The Surprising Tenacity of Male Chauvinism

Bill Gates stated in a speech to Saudi Arabians that they wouldn't reach the top 10 of technology countries if they weren't fully utilizing half of their work force.  Makes sense to me.  However, in a country where women are subjugated legally, you would expect that kind of chauvinism from their men.  In countries where women are supposed to be protected by law, from being treated as anything other than equal, you would think people would 'get a clue', as the expression goes.  To this day women are still subject to lower average wages, denigrating remarks and sexual harassment.

I consider myself to be a moderate feminist, and one who believes in true equal rights.  I do not believe in women getting the upper hand because they're women.  I don't believe in men having to pay for dates, pump gas, or take out the garbage, when these are things women are just as capable of doing themselves.  I don't believe women should be in jobs where they are physically incapable of doing the work, just the same as men who aren't physically capable of doing the work shouldn't be in those jobs either.  Now, having said all that, I should probably explain myself a little further.

There are different schools of thought when it comes to giving women equal opportunities.  Some women argue that the jobs should be made easier so women can do them.  Seriously?  I mean, doesn't that just prove to the world we're not capable so we have to be given a handicap??  Many years ago I read an article where a woman was complaining that they needed to make fire-fighting tools smaller and lighter so women could be firefighters, too.  Huh!  So, are they supposed to make people smaller, too, so that they can be more easily carried out of burning buildings?  Probably not going to happen, but if you want to keep arguing that way feel free to do so.

Some women are physically large and muscular, and perfectly capable of being fire-fighters.  Carrying a two hundred pound person over your shoulder is no easy task for anyone, but if you're 5-foot-2 and have no muscle you're better off in another line of work.  You'll just get yourself and someone else killed if you're not physically able to do that kind of heavy lifting.  That's not sexism, that's logic - something women are perfectly capable of if they choose to be.

Women have been shouting for equal pay for a very long time.  Absolutely!  If we're doing the same work, we deserve the same pay.  Now, then, if we are receiving the same pay as a man, how is it that men are still expected to fork over the cash when we're out on a date with them?  My rule has always been, whoever asks is the one who pays, and if it was a mutual decision you both pay.

My last real date the man paid for the movie and I paid for dinner.  I wouldn't have it any other way.  Sure, you might be a few twenties shorter in the wallet, but you also don't have to deal with that expectant look when the guy starts wondering when you're going to put out.  To me that's nothing but whoring myself out really cheap.  The guy pays, what, $80 for an evening out, half of which was for his own entertainment, and I'm supposed to give him sex?  I don't think so.  For me one of the many benefits of being completely independent is never having sex with someone I don't want to have sex with.  It should never have been any different, but it was.

I look back at the way things used to be for women, and being a housewife seems no different to me than being a kept woman.  Yeah, yeah, the whole love thing, and 'til death do us part, but how many people are still married from fifty years ago?  Did that work out for them?  Not so much.  I'm sitting here right now trying to think if I know anyone who married only once and stayed together until death, and didn't hate each other by the time the grim reaper showed up.  The problem, of course, is that no one sees what a relationship looks like on the inside, except the two who are inside it, and even they see it only from their perspective.

I have no real way of knowing if they still gave a crap about each other, but my step-father's parents seemed okay.  Beyond them, I can't really think of anyone else.  He seemed to think his wife was a bit of a nutter, but he was right about that.  Everyone else thought so, too.  He did seem to love her, though.  So, props to them for keeping their dream alive.  If I have to look at it statistically, though, just within the circle of people I've actually known, the numbers look pretty pathetic.  Never mind the actual divorce statistics these days, which everyone is aware are horrendous.

My former mother-in-law was one of those women for whom divorce was inconceivable.  After 35 years, however, he was running off to another woman, and she was running off to a shelter, incapable of taking care of herself financially.  She subjugated her entire life and personality, because she thought being his wife was more important than she herself was.  She never really got past that line of thinking, either.  To this day she thinks she has to do that for her sons.  Granted, she was becoming a lot more independent before her dementia set in, but drooling in front of a television your whole life really will rot your brain.  It certainly did in her case.

As for examples of chauvinism I've seen personally, they still happen all the time.  I went on one date with a man who thought he should be allowed to see me while keeping his girlfriend.  Uh, no.  I never spoke to him again - big surprise.  I dated a guy for a few weeks a number of years ago, until he started making comments about expecting a woman to 'give it up' when he was paying for dates.  Again, no.  I've gone to car dealerships where the salesman (yes, salesman, not salesperson - it was always men who did this) ignored me and spoke to the man standing beside me, despite the fact that I was the one with the money, I was the one making the decision, and out of the two of us I was the only one who knew anything about cars.  I always turn around and walk out of the lot when this happens.  I won't give someone like that a commission from my hard-earned money.

What I find funny about the purchasing thing at car dealerships is that it's been statistically shown time and again that women make most of the financial decisions and do most of the shopping.  Smart marketing campaigns are geared directly toward women.  That, in itself, it's female chauvinism, and I don't like that any better than I do the male chauvinism.  However, statistic don't lie even if they may be fudged a bit from time to time, and women really do make most of the purchasing decisions.  A smart sales person would ask who was purchasing the car, and then speak directly to that person.  Seeing as it will be their money the salesperson is trying to get them to spend, it would be wise to treat them with respect in order to get them to do so.

Admittedly, treating women like idiots can often work for salespeople because some women don't have a lot of confidence and will be easily flustered by a domineering male.  These women will hand over their money in a sort of obedience to them.  You can probably tell, though, that I'm not one of those women.  If a person doesn't show me respect, they're not getting money from me for anything.  I don't care what gender they happen to be.

I'm also one of those people who expresses approval or disapproval with my dollars.  If a company does animal testing I don't buy from them.  If a movie star hits his wife he never gets another cent from me (I don't buy movies they star in, or direct as the case may be).  I don't buy CDs from musicians who have been convicted of assault against their spouses or children.  Maybe my money isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things, but I have hopes that other people are doing the same.

On a daily basis, though, I 'run into' male chauvinism in the form of men from other countries, so it goes back to the places where women are not given any rights.  I write on a website that has contributors from all over the world, and when that happens there are bound to be cultural conflicts.  In a previous blog I mentioned someone calling me a self-seeking monster, and just recently he posted a comment on one of my articles about me being a narcissist.  He didn't even have the courage to direct to comment straight to me.  Instead he posted it as a reply to a comment left by someone else, which happened to be very complimentary.  The person who left the original comment asked that he submit an apology to me, although as expected he never did.

I did post a response to both remarks.  To the one who still resorts to name-calling I simply said no one said he had to read my stuff.  To the one 'defending my honour' I thanked him and said it was not necessary.  I made it as clear as I could to both of them that I wasn't hurt by childish antics such as those, and that it simply wasn't worth the time to worry about it.  It meant so little to me personally that I didn't even bother to delete the comment.  I really don't care what he thinks about me.  What disturbs me is only his general attitude toward women, and how worthless he seems to think they are in this day and age.  Sadly, he's a medical doctor in his country, so he's not only a chauvinist but he's also a chauvinist with a God complex.

When I think about the situation with this particular gentleman, though, I have to laugh.  My work is more widely read than his, so I think there's jealousy involved, especially since I'm female.  I also think he was angry when I proved (quite literally) to know more about certain medications than he does.  It scares me that he's able to prescribe these medications without knowing everything he should know about them, actually, but there's not much I can do about it.  He lives in a country where their standards for physicians are lower than ours.  It's for that reason new arrivals to this country have to go through testing and additional schooling (it's a minimum of one year in Ontario), before being able to practice here.  Canadian doctors are often lured down to the US, and are in high demand down there, so I have to figure we educate them fairly well here.  Yet, my own doctor still listens to me when I do my research and tell him what I think is going on.  He respects my opinion, and generally follows through on what I tell him regarding my research.

Throughout the years of frustration when dealing with men who act as though women are second-class citizens, I have managed to learn one thing that keeps me from responding in the age-old female fashion of the application of an iron skillet to the head, and that is that it's always the men who have the worst insecurities who are the worst chauvinists.  Can anyone say "overcompensating"?