A Man's World

It's 5AM and literally I cannot sleep before I get this down....

I was watching "the first motion picture to be made for the internet," called Girl Walks Into a Bar. I was watching the scene where Emmanuelle Chiriqui's character, Theresa plays a stripper. I really like the way it was filmed, because the men at the strip club seemed like regular men across different age and ethnicity at a strip club - but Theresa was able to see through their normal exterior to misogynistic ways. She freezes the scene, and in an overlay commentary,  runs down on each one of their women-hating ways. One of them sexually harasses a young mute girl at the library. Another will slip something in his neighbor's drink later on in the evening. Another beats his mistress. Later she gets off her shift, and another one of her fellow stripper asks her, "How do you deal with it? They were extra douchebags tonight."

After watching that, I started having somewhat of a panic attack and had to go for a walk at the mall next to my office. Not sure why it bothered me so much. I'm definitely no feminist and anyone that knows me can attest to this. I obviously don't encounter as much misogyny as a stripper. But the fact of the matter is, there is so much truth to that scene and parallelism to what I go through on a day-to-day basis.

It's a man's world. Women activist complain about "the glass ceiling" but honestly I could care less. I understand I will never be as successful as men. That's just a fact of life. The only women who are powerful are intimidating or undesirable i.e. Ms. Secretary of State and Oprah Winfrey. The other ones are powerful because of who they are married to. I will never be CEO of a company. Not to say there are no women CEOs but that's just bc I not only have the the glass ceiling holding me back, but also the bamboo ceiling working against me (something I will probably blog about another time). What does bother, however, is how men see women.

For some reason, guys feel like I'm like "one of the guys." One of my friends in HS compared me to Robin from How I Met Your Mother - which I actually found to be flattering. Maybe that's a product of me watching / playing sports, growing up around hanging out with guys, or always commenting on Megan Fox's hotness. Whatever it is, guys just feel comfortable being totally open with me - unfiltered and uncensored. I guess that's something that I do like, but the amount of exposure I get to men and their machoistic-everything-is-about-sex-legs-and-breast ways is really disturbing.

I was out for lunch with 2 co-workers whom I adore and think are amazing people. We were in an elevator when a middle-aged woman who is slightly out of shape commented on something my co-worker said. Small elevator talk - nothing special. After we got off the elevator, they said about her - "She totally wanted it. She might as well have a sign on her face that says 'ejaculate here.'" Of course, I was completely shocked. I completely didn't see it as that, and she was probably happily married and had kids or something. I know obviously this is a joke, but how did they even come up with that. Other than that, my contributions to social conversations in my office bull pen (8 guys) include my opinion on the ever-so-important question: "will you sleep with him?"

I'm effectively living two guys right now, again they are people that I adore and love but the workings to how they think is a bit ridiculous. Somehow - everything is about sex, legs, strategy on how to get girls, how to study at a cafe and get girls, how to get jacked to get girls, whether he would sleep with the girl.

I don't know why it's bothering me more now than ever. I used to read Maxim just for kicks. I've always known that guys think about sex every 10 seconds, and the only thing that crosses a guy's mind when he sees a girl is "i'd hit it / i'd not hit it." Maybe it's because I don't have any girl friends here in LA to balance out all the exposure to testosterone in my life but it's literally driving me crazy. And the only people I meet are in the context of bars - mostly guys that just want to talk to me because they want to sleep with me. And now, when I want to make small talk in the elevator - I certainly don't want to be branded as having a sign that says 'ejaculate here' on my face.....