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another stupid, white, male co-worker
Aug. 20th, 2010 09:59 amDear co-worker,
It is not at all funny to say we should put a guy in a dress to pass him off as a woman because we don't have enough female players to play in the mixed soccer competition. Not. At. All. Funny.
You know why? Apart from the fact that 'putting a man in a dress' does not make him a woman, and that the idea that wearing a skirt defines gender is ridiculous in both an office where women were trousers all the time and in a sporting competition where not a single woman has ever worn a skirt on the field, and that you persistently make this 'joke' every time we're down on female players and seem to think it hilarious every time, it is frankly insulting to have my femaleness boiled down to what I wear, as though my body or history or the way I was brought up or my body chemistry has nothing to do with being female.
As though anyone can be a female just by not 'doing man-things'. (ie. wearing a dress.) As though being female is the refuse-pile of gender binary thought. (I'm not even going to address the problematics of gender binary with someone like you. You're not educated even halfway enough to attempt that conversation.)
That is what your comment boils down to - a particularly nasty breed of sexism that shoves anyone who doesn't adopt the behaviour or dress of what you think of as 'manly' into the category of 'a woman'.
I've been polite before. I slapped you back today with hints as to why it was aggravating. Make the 'joke' again, and I will have to explain with painstaking detail why this shits me and just how it is offensive.
You have a 12 year old daughter whom you love. For her sake, at least, think about the world you're helping shape and which she's growing up in and what your stupid suggestion really means when you peel off the layers of alleged 'humour'.
It is not at all funny to say we should put a guy in a dress to pass him off as a woman because we don't have enough female players to play in the mixed soccer competition. Not. At. All. Funny.
You know why? Apart from the fact that 'putting a man in a dress' does not make him a woman, and that the idea that wearing a skirt defines gender is ridiculous in both an office where women were trousers all the time and in a sporting competition where not a single woman has ever worn a skirt on the field, and that you persistently make this 'joke' every time we're down on female players and seem to think it hilarious every time, it is frankly insulting to have my femaleness boiled down to what I wear, as though my body or history or the way I was brought up or my body chemistry has nothing to do with being female.
As though anyone can be a female just by not 'doing man-things'. (ie. wearing a dress.) As though being female is the refuse-pile of gender binary thought. (I'm not even going to address the problematics of gender binary with someone like you. You're not educated even halfway enough to attempt that conversation.)
That is what your comment boils down to - a particularly nasty breed of sexism that shoves anyone who doesn't adopt the behaviour or dress of what you think of as 'manly' into the category of 'a woman'.
I've been polite before. I slapped you back today with hints as to why it was aggravating. Make the 'joke' again, and I will have to explain with painstaking detail why this shits me and just how it is offensive.
You have a 12 year old daughter whom you love. For her sake, at least, think about the world you're helping shape and which she's growing up in and what your stupid suggestion really means when you peel off the layers of alleged 'humour'.
