Doormats and feminists

One of the requirements for my undergraduate degree was a course in literary theory. It was upper division, but still a survey course in which we read and discussed a variety of theories ranging from Aristotle’s Poetics to Derrida’s deconstruction and the post-structuralists. Somewhere in the middle we touched upon feminist literary theory, beginning with Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own.

The day the professor introduced the lesson to us, many of the other students in the class (all women) scoffed. How was this relevant, they wanted to know. Feminism is about trying to get votes and better pay. Didn’t we get those things? Aren’t feminists just whiners? What does this have to do with literature? Isn’t feminism dead?

Paul, our professor, responded by telling us that every person in that room was a feminist.

I smiled because I knew he meant to include himself. And I thought that was fabulous. The woman sitting beside me – a buttoned to the throat, evangelical, suburban mother of five – objected. She was most certainly not a feminist and how could he stand up there and say that she was. He didn’t know anything about her outside of the classroom and how could he accuse her of such a thing.

Paul spoke slowly as he responded, “You are in this classroom, on a college campus, getting an education, and learning about something other than domestic arts. You are wearing blue jeans and not a skirt. You are making eye contact with me, a man, and not looking at the ground when you speak to me. You are not at home, with a child at your breast, checking on the roast in the oven and making sure your husband has clean shirts for tomorrow. That,” he said, “makes you a feminist.”

She wasn’t convinced. Even after we read Woolf and Rich and Gilbert and Gubar. The fact that they were able to write anything at all proves that feminism is an outdated notion, she argued. Even after we discussed the canon and how it was almost entirely made up of works authored by men. That's because women didn't write until recently, she argued (missing the entire point made by Woolf and everyone else we read). For every discussion, she was the counterpoint to the feminist view. And she believed feminism to be useless, even harmful.

I’m sure to this day she probably would protest. I imagine her at dinner parties, her arms folded in front of her as she absent-mindedly caresses her string of pearls with one hand and tells the other soccer-moms and wives of her husband’s business associates about that crazy radical professor who accused her of being one of those filthy man-haters.

And it pisses me off.

Big time.

Because she is part of the problem.

A post where I probably piss people off

So the other day at the restaurant I was talking again with the two grill cooks who are afraid of me. I couldn’t tell you what we were talking about, something mindless I’m sure, as they are pretty simple guys, a year or two out of high school each and not much life experience, so other than the restaurant, we have very little in common. But at some point one of them referred to me again as, “You feminist, you!” He was trying to get a rise out of me, as he does several times a week now, but I generally brush him off.

But he wasn’t willing to let me ignore him this day, and asked me something along the lines of why was I a feminist, what was it I wanted when, after all, I had all the same rights as him.

I sighed. Heavily.

His friend chimed in by rewording the same question, then the two of them stood staring at me, waiting for my response. I just shook my head.

Where to start?

First of all, these guys are grill cooks. And I mean no disrespect to grill cooks – or maybe I do – but they aren’t college students working as grill cooks in order to pay tuition, nor are they two guys who love to cook and are using this as a stepping stone toward a life in the culinary arts or toward owning a restaurant. They aren’t well read. They aren’t well-educated. And they don’t even care to be. They’re just two guys, fresh out of mom’s house, looking to work at the highest paying menial job they can find and make enough money for a nice car and beer.

And that’s cool. No judgment there. Well, just a little.

But the thing is, how do I explain a concept such as feminism to these dudes?

So when they ask me – no – tell me I shouldn’t be a feminist because “women have the same rights as us,” I know that they have no concept of feminism other than the ERA, and from previous conversations with each of them, I know that they are fond of regurgitating rhetoric learned from high school gym coaches, local newscasters, and their pastor, but they have never given much thought to anything.

And by thought, I mean critical thought.

Lest my moment of silence in the face of their question be seen as victory on their part, I ask them if they know what the leading cause of death is for pregnant women.

They do not.

I then ask them how many women are victims of sexual crimes.

Again, they don’t know.

I ask them how likely is it a woman will be a victim of violence in her lifetime.

I tell them the odds.

Then I ask them how likely a person is to be a victim of terrorist activity, in this country. I tell them the cliché – that they are more likely to be struck by lightning than die by an act of terrorism. And then, I ask them how much money we are spending to fight terrorism, compared to how much we aren’t to fight violence against women. And then I ask them why we were so willing to sign the documents to rush to war against a small oil-rich country, when we are so unwilling to sign the documents endorsing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). And I tell them ours is the only developed nation to refuse to sign.

They don’t even know what it is – few do – a fact which only reinforces my point, that our culture places more emphasis on reactions to a hyperbolic fear of terrorism than to the very real threats in our daily lives, one of those threats being acts of violence committed against women, because sexual assault and domestic violence are still viewed as "women's issues."

The grill cooks’ response to my rant: “Well, that’s why women shouldn’t go out alone at night."

“Uhm, yeah," I mashed out my cigarette in the ash tray (yes, I was smoking!) and said, "That’s why I’m a feminist.”

Ignoring Ignorance

In the evenings, because I have nothing better to do than earn money to pay the man, after my full-time job, I wait tables at a certain nationally-known family restaurant, one you'd find along most interstates. Last night while on a smoke break, I was chatting it up with a couple of the grill cooks and a manager who were also playing a game of catch with a package of napkins. Why napkins? Why not, I guess. Anyway, the manager admonished one of the grill cooks for throwing "like a girl."

I could have let it go.

I didn't. I let a lot of things go - but that's just one of those comments that really irks me. Partially because it's sexist. But more so because I am a girl, and I can throw harder and farther than most of the men I know. Granted, I hang out with non-athletic, intellectual types, but this just further proves my point - athletic ability is not tied to gender.

I digress.

My objection to the remark and subsequent demonstration of how this girl throws, led to more discussion, my use of the word misogynist (in jest), my necessary explanation of the word misogynist, and half-hearted protest from the twenty-something grill cook who claimed that he "loves women" and could not possibly be sexist, followed by more discussion. And another cigarette (because, well, it was slow in the restaurant last night and I'd already earned my $2.16 an hour making sweet tea for the bastards).


At this point a third grill cook stepped into the break area - I have no idea who was actually making the food at this point, but not my concern - and upon hearing the discussion going on said to the woman-lover that he should keep it down because "isn't someone here a . . . feminist?" The best part is that he whispered the F-word.

No wait, the best part is that the woman-lover, who was standing slightly behind me as I ashed my cigarette, shiftily pointed to me and this caused the whisperer to blush a little. Or maybe it was fear that colored his cheeks.

I am not a doormat. I am ferocious. Hear me roar.

As I said before, I hold my tongue most of the time. Especially at the restaurant, one famous for recent lawsuits involving discriminatory behavior. On one hand this makes me a bad feminist, but on the other hand, I have a fourteen year old to feed and since I don't own a farm, not even one cow, I need the extra cash. So I try my best to ignore the ignorance. I've only discussed the F-word with one or two other servers, but apparently that is enough to have it spread through the place like porn on the internet.

"See that waitress over there? She's one of those damned, hippie feminists! Can you believe it?!"

As if I am a Satanist. Or a pedophile.

I think to them, those choices are less frightening.