I know I haven't written in a while. Sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm not dead. I've been swamped with freelance projects and job hunting, but I decided to make some time for a new blog post.
Sometime last week, a group of feminists were selling baked goods. None of their stuff looked appetizing to me at all, so I opted out, but a couple of my friends went for the soggy cup cakes.
When I saw that they were charging men $1.00 and women $.75 for the same item, I became slightly irritated. I understood why they were charging men more and was quite impressed at first. Statistically speaking, men make more money than women do, so they scaled up their prices accordingly. However, as I thought more about it, I felt like they were generalizing.
What would they charge someone who doesn't fit society's gender standards? What about someone who is transgendered or gay? Or, someone who's of a different ethnic background?
Let's call it for what it is: there are many, many other classes of people who don't have equal privileges. It's not just about man/woman. Because of that huge gap in their feminist campaign, I really felt like saying something to them as a black man (and a gay one at that), but I kept my mouth shut.
Although I'm not completely out of the closet at work, I know for a fact that racial oppression affects my salary (among other things). How? I have a larger skill set (less experience) than the next guy, but I don't get nearly as much respect or compensation. With that being said, don't I have the right to a price break?
Not to mention, with the cupcakes and brownies these girls were selling, it seems to me like they were contradicting themselves. The last thing a feminist wants to be seen as is a kitchen-bound wench.
Just something to think about.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
Yikes!! I don't blame you for not being tempted by their wares. Fish-flavoured cupcakes aren't very appealing.
I'm in 100% agreement with the gist of your post - two wrongs don't make a right. What these diabolical wenches are practicing is positive discrimination, a truly nasty social evil; i.e. "one group of people are bad, therefore, we can be equally as bad and give them a taste of their own medicine."
BOO!!
You know what? I didn't think of it that way... Positive discrimination is exactly what they were doing! That is so damn passive aggressive and now I feel like I SHOULD have said something!
Post a Comment