Opening Doors
16 January 2003, 3:03 PM

Discussions of sexism with someone who Just Doesn't Get It can sometimes be frustrating and depressing. But at least today I participated in one that left me giggling...

There's a discussion going on right now in a listserv I'm on - it's been going on for several weeks now. I finally had some time to interject a bit. (This day is DRAGGING at work. At least I have a three-day weekend coming up.)

There's this one guy right now who is trying to argue that he's not sexist when he doesn't open doors for men at all, but opens doors for women because a smile from a woman brightens his day in "subtle and pleasant ways".

Of course, plenty of people have pointed out the logical fallacy of this. Many of them - both men and women - open doors for BOTH men and women for a variety of reasons: because it's just darn rude to let a door swing shut in someone's face, or because the other person may have packages in their hands, or because it's just a nice thing to pass on an open door to who ever is walking close behind you.

One person even stated as much, that this behavior is sexist and that a comparative non-sexist response would be to open doors for someone because they had packages their hands rather than because they wanted a sexually stimulating response from that person for the favor.

His response was one I've heard before when civilized behavior is pointed out; He declared that changing would require heterosexual men to stop being heterosexual.

This just cracks me up.

Seriously. I've got this picture in my head of some beefy macho super-heterosexual construction worker type guy accidentally opening a door for another and *POOF* he's suddenly flaming gay. *poof* One minute he's Arnold Schwarzenegger and *poof* the next minute he's Jack from "Will and Grace".

Geez, think of the implications of letting someone go in front of you through one of those revolving doors you see in front of big department stores. And doormen! Now I know why those uniforms look both slightly military and like something Liberace would love. That would have to be exhausting at the end of the day, changing back and forth....

Heh.

Anyway, tonight is going to be REALLY chilly here. I wanna go home now and get some hot chocolate and make some tortellini. (With mushroom pesto sauce. Mmmmm.) I've got some studying to do too and I've decided to dump a bunch more stuff in some bags and take it to Goodwill. I've just got too much crap! There are clothes I'll never wear just taking up space and lots of filed papers I really need to throw away.

Good article
16 January 2003, 1:22 PM