As I’ve stated before, R and I have quite a bit in common. In fact, it’s kind of bizarre how we share some strange quirks. But like any two people, I don’t think we’re always exactly on the same page with everything.
Yesterday, R wrote an entry titled “Let's Give the Male Race a Little Credit.” When I read it, I sent her a Gchat that said “I like it… until the end. Not because it’s bad but because I don’t agree at all.”
Girls can, in fact, be pretty terrible. In fact, I have always said I don’t want daughters, because when they get to be around junior high age, they’ll either be cruel, or they’ll be the victims of junior high girl cruelty. Either one makes me too sad.
I’m no man hater. I really like men. I like my male friends, and I like having male more-than friends too. One day I’d even like to marry one and have babies together. As I’ve stated before, I’m old-fashioned when it comes to gender roles.
But I have to stick up for my girls. Men do stupid shit. Women do stupid shit. To me, it’s not a matter of men being evil or women being crazy and manipulative. There are crazy and manipulative people, and there are people who do bad things. Yes, there are certain stereotypes, and there are huge differences between the two sexes. We’re wired differently. I recently read an article about how certain parts of the brain are completely different in men and women. We interpret and respond to situations differently because of our genetic makeup, just as R and I respond differently to things even though we’re both women of the same age and race.
But just because men are traditionally viewed as sex-crazed, insensitive jerks and women are viewed as crazy and manipulative doesn’t make it so. If this were the case, shouldn’t we also believe that all black people are like the characters in Tyler Perry movies?
I am at times manipulative, and at times irrational, and occasionally maybe a little bit crazy. Sometimes I am basically a walking female stereotype. Once, right after a breakup, a male friend came into my room to find me in bed crying while another female friend was saying “S, if you don’t eat anything, I’m not letting you have any alcohol. You have to get out of bed and come to dinner if you want to drink.” The male friend started laughing and called me a “giant ball of vagina.”
Two years later, however, a male friend was going through a tough breakup and asked me to come over. I got to his apartment to find him sitting in the dark crying. Who was the giant ball of vagina now?
So while I think R is an incredibly intelligent woman who enjoys spending her Friday nights in bed eating sushi and watching Hulu as much as I do, I’m going to have to say we disagree on this one.
Love always,
S
Showing posts with label old men. Show all posts
Showing posts with label old men. Show all posts
Friday, March 26, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
I'm not a secretary...
Last week, I had the most sexist and insulting experience I’ve ever had in a professional environment. Those of you who don’t know me don’t necessarily know that I’m 22 and graduated from college last May. I graduated with a degree that could take me one of two routes: journalism or PR. My current job is more PR-related; I handle the communications for a company. I realized pretty quickly that PR was the wrong path.
Being 22 and the newest member of the company, there is a certain amount of administrative work that I do. Someone has to do it, and that someone is the newest person. Plus, one of my biggest administrative responsibilities is staffing a few of the company’s many committees — I attend meetings and later put together the minutes. Writing=communication, so it sort of makes sense, even if I weren’t the newest and youngest.
One particular committee, which met last week, is made up of only men, most of whom are old. They’ve always been extremely nice to me, probably because they’re old men and I’m a young woman. Regardless, I’ve never had a problem with them.
Until last week. What they were discussing isn’t important, but at one point one of the men said, in reference to me “She takes good notes, she’s a good secretary.” At that point, I choked on my own spit a little. Then I froze, while the words “Excuse me, I’m not a secretary” ran over and over in my head.
I’m not knocking administrative assistants. My office would die without the smarts of our administrative assistants. But the word secretary is outdated, politically incorrect and sexist. And even worse, I knew exactly why he called me a secretary: I was the only woman in the room.
It was also the way he said it. He might as well have said “Oh, she doesn’t matter, she’s just a secretary.” Well, mister, I don’t think I spent four years in college, two years at internships and five months job hunting to be “just a secretary.”
Maybe it’s naïve of me to forget people can be so sexist. But as the youngest and only female in our weekly management meetings, I’ve been impressed with how much my coworkers go out of their way to treat me with respect. I didn’t realize there are still professionals who would assume that, because someone is a woman, they must be a “secretary.”
It’s probably time for him to retire…
Love always,
S
Being 22 and the newest member of the company, there is a certain amount of administrative work that I do. Someone has to do it, and that someone is the newest person. Plus, one of my biggest administrative responsibilities is staffing a few of the company’s many committees — I attend meetings and later put together the minutes. Writing=communication, so it sort of makes sense, even if I weren’t the newest and youngest.
One particular committee, which met last week, is made up of only men, most of whom are old. They’ve always been extremely nice to me, probably because they’re old men and I’m a young woman. Regardless, I’ve never had a problem with them.
Until last week. What they were discussing isn’t important, but at one point one of the men said, in reference to me “She takes good notes, she’s a good secretary.” At that point, I choked on my own spit a little. Then I froze, while the words “Excuse me, I’m not a secretary” ran over and over in my head.
I’m not knocking administrative assistants. My office would die without the smarts of our administrative assistants. But the word secretary is outdated, politically incorrect and sexist. And even worse, I knew exactly why he called me a secretary: I was the only woman in the room.
It was also the way he said it. He might as well have said “Oh, she doesn’t matter, she’s just a secretary.” Well, mister, I don’t think I spent four years in college, two years at internships and five months job hunting to be “just a secretary.”
Maybe it’s naïve of me to forget people can be so sexist. But as the youngest and only female in our weekly management meetings, I’ve been impressed with how much my coworkers go out of their way to treat me with respect. I didn’t realize there are still professionals who would assume that, because someone is a woman, they must be a “secretary.”
It’s probably time for him to retire…
Love always,
S
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