"Gretchen, stop trying to make 'sexism' happen..."

Tuesday, October 01, 2013

After having taken the risk of losing friends and alienating people, I undertake another one by posting this one. Men and their twisted idea of platonic friendship. 

The equation that goes in my class between men and women shuffles between mindless nonsensical crap about the work we do, harmless leg pulling and case taking and severe punches at imploring the cliches pertaining to patriarchy, sexism and dissing the 'average' female body. I've been a part of all of the aforementioned categories- the receiving grunt of it, the participant and also the person who has vocally raised my voice against the subheads of the last category- sexism. 

Sexism at college, workplace isn't unusual, it is considered rather weird to now come out and report it. For all the spearheads of feminism and equality that one carries along, this is where the women are divided in two groups. First, consisting of those who care to raise the matter and second, inclusive of those who know exactly what they want from their ideology. As to my misfortune, I belong to the first group where not having enough base to prove my allegation, I turn to my conscience and regard my conditioning to be at the prime. While doing that, I understand I risk to lose my standpoint of having given a solid argument but I'd rather be true to what I know, not saying that I won't be receptive to better suggestions but having made my base clear, I'd proceed. 

One of my 'dear' guy friends from class believes in fooling around a lot more than your average joe. Yours truly is at the other end of the spectrum where I don't have the heart to deal with such shenanigans. Neither do I have the patience to deal with this sort of an association (which includes constant leg pulling, bringing the other person down by bringing up the oddities of body shape and 'sarcasm') nor do I give this authority to just about any one. Apparently, in the guy world, this comes complimentary with friendship. It is incredibly hard for me to be able to deliver a non judgmental argument but it is more than an obvious reference to the entire sex, of their collective behaviour. Again, this doesn't imply that all of them are these same but 8 out of 10 conform to this understanding. 

Coming back to the issue, I have been at the receiving end of this friend's joke about my obesity, my gender and my preferences. During a healthy, fun conversation I have been compared to another classmate on matter of obesity. That is something I have faced right from the time I was five. Little girls are nasty and a collective bunch of them at a convent school are the worst example of life ruiners. Needless to say I grew up in that harsh environment and by time I graduated from the institute, I was a proud owner of rhino skin covering the extra flab on my body. I couldn't care less about what the people had to say. In short, I never grappled with body image issue or bullies. However, coming back to grad school and meeting 'guy friends' for whom every thing uttered in seriousness or not, is infact a joke, has shattered some of my ideas about relationships. For each time I raised my voice against their comments and I tried defending my body, I got 'I was joking, yaar' as a reply. Like I mentioned, it wasn't very hard, being calm but if you repeatedly poke a fabric which is coming loose, one day it's bound to come off the stitching and break apart. 

The said classmate in context offered me a position to work with him for my final media project in final year. After reciting the names of the group members during summer vacation this year, he added how I would be the conducive choice for running around and doing all sorts of paper work. The other four members of the group that he suggested were all guys. At some point I brought this up to his notice and he added that it is only that much what my role requires me to do. After hurling a few abuses at him, he laughed and brushed the whole thing off. We never spoke about it again and neither did he put forward another proposition to work with him ever again nor did I bring it up. I was vocal about how I would never work with him to a few of our mutual friends- the ones who knew about his sexist ideas. No one made a big deal out of it. It wasn't intended to go that way, either. His current group consists of the same four men and a woman from my class.

Through the semester, I heard snide remarks about my body, gender role and my position as a woman and roles I ought to have played. Raising voice lead to the same pattern of inciting jokes to piss me off. Last week, during a documentary screening on Leila Khalid (world's first female airplane hijacker), he was sitting besides me and another classmate when he mentioned this, 

"Naalayakon, kuch seekho isse. Usne apni zindagi dedi hai apne cause ko. If you want to fight for your cause, you should be ready to sacrifice yourself."

I lost cool and snapped back at him and asked why would the ladies in his family wear a hijab and stay in purdah. 

An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. At the end of the day I am a human being. I'm bound to make mistakes.
Bringing that argument was probably a mistake and a foreground for what was coming but what he did say was no less. Proving to be a rebel and claiming to get your rights addressed and issue involved by the means of holding people in the name of terror isn't going to solve any problems and I for one, belong to that school of thought. 

I digress but that put me off completely. Today, yet again he triggered on his verbal chords to attack me. I was the designated set designer for a TV production and while trying to measure the ribbon which was part of my decor idea, I was interrupted when he said,
"Very good. This is what you girls should do during any production. This is what you're good at."

It may seem harmless when you read this at the comfort of either your smartphone or laptop on bed/elsewhere but when you're working and hearing this from a guy who is sitting and sniggering at you may induce enough anger for you to disfigure the man's face. I lost my cool completely and yelled at him, including how his unborn child ought to be dyslexic and how badly I was going to disfigure his face. Man Friday who was next to this man was laughing uncontrollably, leading me to lose complete tolerance of everything. If that's not all, after this he had the balls to pass another comment about how he expected me to use pink satin ribbon as opposed to black colored that I was using and went on to asking why would I not give pink a thought. Give a man education and see him brandishing women as total homemakers even on the sets. And to think that men and women are suppose to lead this country to the heights of equality is to expect dead to come back to life.

My production was second in line and the said friend's first. Being a tech genius, it was hard for all of us to believe that he messed up his job at the CG in PCR today but my closing comment was deliberately vicious, "..and that's called Karma for today's comment. At least I can be good at my job even if it means doing the sets unlike the said tech genius." I was happy that I did the best to conform to my cliche while he couldn't deliver. 
The appropriate response would have been a joke back but no, we embraced seriousness and the  mask of sour loser 
Yes, i was no less. I conformed to the cliche of being a bitch. Bitch enough that in the evening I got a long paragraph from the said friend saying this: 

I was cooking dinner when we exchanged these messages so I didn't pay much heed to the content but later when I went over it again, it almost seemed to give me a clear conscience for my bitch behaviour. Some people can't be helped and some others won't forego their ideals. I won't take this from anyone trying to prove me to be inferior to a set of balls and a penis. If those kind of jokes is what irks my 'guy friends' off and makes them a sour loser to call off 'friendship' then I'm happy being in the company of my pet dogs at home.

You Might Also Like


Hos in Different Area Codes


Stalker Count