Exclusion (2)
So, I've found out what the event was on Sunday and, in part, why I wasn't allowed to go. It appears that it wasn't couples only at all, in fact, single men were more than welcome. The problem was that I'm single AND female.
It was a meal that has traditionally been all male. It was a past players do and obviously rugby players tend to be male. Explain that, and I'd have been happy. Well, maybe not happy, but I'd have understood. Maybe the atmosphere would be too male, the speaker a little too male, just not the sort of place I'd go alone. Fine.
However, this year women were there for the first time, albeit in small numbers, accompanied by men. Three of them, I believe. One of them is a good friend, and we would, presumably, have been sitting on the same table (together with at least one of the other two women), so I wouldn't have been out on my own. So why is she allowed to go when I'm not? Because she's there as arm candy and not in her own right? Because despite being a fearsome company director she can slip into subservient wifey role on demand?
In a way this gets me more worked up than I was before. Had the event been entirely male only I'd have understood. I might not have been overly impressed, but I'd have understood. But instead it seems that women are welcome, just not single women. And that single men are welcome, but not single women. What sort of distinction is that? A bloody stupid one, if you ask me.
The thing is that this is my life. I'm not single because I'm "between partners" or on a temporary basis, I'm single because I choose to be, because I choose not to go out looking, and because I'm happy to spend my life like this. I love being single, and I love being able to do what I want to when I want to do it. I don't expect to have doors slammed in my face because of it.
I'm not normally one for big feminist style rants, but is it really still the case that women are only acceptable when they're defined by their relationship to a man? Do what you want at work, but make sure you have someone to go home to and bake cakes for at the end of the day.
Grr.
*NB, the bloke I know isn't off the hook entirely. He may not have been involved in setting the rules for the event as a whole but it could equally have been that there were in fact no rules, it's just that his was the only organisation with a reason for inviting women - as a charity rather than as past players - and that he decided the circumstances in which he'd let them in. Either way, he is still responsible for the way he communicated it to me, and for his complete failure to reply when I questioned it. He could have had the courage to respond to at least one of the public and private messages I left on the subject. He would not have said what he said to me to a man. The irony is that if he'd explained what the event was I probably wouldn't have wanted to go because it's not really my scene, but by making the decision for me he's wound me up far more than he needed to.
It was a meal that has traditionally been all male. It was a past players do and obviously rugby players tend to be male. Explain that, and I'd have been happy. Well, maybe not happy, but I'd have understood. Maybe the atmosphere would be too male, the speaker a little too male, just not the sort of place I'd go alone. Fine.
However, this year women were there for the first time, albeit in small numbers, accompanied by men. Three of them, I believe. One of them is a good friend, and we would, presumably, have been sitting on the same table (together with at least one of the other two women), so I wouldn't have been out on my own. So why is she allowed to go when I'm not? Because she's there as arm candy and not in her own right? Because despite being a fearsome company director she can slip into subservient wifey role on demand?
In a way this gets me more worked up than I was before. Had the event been entirely male only I'd have understood. I might not have been overly impressed, but I'd have understood. But instead it seems that women are welcome, just not single women. And that single men are welcome, but not single women. What sort of distinction is that? A bloody stupid one, if you ask me.
The thing is that this is my life. I'm not single because I'm "between partners" or on a temporary basis, I'm single because I choose to be, because I choose not to go out looking, and because I'm happy to spend my life like this. I love being single, and I love being able to do what I want to when I want to do it. I don't expect to have doors slammed in my face because of it.
I'm not normally one for big feminist style rants, but is it really still the case that women are only acceptable when they're defined by their relationship to a man? Do what you want at work, but make sure you have someone to go home to and bake cakes for at the end of the day.
Grr.
*NB, the bloke I know isn't off the hook entirely. He may not have been involved in setting the rules for the event as a whole but it could equally have been that there were in fact no rules, it's just that his was the only organisation with a reason for inviting women - as a charity rather than as past players - and that he decided the circumstances in which he'd let them in. Either way, he is still responsible for the way he communicated it to me, and for his complete failure to reply when I questioned it. He could have had the courage to respond to at least one of the public and private messages I left on the subject. He would not have said what he said to me to a man. The irony is that if he'd explained what the event was I probably wouldn't have wanted to go because it's not really my scene, but by making the decision for me he's wound me up far more than he needed to.
posted by YP at 8:48 PM
2 Comments:
That is such rubbish. Sounds like something you'd hear about 50 years ago! I'd be mad about it.
I'm not particularly technical, but if you make the ticker on 3FC all the code should be there, then you paste it into your template. For the photo at the top, get it hosted somewhere (I use photobucket) and then include the code in the template again, although you might need to fiddle to get it the right size andin the right place!
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