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Things Women Are Expected to Do at Work But Shouldn't

Here's a list of infuriating things women are expected to do courtesy of this goddamn white supremacist patriarchy.

Women are supposed to have perfect make up at the office, impeccable job wear, work full time, and stay at home to have children. If men had to do the things women are expected to do, this whole country would be turned upside down! Of course, thanks to toxic masculinity, men already are the ones turning this country upside down. Here are the things women have to do at work while doing all the things they have to do. 

Pay for Tampons and Pads

Among the many things women are expected to do is pay for their own pads or tampons. Meanwhile, if dudes had periods there would be tampons on sale everywhere and they'd get them for free at work. Dudes also wouldn't have to use euphemisms like, "feminine hygiene products." They'd talk about bleeding so freely that Eve Ensler would blush.

Not Take Credit

Living in a white supremacist patriarchy means that the degree to which you enjoy the benefit of the doubt is based upon the degree to which you resemble white men. That means if you're a woman who's made a mistake, you will be treated as if your misstep is wholly your own even though such an assessment is reductive. But if you're a woman who takes credit for her accomplishments, you're seen as conceited or people will minimize your contribution. So one of the things you're expected to do as a woman is be okay with getting blamed for things outside your control and not getting credit for what you worked hard for.

Not Be Funny

Being funny is not one of the things women are expected to do. In fact, women aren't expected to joke at all. If women are sarcastic in the same way men are given free reign to be they're thought of as mean. Meanwhile, there are no editorials about how men aren't funny even though men are responsible for jokes so unfunny they have to remind you to laugh. I didn't forget to laugh; you forgot to be funny!

Put Up with Harassment

If a man endured unwanted sexual advances no one would even dare to ask him what he was wearing as if it was somehow his fault. Such a question would earn as much public scorn as a woman who dare allege she was harassed by a man. 

It's unacceptable that one of the things women have to endure at work is resistance at every step of the way toward restorative or retributive justice in the wake of sexual misconduct. In fact, no way are women allowed to even engage in fantasies of retributive justice against their abusers without someone questioning if it's taking it too far for a man's career to be ruined if he's guilty of misconduct.

Hey, maybe an entire society that exists to maintain a white supremacist patriarchy is taking it too far!  Euch, I am so angry! I am going to go eat a sandwich made out of ground up man meat. 

Sacrifice Their Careers

If a woman wants to have a child, she's expected to compromise her career aspirations to do it. No father has their parenting skills questioned if he pursues more education, works a full time job, or seeks greater workplace responsibility. Being a mommy is just one of the many things women are expected to do. Meanwhile, no one's coming up to Elon Mask and saying, "Hey, are you a daddy? You gonna be a daddy? You should stay at home if you wanna be a good daddy!"

Do Office Housework

If no one's had their morning joe at the meeting, then you best believe all eyes are going to be on the women in the room to make the coffee. That's because one of the ridiculous things women are expected to do, no matter their rank, is play the part of the office mom. Hey, how about I play the part of COO because I have an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and did my undergrad at Duke where I also played division 1 field hockey. DON'T MAKE ME CROSS CHECK YOU INTO ANNIHILATION!

Get Paid Less

Remember: we live in a white supremacist patriarchy. This translates into a wage disparity based on your dissimilarity from white men i.e. "the wage gap." Compared to those precious white men, white women make 22% less on the dollar, Hispanic women make 54%, black women make 64%, and Native American women make 65%. What a load of shit that women are expected to put up with this! Oh, is it offensive to use the phrase, "load of shit?" Is it more offensive than the wage gap?! EAT MY LOAD OF SHIT! 

An intersectional analyses is necessary in this arena because an unadorned economic agent is just assumed to be white in the same way what it means to be androgynous is to have male features. God damn this white supremacist patriarchy! Euch, appealing to God is also appealing to a figure most often depicted as a white man. I need another sandwich made out of ground up man meat!

Pet Names

One of the things women are expected to do is put up with is every dumb pet name male co-workers want to throw their way. Sure, sometimes a man will be called a, "sweetheart," by a female coworker, but the gender dynamics are so different that there's no harm done. 

If a woman asks to just be treated like an equal who doesn't constantly have to put up with diminutives she risks being thought of as a bitch, which will translate into even more microaggressions. And if you're a man reading this and you don't see what the big deal is then, guess what, that's what it's like to have privilege. Go read a book, sweet thighs. 

Deal with Worse Conditions

There are all these things that women are expected to do and the tools and conditions in which they're supposed to do them are inhospitable toward women. A few years ago the Washington Post ran an article about how products gendered toward women are of lower quality than those gendered toward men. The temperature in most office buildings is set using a formula that's informed by male metabolism. And women's clothing is often so threadbare that job wear ruining holes develop on the regular. Euch! This white supremacist patriarchy would be a so much easier to dismantle if it was made for women because it'd just fall apart after a few uses.

Overcome Discouragement

All of the things that women are expected to overcome add up to a decline in ambitiousness. At every turn white men are rewarded and defended, even from being turned into imaginary sandwiches. It's really hard to go for it when even your own gender isn't your best champion—looking at you 52% of white women who voted for Trump!

Luckily, this bullshit has been going on for so long that we now have the language to articulate and identify it in great detail. Did you know that people are more likely to hire people like themselves? That's why an abundance of white men in positions of power is a pre-curser to an overabundance of white men in power. We didn't have the words for that before. 

Luckily, women are often times better leaders than men, so as we continue to gather more and more evidence that toxic masculinity and white supremacy are at the root of most social ills expect there to be plenty of great women to do the work of taking care of that problem. And women excel at taking care of problems; we've been doing it this whole time! 

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