The Bleeding Heart by Marilyn French

believe that Marsh hurt me terribly. It pleases you to think that. I’ve never understood that, how men love to hear tales of women’s abuse by other men. Especially if they can imagine the woman crying, bruised, beat up. I’ve never been able to figure that.” She could hear the irritation in her voice, but she couldn’t control it. “I don’t know if they like to hear terrible stories because that is the only way they can feel good about themselves, comparatively, or whether imagining a woman pushed around titillates them.”
    “Women are the same way,” he said defensively. “They love to hear that another woman has treated a man badly. They ooze sympathy; they coo and ooh. They stand with open arms.” His face was tight and he was staring at her.
    Her back got very stiff.
    “And women really enjoy hearing a man criticize another woman. They really draw you out if you do that. Really , they say, she doesn’t? Oh! Really? You poor dear. And the suggestion is ever so subtle, or maybe not subtle at all, that they have exactly what the other doesn’t have to offer.”
    “Well, not me!” She threw her napkin down on the table. “And I’m not going to sit here and listen to you malign women!”
    “What is it around here, you can’t say anything about women, even if it’s true?”
    “ You can’t say anything about women because you don’t know anything about them!”
    “Well, it seems to me you started this. And you said you didn’t understand men.”
    “I don’t understand male insanity. But I know men. And you don’t know women.”
    He leaned back in his chair, his face very composed, his voice very controlled. She imagined this would be how he’d look at a business meeting, in an argument. He’d never raise his voice, he’d never sound really angry.
    “I would suspect that my experience with women has been about equal to yours with men.”
    “I doubt it. Men tell women things, personal things. And so do other women. And women don’t tell men everything.”
    “So no man can know either men or women as well as any woman?”
    “No man knows either men or women as well as I do.”
    He pushed back his chair. “You are saying you are an infallible authority and my experience is simply invalid?”
    Yes. That’s what I’m saying. Just as men say about hundreds of things to women.
    They stared at each other. The air was cold between them. She pondered. Logically, he was right. But there was something wrong with logic, something wrong with comparing the behavior of men and women. As if they were equals. So often she got into arguments like this. What was it that was wrong with his reasoning?
    “I guess you’re right,” she said, coolly. He did not relax. He was looking at her from a distance. Well, so much for that. I’ve driven him away. Well, it wasn’t supposed to be more than a casual screw anyway, was it? And if that little disagreement is enough to send him reeling off, good riddance.
    But her voice was a little thick. “It’s just that I have a thing,” she said. He leaned forward. “I can’t abide to hear men criticize women. I can’t stand it. Oh, if you were to say, ‘ Alice does this, Betty does that, and I don’t like it’: I’d be able to accept that. Not that I wouldn’t be sympathetic to Alice and Betty. But I could accept your saying that. But I can’t tolerate men making sweeping statements about women: Women do this, Women do that. Which men constantly do.”
    He smiled at her, shaking his head. “Do you hear yourself?”
    “I hear myself.” She turned away from him, and her face was a little wrenched, her mouth was trembling. “I can’t help it. It’s rooted in conviction.” She turned back to him. “I suffer from deformation of character. It’s a result of my past. I lost a fin in the war and now I swim at a list.”
    He was watching her intently. He reached across the table and took her hand, gently. “I think you swim just fine. And I’m sorry, not