Conference turris::womannotes-v2

    A senior v.p. (in his late 50's) at a company I once worked for used 
    to really harrass women, especially those of us in our early to mid 20's.
    One night one of my friends was working late when he came over to her 
    desk and said it was time to go.  (She thought that he didn't want her
    working alone in the building.)  She said "OK" and he said "Your place or
    mine?" She looked up at him and very sweetly replied "Why Dr. C, what would
    your wife think if you brought home a little girl like me?"
    
    He never bothered her again.  But I've always knid of wondered what
    reprucussions there might have been if someone had been around to hear
    the exchange.  I suspect SHE would have suffered the results of his
    damaged ego. 

    A non-verbal, but very effective, "snappy comeback"-
    
    At a former employer, I was the only woman in a group of 20 or so
    managers.  At weekly staff meeting, the senior vp asked me to leave the
    meeting to get coffee for the group.  Somehow, I spilled a whole cup on
    the conference table,and got a lot of important papers very wet.
    
    I was never asked to get coffee again.

    When I first started at DEC as a temp I was asked by my manager
    to get his coffee, to which I replied "Sorry, I left my apron at
    home".  He responded "Touche" and we had a great working relationship
    from that day forward.

    A few years ago, I had been doing business by phone with a man for
    several months before we met face to face.  When he met me the first
    thing he said was that I didn't sound black ofer the phone.  I said
    I didn't know that sound had color.
    
    Along those same lines, one day at my part time job, a customer
    came in to check on something that she had ordered, and in my absences
    spoke to my manager, who asked asked her who waited on you, she
    replied " the colored lady". My manager said "my people are pink,
    tan and brown, which color was she?"                                

    "What the hell're YOU lookin' at???"
    
    "Beats me.  What t'hell *are* you?"

    
    One of the _very_ few times in my life that I've actually had the
    presence of mind to respond well in the moment.

    In high school, my rejoinder to the comment that "women should be kept
    pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen" was:
    
    "You find me a woman who's *really happy* JUST being pregnant and
    barefoot in the kitchen and nothing else, and I'LL MARRY HER."
    
    They got the point that it'd be a pretty rare thing, methinks...
    
    -Jody
    

    Whenever I am asked "Want to go out for a drink?" my response is, "I'm
    not thirsty."

    One of my favorites was related to me by a manager I worked
    for several years ago.  To put the scenario in perspective,
    it's probably appropriate that I mention that Steve has a 
    somewhat, uh, alternative point of view.  In going into a
    meeting with higher-ups, he used to always remind me that,
    "It's always important to cultivate the proper tone of dis-
    respect."  How he made it to manager, I'll never know.
    
    Anyway, as you might imagine, he married a woman of equally
    irreverent views and they subsequently made something of a 
    career of zinging one another.
    
    One day Steve and Leslie were shopping for groceries.  Leslie
    was about eight months pregnant and, to say the least, showing
    her condition.  There amongst the Campbells Pork and Beans
    and Del Monte canned tomatoes, surrounded by dozens of other 
    shoppers, Steve comes up with what he figures is a great gag.
    In a loud voice he turns to Leslie and exclaims, "I don't
    care about the baby!  I'm not going to marry you!"
    
    Casually glancing up from the shelves, Leslie turns to him and,
    without missing a beat, in a bored (but equally loud voice) replies,
    "I don't expect you to. . .it's not your kid."
    
    Steve

    Well, my only truely great and potentially career threatening come
    back was in 1972.

    I worked at a hospital in Denver and was called into the office by
    one of the doctors I worked. He proceeded to tell me that I had to
    wear a bra as it was unprofessional that I didn't. I told him I'd
    wear a bra to work when he started wearing a jock strap. The subject
    never came up again (snicker, could that be a pun?) liesl

    I remember this from womannotes-V1, although I don't remember exactly
    who said it or where...
    
    A man approaches two women who are sitting at a table in a bar,
    casually chatting.  The man asks archly "Are you two ladies alone?".
    
    "No," replies one of the women, "We're together."  And the ladies
    continue chatting.  
    
    It got me smiling....
    
    -Jody
    
    

re . 10, "we're not alone we're together" -

It's from a song called "Perfect Night" by Holly Near and Jeff Langley. 
It's quoted in Dale Spender's book, Reflecting Men at Twice Their Natural 
Size. She describes hearing it sung at a concert in Cambridge, England. The
lines quoted in .10 come as punch lines at the end of several stanzas of
build-up. 
    
    
Spender quotes some remarks she heard made afterwards by a few women in the 
audience:

"What a brilliant retort. I only wish I could be brave enough to use it."

"If only I could be that pushy."

I just can't imagine myself making that comeback."

"I bet it makes the men change their minds and think again."
                    
    
Spender then quotes some remarks made by a few "liberal men" in the
audience: 

"What a weird thing for a woman to say to a man. Wouldn't fancy her 
chances."

"Absolute cheek. That's what self-assertiveness has done for them. 
Personally I wouldn't stand for it at all. I'd make damn sure they didn't 
say it twice."

"Women who make remarks like that need thoroughly putting down in my 
opinion."
    

    Whilst working at another company I had the dubious distinction of
    filling in for the office manager during his vacation...
    
    One of my co-workers, a first-class nasty person, was a bit miffed
    that I was chosen for this "honor" and was apparently determined to
    undermine me at any expense. One morning she walked in and announced
    in a loud voice, "Edd, I have research to do. I'll be out of the office
    for the best part of the morning."
    
    To which I replied, "Sandy, if you're out of the office it will the
    best part of the entire day..."
    
    Edd

    I'm afraid this is going to be a classic guerrilla note. Sorry 'bout
    that. But the excerpts from Dale Spender (GEMVAX::KOTTLER's .11) have
    moved me to come out of read-only and say:
    
    I believe Dale Spender is a liar.
    
    The song mentioned is a great, upbeat tune about Lesbian relationships.
    It's not subtle. It's not about women who are just friends and might be
    open to heterosexual relationships. And yet it's not at all negative in
    tone toward hets or men. Several of Spender's alleged quotes just don't
    follow.
    
    So that's a matter of interpretation, you say. Fine. How about the
    plausibility of Spender's being able to discern SEVEN remarks in
    a CONCERT environment? All allegedly prompted by the same short phrase
    in a tune, which means the remarks were nearly simultaneous.
    
    C'mon, give me a break.
    
    Chuck

    Chuck,
    
    Perhaps if you had re-read .11, you would have realized that the
    comments were discerned *after* the song/concert:
    
    "Spender quotes some remarks she heard made afterwards by a few women
    in the audience:..."                        ^^^^^^^^^^
    
    This implies that the line was considered powerful enough to be
    recalled and discussed.  Isn't that interesting?
    
    						Ann B.

    
    Spender, like many women, is good at listening. She also uses a tape
    recorder in her research. So is/does the co-author of this book, Sally 
    Cline; their account of this concert is written in the first person 
    plural, "we". So that's at least two pairs of ears, plus machines...
    
    After listing the men's remarks, they go on:
    
    "Unfortunately, others shared his opinion. Most of the men in the
    audience agreed vehemently with these remarks. Some phrased their
    distaste with more subtlety than others, but they seemed to agree
    that self-assertiveness was pushy and insolent, and was less a
    statement of women's needs than a deflation of men's egos."
    
    Dorian
          

    
    It's interesting to me that a pretty simple statement, "We're not
    alone.  We're together" could seem so provokative.  It seems
    that there is no greater threat to the existing social order (i.e.,
    the patriarchy) than that there should be a few women who would prefer
    not to dump the woman they're with in order to engage with any man
    who happens to come along and demand their attention.  It reminds
    me of some of my friends' small children who can't seem to remember 
    that when Mommy is talking to a friend of hers, she doesn't want to 
    be interrupted.  But then... they're just children, so the analogy 
    doesn't really hold up that well, does it?
    
    Justine

>It reminds
>    me of some of my friends' small children who can't seem to remember 
>    that when Mommy is talking to a friend of hers, she doesn't want to 
>    be interrupted.  But then... they're just children, so the analogy 
>    doesn't really hold up that well, does it?

 Well, it does hold up. Many men practically demand instant response from
women, any women, as if they as men are entitled to such treatment. I've
noticed this lately around some of the pseudo-bigwigs around here. Of course,
they do seem to treat other men that are underlings similarly, but they seem
to be somewhat more polite when doing so. It sounds more like asking than when
they are addressing women. I'm an underling, and seeing others treated this way
makes me uncomfortable. I also have people that do work for me, and I would
hope that if I started treating someone that way, they'd say something. I really
don't ever want to act that way.

 The Doctah

    Another "when I was working elsewhere" snappy comeback.  Everyone was
    intimidated by a certain boss (a VP in a small office community), and
    most people had brown noses.  I was only 20, and in charge of compiling
    quarterly and year-end inventories.  I was constantly being interrupted
    by people demanding to know "where I stood."  Finally, the VP himself
    came up to me and said, "Where do you stand on the inventories?"  to
    which I replied, "I'd be a hell of a lot further if people would stop
    asking me where I stand!"
    
    No one was allowed to interrupt me after that - ever - and I was one of
    the few people he occasionally joked with (he'd come up to me the week
    before inventories were due to me and ask "Where do you stand?").
    
    Susan
    
    
    PS: Regarding the discussion in other replied, it has *always*
    irritated me that men just don't believe two or more women would go out
    to a *bar* with each other because they enjoy each other's company! 
    They either act rejected or call you names!

          
          Late this evening while sitting in a hot-tub, the topic of
          discussion between me and another person (previously unknown to
          me) in the hot-tub digressed to : halloween costumes.
          
          He said that when he was 11, he dressed up as a woman.
          
          me:  "A woman?"
          
          him:      "Yea, a woman."
          
          me:  "Which woman... a famous woman?"
          
          him:      "No, just a woman.  It was funny!"
          
          me:  "_Why_ is dressing up as a woman funny?"
          
          him:      "You know, balloons as breasts, lots of makeup,
                     stockings, high heels..."
          
          
          This developed into a full blown discussion (that's right, I
          didn't just drown him without trying to reason with him first ;-)
          of how society views women, how the media and advertising portray
          women, the M[isogyny] word, etc..
          
          Anyway, at one point, he asked me a question something to the
          effect of, "Well, how do you _know_ that?"
          
          To which I replied [hence me describing this in this topic]:
          
               "Because _I_ am a _sentient_ being in this universe."
          
          I've read that before [am almost certain credits for that goes to
          Suzanne Conlon]  in response to a similar question, liked it,
          remembered it, and - it worked!
          
          He acknowledged something like, "Well, you do _seem_ to be".
          
          He eventually asked me if I was a sociologist, to which I
          cheerfully replied no, that I was a nerd ;-].
          
                                                            nancy b.