By Kassi Klower
A recent shopping endeavor to purchase a video game left an extremely sour taste in my mouth.
It started perfectly normal — my boyfriend and I entered the store to buy two copies of a game so we could play together online. My boyfriend bought his game first with little fuss, making casual conversation with the sales guy who was processing the purchase. Then, I stepped up to the counter.
As the salesman handed my credit card back to me, he smiled and said, “Here you go, gorgeous.”
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I felt a wave of anger wash over me and wrapped up the transaction less enthusiastically than I had been beforehand. The alarm which rings in my head each time someone says or does something sexist around me started to go off, and I left the store feeling frustrated.
He didn’t say anything dramatically sexist; rather, his patronizing microaggression was something many other women would blink an eye at. But, regardless, his words stuck in me like an annoying thorn in my side as I angrily recounted the story to my awaiting partner once I got outside the store.
“So, did you call him out on it?” my boyfriend asked after I’d finished.
And there was the clincher. I hadn’t said or done a thing beyond a forced smile, as I grabbed my purchase and made a beeline for the door. I mean, if I called out every instance of casual sexism I was exposed to on a daily basis, I’d lose my voice.
I explained to my boyfriend it would be like fighting an impossible battle, because as much as the passionate feminist inside me wishes things were different, some forms of sexism are so inherently ingrained into the fabric of society, there’s almost no point in trying to change them. Most people don’t even want to acknowledge what they’re doing or saying is problematic and sexist. And how, honestly, some part of me always thinks, ‘maybe I am being too sensitive, making something out of nothing and blowing things out of proportion.’
But even as the words escaped my mouth, they felt grimy.
Because explaining away my passivity just made me part of the problem. And there is a bigger, much more insidious consequence of continuing to be silent or bashfully laughing off casually sexist remarks. Ignoring the little things contributes to the greater issue of women not feeling safe or comfortable enough to confront men in sexually coercive situations. It’s why we’ve bred a culture of shame around speaking up about sexual assault and abusive relationships, and why the #metoo movement is getting bigger with each passing day.
And ultimately, I believe in feminism because I want things to change. I want women to be equal to men in all facets of life. And, goddamn it, I want to buy a bloody video game without having my appearance be bought into the equation. It’s not too much to ask.
And so I vowed to stop ignoring sexist behavior — both the obvious and the not-so-obvious kind — for one whole week. And there were plenty of opportunities for me to stand on my figurative soapbox…
Day one: a sexist Uber driver
The first instance of casual — maybe even outright — sexism I was exposed to in my experiment week was during a short Uber drive one particularly lazy afternoon after work when I couldn’t be bothered to walk the few blocks from the train station to my car. The driver was making general chit-chat and all was going smoothly until I mentioned I had a long drive ahead of me once he dropped me off. He asked what kind of car I drove and I said, “Toyota”, which I thought was a perfectly fine answer to give a complete stranger, unaware he was apparently after the year, make, and model of my personal vehicle.
“Typical of a woman to not know all the details of her car,” he laughed.
I could tell he thought he’d just made an absolute zinger of a joke, as he grinned at me, waiting for me to giggle along with his comedic routine. And normally, I’d probably just awkwardly laugh him off to move the conversation along. And even though I was terrified of the confrontation, I decided to stick to my pact to call him out on it; given we were only a block away from my car, so I could bail from the Uber if I got too panicked.
“The whole ‘women driver’ stereotype is actually pretty sexist, you know?” I said.
His smile disappeared pretty quickly, as he attempted to smooth things over by assuring me he was “only joking”. We arrived at my destination and I got out of the Uber and into my Toyota. I don’t know if my simple comeback really made a difference, but I hope it freaked him out just enough that he avoided making patronizing comments about women and cars for at least a little while.
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Day two: girls are gamers, too
Apparently, I made quite a mistake by having my first name in my online gaming profile, because it alerts anyone I play with that I am, in fact, a female. Some of my guy friends have even insinuated the extra attention I get online is my fault because I should have known better than to give away the fact I’m a woman.
They don’t seem to realize the greater issue is being a women means I automatically attract negative attention. Aside from the influx of sleazy ‘friend requests’ I receive each time I’m online, and the unsolicited sexual messages junking up my inbox, I’m also verbally abused and accosted, and in one instance, have even been stalked in a game by a persistent guy who followed me everywhere I went for two hours.
In my experiment week, I wrote back to one of the random guys who
Keywords: sexism
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