mimesere: (Default)
mimesere ([personal profile] mimesere) wrote2007-04-09 10:04 pm

heh. whoops.

one of the classes I am taking this semester is a Career and Life Planning class which is about as touchy feely and dull as it sounds (though there are some awesome things I am learning about statistics, so that almost makes up for it), and today we reached the portion on Diversity in the Workplace.

...ahahahahahaha.

Um. Y'all, I dunno if I actually mentioned this? But one of my many hats at the office where I work is as a diversity *trainer*. I get to teach sensitivity training! (which pretty much consists of me going: "Look, this entire class can be summed up with: Be Excellent to One Another. So don't be di--. ass--. Don't be jerks, okay? And cut it with the gay jokes.")

Anyway, we got to gender roles and equality and blah blah feminist cakes, and I -- who have remained damn near silent in class until this point, except for the day I had to present the Box O' Me-ness and rambled on about Princess Leia and Superman and How They Are Excellent Symbols of My Values (no! really!) -- just could not shut up. All of the stuff I have been biting back here (no! really!) so as not to Harsh On Another Fan's Buzz or to Piss On Their Cheerios/Parade or just because I am deeply afraid that if I say half the things I am thinking, I will get into a fight that I don't have the energy for anymore, all of that just came out and I ranted for like, a solid ten minutes on the necessity of diversity training, cultural perceptions of gender roles, and how unconscious prejudices are still prejudices even if you're not advocating that women should go back to the kitchens pregnant and barefoot or stringing up your neighbor on the nearest tree and burning crosses on their lawns just 'cause they've got more melanin than you. Also I talked about women's sports a lot (thank you [livejournal.com profile] sexonastick and [livejournal.com profile] annavtree).

of course, the woman after me said that she didn't understand why women weren't just content to be women and to take a supportive role behind the scenes and why did they have to come in and want to do all the things men do? Then I made her head explode with the power of my indignant rage.

Okay, maybe not that last part, but apparently I was *visibly* outraged enough that the two guys next to me, a girl across the aisle, and the little gay dude in front of me all turned around to see if I was going to leap across the room and bludgeon her to death with her own stupidity.

[identity profile] annaalamode.livejournal.com 2007-04-10 05:27 am (UTC)(link)
No bludgeoning people with the wait of their own stupidity without me around to witness. Also, Dawn Staley thinks you are awesome.

[identity profile] annaalamode.livejournal.com 2007-04-10 05:27 am (UTC)(link)
um, pretend that I wrote weight instead of wait okay?

[identity profile] mimesere.livejournal.com 2007-04-10 05:34 am (UTC)(link)
*g* My notes for that part of the lecture consist of "Oh my god. Are you shitting me? You are not shitting me! OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK!" and then various amounts of underlining and random exclamation points.

I...why won't people go to the cornfield? WHY? IT IS WAY MORE HUMANE THAN MAKING THEIR HEADS EXPLODE!

*sulks* stupid people, not obeying my mental commands for their exile/death.

[identity profile] donella.livejournal.com 2007-04-10 05:49 am (UTC)(link)
People can be frustrating.

I tried to have a conversation about abortion rights with the girl sitting next to me in biology. Bad idea. A third girl got in on the conversation and mentioned something along the lines of, 'What if the baby would be born a vegetable?' The two of them dissolved into giggles at the word vegetable and then started talking about Avril Lavigne. I chewed my eraser and tried not to hit them with the Terry Pratchett novel I was reading.

[identity profile] mimesere.livejournal.com 2007-04-11 05:14 pm (UTC)(link)
I admire your restraint!

And just. The sheer number of basic rights and liberties that people take for granted *makes me insane*.

[identity profile] sexonastick.livejournal.com 2007-04-10 06:02 am (UTC)(link)
:D

You are so fucking awesome. You know this, right? Because you ARE.

[identity profile] mimesere.livejournal.com 2007-04-11 05:13 pm (UTC)(link)
*g* That is SO WEIRD, because I think you are totally fucking awesome! It's like a coincidence!

*mwah*

[identity profile] pun.livejournal.com 2007-04-10 03:49 pm (UTC)(link)
I know it shouldn't be shocking to me that there are still women who manage to get themselves to a university setting and yet say things like that. And yet! GAH!! Shock!! OUTRAGE!!!!

[identity profile] mimesere.livejournal.com 2007-04-11 05:12 pm (UTC)(link)
I really did feel like saying, "Lady, the fact that you are in this class *at all* is because of women who weren't content to sit around being the supportive person behind the scenes, so step off."

But I restrained myself! I am totally with the restraint.

[identity profile] shrift.livejournal.com 2007-04-10 04:07 pm (UTC)(link)
of course, the woman after me said that she didn't understand why women weren't just content to be women and to take a supportive role behind the scenes and why did they have to come in and want to do all the things men do?

I love how she's basically describing a bra here. And I'm only saying that so I don't fly to LA for the purpose of beating her to death with my computer programming manuals and comic book collection and punk CDs and cheesy Hong Kong action movies.
celli: a woman and a man holding hands, captioned "i treasure" (work)

[personal profile] celli 2007-04-11 12:23 am (UTC)(link)
Aw, come on. I will buy you the plane ticket!

[identity profile] mimesere.livejournal.com 2007-04-11 05:11 pm (UTC)(link)
Heee! But wait, there's more! As a follow up to the supportive thing she said: "I am a leader in my church and my life is so hard because I can't find a man who is stronger than me."

I could not make this stuff up if I tried.

[identity profile] shrift.livejournal.com 2007-04-11 07:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Really, it must be so hard for her, not being able to find a man who will carry her across the sand like Jesus.

[identity profile] thefourthvine.livejournal.com 2007-04-11 01:06 am (UTC)(link)
I very much doubt you could have lifted her stupidity, let alone swung at her with it. You'd've needed, at minimum, a winch and a team of four Percherons to hoist that much stupidity.

And I don't know about yours, but my university had a no-Percherons rule.

Which is a pity, because if ever someone needed to be smacked with something heavy...

[identity profile] mimesere.livejournal.com 2007-04-11 05:08 pm (UTC)(link)
It was just so funny because the guy next to me leaned over and said, "Whatever you are thinking, please say it, because this is making me feel really uncomfortable and I think you are thinking what I am thinking."

Which, you know, I doubt, as I was thinking of making her brain explode and not anything rational or coherent.