EntriesI *was* happy to leave work at 3.30 home time but the traffic was horrendous. It was my worst run home for the week, taking me an hour and a half office carpark to home.
So you can imagine the kind of mood I was in as I drove down Warnbro Sound Avenue very nearly finally home, when a young teenager (maybe 15?) standing at a bus stop, pulled his schmekel out of his pants and waved it in my direction as a passed him. It not being the first time that’s ever happened to me, I basically just gave a shake of my head that I hope indicated “nothing impressive” or “no thanks, need more than that to impress.”
And yeah whatever, as I said, not the first time in my life that’s happened and being a woman, and having been a woman in engineering school, you have to develop a way of dealing with that kind of stuff. Young boys like to shock and they like to make you uncomfortable, they’re looking for a reaction. So the only way to respond is to not respond. Or to be unimpressed or unsurprised. Look, he might have had something to wave about, but really if he needed to pull it out and show me unasked, well … that’s probably *all* he has to work with, if you know what I mean.
The funny thing is, I had been thinking about a post I wanted to make whilst driving home before that. It was going to be titled, “White Male Privilege”, and was going to tell this story:
All week, Triple J have been playing soundbytes from a Hack episode that must have discussed two sides of whether men are cool with dating ambitious, intelligent women. And one of the grabs is a guy who says of the equal opportunity initiatives in the workplace: “I think equality says more about the lack of skills inabilities in women in the workplace.” It wasn’t til this morning that I actually listened to it properly and got a really good laugh on my commute in to work.
Aside from the fact that he inadvertently, and through his own clumsy English, basically argued the feminist line, I’m blown away by the white male privilege of this guy who genuinely believes that he would be better at my job than I would be, simply because he was born with a penis. Which he also beautifully demonstrates to be false, given both my day job and my small business both heavily rely on a fluency and in depth understanding of the English language. And more importantly, I did not graduate at the bottom of my class in Engineering. And those I graduated ahead of where both men and women.
So, you could say that both my start and end of the day were bookended with penises being thrust in my face. The second was of course, mostly harmless. But still, I was forced to look at some guys genitals in the middle of my day. And … you know. Why? Why should I have to, just because I’m female? Why should I not be able to choose when my day becomes sexual and be able to choose when it is not.
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pffft! to silly men and their gratuitous penis-waving.
schmekel is an excellent word – thank you for introducing me to it.
A male physics teacher told me (about a decade ago) that it’s a scientific fact that men’s brains are suited to learning physics and women’s aren’t. I tried to explain to him that according to some scientists, what is considered to be the “male” brain has features that are present in approx 80% of men and 25% of women, and “female” brain characteristics are found in approx 75% of women and 20% of men, so his generalisation is most likely discriminating against *all* female physics students, as they’re only likely to have gone into undergraduate physics if they really have an affintity for it, given how little encouragement they’re given. And whatever studies you look at, whatever stance you choose to take, is going to be influenced by your culture, the way you’ve been socialised. objective scientific fact rarely is objective.
(and I think the whole idea of male & female brain characteristics is being questioned by neuroscientists and behavioural psychologists now)
and literal penis-waving in public is just so puerile. good definition of a dick-head, really. not to mention discourteous, and illegal.
And that kid was most certainly underaged, which adds a whole other dimension to it.
Those studies about gender and brain function are so slanted and full of confirmation bias – they’ve been well and truly debunked in recent years.
I don’t know what to say. Other than Schmekel sounds very …disarming, like something a grandma would say to a naughty child ie Stop playing with your schmekel.
Appropriate in the circumstances.
It is disarming isn’t it! Nothing worse than a comic name for something someone is trying to present as *very powerful*.
Hehehehe
“Zabra” (Leb Arabic only) is not particularly fear-inspiring, either. Popular as a made-up-name in fantasy novels, it amused me greatly in my early teens to read such lines as “Zabra broke out in a cold sweat” or “Zabra turned to his diminutive companions.”
Let this be a lesson in researching fantasy names before you use them
Zabra seems a little but more fear-inspiring though!
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