Thanks for setting us back 50 years! #2

Just some stuff that's been on my mind lately - another back up blog

This time last year I was helping build an exhibit at the North Carolina State Fair for Bill Brown. This guy Andy (not Hayworth) was my boss, in charge of the building and everything. He’s a nice guy but within the first day or two it became very clear to me that he was a sexist. I don’t think he knew it or did it intentionally, and it’s not like he was a pig, there were just these little things. Like this guy, who is a large guy, a little bit taller than me and a lot . . . rounder than me, looks at me on the first day and says that he doesn’t think I should be the one to shimmy underneath the platforms and toenail them together.

“Why not?” I asked, and he – red faced – said “how do I put this delicately, I think that your bosom might get in the way”. This coming from a man with terrible knees and back whose belly protrudes much farther than my “bosom”. After listening to him complain for ten minutes I asked to please, please, be the one to shimmy under the platforms and I did just fine. Well, I got stumped for a moment because the cordless drill was on reverse and he swore to me that this particular screw gun did not have a reverse button, but that was so not my fault. Later he started giggling at me after I muttered “righty tight-y, lefty loose-y” under my breath. Once again I asked him Why, and his response was that men never used that saying, it was just and instinctual thing. Uh-huh. I have since overheard things that have proven this theory untrue. In fact I hadn’t thought about any of this until just now when I saw a man on TV use the saying and got suddenly angry all over again.

Once again I was watching TV today and saw a washing machine commercial and a better homes and gardens commercial that once again pushed us back 50 years.
Last summer at my internship my boss, Gabe, asked me on one of my first days if I would make a sign for him. I said “sure, but I have terrible handwriting” Deborah, his boss, laughed and said that was everyone in the office, and Gabe had this adorable moment where he went “that was really wrong of me. I guess I shouldn’t assume you have pretty handwriting just because you’re a girl” and I was just blown away. Sexism for handwriting - it can get us in the smallest ways.

I don’t know what got a hold of me that I wanted to write about this all of a sudden, but I all of the sudden felt the need to get this out. I’m used to men not thinking I can pick things up, and being surprised because I am, in fact, freakishly strong. But I also went to an all women’s college where no one would have dared question my skills with a screw gun and no one was surprised that I have the handwriting of a serial killer.

I have no ending for this blog.