Everyday Misogyny
The comments thread on this post is both awful and fascinating. (Note: Even if it looks like there are zero comments, there are a bunch.) As we’ve seen here, sometimes I lose sight of how much of this shit is still going on out there, because my lifestyle mostly involves interacting with like-minded people, or at least people who know that they’re supposed to keep their mouths shut about how much they hate women.
That said, the first thing I thought of in terms of “Everyday Misogyny” examples was one of my grad school profs, whom I honestly believe would be horrified if someone suggested he was anything less than perfectly woman-friendly. He’s super-PC, most likely a member of a widely shat-upon minority and, I imagine, a generally kind-hearted person. He called on women just as much as men in class, took our comments seriously, and openly favored anyone who really wrestled with the material, regardless of gender. He even had us turn in papers with our I.D. numbers instead of our names, so his reading wouldn’t be influenced by any preconceived notions of who we were.
BUT.
The first thing that got under my skin was subtle but telling, I think. On the first day of class, he made an effort to learn the names of all 25 students or so, and bragged about his memory (in part because memory was tangentially related to the material we’d be studying). He promised he’d know all of our names by the second class. Which he did. But when he went around the room and showed off his accomplishment, it went like this: “Joe! Jim! Bob! Tom! Um… um… um… Jane. Ummm… Sarah. Mike! Dave! Jeff! Uhhhhh…. wait, wait… Liz. Ben! Darren! Steve! Um…. dammit, don’t tell me… Kate.” There were a couple of women he got right off the bat, and a couple of men he struggled with, but the overall pattern was clear: he had a real gift for remembering men’s names, but women’s were much, much harder for him. I’m not even entirely sure what that means, and I don’t want to think too hard about it. (To this guy’s credit, I sincerely considered pointing this out to him later in the semester, when I knew him better, because I believe he’s both the kind of person and the kind of teacher who would be surprised and interested to learn such a thing about himself. But, uh… then I didn’t.)
And, well, there was a second thing, but it’s harder to describe circuitously, and I’m short on time. Suffice to say, even a man who I suspect would self-identify as a feminist had some shockingly ill-thought-out views about “women’s power.”
One other quick E.M. example… For years, I took my car to the same 10-min. lube place, and inevitably ended up spending two-to-three times the advertised price for an oil change. Filters needed to be replaced, tires needed to be rotated and balanced, various things required flushing… I didn’t really believe all this stuff was strictly necessary, but A) I have a bad habit of going 6 or 8 months between oil changes, so it seemed plausible that my engine was always more crapped up than it should have been by the time I got it in there, and B) The only honest answer to any car-related question beginning with “When was the last time you…” was: “I have no idea.” So they’d be all, “Well, every 20,000 clicks you should X, and every 40,000 you should Y, and our records show it’s been a year since your last Z,” and I’d be all, “Okay. Go nuts.”
Then, one day I pulled into the same place, in the same car, but with my boyfriend driving. He asked them to give us an oil change. They started working, and I sat back and waited for the guy to come around and tell us we desperately needed another $150 worth of flushing and replacing. Instead, the guy came back, looked at boyfriend, and said, “Is there anything else we can do for you today?” “Nope,” said boyfriend. And that was that. That was that! They didn’t even fucking try to sell him anything else.
And the worst part is, that ex-boyfriend is a friggin’ tap-dancing software engineer; he doesn’t exactly give off a “Fuck with me, and I will bury you” vibe. Furthermore, he knows almost as little about cars as I do. But because he’s a man, they assumed he might know something, and therefore they shouldn’t risk lying through their teeth to bilk him. I, however, am I good risk–and I’m ashamed to say I bore out their assumption time and again.
The happy ending is that that experience taught me the magic word is “No.” I used to honestly worry that if I didn’t accept at least 75 percent of the suggested costly procedures, my car would fall apart before I got it home–then I realized that boyfriend had been driving for over twenty years without getting suckered into the same procedures, and he’d never had a car fall apart. Enlightening.
Furthermore, it’s astonishing how their attitude changes if you present yourself as a total tightwad from the get-go. My new stock answer to, “Do you have a preference for what kind of oil we use?” is “CHEAP.” My old answer, which might as well have been “I have a great deal of money and no brain in my head!” was always something along the lines of, “I don’t really know–what would you recommend for this car?” When “this car” was either a Corolla or a Civic, and could therefore run on fucking salad oil with the hood nailed shut for five years. Turns out that if you tell them right up front you don’t intend to spend money, everything under the hood is “in good shape”–give them an inch, however, and you’ll hear that your engine’s five minutes away from seizing up. If you’re a woman, anyway.
Grrrrrrrrrrr.
