What a swell party this isn't

[serene]

Scene: party Saturday night, which I only attended in trophy-wife capacity (cute-poet-chick's college friend's birthday)

Montessori Teacher who looks like Garry Shandling and says things like "We traveled through Egypt, and everyone does laundry by hand. Lots of people earn their living doing laundry for others. It's a social thing for women to do it. So if they had washing machines, it would hurt their economy."

Me, after about an hour of ignoring his idiocy and chuckling lightly at his stupid jokes: "So, you have three teenaged daughters? Wow."

Garry Shandling: "Yeah. I'm the only guy in a house full of girls. So I have to keep remembering to think down to their level."

Me: "Um, excuse me. *Down*?"

GS: "You know what I mean. Guys think on one level, and girls on another."

Me: "Oh. And it's *down* a level? *Down*?"

GS: *sputter* "You know what I mean."

Cute-poet-chick, sotto voce: "Doesn't he realize he's sitting at a table with a bunch of women who are bigger than he is?"

Me, to GS: "Hey, that's right. I could totally kick your ass."

Me, to cute-poet-chick: "Here, honey, hold my jacket."

Grrrrrr.

Comments

[slinkr.livejournal.com]

I'm with Joe on this one. You made it really clear why you were justifiably angry about sexism. But when I read your response to the first post by breckan, my first reaction was "how do you know he's white?" It confused me because I didn't think you'd make assumptions about someone's race, so I figured maybe you knew him or something.

But I still couldn't figure out what race had to do with it. Are you more tolerant of sexism when it comes from guys who are not white? I can understand if your annoyance at the teacher was compounded by his having the misfortune to look like Garry Shandling. But would your response to breckan have been different if he wasn't white, or if he was a guy whose race you didn't know?