I kind of hesitate to post this story, because it might seem like I’m asking for a cookie, and that isn’t my goal here.
At the local LA Fitness, I attend the “swim fit” classes fairly regularly, because it’s good exercise for someone with an iffy knee. (It’s also nice because a lot of the folks in that class are fat.)
One of the instructors is a conventionally attractive young woman who leads the class wearing a swimsuit (of course), and alternates between leading us from the side of the pool, where we can see her clearly and where she can control the boom box, and jumping in and leading us from within the pool.
At one recent class, there was a new student exercising next to me, a large middle-aged guy with a thick mustache. Noticing that I wear glasses in the pool, he said something like “next time I’m going to wear my glasses, too – she’s really worth looking at,” indicating the instructor. I deflected by saying “it really helps to be able to see what the exercise is.”
This sort of thing really doesn’t happen to me often. Significantly less often than once a year.1 For a while it was a feminist cliche to tell men that one way we can help is to object to sexist comments in the locker room, and the cliche has always bugged me a little, because no one ever says stuff like that to me. But now this guy had, and my reflex, shamefully, had been to blow it off.
A few minutes later, he and I again wound up next to each other. The instructor jumped in the pool to lead us in the next exercise, and he leaned to me and whispered “oh, no, stay out of the pool, where we can see you better!” I grunted and moved away.
For the rest of that swim fit class, my mind was occupied with the dude, criticizing myself for not arguing with him, wondering what I should have said. (“Hey, she’s my sister!”). I mentally made excuses: I’m a very shy person; I’m not comfortable talking to strangers; this was my exercise time, and I can’t exercise and criticize simultaneously. And I kept on imagining bad scenarios if I criticized the guy’s behavior. Would people think that I’m a humorless killjoy? Would the guy get hostile and yell at me? Would he begin a relentless campaign of nasty comments to me that would eventually force me to quit going to swim fit class altogether? Would he get his motorcycle gang together and beat me up after class?2
After the class was over, I pulled him aside and told him “hey, I know a lot of women feel bad about going to health clubs because they’re worried guys will make remarks about their bodies.”
He immediately became abashed and said “I know, but I wasn’t talking about any of the students. I was talking about her,” indicating the instructor by nodding in her direction.
“Yeah, well, that doesn’t matter. It’s just completely inappropriate to talk like that about anyone here, including the instructor.”
He became very apologetic, and promised he wouldn’t do it again. I said “thanks,’ and that was the end of the encounter.
The only reason I mention this is because, despite what I was imagining beforehand, confronting him about his behavior and asking him to stop it was easy. It had no bad consequences for me whatsoever; it was actually only a slight bit awkward. And maybe telling this completely unnotable story will encourage some other guy who reads it, if he’s in a similar situation someday, to overcome his fears and speak up.
P.S. A preemptive response: Yes, obviously, there are situations where it might actually be physically unsafe to speak up. But this wasn’t that sort of situation at all.
Thanks for doing that.
I think it’s okay to ask for a cookie now and then, because it makes it easier to speak up next time. You’ll reinforce the memory that it was okay. And sharing the experience definitely helps others when it’s their turn to speak up.
And to back up your statement to him: When I first started jogging, I was afraid of getting comments from other joggers. I am not fat, but I am EXTREMELY slow. I concocted a couple of responses should anyone make any comments. To my relief, no one did! I can’t remember getting any comments from anyone, though I got an occasional acknowledging nod from fellow joggers. This was fifteen years ago in the Northwest.
Glad to hear you got a positive response from him!
For what it’s worth, in situations like that–if you don’t have the energy or opportunity to talk about it, and need a one-line response, right that moment–the phrase “Dude, grow up” seems to work well.
(Better, I think, than “hey, she’s my sister,” and less complicated. With the handy side-benefit that it doesn’t risk accidentally giving the impression that it might be okay to talk about anyone else’s sister inappropriately.)
The phrase “Not cool” can work too, but it’s less reliable with strangers–it seams to lean more heavily on the other guy’s perception of you than “grow up” does; “not cool” works best from a position of relative social power.
To turn that another way, when there are situations where it’s physically unsafe for you to speak up, just think how safe it’s for the women just to be there (and have none of the men speak up). And thanks, btw :)
Thank you!
You mean he didn’t accuse you of “biting his head off” or “handing him his head on a platter”? ;-)
But seriously, it’s always nice when people react in a thoughtful way like that. And thanks!
Everyone makes mistakes. It’s comparatively rare than anyone admits to them.
I admire the way you stood up.
I used to blend in, in public. No longer, at least not always. And, since I’ve started presenting as myself at work, a couple of trusted co-workers have alluded to occasional remarks by members of the public about me in the moments after I’m out of sight, which my co-workers have had to shut down. (They don’t pass along the specifics, or note them at the time, which I appreciate; the diluted version of that poison is all I need to be getting on with.)
So, speaking from the perspective of a person who now collects such remarks, thanks for speaking up.
Grace
A few years ago (ok, ok, more than a few) I had a slightly similar experience, I think about it, often . . . .
I was doing survey work at a remote field station (you know, the kind where everyone eats, sleeps, bathes, etc. together in cramped and basic conditions?). The after dinner conversation was about the re-election of GW Bush . . . the highest-prestige scientist at the table said “I blame it on the gays. They just had to choose THAT time to bring out their gay marriage stuff, and that’s why Kerry lost the election. I mean it’s not that I’m bigoted, but there are so many more important things going on in the world they should have waited to choose a better time to push their selfish agenda.”
It really shocked me. And made me angry. What made me angriest that he assumed that no one at this dinner table was queer! I countered, saying that the marriage equality fight had been going on for years, I knew because I had campaigned for it and was going to marry my gf as soon as possible . . . and that it was Bush’s strategists that brought it to the forefront of the election. I was trembling. He conceded, and apologized, and everyone got up soon after and uncomfortably left the table. He apologized to me again privately the next day, saying he wouldn’t have said it if he had known I was gay (well, yeah, pretty obvious).
In my example I was standing up for my own group; in all honesty I probably would have let it go if I wasn’t queer. It’s so easy to let it slide so everyone can get along EVEN if silence implies agreement. It becomes habit for individuals and then it becomes the cultural norm to let these go uncontested. And then it gets harder for everyone. Thanks for saying something, Amp.
Yes, Amp, thanks for doing this. The more men who do speak up, the easier it gets for all of us. My own example of this was in a situation where I had a professional obligation to speak up, but that didn’t make it any easier. In a freshman composition class I was teaching some years back, there was an older male student in the class, someone around my age. In his group–the class was divided into working groups for the semester–was a young woman, around 20 or so, who was an aspiring model. Over the course of the semester, they became friendly and she shared with him a link to a series of professional modeling photos she’d had taken and that she’d posted to her MySpace profile, some of which were very sexy lingerie shots. I know this because, towards the end of the semester, I got an email from the male student, with a subject line something like “check this out,” something similar written in the body of the email, with a link. Since he and I had bonded a little bit over having children and argued a bit about politics, I assumed he was sending me something relevant to those conversations. When I clicked on the link, however, I was greeted by those professionally-taken half-naked pictures of my student.
Obviously, I had to confront him, which I did, but my thoughts leading up to it were not so different in kind from what Amp described in the original post. Ultimately, the student himself made it easier, since circumstances kept him from coming to class towards the end of the semester–when this whole thing happened–and so, instead of dealing with it face to face, I had to send him an email. He was embarrassed and apologetic. (In the final analysis, perhaps the email was better if only because it was a formal record of what I’d said and so, if he’d wanted to fight back somehow, he could not have engaged in any he-said-he-said.)
The more difficult conversation was the one I ended up having with the woman, since I obviously did not want to blame her for sharing her profile with a classmate, but I did think it was important for her to know that the guy had shared her photos with me. It was a hard conversation because it took a while for her to realize that she probably didn’t want her college professor thinking about her lingerie shots while he was talking to her in class or grading her papers or whatever, much less ogling them uninvited in the privacy of his own home. (I wish I’d been able to figure out a way to have him have to apologize to her, but I teach in a college, not high school, and I had no authority “to call him down to the principal’s office” or anything like that.)
Thanks for speaking up, and for sharing this story. I know it is not always easy, nor advisable, to engage in that kind of discussion, particularly with strangers. But sometimes it’s our own barriers that stop us from standing up for others (or ourselves), and the more we take steps (however small) into the waters of public discussion around these issues, the easier it seems get (and one generally then gets better at gauging the situation and determining how best to approach it that will optimize the chance of getting at least a neutral reaction (as opposed to a hostile one), or better yet, a positive one, like you got in this situation). So, well done;).
Ugh, RJN, the teacher/student dynamic make it so hairy. I had doctoral students presenting last semester for a human development class, and as part of their presentation, they opted to show a short video that was a mix of different “reveals” from “are you the father of her baby or not” talk show appearances. Of course I see those shows as having tremendous sexist, racist, and classist implications, and was waiting for the students to offer some critical commentary on the clip, which didn’t happen. So I was stuck trying to figure out how to respond, and knowing that one of the students had come to me before the presentation to discuss their anxiety over public speaking, I was at a loss how to say “I found that clip really problematic” without reinforcing the student’s public speaking fears.
I wound up addressing the clip in the written feedback I gave the group, asking what their thinking was about including it and whether they considered the various stereotypes it might be reinforcing, but that left the rest of the class with whatever impressions they had unspoken or un-challenged.
(What I should have done, I realized later, was probably ask the whole class what their reactions to the clip were. But this was a class that seemed to be generally unsophisticated in their application of social justice lenses, probably because they were all first semester, and I worry that I might not have gotten much response and would have then had to go right back to saying “my take is ____.” And usually I’m OK with that, but I biffed it this time because I got tangled up in worrying about the one student feeling shamed.)
(And I get tired of getting course evaluations saying “this teacher had an agenda” or “there was only one opinion that was OK” which, according to research on faculty evaluation, is something that queer faculty, women, and faculty of color get hit with more frequently when we talk about social justice. Even though this school likes me and my work, it’s really tiresome to feel like my evals are probably never going to be as across the board stellar as I’d like especially when applying for other jobs that ask to see them. But I digress.)
Someone upthread said they’re more likely to speak up when they’re part of the group being impugned. I’m the opposite; speaking up when I feel implicated is like moving through treacle. Otherwise, I have righteous indignation to fuel me.
Elusis: There is just so much in your comment worth talking about, but it’s probably not for this thread, so I just want to acknowledge how rich it is with potential from some really important discussion.
I made this comment in the thread following this post at Family Scholars Blog, but I’d also like to question Barry’s use of the word “paranoid” in this case.
I think it’s entirely reasonable and justified to expect that people will not react well to being told that something they said was inappropriate, sexist, racist, homophobic, or otherwise problematic.
Very rarely does the person critiqued simply say, “Oh, I’m sorry. You’re right.”
It sounds like the people commenting here, and likely Barry too!, know that pointing these things out is often a battle that turns into a an full-on shitstorm of “you’re humorless,” “how dare you call me sexist!?”, “Geez, women should take it as a compliment!”, “PC gone awry!”, “Stop being the thought police!” …. and so on.
Was the title tongue and cheek and I’m just missing it? :-)
I did know that a bad reaction was possible, but the range of bad outcomes my imagination offered me – including the idea that he’d have a gang which would catch me outside the LA Fitness and beat me up – went far beyond the plausible. (And I knew that even at the time.) That’s what I was referring to with the word “paranoid,” and yes, my tongue was somewhat in my cheek.
But now I’m wondering if paranoid is a word that’s ableist. I’ve cut “retarded” “moronic” “crazy” and “lame” out of my daily vocabulary, but maybe paranoid should go on the same ash heap?
And by the way, thank you for all your comments on Family Scholars Blog today. You’ve done an incredible job on that thread.
“…the range of bad outcomes my imagination offered me – including the idea that he’d have a gang which would catch me outside the LA Fitness and beat me up – went far beyond the plausible…”
True. Nobody would think they needed a gang to beat you up. Ba dum bump!
The problem with “paranoid” is that unlike those other words you mention, it describes both a disability and a behaviour. It’s an unfortunate ambiguity, but I think it’s important to retain a way to refer to the behaviour. In other words, if I were to say to someone “you’re being paranoid”, that’s not an insult, that’s a meaningful description of how they’re behaving (and one that can be used in a non-adversarial context) – you cannot say the same for any of the other words you described. So I think in the general sense, it would be wrong to eliminate it from our vocabularies – it’s just important to be vigilant and make sure that whenever it’s used, it’s used as a descriptor of an actual behaviour, without an ablist connotation (i.e., I think it’s ok to say “I was being paranoid”, but not “the paranoid assholes at the NRA”).
Which isn’t to say that Fannie doesn’t have a point, in that I don’t think your anxiety in this case arose from paranoid behaviour. But that’s a case of the word being used over-broadly, not of being ablist.
I don’t have that much to contribute to the actual topic of this thread that hasn’t been said by others, beyond saying that if I am in a similar situation, I hope that I will have the presence of mind to speak out as you did. However, I do want to echo Richard’s sentiment in saying that, as an educator myself, I found Elusis’s comment though provoking.
Funny you would say that. Because I gotta say that as I read Amp’s post I was thinking “Here’s some heavy-set middle-aged guy trying to strike up a friendship with Amp. He’s pretty clumsy at it, too.” And when I read the meek way he accepted Amp’s correction, my heart went out to the guy.
I trust Amp knows the context better than I can grasp from the post. But if I were reading this as drama, I’d question whether the guy really was that interested in the instructor at all – or whether he was attempting to open a conversation with another guy in a way he anticipates would be acceptable to another guy. Some guys would say, “Hot enough for you?” But when you’re in a pool, it might not be sufficiently hot for that opening. Some guys would say, “How ‘bout them 49ers?” But guys who are ignorant of sports would be rightfully afraid of putting himself into a conversation where he’d appear both unmasculine and a fraud. So this guy latched onto a traditional topic of conversation that doesn’t require much knowledge, and would enable him to assert his heterosexual masculinity while engaging in the touchy activity of striking up a social relationship with the half-naked man next to him.
Having dared to show some vulnerability by initiating conversation with a stranger, what was the guy’s reward? Being brutally rebuffed!
Ok, it sounds like Amp made his point without needlessly putting the guy down. Instead of “It’s just completely inappropriate to talk like that about anyone here,” I might have gone with “Yeah, all the same, you gotta expect that having strangers talking about your body would creep you out” or something. But still, not too bad.
Admittedly, this is all a drama in my head. But if I were to write the next chapter, having now broken the ice, Amp and this guy might go on to become guy friends. Cuz, you know, Amp needs more things to occupy his day.
Hey, I’m just a bromantic at heart.
Thanks for responding, Barry.
I’m not sure whether “paranoid” is ableist, I’d have to think about that one some more.
ps: I’m annoyed that I said, “tongue and cheek” earlier. I swear I know the saying is “tongue in cheek”!
marmalade:
Over a decade ago, I was participating in a special assignment involving a consultant to the department I worked for at that time. There were several other officers involved, all substantially outranking me. This was the first time I had been involved in something like this with the department, so it was potentially a small career opportunity. The atmosphere was informal and sometimes jovial.
Somehow, the conversation worked its way around to the recent passage of the United States’ first civil union law, in Vermont. And the highest-ranking officer in the room, a man for whom I had and have considerable respect, said, “I’ve never felt so ashamed to be from Vermont.”
Everyone else but me laughed sympathetically.
It was a sudden and stark reminder that, informal atmosphere not withstanding, it was NOT a safe space, and I had to be on my guard among my fellow officers.
I don’t remember what my own reaction was. Probably it was a smile, of the social safety sort one does to get by in an awkward situation. No one else noticed. At the time, my reflex reaction was to keep my head down. Looking back, I still think it may have been the right reaction; there was a vanishingly small chance that anyone would change if I spoke up, and the act of speaking up would certainly have impeded the process of becoming a member of the department whose opinion was valued (which did eventually happen, though I may have spent pretty much all of that capital and then some on my recent transition).
It’s a minor example of the hateful calculus which members of minority groups have to employ, routinely, within an existing power structure.
Grace
“I’ve never been so ashamed to be working with this special assignment.”
You get 2 cookies-one for speaking up (because doing the right thing IS hard, and the rewards may not be reaped for decades. Cookies help keep activists active) and one for sharing an instance of someone taking crit like a grown up, and being nice about it. <3 I find those stories very heartening.
Um. It's probably too 101 for this space, but can I ask: is checking people out and talking about it actually sexist? Or just some variation of problematic? Where's the line between healthy sexual expression (and the equally healthy feeling of having your sexuality/attractiveness acknowledged) and creeping? This particular scenario doesn't seem bad to me, without more context.
Time, place, and manner. When I am escorting Jen the swim teacher to our dinner dance, and we are alone or have some privacy to talk one on one, it is perfectly appropriate for me to politely compliment her on her appearance. When she is teaching her class, it would not be appropriate.
In Amp’s tale, the guy was talking about her to him, rather than to her directly. Saying to another person that the instructor was attractive would be appropriate if a friendship was in place, if the comment was made, again, in private and outside the context of where Jen is trying to do her job and if it wasn’t disrespectful. “Check out the fun bags on Jen” is demeaning, unless Jen has a desire to be spoken of that way and has asked one to do so. “I think Jen is super pretty. Do you think she’s super pretty?” is perfectly fine.
I tend to agree with Eytan that it’s not ableist as a description of behavior or emotions, but it might be when used as an insult. Used descriptively, I would put “paranoid” in the same category as “anxious” or “depressed” or “hyperactive”—describing specific thought patterns or behaviors or mental/physical states. Any of those states can be (but aren’t necessarily) associated with mental illness.