(Title courtesy of Ani.)
**Warning: This post will most likely contain many, many curses.**
Wow. That was a collosal waste of time and increase in blood pressure. Fuck this place, anyway. It's impossible to even get folks here to agree that sexism might ben an itty-bitty problem, much less talk about actual solutions or real ways to move forward. We sat there for an hour and people talked about sensitivity, they talked about what life is like in the "real world," they talked about how it hurts "learning moments" and conversation to use -isms. They talked about victimization and who has the responsibility to speak up. One woman (this has to be my favorite part) actually made some obviously very well thought-out claims about how men and women just think and communicate differently, and it's nobody's fault, we just need to learn to understand each other's styles.
They talked about just about everything except for the real problem. And I can't say I helped things much. I'm not comfortable here, I'm not going to get comfortable here, and honestly I find it really difficult to muster up much caring at all about what an old-boy's-club hellhole this place has really turned out to be. I'm just waiting, putting in my time, getting through my recs, and then I will get the hell out of here. Out into that mythical "real world" where I am assured things will be so much worse.
The next person who trys to talk to me about the real world as if I've never been a part of it is going to get a big smack in the face. I'm not even kidding. Could you be any more fucking condescending? I don't need you to tell me about the real world, Mr. Dean--let me tell you about my real world. In my real world, I have to put serious thought into what I wear to school or work every day, lest I be misjudged in my intentions due to my clothes. In my real world, I get to sit through disparagements of my gender, subtle and overt, multiple times a day. Every day. In my real world I can't walk outside alone at night, I drive with my doors locked, and I regularly have nightmares about being raped. To be more school-centered, my real world includes an impossible class schedule juggle to try to get classes with female professors. It includes having to find classes outside of my program that focus on gender because there are so few of them here. And above all, today, my real world is comprised of sitting fairly still, with a near smile, for over an hour while people surrounding me belittled what has been the only serious attempt I have seen here to deal with sexism. My real world sucks at the moment, thanks.