One of the Guys
by Asia
I felt the sting of being the (female) minority for the first time today, when someone uttered the sexist remark, “he runs like a girl.” My emotional response shocked me more than the comment. I sensed a small pause among the other gentlemen at the table before any amusement registered on their faces, but it didn’t change the fact that it made me feel belittled and irrelevant. My eyes burned a little. A positive, upbeat mood, fostered by a previous meeting about making an impact by volunteering was suddenly shattered by the smallest joke.
I just wanted to get out of there. I got up from the table, pretending to grab another cookie, scouting for a predominately female table to move to. Having come from a meeting that was curiously dominated by women, I thought I would feel better returning to such an environment. There were one or two such tables, but they were full (and boisterous), so I sat back down and cloaked myself in introversion, keeping up appearances that I was listening or part of the conversation with the occasional glance, smirk, or nod. What did I care anyway? I’m not a girl anymore after all. Sure, a grown man running like a little lass would be pretty funny… however it is a little girl runs anyway. But then why not say he runs like a little kid? Is that ageist?1
Only now the the witty retorts come to me. I could have said, “Oh, so he runs like her?” a fellow employee and woman who is passionate about running and sits just a few seats behind me. I can just imagine the silence that might have been, or how they might have kept talking over me instead. Still, I wonder, how could I have enlightened him about the hurt his small words might cause? How could I make this a teachable moment instead of a venomous attack on his “manhood?” How could I make my point without it being attributed to my gender (or race for that matter)? Did it make any sense to spoil the mood to assert my presence, especially when I had joined them so late into the conversation? Instead, I chose silence.
I often feel an immense pressure to act as “one of the guys.” Most of the time, it makes me feel included and even empowered. I can just have fun, and for the most part, be myself. I don’t need to compete for their attention because I am one of them.2 The inevitable, but typically mild sexist humor whizzes right over my head. Heck, sometimes I join in. Besides, it’s not my job to police humanity, is it?
Yet every once in a while, it makes me feel terrible. How much of this misogynistic behavior (mild or otherwise) have I internalized and accepted? It’s like I’m compromising that other side of me, my femininity, a side that is barely dominant in my personality, but is still important. I just wish I could have said something, anything, to help remind them that ours is a workplace that should promote diversity and conclusion, and should thusly be a place where exclusive language is avoided. Some might argue that my passiveness is feminine, but on the other hand, any aggression I might show to express a point, to assert myself, is either mannish (and therefore inappropriate) or negatively feminine, that is, bitchy.3
In other words, damned if you do, damned if you don’t. But I guess it’s better to always do anyway. The guys that will try to understand or do and stand up for you, those are your true friends. Unless of course, you don’t think guys and gals can be friends. That, however, is altogether a different story…