Little Sexist Jerk on the Prairie
Sorry I haven’t posted any wedding pics yet, folks. I’ve been coping with a different, more interesting sort of event, which I will now tell you about.
I’ve had my first unexpected run-in with sexism! My first sneak attack! My first sucker-punch!
All the other encounters I’ve had haven’t surprised me; some old goat or some young white trash behaves badly and I just shrug it off, unsurprised. Besides, usually if I suspect that someone might come at me with sexism, I behave differently toward that person. I find that fulfilling (at least partially) someone’s sexual stereotype of me can be a useful tool toward actually getting them to do what you want or need them to do.
This, however…
I copyedit the Cimarron Review here on campus. There’s no need to name names, but you will all put all the pieces together instantly, so it seems like I might as well use names. I’ve done the copyediting for two years, because Jerry asked me to. That tidbit becomes important later in the story. I also offer comprehensive editing suggestions, if something about one of the pieces seems glaringly off and has managed to escape the eyes of the primary editors. Usually they’ll take the comp edit suggestion, because, like I said, I don’t offer them unless it’s about something glaring.
Anyway, my husband is one of the primary editors; another fellow named Tim is the other primary editor, Tom’s understudy, sort of, because he’s only been there a year and it takes about a year to learn everything there.
So I meet with Tim on Friday to go over the copyediting. All goes fine until we get to an interview between two haughty male bigwigs and one shell-shocked female mediumwig. The interview is okay, except that in its present form, it’s not an interview. It’s a transcript. All sorts of false starts, incoherent sentence fragments hanging alone, overlaps in the conversation, etc. On top of this, the male bigwig being interviewed makes numerous outlandish, ignorant claims. For example, calling sushi “found art.” (Like finding sushi in a kitchen makes it “found art.” If he found it lying on the beach, yes, but he doesn’t assert that. He obviously doesn’t know what found art is.) The ignorant claims along with the complete lack of shape the interview has paints the two male bigwigs as complete buffoons, and the female mediumwig as a third wheel, brought into the interview only because she is male bigwig number one’s wife.
I realize that the interview can be significantly improved by the cutting of about 15 single lines of conversation: the false starts, etc. This will make the men look slightly less buffoonish without changing the intent or meaning of the interview—after all, they do a good enough job sounding like idiots, uh excuse me, making their intellectual points, in their coherent sentences without the sentence frags and false starts emphasizing it.
If Tom or Jerry had been at the helm for this issue, the changes would have been made prior to me ever getting the interview. But in this case, Tim was at the helm.
It is our practice at Cimarron to make comments next to the pieces we think are stupid. Things like “this story is lame!” or “jerkwad!” or “learn something about forestry, you idiot, before you try to write about it!” It’s part of the game, ragging pieces we think aren’t very good but that somehow got into the magazine anyway. And obviously we don’t all agree…some think the pieces are very good…it’s personal opinion, you see. But fun to rag on the authors anyway. So of course, I have things like this written on the interview, alongside my cuts.
Long story short, Tim had a strong reaction to my editing suggestions for the interview, trying to school me on how interviews work, etc. Trying to tell me that eliminating any of this stuff would destroy the integrity of the interview. Saying that reading 8 lines of 3 different people bumble in incoherent sentence fragments is interesting to the reader. On and on. I was shocked by these assertions (because they are incorrect and show poor skills as an editor, which is what he’s supposed to be) but really, I didn’t care. I told him that I was only trying to clean up the structure of the interview and make these guys’ idiotic assertions look less idiotic, but that since he’s the one at the helm this issue, it’s his call. If he disagrees with my suggestions, whatever, leave it alone. It’s his call. Just trying to help. He says he wants to consult with the interviewer first, before making any changes. I say, only if you want to; if you think it’s best, leave the whole thing alone.
At the end of the editing session, I say, “Sorry we had to have a confrontation over that interview. It’s just that I felt that the interview would benefit from editing. But, do whatever you feel is the best thing to do with the piece.” And he says, sure, yes, no hard feelings at all, it’s just one of those things.
Cut to Sunday.
The phone rings and it’s him. He wants to talk to me. He puts on this older-and-wiser voice, and tells me that I was extremely unprofessional on Friday and difficult to work with; that my “seething hatred” for the two men in the interview colored all of my editing work; that he’s disappointed in me for that, etc. I can’t type it all down or my blood will begin to boil again. I said, “Why are you attacking me?” and the shit hit the fan. I can handle all sorts of crap from all sorts of people but talking down to me and accusing me of two things that are untrue is too much for me.
I won the argument. I will distill the 30 minutes of hollering down to this:
1. He accused me of being unprofessional because I wrote those silly comments on the interview! I said We always do that and Fuck you don’t call me unprofessional you’re the one who gets high in the office. I won that point. He relented.
2. He accused me of my “seething hatred” tainting my work. I said No it doesn’t because there is no way you can say that my cuts affect the content at all except to tighten it. And besides, if my so-called seething hatred was tainting things, wouldn’t I be editing the piece to make them look like bigger idiots instead of lesser idiots? I won that point.
He never gave up being condescending, though. At one point he was trying to tell me how the editing process works. I had to “remind” him that in a few short weeks I will hold my Master’s degree in Technical Writing. At one point, he condescendingly said that he had no idea why I had a position as copyeditor, that he thought “it was nice that I wanted to help out or try to be a part of things.” I told him that I was copyeditor because Jerry had asked me to be (for some reason, Jerry’s name still strikes a little awe in dumb shits like him).
I realized that Tim thought that Tom had given me a little post on Cimarron because I’m his wife and I wanted to “try to be a part of things.” I realized that he thinks a Master’s is meaningless. That Technical Writing is meaningless. I realized that he held me to a double standard when it came to behavior in the office, because the other guys there write mean comments on their editing all the time and don’t get called unprofessional. But worst of all, he accused me in plain language, no insinuations, just plain language—of being unable to separate my emotions and feelings about the interviewees from my work. I’ve never faced such blatant sexism in my life. Ever. Even from old goats.
It was my first encounter with sexism that blindsided me, from someone who I thought would have been a little more enlightened. I have to say that this encounter was the worst thing in my professional life so far. And corny as that may sound, it changed my life. I now know that I have something to prove. If I want to ever have anywhere near the respect of a male colleague, in the eyes of fuckers like this, I have to work harder and be better. I never believed that before! Even though other women told me so! I have a 147 IQ for chrissakes and this little arrogant fucker who has been mooching a living off of a woman for ten years and has never had a real job is going to try to school me just because I am a woman? Fuck that. Never again. I’m on a crusade to gain as many tokens of respect as I can. Just wait.
Sorry I haven’t posted any wedding pics yet, folks. I’ve been coping with a different, more interesting sort of event, which I will now tell you about.
I’ve had my first unexpected run-in with sexism! My first sneak attack! My first sucker-punch!
All the other encounters I’ve had haven’t surprised me; some old goat or some young white trash behaves badly and I just shrug it off, unsurprised. Besides, usually if I suspect that someone might come at me with sexism, I behave differently toward that person. I find that fulfilling (at least partially) someone’s sexual stereotype of me can be a useful tool toward actually getting them to do what you want or need them to do.
This, however…
I copyedit the Cimarron Review here on campus. There’s no need to name names, but you will all put all the pieces together instantly, so it seems like I might as well use names. I’ve done the copyediting for two years, because Jerry asked me to. That tidbit becomes important later in the story. I also offer comprehensive editing suggestions, if something about one of the pieces seems glaringly off and has managed to escape the eyes of the primary editors. Usually they’ll take the comp edit suggestion, because, like I said, I don’t offer them unless it’s about something glaring.
Anyway, my husband is one of the primary editors; another fellow named Tim is the other primary editor, Tom’s understudy, sort of, because he’s only been there a year and it takes about a year to learn everything there.
So I meet with Tim on Friday to go over the copyediting. All goes fine until we get to an interview between two haughty male bigwigs and one shell-shocked female mediumwig. The interview is okay, except that in its present form, it’s not an interview. It’s a transcript. All sorts of false starts, incoherent sentence fragments hanging alone, overlaps in the conversation, etc. On top of this, the male bigwig being interviewed makes numerous outlandish, ignorant claims. For example, calling sushi “found art.” (Like finding sushi in a kitchen makes it “found art.” If he found it lying on the beach, yes, but he doesn’t assert that. He obviously doesn’t know what found art is.) The ignorant claims along with the complete lack of shape the interview has paints the two male bigwigs as complete buffoons, and the female mediumwig as a third wheel, brought into the interview only because she is male bigwig number one’s wife.
I realize that the interview can be significantly improved by the cutting of about 15 single lines of conversation: the false starts, etc. This will make the men look slightly less buffoonish without changing the intent or meaning of the interview—after all, they do a good enough job sounding like idiots, uh excuse me, making their intellectual points, in their coherent sentences without the sentence frags and false starts emphasizing it.
If Tom or Jerry had been at the helm for this issue, the changes would have been made prior to me ever getting the interview. But in this case, Tim was at the helm.
It is our practice at Cimarron to make comments next to the pieces we think are stupid. Things like “this story is lame!” or “jerkwad!” or “learn something about forestry, you idiot, before you try to write about it!” It’s part of the game, ragging pieces we think aren’t very good but that somehow got into the magazine anyway. And obviously we don’t all agree…some think the pieces are very good…it’s personal opinion, you see. But fun to rag on the authors anyway. So of course, I have things like this written on the interview, alongside my cuts.
Long story short, Tim had a strong reaction to my editing suggestions for the interview, trying to school me on how interviews work, etc. Trying to tell me that eliminating any of this stuff would destroy the integrity of the interview. Saying that reading 8 lines of 3 different people bumble in incoherent sentence fragments is interesting to the reader. On and on. I was shocked by these assertions (because they are incorrect and show poor skills as an editor, which is what he’s supposed to be) but really, I didn’t care. I told him that I was only trying to clean up the structure of the interview and make these guys’ idiotic assertions look less idiotic, but that since he’s the one at the helm this issue, it’s his call. If he disagrees with my suggestions, whatever, leave it alone. It’s his call. Just trying to help. He says he wants to consult with the interviewer first, before making any changes. I say, only if you want to; if you think it’s best, leave the whole thing alone.
At the end of the editing session, I say, “Sorry we had to have a confrontation over that interview. It’s just that I felt that the interview would benefit from editing. But, do whatever you feel is the best thing to do with the piece.” And he says, sure, yes, no hard feelings at all, it’s just one of those things.
Cut to Sunday.
The phone rings and it’s him. He wants to talk to me. He puts on this older-and-wiser voice, and tells me that I was extremely unprofessional on Friday and difficult to work with; that my “seething hatred” for the two men in the interview colored all of my editing work; that he’s disappointed in me for that, etc. I can’t type it all down or my blood will begin to boil again. I said, “Why are you attacking me?” and the shit hit the fan. I can handle all sorts of crap from all sorts of people but talking down to me and accusing me of two things that are untrue is too much for me.
I won the argument. I will distill the 30 minutes of hollering down to this:
1. He accused me of being unprofessional because I wrote those silly comments on the interview! I said We always do that and Fuck you don’t call me unprofessional you’re the one who gets high in the office. I won that point. He relented.
2. He accused me of my “seething hatred” tainting my work. I said No it doesn’t because there is no way you can say that my cuts affect the content at all except to tighten it. And besides, if my so-called seething hatred was tainting things, wouldn’t I be editing the piece to make them look like bigger idiots instead of lesser idiots? I won that point.
He never gave up being condescending, though. At one point he was trying to tell me how the editing process works. I had to “remind” him that in a few short weeks I will hold my Master’s degree in Technical Writing. At one point, he condescendingly said that he had no idea why I had a position as copyeditor, that he thought “it was nice that I wanted to help out or try to be a part of things.” I told him that I was copyeditor because Jerry had asked me to be (for some reason, Jerry’s name still strikes a little awe in dumb shits like him).
I realized that Tim thought that Tom had given me a little post on Cimarron because I’m his wife and I wanted to “try to be a part of things.” I realized that he thinks a Master’s is meaningless. That Technical Writing is meaningless. I realized that he held me to a double standard when it came to behavior in the office, because the other guys there write mean comments on their editing all the time and don’t get called unprofessional. But worst of all, he accused me in plain language, no insinuations, just plain language—of being unable to separate my emotions and feelings about the interviewees from my work. I’ve never faced such blatant sexism in my life. Ever. Even from old goats.
It was my first encounter with sexism that blindsided me, from someone who I thought would have been a little more enlightened. I have to say that this encounter was the worst thing in my professional life so far. And corny as that may sound, it changed my life. I now know that I have something to prove. If I want to ever have anywhere near the respect of a male colleague, in the eyes of fuckers like this, I have to work harder and be better. I never believed that before! Even though other women told me so! I have a 147 IQ for chrissakes and this little arrogant fucker who has been mooching a living off of a woman for ten years and has never had a real job is going to try to school me just because I am a woman? Fuck that. Never again. I’m on a crusade to gain as many tokens of respect as I can. Just wait.
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