I thought I was over it, but it turns out I’m still mad as hell.
I talked it over with a good friend who agreed with me and matched me point for point, which was gratifying. I had a couple glasses of wine. And then I worked out for an hour, listening to power anthem music, after the wine wore off.
But nope, still mad.
Today someone told me that he didn’t think that gender had anything to do with the presidential election and as proof, pointed out that with a gun to his head, and a choice between Clinton and Trump, he’d vote Clinton (though in actuality, he will vote white male third party). Weirdly, the fact that, at gunpoint, he’d choose the woman over the narcissistic racist did not make me feel validated. You don’t have to vote for the woman to prove your feminist bonafides. But if you tell me that women aren’t treated differently by society, by the press and by history, I’m calling bullshit.
Here’s the thing. I’ve had a pretty privileged upbringing. I own that. But 100 years ago, women couldn’t vote. Congress is currently 19% women, which makes Congress 81% men. A whopping 4% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. I’ve been offered a massage for a headache at work, and told I looked hot by coworkers old enough to be my father, just because I wore a skirt. I’ve been groped by nameless, faceless hands in a dark bar and club, and I’ve been audibly belittled in public by a stranger about how I looked in a bathing suit. I’ve been given a job offer at a lower title, and presumably lower pay, than a matching male applicant. I’ve been told to “settle” when I was feeling passionate about something, and I’ve been asked if my husband was home by vendors selling new roofs and windows for the house.
This isn’t about politics. It’s about culture. Vote your conscience, whatever that is. But don’t tell me that a culture that hands out 6-month sentences for rape and uses the word bitch as a stand-in for intellectual discourse is a level playing field. And don’t tell me that I’m “typical” for claiming otherwise.
I have two daughters. When I can raise them not to fear a parking lot after dark, and to never doubt they’re being paid equally for equal work, then maybe we can start to talk about fair play.
In the meantime, don’t tell me to settle down. I’m not hysterical. I’m angry.
Hi Rebecca,
I sense anger in your post, certainly not hysteria. I understand. However, I would like to comment on your observations point-for-point. Although I probably won’t be matching all of your sentiments exactly like your friend did, I trust there is room for further thought and discussion.
1) I sincerely hope that whoever chooses to vote for Clinton does so because they believe her to be the very best candidate who can do the very best for the country, and not simply because she is a woman. The latter reason for voting for any female would be insulting to the rest of us.
2) Absolutely no question that women have been treated differently from men throughout history. As you noted, 100 years ago, women couldn’t vote in this country. Can’t change that fact, or the ignorance of the times that allowed it to be a fact. However, the situation did change with the 19th amendment, and so now we claim our right to vote for the very best candidate of our choice. There may be only 19% female representation in Congress, but 100 years ago it was 0. Should there currently be more? Of course. But I’m not so sure that’s a societal failing as much as it is a matter of insufficient women running for office, garnering insufficient numbers of votes. If the votes aren’t there “because we would never vote for a woman”, then yes, shame on society. But if the votes aren’t there because the woman is for some reason a flawed candidate or ran a weak campaign, then the responsibility falls squarely on the individual. There is room for change.
3) I’ve been offered massages and had comments made about my legs (in my youth!). I ignored them. Not because I was pretending that if one closes one’s eyes to a problem, it’s not there, but because I felt that the comments were beneath my dignity to offer a response. And, in my case, that stopped them.
4) I have been groped. Not in a dark bar or club, simply because (in my youth!) I never went into dark bars or clubs for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that those were the exact environments where groping would probably occur. So I never wanted to put myself in that situation. Is it right that men feel free to act boorishly? Of course not. But the question remains, why would any bar be dark to begin with if not to condone or encourage that kind of behavior? If people want to converse and/or meet new people in a bar or club, why not leave the lights on? Not blaming the victim — in this case, you — but wondering why the service establishment’s atmosphere is deliberately created to foster unwanted attention. But I digress. My groping situation occurred in broad daylight, by a male acquaintance. I immediately put a stop to it by wheeling around and confronting the individual with a physical response. I’ll leave the details to your imagination…. but he never tried that again. Should he have felt at liberty to do what he did? Of course not. But I think his were the actions of an individual jerk, and not something necessarily condoned by society as a whole.
5) Belittled by someone who disapproved of your bathing suit? Really? That’s inexcusably rude. But I see it as tantamount to someone walking up to another person — regardless of gender — and telling them they don’t like their hair, or their glasses, or their shoes, or their attitude, or whatever. It’s a jerk bullying another person, and not a reflection of society approving the way people treat one another.
6) When you were offered a job at a lower title and for lower pay than a male counterpart, I hope you asked the “boss” or the HR person for an explanation. Once again, that’s inexcusable, and it happens too often, but might it be a function of the individuals running the company and not society as a whole? I hope that your circumstances allowed you to soon move on to another place of employment where your talents were recognized and where you were paid appropriately for them.
7) I honestly believe that, while some salesmen think that they have to talk to “the husband” and not “the wife”, there are two other plausible explanations for what you experienced: a) a male salesperson often will not enter a house when a woman is there alone, for to avoid any appearance of impropriety. b) a salesperson dealing with a high priced item (such as roofing or windows) will not give a pitch to one member of the household only, because more than likely they’ll have to come back and do it again when both parties are present so that they can ask questions and make the decision together. Salespeople can’t afford to make many return calls — time is money.
8) The culture did not hand out the six month sentence for rape. The individual judge did, and wrongly so. Witness the outrage by males and females alike at the outcome, and the current petitions — signed by males and females alike — to have the judge recalled. Witness the fact that it was two males who stopped the crime. Equally outrageous to me was the reaction of the rapist’s father, who inferred that all his son did was to get a “little piece of action”. I don’t think that most of society is nodding its head at such an ignorant fool.
9) I’ve never been called a bitch. I have, however, been called a “castrating female”. Equally degrading and demeaning. But also easily dealt with by refusing to acknowledge the comments. And they stopped.
10) Sadly, I don’t think there will EVER come a day when your daughters won’t have to fear a parking lot after dark. Nor will our sons, or spouses, or senior citizens ever be absolutely safe in that setting. There is indeed a horrific problem with violent crime, with or without a sexual component, in our culture. While issues of social justice, prison reform, addiction treatment and so on continue to address these cases, there remains the reality that there are bad people in this world that will find ways to act out regardless of what society does. For the love of your kids, continue teaching them a healthy respect for potentially dangerous situations and how to avoid them.
I appreciate the time you took to reply so thoughtfully. I agree that in many cases, sexism is the work of the individual and blame should be assigned as such. Certainly in the case of the Brock Turner judge, it was an individual who handed down the sentence. And certain segments of society were outraged. But we still live in a culture where for every person outraged, there is someone else who questions the victim’s sexual history instead of calling out the rapist. It’s that inconsistent messaging that gives rise to a judge who sympathized more with the felon’s future than the victim’s. When we have to assign blame to so many individuals, I think we can rightly call it a societal issue.
I don’t want the advice I give to my daughters to be “move on and ignore them; they’re just bullies.” To the bully who said I looked like a beached whale in my swimsuit, that is not the same as telling me that he didn’t like my hair or my shoes. It’s an objectification of me as a person in a way that men deal with much less often. Yes, we should decry all types of bullying, but I don’t think we should put it all in the same category.
My body is my own and while I can and will defend it, and while I can avoid certain situations and walk away from others, in a truly equal world I wouldn’t have to. I understand that we’ve made great strides. I would simply like acknowledgment that we’re not there yet and that when I speak to the same, I’m not a “sore winner” or “voting with my uterus.” To have someone assume I vote single issue because of someone’s gender is as insulting as being told that I should. But to be told that it wasn’t a harder road for a female candidate feels disingenuous. It was harder.
19% women in Congress isn’t only about poorly run campaigns. It’s about work left to do as a society. Society is made up of individuals, and certainly we shouldn’t be held accountable at large for every jerk and bully, but I do think we need to acknowledge that they’re still slowing forward momentum and we shouldn’t hesitate to call them out.
Thanks so much for continuing the discussion!
I didn’t mean to infer that insulting you in your swimsuit was a minor offense, comparable to an unflattering statement about shoes or hair etc — I was trying to say that I couldn’t find any justification for any stranger verbally insulting anyone of any gender about anything… who (other than a jerk/bully would do that? And beached whale?!? I didn’t know that was the bathing suit observation you got — I thought maybe somebody gave you another “looking hot” remark, which you probably would have ignored or at most given the perp a dirty look. But shoot, after a “beached whale” comment I think #1) I would have told the guy that I didn’t know that jackasses could talk, #2) I would have decked him, and #3) and THEN would have brushed my hands off and ignored him! ?
Haha. I think that I’d be much more satisfied with the memory if that’s what I had done! 🙂 I was younger, then, though. Toughness (and hopefully wisdom) comes with age, I think!