"That is why I broadcast--to touch people's lives"

I have mentioned this already, but you cannot imagine what a life-saver you were when you started denouncing the act of rolling eyes during an argument. It seems that usually men do it to their wives as a power play. The man who rolls his eyes at what she's saying has denounced her as too unreasonable to try to talk to, called her too ridiculous to talk to, stated flatly that she's not being reasonable or making sense, hinted that she just gave him fodder to laugh over with his buddies behind her back, all in one simple gesture.

It's a power play. If she objects to it, he tells her she's being ridiculous, or denies that the eyeroll even means anything--a double victory for him, and he didn't even have to frame his argument in words. But not every woman sees it for what it is, so she's left enraged and sputtering--another win. It's a "shut up" button for a lazy, mean man to press, though not every man knows how nasty it is nor is willing to examine his own behavior and ask himself if that's what he's done, similar to how men who give their wives the silent treatment for a week usually refuse to critique that lazy power play, too.

It's a short cut to dismissing someone, whith a large dose of vilification thrown in. It's a blocking gesture, intended to win the fight by belittling the other person rather than to allow a free flow of discussion between the parties. It shames the other person as well, and is guaranteed to get them angry. If she says he just insulted her, he looks astonished at her unreasonable claim and snorts or denies it in some other belittling manner. It's meant to be a fast track to stopping her from offering any further discussion, which is another way for power-mongers to get their way.

My husband's gesture was the under-the-breath expletive (which wasn't so much under the breath that it couldn't be clearly understood by both me and our children) accompanied by the head drop and hopeless headshake. It plainly stated, "What a bitch you are. Every word you speak after this headshake only serves to further demonstrate your insane behavior." He always pulled this in front of the children. The muttered insult alternated between the simple, "Man!" and "Fuckin' bitch," and always came after he had run me in circles with his meanness, lies, and phony accusations which it took me years to realize he didn't actually believe (thus I didn't really need to plead with him to stop saying such mean things). And you will be proud to realize that this realization came hand in hand with the advent of your assertion that eyerolling was a mean and underhanded thing to do.

Once you said that, I was no longer alone, boxed into a corner by a husband who painted me as unreasonable, insane, or out of control. I had a champion who agreed with me. We had been in marital counseling for a year or so, and even the counselor didn't know there was anything wrong with eyerolling and wouldn't support me in my complaint that it was mean, cheap, and underhanded.

Thank you, Dennis.