soooooo condescending

[Ralitsa]

one thing that really gets under my skin is how condescending some guys are toward women. I guess I didn't always take it too seriously, maybe I chose not to notice it or I don't know.

So Monday I was driving my truck and RV camper from AZ up to MT and I pick up a hitch hiker, pretty standard for me. Now I'm the one with the truck, the job, the money, and no outstanding arrest warrants, and he's speaking to me like I'm some teenage girl. Which get's me thinking, why does anyone think it's ok to speak to teenage girls like this anyway?

I'm pretty accustomed to people thinking that I'm gay if I'm wearing a dress, a common if inexcusable mistake and I don't take offense to that. But this guy couldn't figure out if he thought I was gay, or a woman, or a girl, or maybe an idiot. So apparently, if I put on a dress my IQ drops by 50 points and I become incapable of making my own decisions.

My good friend has complained many times that some coworkers treat her like she doesn't have a brain, which I never entirely believed because she is so obvioulsy well qualifed that I don't know how it could happen. I suppose I didn't always appreciate how pervasive and deep seated are those attitudes.

[Gillian]

Sounds like you got a glimpse into the world of women whether you wanted it or not. My wife works for a woman who owns a male dominated business, and some of the stories she comes home with are difficult to believe at times. Now you know where the expression "male chauvinistic pig" comes from.

[Anthony Simon]

I'm the one with the truck, the job, the money, and no outstanding arrest warrants, and he's speaking to me like I'm some teenage girl. Which get's me thinking, why does anyone think it's ok to speak to teenage girls like this anyway?

I think it probably relates to women as sex objects and teeage girls as the ultimate in that. Like the more you make someone an object, the less thewy become individualised people with a brain, thoughts, character etc.

So this relates to what feminists are on about with girly mags, Miss World contests, soft porn in the tabloids. All that "fun, harmless" stuff underpins this sort of thinking and validates it.

On the other hand, one might say "If only". Like "If only I could get into a dress and turn into a teenage girl". That one is definitely one from CD fantasy land. It's hard to work out why he's done it with you. Like he's treating you not just as stupid, but girly and stupid.

Your photos don't make you look like a girl (sorry, but true) and nobody with a brain is going to find you stupid. So, in a sense, he's damning his own judgement by his approach.

Which, in his terms, would make him like a teenage girl (I guess) or archetypal blonde.

[April Rose]

First of all, Ralitsa, let me congratulate you on the fact that you pick up hitch hikers. Regardless of our resources we are all citizens, and sometimes our contribution is just an encounter between two souls on the road. I've been a taxi driver, and a hitchhiker, and a motorcyclist, broken down, pre cell phone, in the middle of god awful nowhere. I've learned that you might not always enjoy the circumstances in which you meet your fellow humans, but most of the time you're better off for having met them.

With this in mind , and assuming you were in a dress when you picked him up, I'm curious as to what your response was to this particular sexist idiot, and whether any of it seemed to register?

[Ralitsa]

he's damning his own judgement by his approach

that is absolutely true Anthony, but not only in my case but also the case of many women who are treated the same. So I guess what I really mean by what I said, is that foolish, ignorant, and chauvinistic people annoy me.
I did get an insight into what women deal with daily. I'm not so much surprised that it happens, I have always known that but always had the opinion the guys like that are just moronic and nobody would ever take them seriously. Now I feel it, even though I cannot take it seriously I understand how offensive and insulting it is. Oddly, I'm glad about that. The experience was not pleasant but it explains a lot and I'm better off knowing it.
Well I pick up hitch-hikers every opportunity I have, to me it's just a fundamental human decency. I've been on the other side of the white line often enough and know how it feels. But the real reason that I do it is because I'm intensely curious and always want to know something about everyone. Naturally I was wearing a dress at the time, I almost always do. Maybe I didn't explain it well, he was trying to be understanding and accommodating, but it only more clearly illustrated the bigotry. So it illuminated the fundamental preconceptions that are endemic in our culture. I was very surprised though at how offended I felt by the random comments from a person that was not significant to me.