I had been waiting for the elevator at the University today. That slow, almost ancient elevator that barely accommodated 5 fully grown humans. Yet, it was either that or walking up a long flight of stairs up to the 4th floor. I’m lazy, I need inventions like the elevator at my disposal.
While I waited, a few other people joined me in the waiting – a senior student, a female teacher, a male teacher and an attendant. The female teacher and the senior student got involved in small talk, while I was busy doing the usual: looking around, stealing glances at people.
Suddenly, my gaze fell on the relatively shorter male teacher, staring at my wrist watch. I presumed he wanted to know what the time was and anytime expected him to ask me the same. He never asked that. Instead, he borderline shouted, stating how girls these days wore huge watches. If I had to be honest, I was caught off guard. I did not anticipate that, though I perhaps should have. I smiled awkwardly, mentally preparing myself to retort, when the female teacher (quite unexpectedly), beat me to it. She said, “Why what’s the problem? It looks good, doesn’t it?”. I was stunned. Doubly stunned, if there exists such a feeling. This comment of hers did not deter her male colleague a scintilla. He continued, “But girls would wear such small dial watches, such dainty ones, and now they have taken to wearing such huge ones. When did this happen?” The female teacher, “This isn’t sudden or recent. Big dials have been donned by females for a long time now. Weren’t you aware?” Her colleague, “Oh but we are stuck with the medium-sized dials” and with that, he flashed his watch for all four of us to see. He perhaps hoped we would laugh, but we didn’t, not the teacher and I. The male student did guffaw. Yay?
I just waited for the elevator, and I looked at the female teacher once, my respect for her, growing with every passing second.
Let us deconstruct what happened, shall we?
What that male teacher did today was sexist. It may not seem so. It may seem like a harmless comment on watches and the expected preference of females when it comes to watches, but really, it boils down to internal sexism. A subtle sexist slur that was. A subtle sexist slur teetering on the brink of chauvinism.
His comment went on to echo the notion harbored by most: women, by default, are to wear small dial watches. That big dial watches were more of a manly thing. They were an entitlement to men and therefore women had no access to them. Was he threatened because he felt that a female wore something that was not what ordinarily females wore but what males did? Perhaps he was.
I mean, come on. Women vote, women work, women are provided every right possible, why snatch away our beloved broad watches? Right?
I have personally always loved broad dials and I continue to hunt them down in stores. Not because I want to embrace masculinity and condemn my femininity, but rather because I just like them. It is a matter of taste. Why should I, as a girl, be coerced to choose what society thrusts on my gender? Likewise, why should a boy? Why should anyone, irrespective of their gender?
Also, note and appreciate that the female teacher actually stood up and voiced out. I was in awe. Not because she stood up for me, nu-uh. However, by standing up to his obnoxious comment (laced with sarcasm and sexist undertones, mind you), she actually inspired me. Inspired me to believe that in a godforsaken place such as this, there was still hope. Hope for feminism. It made me believe that even amongst imbeciles of the highest order, I could look forward to a woman, who could tell when a sexist or a chauvinist remark was made, and then shred said remark to pieces. It’s a sweet feeling. To hope of such things. To be inspired this way.
This points to another pressing matter, which is, identifying and discerning a jibe when it is made. How are we supposed to tackle and eradicate problems without even identifying the existence of it? We are so socially conditioned to misogyny and sexism that we cannot tell it apart from a casual comment. Misogyny prevails, misogyny pervades. High time we all gain and spread awareness to curtail it at grassroots level.
Optimistic Verbiage. 