I never know when I might next get knocked off-kilter with something that puts me in the position, once again, of choosing between my dignity and the serenity of our relationship.
Swallow shit, or ruin the entire afternoon?
[...]
This, then, is the terrible bargain we have regretfully struck: Men are allowed the easy comfort of their unexamined privilege, but my regard will always be shot through with a steely, anxious bolt of caution.
In particular, I was reminded of my father. Everyone, I think, has someone in their life resposible for sending them irritating forwarded email, and Daddy Pimms is mine. He either doesn't think (or doesn't care, I go back and forth on this) "Hmm... perhaps my daughter, being a woman, will be less than amused by this email about the hopeless folly of womankind," and sends me something like this:
From: daddypimms@thisisnotreal.com
Subject: Thought you'd like this...
To: kittypimms@girlishwhimsy.com
With the high rate of attacks on women in secluded parking lots, especially during evening hours, the Minneapolis City Council has established a 'Women Only' parking lot at the Mall of America Even the parking lot attendants are exclusively female so that a comfortable and safe environment is created for patrons.
Below is the first picture available of this world-first women-only parking lot in Minnesota ..
You know what's even more hilarious than the fact that women can't drive? The idea of women being sexually assaulted in parking lots!
I mean, you'd have to be a total humourless scold to find the framing of this joke really creepy, right? You have to totally miss the point, which is about driving and how women suck at it because they're probably putting on make-up or like, baking cookies in the glovebox. I mean, why would a man who has a daughter who often parks in parking lots at night (not to mention a wife who is also wont to do that) be at all turned off by that first paragraph?
And then there was this:
From: daddypimms@thisisnotreal.com
Subject: IT help...
To: kittypimms@girlishwhimsy.com
I think of you as my IT expert. [nonsensical question about his computer edited out]
Now, this I might actually find kind of funny, if he was saying something along the lines of "This is ironic, because I use you as my IT expert, a job many think women are unable to perform." But in fact, he was attempting to pay me a compliment by pointing me out as exceptional*. Because this image is a pretty accurate representation of a certain type of woman, but I should be able to laugh at them because I am not that type (i.e. not skinny, blonde, straight). In fact, I should want to laugh at them. He was giving me a golden opportunity to mock women who are prettier than me, and isn't that a favorite pastime of the ladies? When they aren't shopping for shoes and nagging their husbands?
And finally:
From: daddypimms@thisisnotreal.com
Subject: This is worrying
To: kittypimms@girlishwhimsy.com
Beer contains female hormones
Last month, Wits University and RAU scientists released the results of a
Recent analysis that revealed the presence of female hormones in beer.
Men should take a concerned look at their beer consumption.
The theory is that beer contains female hormones (hops contain
Phytoestrogens) and that by drinking enough beer, men turn into women .
To test the theory, 100 men drank 8 pints of beer each within a 1 hour
Period.
It was then observed that 100% of the test subjects :
1) Argued over nothing.
2) Refused to apologize when obviously wrong.
3) Gained weight.
4) Talked excessively without making sense.
5) Became overly emotional
6) Couldn't drive.
7) Failed to think rationally.
8) Had to sit down while urinating.
No further testing was considered necessary.
Send this to the men you know to warn them about drinking too much beer!
And so:
From: kittypimms@girlishwhimsy.com
Subject: Re: This is worrying
To: daddypimms@thisisnotreal.com
why in the world would a woman find that amusing?
you know, mom always tells me to just delete your email forwards without reading them, and I won't do it because it seems so incredibly rude.
and while it baffles me how anyone who has the slightest respect for the women in his life could be amused by this email, I can accept that it's the sort of thing guys enjoy amongst themselves without really thinking about it.
however it doesn't seem to me to require more than a millisecond of contemplation to realize that whatever you and your buddies might think it probably won't be entertaining to women, so sending it to me is at best an example of how little thought goes into your emails and a worst a deliberate attempting to be insulting (especially when i've already mentioned several times that i don't find that kind of humor cute).
either way, i'm left to ask myself why i don't just listen to my mother and delete your emails without reading them.
And so, he refused to email me for a week. Daddy Pimms is perhaps the world's most powerful sulker. Finally, as I always do, I apologized, because I would rather have a dad who talks to me than a dad who doesn't.
To quote Shakesville again:
There are the jokes about women, about wives, about mothers, about raising daughters, about female bosses. They are told in my presence by men who are meant to care about me, just to get a rise out of me, as though I am meant to find funny a reminder of my second-class status. I am meant to ignore that this is a bullying tactic, that the men telling these jokes derive their amusement specifically from knowing they upset me, piss me off, hurt me. [...] I am used as a prop in an ongoing game of patriarchal posturing, and then I am meant to believe it is true when some of the men who enjoy this sport, in which I am their pawn, tell me, "I love you."
*Ugh, how I hate exceptionalism "compliments." It's okay that I wear lots of dresses and don't know about sports, because I'm not "girly" to the point of being annoying. I've been praised many times for not "seeming" gay. I'm not one of "those" fat people (the kind that do nothing but eat donuts all day, presumably) so it's cool to engage in rampant fat-hating right in front of me.
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