SeekingSolace[dot]Net

This is reposted from my account on ThisIsBy.Us. If you like it, please register for an account, and vote for my post/comment on it. My username is SlytherinPrefect, you can just search for me on the site, and it’s my most recent post. Thanks.

Let me preface my story with this:

I work at school, as a student worker for the IT department of the College of Arts and Sciences. Essentially, when I’m not in class, I’m at work. I live and breathe my campus (while having nothing to do with the school spirit/homecoming attitude). I am 25 years old. This is my 7th year of college. It is also my third college and my fourth and fifth majors. When I graduate in 2009 at the ripe old age of 27, I will have a double major, a double minor, a bachelor of science degree, a teaching certification, and a hell of a strong desire to move out of the Midwest forever.

On with the story.

I was walking from my office down the hall to my boss’s office with my empty coffee mug, about to fill it up with hot water for my raspberry cocoa. I went towards the door, past some guys who were standing around waiting for a class to start. It seemed they were having a discussion about women, and it seemed that the discussion was funny, because they were laughing as I approached. As I passed, one of them said, “If you meet a woman who’s 25 and she DOESN’T have a kid, she’s got a whole different set of issues. You don’t even know what you’re getting, there.” And all three of them laughed again.

If I had punched him in the face with my right hand (which is my dominant hand), he would not have gotten a faceful of fist, but a healthy dose of coffee mug to the eyeball. I breathed in, deeply, breathed out, and kept walking. I entered my boss’s office, got the hot water, and stirred my cocoa. I left his office and walked past the three guys, who were laughing at something else. I heard no other conversation at this point.

I cannot believe that someone can honestly consider a woman who is 25 and childless to be defective somehow. Men talk about the baggage of single mothers (which is a shame, as well), but apparently, if we wait too long (25?!?!) to have children, there’s something wrong with us as well. And hearing that comment in passing, I felt inadequate and judged. What must that guy’s girlfriend or wife feel like, if he has one or has ever had one?

We are so judgmental as people. Others are always wrong, and we are always right. The way we are is normal, and the way we are not is weird. Being someone who was considered an outsider in school because I was smart and didn’t follow trends, I know what “weird” feels like. “Weird” feels like Hans just told you the class was going to elect you president, and you fall for it because you are that desperate for someone to like you. “Weird” feels like not raising your hand in class, even though you know the answer, because the kid behind you makes fun of you when you do. “Weird” feels like taking a guy from another school to your Turnabout only to watch him spend the whole night hitting on all the prettier girls in the entire school. “Weird,” up until today, has never felt like having both breasts and a brain was wrong.

I’ve been a feminist for a little while now. I’m new to the movement and still working out what I agree with and what I don’t agree with. One of my teachers is a hardcore feminist from the start of the movement and she has made her opinions known many times. Our department did a car smash to raise money, and this teacher told our student organization that a car smash was “such a male thing to do,” and that women would “get into it because all women want to be like men!” I was aghast. Now the feminist is telling me how I should or should not be a woman. She also seems to think that I’m a mindless zombie doing whatever society tells me is right without thinking about it first. Nevermind the fact that I wrote a non-traditional theatre piece about women’s self-hatred at the beginning of the year and staged it in a bathroom, and got 70 people (half men) to come to the show and be exposed to women’s issues. The hypocrisy was like a knife in the back.

I mentioned my piece about women’s self-hatred, and I do have an understanding of women’s issues and how we very frequently feel as though we are required to be one way or another. But until I heard that comment today, I have never been slapped in the face with my gender. I have been exceedingly lucky to have male friends who are sensitive and respectful. I have only dated men who have been respectful to women. Maybe that comes with the territory of being nerds. We’ve been on the abuse end of the stick, so we don’t abuse others. One of my exes used to say that Star Trek was the great equalizer. To paraphrase him, “Have you ever seen a truly hardcore Star Trek fan who’s a racist? Not likely, because the show is all about the prime directive…no interference with other civilizations.” And according to Wikipedia, “the Prime Directive forbids any involvement with a civilization without the expressed consent or invitation of the lawful leaders of that society, and absolutely forbids any involvement whatsoever in the internal politics of a civilization.” [1]

Point is, we nerds get it. We know what oppression means on certain levels. But being made to feel defective because I am not someone’s definition of the perfect woman is shameful. No, I don’t have to take it personally (and I didn’t punch the guy, so I couldn’t have taken it that personally), but someone eventually will. And making a woman feel as though she’s inferior because she hasn’t fulfilled her “duties” as a woman in our society may be the final straw that breaks that woman’s spirit.