Can I be a feminist and 'one of the guys'?

[Datepalm]

So, I work with hiking trips, mostly school trips this time of year, and its like 90% male. The “work enviroment” is tagging along with the school and then hanging out at the hostel in the evening. For a bunch of reasons, theres usually an attempt to arrange the whole team to be of the same gender, but thats not always possible I do get asked every trip whether I mind sharing a room*. I don't, i've lived in the same small room with htree guys for months, did the whole mixed unit army thing, can tolerate any amount of bathroom humor, i'm not too fussy about changing clothes or something if its necessary and hold my own nicely with “that time I didn't take my socks off for three weeks” stories. By and large, I feel i'm doing pretty well at getting along and being “one of the guys”. This is a fairly important component of not making my job really suck since I spend a lot of accumulated time with these people.

So now I just got off a 2 night trip with 3 guys, including one of them who spent the whole time** telling off color jokes. Talking about how much he wants to masturbate, amusingly adding the word “vagina” to the ends of sentences and generally reminding us all how inherently funny the words cunt, whore, rape, masturbate, bitch, etc are by repeating them often and loudly while making faces, and so on.

At some point on day 3, tired and annoyed, and already chafing from hearing the astonishing vile crap coming out of the teenagers mouths***, I snapped (specifically to “You want to join the card game?” “What does that have to do with VAGINA! Haha”) ranted something about how this really wasn't funny anymore and left. I also threw a chocolate waffle at the offender. (I am extremely not proud of this but cant bring myself to regret it.) Eventually I went back, got asked what the hell I was so offended about, what “VAGINA!” isn't funny? I really got mad. Said its offensive and annoying and I don't enjoy being referred to this way all the time, etc – and got laughed at. (Then called my boss, ranted at him I never want to go on another trip with the guy, and he promised he have a talk with him.)

The thing is, i'd made a few comments but they were toned down and more “thats not funny” than “this is offensive, stop now!” and i'd never really taken a stance or tried to explain that it was offensive, annoying, frustrating, degrading, dehumanizing and exhasuting to me. I'd been laughing at some of his jokes, after all, getting along, telling my own jokes, etc, and his 'humor' really wasn't aimed at me or anyone in particular.

I talked to him a bit later (five hour bus trip on the same bench. I suck at hostile silence.) and apologized (for snapping, and for going through our boss, who is not the most sensible, thoughtful person, which we all know, not for the contents) and he apologized and said “obviously, that's not really your humor”, “wasn't aimed at you”, etc, which is maybe missing the point, but practically speaking acceptable - but i'm worried i'm now officially going to be snappy PMSing bitch chick to everyone else in the company anyway**** (I am already “the leftist”*****) and this could be really, really annoying.

I'm curious to hear male opinions here – was I being unreasonable, not giving warning before snapping? On the other hand, wheres the line? By letting one risque joke pass, or heaven forbid, telling one, am I now signalling acceptance of anything and everything? Am I giving the other guys, and guy #1 for that matter, too little credit? Could I talk to him and explain myself? Do I not then become lecturing, pretentious, oversensitive bitch girl anyway? These are the people I work with – I don't wan't to be their teacher/mother/psychologist/guide to feminism. Then again, i've spent plenty of time with plenty of men and most of them felt no need to punctuate every sentence with female anatomy.

Argh.

*Apparently, no one asks the guys if they mind.

**and I mean the WHOLE TIME. He apparently can't fall asleep without a straight twenty minutes of jokes about penises and i'm not exaggerating.

***Good god, every other day I have to raise the bar on “worst thing heard said by teen”. I dare anyone not to lose their minds at these particular whining, spoiled, entitled, slow-walking freaks of consumerism, spawned by some unholy union of facebook and a shopping mall.

****We gossip about eachother like....something non-sexist that gossips a lot.

*****This is treated as being something like a member of a really small and somewhat secretive minority, like Black Hebrews or Samaritans or something. Nice enough as a person, interesting for a conversation, but baffling and ultimately irrelevant in the grand scheme of thing.)

[mormont]

Personally I'd have told him to shut the fuck up a lot earlier, just for being a astonishingly unfunny moron, completely apart from the sexism angle. So no, not unreasonable in the slightest.

[Renasko]

Before snapping, I would've told him to basically shut the fuck up. Given him a few chances, and then done something about it, ie. left or chewed him out.

[Chaldanya]

Oh wow. That made me v. angry. Can only imagine how you must have felt.

FWIW - I think whilst throwing something at the dude in question wasn't the best way to go about it; it was completely understandable after being subjected to a high level of misogyny for 3 days straight.

Also, it's perfectly acceptable to say 'this is offensive to me, stop now'. We all have to get by the best we can and make the choices that we need to to make our life easier (whether they are feminist choices or no). By which I mean to say that just because you made one joke doesn't mean that you should be subjected to a stream of anti-woman bullshit.

I can't glean a lot about your work situation from the post, but the fact that you got laughed at when asking him to stop being offensive says to me that you were right to go to your boss (no matter how ineffective he is) because this guy needs to learn some boundaries quickly. If you feel comfortable you can even kick it higher if you want to.

I think unfortunately you're gonna get labeled with the PMT/bitch label anyway. Most of us do at some time in our lives, but I don't think you should let that influence how you react to something that truly offends you. The label is just a way of trying to deflect your very real concerns and feelings about how your entire gender is refered to by this man.

Just to finish with; I'm sorry that you had to go through that Datepalm. It fucking sucks.

N

[gladius]

He's obviously an attention whore. I can't give advice on how to deal with them, because i don't really care about such things.

[Stalker]

I'm confused. How old are these boys? That's behaviour I'd associate with thirteen year olds, but you said you wanted to be one of the guys. If he is still behaving like that at nineteen he's got issues.

and i'd never really taken a stance or tried to explain that it was offensive, annoying, frustrating, degrading, dehumanizing and exhasuting

You do realise that his is the point, and he wouldn't do it if it was not?

[Errant Bard]

Maybe the transition between laughing at his jokes and flaming him was indeed too brutal and you will get a reputation for mood swing, but I don't think you were unreasonable, I wouldn't have stood this guy as long as you. I think you should make clear after that that it wasn't a PMS mood swing but that you still find his behaviour offensive and insensitive. If you don't hide your hostility, he will shut the fuck up eventually in your presence, but if you apologize and let him start again you will cement your mood swing rep. Early warning of irritation are king (I work with a guy like that , too, it can get tiring to hold it in), and it won't necessarily destroy your professional relationship except if the guy is truly a blind insensitive asshole.

[kuroishi]

He obviously went over the top there.

I think that if you didn't give him any (easy to understand) sign beforehand, he must have been really surprised and maybe didn't really understand where you were coming from (I wouldn't have I think). But after your intervention, it should have been his job to think about it, realize what he did wrong, and apologize to you.

Maybe you could have make him understand more gradually, but ultimately you're in your right there.

[Renasko]

In the future, Dantepalm, I'd suggest you say something earlier. To save yourself grief. It's not worth listening to pricks like that.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

You know, he probably deserved to have a waffle thrown at him. I kinda hope the "chocolate" part included sauce.

That said, saying something earlier (maybe after the first 20 minute bed time stand up routine?) might have been a better alternative.

[Noontidal]

Not unreasonable at all. I would find that behavior just as offensive and do what I could to avoid that person. Of course, in the past, simply bringing it up simply means I will be a target and they will do what they can to offend me more. I've developed thick skin as a result.

[Xray the Enforcer]

Unfortunately, Datepalm, women will always be dismissed by some (not all people, obviously) and described as "PMS-y bitches" for merely standing up for themselves. Better to just accept that right now and get down to the business of kicking misogynist ass (this includes telling people who call you a PMS-y bitch that they're being sexist jackasses, btw).

I'm sorry you had to endure the presence of such an odious human being.

[amicoa]

I'm with stalker on this. How old were these people? penis-vagina jokes? Think I hang out with pretty immature 20 somethings but they pretty much just make jokes about their retarded bosses or eachother, dropped the penis jokes back in middle school.

[naz]

Completely moronic on his part, of course. But if I were in your position, it probably would've been more effective had you eased into your outburst. Maybe by initially asking him to stop in a offhand way, like "Dude... maybe you need to introduce more material into your comedic repertoire" then gradually intimating that 1 or 2 vagina jokes are somewhat funny, but a dozen are just boring and dumb. If he doesn't stop there (which he probably wouldn't), then you can unleash your fury with greater effect and sustainability, because he'll have seen it coming and should've known better than to continue.

Granted, jokes like that justifiably warrant outrage right at the outset, but since you say that you wanted to deal with it without ruffling too many feathers, then yeah... a gradual buildup to your outburst probably would have been more effective in this case.

Probably.

It's hard to tell since the guy sounds like a total meathead, to be honest. Personally, I find people like that useless to get upset at, since they won't usually change their behavior, and I'd just either walk away or avoid them in the future. But I can see how that might not be possible in your case.

[Jed o' Tarth]

Yeah, this guy sounds like some immature kid who uses 'bad' words for shock factor. He was probably just rying to get a rise out of you the whole time because he wanted your attention and didn't know how to get it a resonable way. Akin to pulling your pigtails until you start crying and go to the teacher.

Just keep with what you told your boss, don't work with him anymore. He can razzle some 14 year old girls with his antics. You don't need it.

[Nous]

Sure you can be feminist and 'one of the guys'. It just depends on which guys we're talking about. I don't recommend trying to be "one of the guys" at the cost of your self-respect - you'll just be the doormat of the group.

It sounds like your problem is not so much with the group, but with this one guy. As for whether they think you're "snappy PMSing bitch chick", I'm afraid that's possible -- from the way you describe it, you weren't too impressive when you snapped. Likely, they also think that the man-child is an idiot, if it's any comfort.

[ljkeane]

Datepalm, it sounds like he was a bit of an idiot and it's probably not too surprising that you snapped but if he really didn't mean to offend you and he's sincere about his apology I'd just see how it goes from here. If your work mates are reasonable I'm sure they won't hold this against you.

[Noontidal]

Unfortunately, Datepalm, women will always be dismissed by some (not all people, obviously) and described as "PMS-y bitches" for merely standing up for themselves. Better to just accept that right now and get down to the business of kicking misogynist ass (this includes telling people who call you a PMS-y bitch that they're being sexist jackasses, btw).

It helps not one bit if it's a male that *complains either.

* Unless the complaining is served on fists.

[Xray the Enforcer]

It helps not one bit if it's a male that *complains either.

* Unless the complaining is served on fists.

Good point. :)

[Ocean of Notions]

"One of the guys"... I hear people use it all the time and I wonder, what does that even mean? This isn't directed at you, just a general mini-rant. Every other girl I hear who refers to herself as "one of the guys" consider some other girl who also thinks of herself as "one of the guys" not "one of the guys" at all. So who the hell really is "one of the guys" if we can't even decide what that entails?

Anyway, no matter what gender the perpetrators are, they sound like immature jackasses. Penis and vagina jokes 24/7? Sounds like they just learned the words. No matter how you reacted in defending yourself, someone will likely see you as that uppity girl who's either too sensitive or PMSing. It's hard to get around that.