There. I said the f-word.
But I'm not the kind of feminist who hates men--a lot of my friends are guys, actually--and I'm not the kind of feminist who vetoes every last tiny little mainstream thing because it might be offensive, or the kind who refuses to watch Disney because "princesses are sexist." I'm the kind of feminist who thinks it's just a little fucked-up that in the 21st century, we are still holding to the idea that the best men are the ones who treat women like they're made of glass.
I mean, really.
What really pisses me off is that it's supposed to be a guy-to-girl thing. Seriously? I don't know about the men in your life, but the ones in mine really appreciate it if I hold the door when they've got their hands full, or if I offer to help them carry stuff to their dorm, or if I ask if they want anything when I go to get more food in the cafeteria. And I know plenty of other girls who don't mind doing this for their boyfriends or guy friends. My general rule is that if anyone, male or female, looks like they need help, you offer it to them, because it's good manners. If they decline your help, you don't take it as an insult. You take it as, Thanks, but I've got this covered. And it's that bloody easy. No hard feelings or outdated gender roles necessary.
Now take that and apply it to sports. If someone's a bad sport, it doesn't matter if they're male or female, you don't want to play with them or even practice with them. If they're a good sport, you enjoy playing with them and practicing with them and everything's all good. And if they have skills you don't, you're best served watching and learning from them, and if you have skills they don't, you shouldn't object to them watching and learning from you. Again, it's that easy, right?
Ha. If only.
Now I'll admit, I don't like losing. I don't know anyone who enjoys losing, actually. I mean, why would you? Losing says, I didn't have the skills to win this game/fight/round. But what you have to do is turn that into the mindset of, Okay, I lost, that means I need to work harder, or maybe I'm just having an off day. It's not the end of the world. That's the mindset I brought with me into my fencing class, and you know what? I had a great effing time in that class.
Well. Except for one day.
It was near the end of our class--last week of it, I think. And we'd started our tournament, which was kind of like our final exam, except it wasn't a graded final, it was more of a "Okay, let's see how far you personally have come since you've started this class" kind of final. We held to what I think is a pretty normal standard for fencing tournaments: men fight men; women fight women. I still don't necessarily like that women and men are in separate divisions in most sports, but I understand why, and it actually does make sense, to some degree. But it was one of the things I loved about martial arts when I was still practicing--it didn't matter what your gender was; it mattered if you could kick ass.
And I'll tell you, right now, the girls in my fencing class sure as hell kicked ass. I loved fighting them and I didn't mind being beaten; the only time I got mad at myself was when I basically wimped out on a fight with one of the best fencers in the class. She deserved a much better fight than I gave her. That was literally the only time I was truly disappointed with myself in that class. I was disappointed because I didn't do the best I possibly could have done--not because I lost the fight.
Apparently, one of the male fighters in my class did not feel the same.
Like I said, we were at the beginning of our tournament. Second day, if I recall correctly. And because I was required to fight the women in the tournament, for the warmup rounds I'd usually choose to spar with a guy, because I wanted to have as many different opponents as I could, and by that point most of the separate divisions had already had either a scored fight or a warmup fight with every other person in their division. So I chose a guy I'd never fenced with before, thinking it would be a good experience.
I learned from my martial arts lessons that it's best to let your opponent strike first, to gauge his or her speed, accuracy, and so forth. I also knew from judging this guy's rounds that he liked to fake out his opponents about fifteen times (oh, how I wish I were exaggerating) before making the final strike. So, I let him hit first. I didn't bother blocking 90% of his hits, which never landed anyway. I'd riposte (basically, I'd rebut his attacks) and managed to score a couple of points on him; what hits he managed to get on me were invalid touches, meaning they were out of attack range--no score. TL;DR: I was winning the fight, but to an outsider it basically looked like he was beating the crap out of me.
After a few moments of this, he graciously offered, "You can attack me now. It's okay."
...
You can attack me now.
You can ATTACK ME NOW?
You CAN?
As in, he was giving me permission to attack him, in the middle of a fight?
"Thank you for your permission," I said sarcastically, and continued exactly what I was doing. (No, in case you're wondering, he never did land a direct hit on me.)
There were two things that bothered me about this. First of all, he was so arrogant, almost to the point of stupidity, that he possessed the mentality that hey, he was being more aggressive--so regardless of the points, he assumed he was winning the fight. The idea that I, with my non-aggressive, energy-conserving fighting style, could ever beat him, the macho man, just did not cross his mind.
Second--and far more important--he didn't view me as an opponent. Not in the least. It was clear that he didn't view me as any kind of competition whatsoever, or he wouldn't have condescended like that. And I assure you, he hadn't said that to a male opponent--not in the fights of his that I'd seen, anyway, and I'd seen at least two or three by then.
So yeah. I wasn't happy about that.
But it got even worse. After class, when we were putting away our fencing gear, I heard him bragging to one of his male friends (who, to my knowledge, hadn't even known my name before this class--yes, this is important to keep in mind). "Yeah, man, I was being totally chivalrous, I let her get hits on me, but she wasn't impressed at all."
(My immediate mental response: Well, at least you admit I got points on you...that's a start.)
His friend, laughing, replied that he knew me, and that I went for the more "gentlemanly" type of guys. My class partner immediately crowed, "Well, I've got that locked up then! You saw her, right? She won't admit it, but she was flirting back."
At this point, furious, I interrupted the conversation and pointed out that 1) I could hear them, 2) they were being jackasses, and 3) even if they were the nice guys they pretended to be, I was taken, thankyouverymuch, and had absolutely no interest in leaving my significant other for either of them. I practically threw my stuff into my cabinet and walked away. As I left, though, I heard one of them say in a singsong voice, "Temper, temper!" while the other one said something under his breath about "yeah, she wants it."
Shoot me now.
Why, males of the world? Why do you have to fool yourself that every girl in the world wants you, in order to validate your existence? Believe me when I say I'm a minor target for male attention and have been that way for a long time...so it takes me a while to figure out when someone is flirting with me (ask Ella...it took me all summer to figure out that she was not, in fact, straight), but I can tell when they're actually flirting. In fact I'm more likely to err on the side of caution: if they're treating me exactly the same way they treat every other girl they interact with, then they probably aren't flirting.
Hey, guy from fencing class, did you hear that?
If I'm treating you exactly the same way I treat every other person I interact with on a daily basis--if I award you the same courtesy I give to literally everyone else--I. AM. NOT. FLIRTING.
And you know what? The other girls probably aren't, either.
Believe it or not, unwanted flirting supports rape culture. And by "unwanted flirting," I don't mean accidentally flirting with someone who's already spoken for, or flirting with someone initially but stopping after you've been turned down. I mean when you flirt with someone who's obviously not interested, and continue flirting after they've made it extremely clear that you're making them uncomfortable--that is unwanted flirting. When you approach someone to flirt, guess what? You're taking a calculated risk, and it may or may not pay off, so you'd damn well better be prepared for both outcomes.
Outcome #1: They like you! They really like you! Congratulations, you have made a successful connection with someone you desire! Pack up your pick-up lines, baby--you're going on a date!
OR...
Outcome #2: You fall flat. They're not interested. End of story. They don't want you, so move the fuck on.
Unwanted flirting is what happens when the dick who thinks that no doesn't mean no continues flirting after Outcome #2 occurs. These are usually the guys with the mentality of...well...
And to anyone with that no-means-yes approach to flirting, male or female, I say...
And so when I heard that guy mutter "She wants it" under his breath, I almost threw up in my mouth a little bit. I didn't "want it"--not his attention or, God forbid, his affection. Not that you could convince him of that: not only did he not take me seriously during the match, but he also didn't take me seriously outside the class. I was just a "girl," something to be chased and objectified and patronized, to him. No more.
My fencing class ended a couple of weeks ago, and I'm proud to say that I did win my final bout in the tournament. I wouldn't admit it at the time, but I kind of secretly hoped the condescending warmup partner (who I'm definitely glad to be rid of) noticed that I can beat someone without getting permission to attack.
Then again, it probably wouldn't change his mind about me if he did.
