Claims Against Doctor Highlight Gap Between the Sexes

Let me, as a rapidly middle-aging man, try to understand what it’s like to be a woman.

Not all aspects of womanhood, mind you, but that part of their existence that involves vulnerability and exploitation.

Already the chorus of women’s voices goes up: Try all you want, buster, you’ll never understand . And they’re right. It’s that gap between intellectualizing something and experiencing it that will forever separate the sexes.

The cue for this soliloquy is the investigation of Ivan Namihas, the Tustin gynecologist accused of sexual impropriety or molestation involving some of his patients. Recent publicity surrounding just a few accusations has resulted in a veritable glut of complaints from other women, now numbering around 140, who allege that Namihas had acted improperly with them too.

One hundred and forty women? Did they all get together and conspire to ruin the man?

Many of Namihas’ other patients have rallied to his defense, saying he’s been above reproach with them, thereby suggesting that he couldn’t be guilty. Perhaps he isn’t, but in light of the sheer volume of allegations against him, his supporters should remind themselves that convicted murderers don’t kill every person they pass on the street.

But I’m getting off my chosen track.

The task at hand is whether men understand what it’s like to be a woman. If we could, then we’d be in a better position to understand how more than 100 women over the years thought their doctor took the most undignified liberties with them and yet didn’t complain until now. How could so many remain so silent?

Let me offer a possible reference point.

I couldn’t have been much more than a first-grader when my father showed me how, as I walked, to hang my arms at my side and slightly bend my fingers inward toward my palms. From that position, he pointed out, I could make a fist if need be.

He wasn’t teaching me to be a pugilist; he was teaching me how to defend myself. He made it clear that I should never start a fight, but he made it equally clear that I should never “walk away” from one either. And, like a lot of boys in my day, I got into my fair share of scuffles that proved nothing other than that I was willing to fight.

I doubt very much that dad ever gave that same set of instructions to my two sisters.

The result of my upbringing was that I learned that self-defense was not only permissible, but admirable. If talk didn’t solve an argument, fists were acceptable options.

Those lessons, I think, are typical for young boys. We grow up geared to defend our honor, to answer slights, to protect ourselves. We’re taught at a very fundamental level that we don’t put up with stuff.

The flip side is that the notions of being physically powerless, of being subjected to ongoing indignities without retaliation, of being vulnerable and exploitable, run counter to our deepest instincts.

Now, some easy questions, especially for my fellow menfolk: Can you imagine 140 men saying nothing about sexual indiscretions committed by their doctor? Can you imagine 140 average guys allowing themselves to be so physically exploited and not doing anything about it? If the law couldn’t address their problem, they’d take care of it themselves.

Now, guys, imagine you’re a woman. You don’t have your fists anymore. You don’t have a lifelong instinct to fight back. Your oldest memories are of being physically weaker than the boys, of being pushed around by the boys, of being subservient to the boys.

Your weapons have been your wits, your guile, your ability to talk things out. If you got into a scrape and your logical instincts told you those weapons weren’t enough, you accepted your losses. Imagine how that broadens the range of things an opponent can do to you.

With a limited arsenal like that, you learn to accept a lot of losses without fighting. And you move on.

Men will never fully understand the vulnerability that many women feel because invulnerability, or some variation thereof, is too deeply ingrained in us. With concepts of personal power and the authority to use it stamped on our psyches, we can’t imagine what life would be like without it.

But if we could, we’d probably be a lot closer to understanding how millions of women trudge on through this life and why they put up with crap we’d never think of accepting.