The Fat, Skinny, Strong, Curvy... Truth

Hello all! I hope you are all having weeks that are more fabulous than the thought of a reenactment of Pride and Prejudice performed by snakes in top hats.

Well, it's fair to say that graduate school is not for the faint of heart. I am about a month and a half in and about ready to start gnawing on the corners of books.

Yes, I'm aware that just makes me sound like I'm turning into one of my cats, which you all probably feared already, but I swear there are no kitty transformations occurring.

This week I was walking through the parking lot to my car after buying groceries. Okay, honest confession, I was doing the "lug all of your groceries on your arms without hitting your legs with them because you're too proud to use the shopping cart" waddle, but that is neither here nor there.

 As I toiled under the unforgiving Arizona sun towards my car I happened to read a bumper sticker in the back of a Toyota that read, "Fit is Beautiful"  and advertised some local gym.

The car parked directly next to it had a hot pink bumper sticker that read, "Big girls are the sexiest!"

I would have taken a picture, but that would have required untangling myself from several grocery bags and then re-hefting them in the 109 degree heat.

Instead as I trudged back to my car a thought hit me, "Why did I move to a place where the pavement could actually melt my shoes!?"

After that thought came, "I wonder to whose advantage it is to have a body type beauty war?"

Sure, the media benefit when they cast skinny models as the "hot girls" in one film and then have "feel good" films where the heavier girl gets her man. Makeup companies make a killing off of making women compare with each other. Gyms exploit the comparison for memberships...

The long list of those who benefit from women comparing themselves to each other is mind boggling long.

You know who doesn't benefit, though? WOMEN

We as a sex and a gender don't benefit, not one little bumper sticker's worth of an iota, from constantly having to claim that our particular body type is somehow more "beautiful" or more "sexy" than the next girl's body type!

 The comparison of "who is more beautiful" based simply on our skin-sack full of organs, bones and other random tissues and juices (which is essentially what we all are) is a false one, and it's one that we continue to perpetuate to our own disadvantage.

So, are skinny women beautiful? YES

Are curvy women beautiful? YES

Are tall women beautiful? YES

What about <insert random descriptor here>? YES

All women are beautiful, and until we stop competing with each other for the imaginary body-type, beauty queen crown, then we will continue to waste our time and our energy dividing over something useless instead of directing our time and effort towards something actually productive.

You are beautiful, whether you are tall, short, thin, fat, purple (though, if you're purple, you might want to get that checked), trans, straight haired, or built like She-Hulk!

Now it's time, as women, that we all start acting like the beautiful bitches we are.

If you want to know where you can find more of this beautiful woman, come find me on Facebook and Twitter and my books can be found here!

The Mulan Effect

Hello everyone! I hope your weeks have been better than the thought of a party hosted by intelligent pelicans.

It is no mystery that I have worked a plethora of interesting jobs. From stable hand to Japanese language tutor, my jobs have not been in the sphere of 9 to 5 normality.

Quite a few of my jobs thus far have not only been a bit on the odd side, but have also been ones that have, in the past, been traditionally held by men. I've been a bouncer, head of security for a homeless shelter, lighting technician for a concert house and self defense instructor.

Now, before I get a ton of comments saying, "But women's equality has come so far! You can't seriously think your gender matters in modern jobs!" let me tell you how much bull pucky that is.

What It Feels Like Working In A Male Dominated Field

I have found that as a woman my credibility and my experience are constantly called into question.

I once literally had a customer when I was a lighting technician for a concert house say, "Move over sweetheart, I'll focus that light."

To which I promptly replied, "What is your profession?"

"I'm a salesman."

"Uh-huh. And how much experience with lighting has that afforded you?"

"Umm...None."

"Then no thanks, cupcake. As I'm the trained lighting technician I think I have the lights. If I need to sell something I will let you know."

The way that I have come to cope with this kind of behavior I like to call The Mulan Effect.

For those of you who never watched Mulan as a child, and therefore I assume had empty and sad childhoods, it is a film in which the protagonist, Mulan, takes her father's place in the army by pretending to be a man.

While I have never claimed to be a man during any of my jobs (and certainly never had a lucky cricket or talking Dragon to help out) I found that taking on certain masculine characteristics helped keep some of the sexism at bay.

It was during my lighting tech days that I started going by Al. Somehow when clients heard that their lighting tech was going to be Al instead of Allison there seemed to be fewer instances of, "Oh, do you have anyone else available that day?"

Of course it was always interesting when they found out "Al" was a 5' 2" blonde twirling a giant wrench, but since no one ever had anything negative to say about my lighting sets, being Al got me through the door to work with customers.

As a bouncer and security personnel, I always got a better and more professional response when I was wearing heavy steel toed boots, a more loose fitting t-shirt and black straight-cut pants than if I wore anything even slightly alluding to my femininity.

Even lowering my voice an octave or so dramatically shifted the level to which others perceived my level of competence, even if I was talking to the same person when I lowered my voice.

This Mulan Effect as I like to call it does have it's limitations of course. There have been times when despite my efforts to suppress my femininity while in the job, I have had people walk off because of my gender.

The fact of it is, that I find it incredibly sad that in 2015 I still have people shaking my hand while saying, "Wait, you can't be the head of security here. I mean, wouldn't he be better at it?" (And yes, I have had that happen multiple times.)

I find it even more depressing that to be taken seriously I have to suppress things as core as my sex and gender to be taken seriously at jobs simply because it has traditionally been worked by males.

So has anyone experienced the Mulan Effect? What about men, do you find that taking on more "traditionally feminine" roles you have to hide your masculinity at times?

I really would love to hear from everybody.

As always I can be found on Facebook and Twitter and my books can be found here.

How's That Working For Ya?

Hello ladies and gentlemen. My blog post is a little late this week because I was fighting off a dragon using only a spatula and a broken seat belt.

Strangely enough, that probably would have been easier than my week.

Of course, every odd experience is possible fuel for a follow up to "Life is a Circus Run by a Platypus," right? And boy was there material from this past week.

This last Wednesday I went to visit one of the other social work agencies, that primarily serves men, that I partner with.

When I'm there, I'm usually set up in a conference room with other providers from the area in a long line, like we are the Council of the Caffeine Deprived Social Workers. We usually sit there, looking like this:

While inside we look a bit more like this:

Why might our inner selves look like this?

Well, the first person who came in to talk to me that morning stumbled up to the chair across from me, plopped himself down, hiccuped and passed out in a drunken stupor. I decided against signing him up for my employment program.

He was not a tiny guy, so it took several of us to figure out a way to get him somewhere where he could sleep off his previous nights' fun. This has happened more times on the job than I could probably count if I were to use my hands, toes, and all of my coworkers' appendages.

This, of course, had followed the fact that not five minutes earlier, as I had walked into the building a random guy looked at me and half-shouted, "Hey! I think I'm gonna call you Tits-Mcgee!"

Oh how I do so love getting new nicknames, particularly when they are about a random part of my body (you can only read that statement in your head with a perky Julie Andrews accent by the way).

As I was walking to my next agency stop for the day, I passed by a construction zone, because Spokane is basically one giant construction zone year round, and heard, "Hey, sweet-cheeks! Why don't you wander this way!?"

This didn't happen at one construction site, this happened at three of them.

What was I wearing to provoke these comments? A pair of jeans, utility boots and a big sweatshirt. The only way I could have been more covered is if I looked like this guy:

To be honest, what he's wearing is so much more form fitting than what I was wearing that day. I also don't believe that these comments should have been made, even if I were dressed like Daisy Duke (not that I would, no one wants to see me in those shorts).

Now at this point, I could go on some long rant about how men who speak like this are treating women like objects, but instead, I want to pose a question. That question is, "Has obscenely cat-calling random women worked for any guy ever?"

I mean seriously, your major plan is what exactly? Do you think that simply by uttering some crass comment about how our "butts fit perfectly in our jeans" or how you, "bet we taste just like candy," is going get you some action?

I want to meet the girl who doesn't find a guy attractive until he turns on the ultimate charm of throwing random words together in such Shakespearean prose by calling her, "sweet-cheeks." No, seriously, I want to find this girl so I can smack her with a copy of "Pride and Prejudice" in the hopes that some of the lessons and class from that book stick.

But guys, seriously, yelling random obscene "compliments" at women is at its best dumb and creepy, and at its worst liable to end with some girl's boyfriend/very butch girlfriend/older brother/very protective friend who weight lifts a lot coming after you to turn you from a solid into a liquid.

Stop. It does not work.

 

Sorry about the late post again, next week I promise to be more on the ball (Disclaimer: Unless I get hit by a car, or kidnapped by bandits or distracted by shiny objects).

As always, feel free to follow my mad-cap exploits on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads!