Thursday, May 28, 2009

Neeru's Eureka Moment - Week #2

After reading the assigned chapters it dawned on me that there is a particular guy at work using locker room language with only the woman at the office. It’s a guy in our IT department who takes help desk calls and fixes any technical problems with our computers. I called the help desk yesterday because my computer froze and the gentlemen came over to take a look at it and the first thing he says to me is, “Hello darling.” He took a seat in my chair to work on my computer and a few minutes later addressed me as “sweet heart.” There were several other people around since I don’t have an office, just a cubicle. L He addresses all women like this so I assume this is his norm behavior. I realized that this was a form of locker room language as our text put it. As he was working on my computer I thought why is it that he feels he can call woman by these pet names? Does he think we like it I thought? I can only assume that no one has confronted him about this and I didn’t have the nerve to either. It actually never bothered me before because I never “read” into the comments…until I read the text! After reading the text I come to the conclusion that I don’t appreciate this kind of talk anymore because it puts women down and gives the impression that we are passive. Now I pick up on everything that is being done and said around me at work, at school, at home. :)
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1 comment:

  1. Mario DMay 28, 2009 at 9:35 PM

    Neeru,
    I identify with you regarding becoming more aware since this class began. I am becoming keenly aware of my own behaviors that do nothing more than reinforce society’s definition of gender and the inequalities between them. I thing I learned one of my biggest lessons in life when I first entered the corporate world in 1985. I was working for a brokerage firm in the World Trade Center and my project leader was a women. One day I called her “hon”, short for honey. I have no idea why she didn’t fire me on the spot, but obviously she thought I was worth saving. She lectured me for the next two hours on how to address women in business and I have never done that again. I actually thought (as I am sure your IT guy thinks), that these are endearing terms, but they are clearly not, they are demeaning. I think you would serve yourself and the IT person if you let him know those terms were unacceptable.

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