It's a Man's World

One of the things I like to complain about about my workplace is our implied sexist way of life. It's not so bad, and some may argue that it's only a symptom of our merit-based hierarchy, but let me present the facts: 2 out of our 11 attorneys are women, and 1 out of the 5 partners. All the assistants are women, the librarian is a woman, and the two paralegals are men. The assistants get kitchen duties, the paralegals do not. The LIBRARIAN also gets kitchen duties. During the infamous 3-hour lunch breaks, all the attorneys round themselves up, like a big frat, and go out to the restaurant. 3 of them regularly stay behind: one man, and gasp! the two women. The man doesn't eat lunch. One of the women eats lunch in the kitchen. The other woman, when she's around, orders lunch with us staff folks.

The one who orders lunch with us, the partner, is the craziest person I ever met, so I'll even allow that she's an exception to any rules about social conduct and group bonding.

But even with that exception, the facts are disturbing. I'm really, really, really trying not to adopt the "I'm too good for this!" attitude, but let's be honest, the kitchen duties irk the hell out of me. I can understand that in a cooperative living situation, it makes sense to assign someone to oversee the final cleanliness of the space. But everyone still has to clean up after himself!! Even if each person thought he was doing 100% of his share, believe me, there would still be trash left behind. So imagine how gross it is when everyone does 0-50% of his share. Seriously, people leave coffee filters and wet paper towels in the sink. So it's not just loading the dishwasher, which I find outrageous enough; it's WIPING THEIR ASSES LIKE I WAS THEIR MOM.

So I complain, and I hear that it's still a man's world, for all we've progressed since the bra-burning days. But as I hear about the wives of these attorneys, I'm starting to revise my thesis. At least two of the men are married to extremely high-powered women, one a doctor/scholar and the other an entertainment lawyer. The latter's husband is proverbially poked at as a Mr. Mom figure - let him do this thing on the side so he can feel like he's helping, but really his job is to take care of the kids.

If it's do thoroughly a man's world, in what world are these women making the top ranks? Clearly their husbands aren't really sexist, because they're being totally outranked by their wives. Then I had a thought: what if the fact that they're not dominating at home MAKES these men act even more macho in the workplace? That would not be unheard of. Maybe that's the history of male sexism: an emasculating complex, leading to all sorts of suppression and domination. If you look back to my favorite topic in literature, cuckoldry, there's ample supporting evidence. Most women in literature are there sheerly for the sake of causing anxiety to men; being unfaithful mostly, but also to make them make up for some inadequacy (= heroism).