An ex brother-in-law, a person who thought himself a real grown man, was my sister's husband when this word was born. We were sitting on the couch at a family dinner, and he was blathering about how his family meant everything in the world to him. How he only lives to take care of his wife and his baby girl, how he does without to provide for them. I was squirming mightily, too polite to guffaw. He continued building his own virtual statue in the town square until I did laugh out loud. What? he asked.
What you just said, I laughed. He said that's ebonics. He thought I meant the phrase he used. I laughed harder.
I know what ebonics is, I said.
That was
guybonics. This ex-brother-in-law is someone I will happily slap, should I have the misfortune to run into him, for the pain he's caused women I love. But he sure was the creator of some of my best words. Guybonics is mansplaining plus total detachment from any self-awareness, coupled to the belief that women are dumb as stumps. Guybonics is taking the facts, flipping those 180, and calling your bluff to your face. Guybonics is swearing you do without to provide for your baby girl while wearing a $2,000 Hugo Boss suit and some $1,200 skin shoes, and that baby girl is in an outfit her mother bought her. Saying
I'm sorry if I hurt you, right after you just told him he did hurt you, is guybonics.
Oh, well, I don't know when you explained something from certain knowledge, is guybonics. Saying
this is not what it looks like when you discover him naked in the sack with someone not you. Guybonics. Every woman can add to the definition: we know it when we hear it. And it takes the sting away a little to know what the language is. One of an ex's favorite lines is from a chockablock doofus movie D. C. Cab. Some guy asks "what are women so pissed off about? They're got half the money and all the p***y." That is guybonics. That is also why the ex is an ex. He spoke guybonics fluently.
I drew this long ago, was afraid to use it because it is not a pretty picture. The Silent Woman is a pub name still in use today. It is an ugly image. The rise of gender-based violence in the world is ugly. I am angry enough now to use the drawing. I'm going to use Silent Woman Speaks for posts that are shouting about gender-offensive behavior. Whenever I spot guybonics and tomfoolery. The idea of a woman who can't speak is referential in jokes, casual conversation, pop culture, and raises its headless form this year in the 112th Congress' legislative agenda. We need to speak. We need to stop being silent. I call on my matriarchal ancestors to help stop the madness of violence against women for all time.