited just to be out of the house for a change, and she seemed excited and enthusiastic about starting the "next chapter of her life," as she called it.

About a month or two into her first semester, she became more active with campus activities. She joined the campus gym, attended study groups in the evenings, and developed an interest in activism. It seemed odd that a forty-year-old woman would have any interest in hanging out with a bunch of twenty-year-olds, but she seemed happier than ever, as if she were recapturing her youth.

Among the many classes that my tens of thousands of dollars in tuition covered was a class on "Women's Studies." I would come home from a hard day's work and be subjected to long monologues at the dinner table about female oppression, the gender wage gap, abortion rights, and campus rape culture. If I ever dared to contradict her in any way, she would interrupt me and tell me that I was "mansplaining." Which, apparently, is one of the many forms of female oppression. I learned that my life was far easier if I just kept my mouth shut.

Unfortunately, her newfound wisdom on all social justice issues began to rub off on Alicia. The two of them would often gang up on me over the dinner table and explain how men like me were the root of all problems in the world. If only women ruled the world, there would be nothing but peace and prosperity for all, according to them.

As time went by, and Shelly began her second semester, she became very active with the "hashtag-resist" movement. She began spending her weekends organizing marches and protests, knitting pink "pussy" hats, and creating hand-written signs to pass out to the other protesters. I used her time away from the house to improve my golf game, work on my homemade brewery, and simply enjoy the peace and quiet.

At the end of her second semester, Shelly announced that she had won some sort of academic award. I couldn't figure out how she could have won any award after only a year of schooling, but I supposed that times had changed since my college days. We got all dressed up and headed over to the school. When we got there, I noticed that it seemed as though half the student body were receiving the same award. We had to sit in the rear of their multimillion-dollar auditorium (paid through the generous contributions of people like myself) due to a lack of open seats.

There were a few boring speeches, followed by the awards ceremony, which was followed by a reception with appetizers and cocktails. I had stopped at a Mexican fast food place for lunch earlier that day, and something I ate wasn't agreeing with me. While Shelly chatted with her new "classmates," I ducked into a men's room stall. I was sitting there doing my business when I heard a couple of kids noisily enter the room and stand at the urinals next to me.

"Bro, did you see that MILF in the red dress?" one of them said.

"See her?" the other one said. "Dude, I've hit that so many times I've lost count!"

"Seriously?"

"Seriously, bro. She's a fucking maniac. She sucks dick like her life depends on it, and she'll spread her legs for just about anyone. You want a piece of that? All you gotta do is ask!"

"Damn, bro!"

"Yeah, man. As a matter of fact, check out the parking lot behind the library on Monday. Around six o'clock. You'll see what I mean."

I couldn't wrap my brain around what I was hearing. Shelly wore a red dress that night. Aside from the professors and admins, she was the only woman in that room old enough to be called a "MILF." But that kid couldn't have possibly been referring to my wife. Granted, she had always had a healthy sex drive. I knew she had been with a lot of guys before we met - although I didn't want to know exactly how many. She would never cheat on me, though. She just wasn't like that.

When I finished my business and returned to the reception, I found Shelly immediately, surrounded by a group of young men who seemed all-too-eager to be in her company. She smiled from ear-to-ear and her flirtatious body language did nothing to lower my radar. I scanned the room and didn't see any other woman in a red dress who fit the description of "MILF." I grabbed her gently by the arm and told her I wasn't feeling well, and insisted that we return home.

My head was spinning all night. If I had confronted her about what I had heard, she would just deny it, become defensive, and accuse me of "slut-shaming" her or some other new-wave feminist bullshit. Although she was all hot-and-horny when we got home, I declined her advances, pretending that I was too sick to fuck. I didn't want to expose myself any further to whatever viral cesspool may reside between her legs if anything that kid said were true. I decided to ride it out until Monday, when I could investigate the matter myself.

I left work early that day, drove to the campus, and waited in the parking lot with a nice ham sandwich and a cold soda. Shelly told me she had study group that night, and I believed her. I just needed to confirm for myself that what that college kid said in the men's room was bullshit - or that maybe he wasn't referring to my "MILF." When six o'clock passed, and I still hadn't seen any suspicious activity, I breathed a sigh of relief. Then I saw our minivan come into view and park at the furthest corner of the lot. My heart sank when Shelly didn't get out of the van and walk toward the library as I hoped she would. Instead, she appeared to move from the front seat to the back.

In an instant, the van was surrounded by young men who seemingly appeared from nowhere. They gathered around outside of the van, shoving each other in the way that young men tend to do, until one of them was bold enough to open the sliding door and disappear inside. I watched in disgust as one kid after another entered the van, exchanging high-fives as they passed each other.

I resisted the urge to vomit. It would have been a waste of a good ham sandwich. Instead, I got out of the car and marched across the parking lot toward the group of kids, which had dwindled to just three. As I approached the van, I could see it rocking, and I could hear the moaning and groaning from inside. One of the kids noticed me approaching and elbowed his friends. All three of them stood there, looking terrified.

"What's going on here?" I asked as casually as I could muster.

"N-not much," one of the kids stammered. "Just hanging out."

"Yeah?" I said. "What's going on in the van?"

"You with the campus police?" another one asked. "School admin?"

I shook my head. "Nope. Just a curious person who happens to own this van."

Their eyes widened and their mouths gaped stupidly. They looked at each other for a brief moment. One of them bolted away, and the others followed swiftly behind. I stood at the door of the van, took a deep breath, and jiggled the handle. The automatic sliding door opened, and what I saw I could hardly believe.

There was my wife on all fours, facing the rear window of our minivan with her arms folded over the backrest and her knees on the rear bench seat. Behind her, with his back to me, was a young man with his pants bundled around his ankles, plowing into my loving bride as if he were trying to dislodge a golf ball from her throat the hard way.

"Hey, bro!" the kid shouted without bothering to look over his shoulder. "I'm not finished yet! Wait your turn!"

I took a step inside the van, grabbed him by the collar, and yanked him away from my wife. I tossed him out of the van, and he tumbled onto the pavement.

"You're finished now, 'bro,'" I said. He hesitated for a moment, as if debating his options, before he flipped me the bird and strutted away.

"Gene!" Shelly squealed. "What are you doing here?"

I calmly gathered her clothes and tossed them into the front passenger seat. I stepped outside of the van and stood by the sliding door.

"Get out," I said.

"Gene, th-this isn't what it looks like," she stammered dumbly. "We need to talk about this. I can explain."

"I said get out of the van," I repeated. She curled up into a fetal position and wrapped her arms around her knees. She shook her head.

"You have two choices right now," I said. "You can either get out of the van or I'll throw you out like that ass-hat I just tossed onto the pavement."

She refused to budge, so I resorted to the old parenting trick that Shelly insisted we use on Alicia in lieu of spanking. (In retrospect, she would've been better off had we spanked her.)

"One," I said. A moment later: "Two."

Wisely, she didn't wait for "three." She scurried out of the van and stood there for a moment, covering her breasts and crossing her legs. I closed the minivan door and walked around to the driver's side. Shelly tried to open the passenger door, but I had locked it. In a panic, she ran around the rear of the van to catch up with me and to use the van for cover. The last I saw of her that night was her reflection in the rearview mirror, standing stupidly in the middle of a parking lot, sobbing uncontrollably, and as naked as the day she was born.

To this day, I don't know how Shelly managed to find her way home. I don't know where she stayed that night. I don't know which man's clothes she was wearing when she suddenly appeared at our front doorstep. The fact is, I didn't care. I made sure to lock the doors so that she would have to knock. I imagine she must have felt pretty embarrassed standing there, with all of our neighbors watching, as she begged me to allow her inside her own home. I admit I let that moment linger a little longer than I probably should have.

"What the fuck?" she screeched at me as soon as I closed the door. "How could you leave me out there like that? I'm your wife for god's sake! The mother of our child! Doesn't that mean anything to you?!"

I just stood there for a moment with my arms folded and checked her out from head to toe. Her hair was a knotted mess, and I could see little leaves and sticks matted in it. It looked like a bird's nest. She must have hiked through the woods at some point, I gathered. Probably picked up a few ticks along the way. I couldn't help but laugh at the sight of her.

"You think this is funny?!" she croaked.

"Oh, I think it's very funny!" I said in my best imitation of her voice. You know when you fill a balloon with air, and then you let it out nice and slow by stretching the valve? That irritating squealing noise is exactly what she sounded like at that moment. The thought of it made me laugh again.

"You're an asshole!" she shouted in her stretched-out balloon voice.

"Right," I said. "I'm the asshole because you're fucking half the campus. That's rich."

"I told you I can explain," she said, lowering her voice. "If you'd just give me the chance..."

I burst out in laughter once again. I couldn't help it. "How the fuck can you explain that? What possible explanation could there be for you to fuck around behind my back, shit all over our marriage, and destroy our family?"

"Well, if you'd just calm down—"

"Calm down?!" I shouted. "Are you fucking kidding me?!"

Just then, we heard a noise at the top of the stairs. Alicia's bare feet appeared. "What's with all the yelling?" she said. "I was trying to sleep."

I rolled my eyes involuntarily. "Sorry to wake you, princess," I said, "but you're just in time. See, your mother here was just about to explain why she's having sex with half of the boys - and who knows, probably some girls - at her campus. Come on down. This should be good."

Shelly glared at me as Alicia descended the stairs and walked into the livingroom, looking confused and upset. "Mom?" she said. "Is this true?"

"Have a seat, Pumpkin," Shelly said. We all followed her lead.

"As you know, I've taken a few Women's Studies courses from the university," Shelly began, "and I've learned so much that I never knew about female sexuality and how our traditional sexual roles have developed over time. You see, this idea of monogamy is relatively new in human history. For thousands of years, men and women had much different roles in society. Sexually- and biologically-speaking, women's bodies are designed to have sex with multiple partners. This increases the odds of birthing a healthy child, which allows the species to continue living for another generation. It was commonly-accepted practice for a woman to sleep with numerous men in her tribe or colony."

Alicia nodded as if she perfectly understood this nonsense. I simply sat and waited to hear the rest of the story.

"My Women's Studies professor issued a challenge for us to take some concept that we had learned throughout the course of our studies, apply it to our real lives, and write a report on how it changed our perspectives of ourselves and society. I chose to write my report on female sexuality. What you saw, Gene, was nothing more than research required by my curriculum."

I paused for a moment. Was she joking? This was seriously her story? I couldn't help but shake my head and chuckle once again. "You can't be serious," I said.

"I believe her, Daddy," Alicia suddenly said. "You don't know what the pressure is like to get good grades on these papers. It's, like, seriously important. You wouldn't understand because of your white male privilege."

"Yes," Shelly added, condescendingly, "please don't sit there and mansplain to us how easy it was for you to get your degree. You couldn't possibly relate to what we have been through."

"Mom spent all those years being oppressed," Alicia continued. "How many years was she basically locked inside of this house being a glorified slave? She was forced into indentured servitude while you were out there in the real world living your own life, just as society allows you to do. Now she is finally living her life, and doing what it takes for a woman to succeed in this patriarchal society."

"That's right," Shelly said, "and don't even start to judge me about my sexuality. My body, my choice. You can't tell me what to do with my own body! In the course of my research, I learned just how liberating it is to allow myself to freely experience pleasure instead of constantly denying it. I learned to reconnect with my ancient, inner, female goddess. What I did was as natural as breathing. And I won't let you deny me the air that I breathe!"

I glanced at both women and waited a moment. "Are you two finished?" I asked. They looked at each other and shrugged. "Okay," I said. "I let you two have your say. Now sit there and shut up. It's time for some good ol' fashioned mansplaining."

"You can't—" Shelly began

"I said shut the fuck up!" I shouted. By the look of fear in her eyes, I must have gotten my point across. "First of all," I began, "there is no such thing as white male privilege." Alicia began to speak, but thought better of it.

"I busted my ass in school," I continued. "Instead of partying through high school and college, I spent most nights with my nose buried in a book. I studied through all hours of the early morning. And I worked back-breaking part-time jobs, doing physical labor, to put myself through school. Daddy didn't pay my way through college, ladies."

Alicia scoffed and rolled her eyes.

"I earned my degree," I said, "and I made the Dean's List each semester. They didn't hand out A's in those days like they do today. Not everyone won an award or trophy. You had to earn them. I then started my career at the very bottom of the corporate ladder, doing shit work for shit pay. I worked my ass off, putting in long, hard hours without overtime pay, to get to where I am today. No one handed me anything because I'm a white male."

"But there's an implicit bias—" Alicia began.

"Also, there's no such thing as a gender wage gap," I continued, ignoring her. "This is a myth created by feminists with an agenda and politicians looking to capitalize on that agenda. If you compare the same jobs, in the same industries, with the same level of experience, there is virtually no difference between the salaries of men and women."

"Bullshit," Shelly hissed.

"There is also no such thing as a 'rape culture,'" I continued. "No one tolerates or encourages rape. All of these mythological bogeymen that your teachers and professors - and mother - have put in your head are nothing but excuses for failure. As long as you can claim to be a victim, you have a built-in excuse to fail. It's a self-defense mechanism that allows you to blame others for your own failings. You're being used, and neither of you even realize it."

Shelly and Alicia looked at one another and scoffed.

"As for you," I said, turning to Shelly, "do you seriously believe that you were treated like a slave or that you were 'oppressed' as a housewife and mother? I earned enough money to allow you to raise our daughter full-time, without you having to worry about holding down a job at the same time. Raising our family and caring for our home is the most important job in the world as far as I'm concerned. You did a fine job of it, too. But you were hardly a slave in chains."

Shelly responded with a smirk and a shrug.

"And you're absolutely right," I continued. "It's your body, and you can do with it as you please. But unfortunately for you, we're not cavemen, we don't belong to a tribe, and this isn't 5,000 BC. Humankind has evolved. We've learned to set aside our caveman instincts to steal, kill, and fuck everything we can get our hands on. You made a commitment to me, and you broke our vows. In this day and age, actions have consequences."

"And what does that mean?" Shelly asked.

"I'm leaving you," I said. "I went apartment-hunting online while you were away last night and found a nice place at the other end of town. I also contacted an attorney. I'm going to go upstairs and collect some of my things. I'll be back later to collect the rest."

"No, Daddy!" Alicia shouted. She bolted from her chair, sat on my lap, and wrapped her arms around me. "Please don't go! You don't have to leave!"

"I'm sorry, Pumpkin," I said, "but I can't live here anymore."

"Daddy, I'm so sorry!" she wailed. "I'm sorry I said you have male privilege! I'm sorry for calling you an oppressor! Please, please stay!"

I gently removed my daughter's arms from around my neck and kissed her on the forehead. "Pumpkin, it's not your fault that I'm leaving. Not at all. I don't blame you for thinking these things because you're young and you haven't experienced much of the real world yet. What I will never understand is how someone as old as your mother could believe such nonsense."

With that, I did as I said I would and packed my bags. Alicia continued to beg me to stay, and Shelly even joined her at one point, but quickly conceded defeat. I moved across town, where I settled in and adjusted to my new bachelor lifestyle surprisingly quickly. The divorce proceedings progressed as expected. As usual, the husband gets it in the rear end regardless of how his wife behaved during the marriage. Not only did she get half of our savings and investments, and a good chunk of my future income, along with child support, but I was also forced to pay for her pointless degree. On the plus side, she was finally out of my life.

I found that divorce is not unlike a hostage negotiation. Your ex-wife holds your freedom hostage and demands a ransom payment. You end up paying whatever she demands just to get your life back. The way I see it, it was money well-spent.