This week I decided to conduct a little social experiment. I kept track of all the sexist things people said or did to me in 24 hours, hopefully to shed some light on the many ways people either directly or indirectly treat women differently due to their gender. To make this as accurate as possible, I stuck to my normal routine and included the time and locations of each event. I was a little worried this day might be slow and that I wouldn't have much to write about, but the rampant sexists in the world did not fail me.
Thursday, July 21
8:00 a.m. Work day started
Over summer I have been working as an Administrative Assistant in an office. I primarily work as a substitute teacher in Las Vegas while I work on completing my student teaching with UNLV, so this is just a part-time gig. The tidbits from my work day happened in my office, which is likely similar to every other office in the country.
11:32 a.m. I received a phone call from a tech company. The exchange went as follows:
"Thank you for calling (insert company name). This is Tanner, how may I help you?"
"Hi, I was hoping to speak with the person in charge of IT in your office."
"Perfect, I can help you with that."
"Thanks, but I want to discuss this with the person in charge of your IT stuff. I don't want to have to explain myself to him again after explaining it all to you."
"I'm the person in charge of IT in our office, so you can just go ahead and explain it to me."
*awkward silence*
Needless to say, his sales pitch had a rough start.
3:40 p.m. Employees talking and walking by my desk:
"Can you believe she's a teacher? I can't believe she's a teacher. When I was in school, I never had teachers that looked like that."
*uncomfortable laugh from me* "Yeah, people always tell me they don't believe it."
"What do you wear when you teach? How do you wear your hair?"
A little piece of my soul dies each time I have an exchange like this one, which happens frequently. Sorry to force you all to come to this shocking revelation, but my appearance does not in any way, shape or form affect my ability to teach. I promise you, if I did not know how to dress appropriately, I wouldn't have landed the job.
7:30 p.m. After leaving work at 5, I went home to eat dinner and change. I met a friend at a local place called Stoney's Rockin Country. It's an off-of-the-strip country music dance hall and bar. Thursday night is Ladies' Night. We decided to get there relatively early to try and learn some of the dances.
8:10 p.m. The rest of our group arrived. Two of the girls decided to come wearing fake engagement rings in an effort to ward off the men who would undoubtedly try to approach them. I understand the strategy, but it frustrates me endlessly that women feel they need to pretend they're married to convince people to leave them alone. To make matters worse, it doesn't always work. I was once out with a friend who told a man who was trying to make moves on her that she was happily married. He simply replied, "That's cute."
8:40 p.m. (ish) I decided to go to the bar to get myself a drink. While waiting at the bar, a man approached me and the conversation went as follows:
"Why aren't you dancing?"
"I don't really know many of the dances. I don't come here very often."
"I can teach you some. Come dance with me."
"Thank you, but that's okay. I'm going to just stay with my friends."
"Why not? Do you have a boyfriend or something?"
This is one of my least favorite questions of all time. I'll try to give men the benefit of the doubt and say they don't realize what they're asking, but if you take anything away from this post, let it be this: What I choose to do with my body is my decision. By asking if I have a boyfriend, you are implying the only logical reason I could have to deny you is because my body "belongs" to another man. Newsflash, world: the only person my body belongs to is me.
Basically the rest of the night As I sat at the table with our group of women, men repeatedly did what I like to refer to as "sharking." It's this terribly uncomfortable thing where they slowly circle around a group of women and wait for an opening to move in. Like sharks circling their prey, they stare at the group and walk around and around until they sustain long enough eye contact to try and talk. The particularly ballsy ones wait until you turn your back long enough and then try to pull you away to dance. This isn't cute, it's creepy.
By the time 9:30 rolled around, my friend and I were tired, hungry, and decided to leave. We're basically grandmas, so we don't go out often.
Overall, it was a pretty uneventful day. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, which is exactly my point. Believe me, I've had some horrendous things said to me, as I'm sure every other woman has. Comments and actions like the ones from this normal Thursday, however, are so commonplace, we often ignore them. Men don't take the time to think about what they're saying or doing, and women are so accustomed to it they barely even notice.
I don't want to live in a world where I decide I need to cut my hair or wear smaller heels or buy shirts with higher necklines so people will take me seriously. I don't want to live in a world where the man whistling out of his car window doesn't surprise me. I don't want to live in a world where I'm used to laughing off people's inappropriate comments about my body. I don't want to have to ask myself, "Will my pepper spray fit in this purse?" before I leave the house. I want to live in a world where I expect to always be treated with respect, and am not shocked when someone does. Think before you speak or act, and hopefully ordinary Thursdays won't always look like this one.
