You know what's frustrating? Being a hard working woman who is the breadwinner of the house and having it CONSTANTLY assumed that when I'm out with my male partner, he is the one paying.
I'm not kidding, it's constant. We eat at a sit down restaurant, the server, without fail, comes with the check and puts it down by him, saying, "When you're ready..." Or, when we go to the movies and order tickets and *I* hand them my credit card to pay and they hand it back to him, waiting on him to sign.
I mean REALLY?!?!??! After we've established that I'm the one paying, their ingrained bias is still so strong that they insist he sign for my credit card? And this hasn't happened once or twice or even three times...it's probably happened well over 10 times.
And then there are the comments that people make. Oh, haha...it's sooooOOOooo funny that I pay for things. I *must* be a battle ax...he *must* be an emasculated, worthless POS because his partner makes some cash.
In the wide scheme of things, I understand that this is one of the very smallest biases facing people and amounts to not much more than a periodic annoyance, but LORD if it doesn't highlight how deeply ingrained concepts of women and money and what it means to be a "man" are in our society. Why are people so uncomfortable with an independent woman? Is it because she might actually have the freedom to think her own thoughts and realize that patriarchy sucks? Why are people so uncomfortable with a man who isn't threatened by a powerful woman? Is it because he's not playing his rightful role in the patriarchy?
Saturday, December 4, 2010
1 comment:
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I received this comment from Amber, www.rainycanvas.com, who had trouble posting to the site. She said...
ReplyDelete----
I feel you on this post. When I pay for dinner, they look at my fit marine looking boyfriend and they look at size 16 me. The surprise in the waitresses eyes when I hand her the money instead of him giving it to her. I get this look like I am his sugar mama. When really it was, he paid for a movie, so I am paying for dinner.
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Thanks for your comment, Amber! I totally know what you are saying and you bring up a great point...Unfortunately, body politics also play into how relationships between men and women are perceived.