Connective Cube

I have an impossible time opening up to many women identified cis-women over the past few years. It has especially been hard with women who scream that they are the biggest and best feminists, or that a vagina is the main identifier of womanhood, or that thrive on gossip.  Usually those who are loudest look at quieter people as meek,  and have a way of talking about themselves as egalitarian, anti-racist and into some form of religion.  I also know that these same women are likely the first to turn their noses up at someone who is working class, not-so-good-looking or, god forbid, a little husky. Or that three letter word FAT. The amalgam of experiences, primarily in Atlanta and Philadelphia, make me very hesitant to befriend queers and women. That’s right, men of all types have been kinder to me over the past several years than most women.

Wow, when did I start feeling so much misogyny? A chunk of this has to do with working in a toxic small office with fashionable women who routinely gossiped about anyone in their clutches. Two of them un-ironically and proudly referred to themselves as Regina George. Ew. I was one of the main targets, and I dealt with it by being good at my job, staying poker faced and putting up a defensive shield and speaking to people only when forced. I took the job to pay off a chunk of graduate school debt and came out as an easy target for an Andrea Dworkin essay.

Oh, and therapy, group therapy to learn to relate to women again and my first dose of medication because all the stress triggered a mood disorder I had managed through exercise and eating well. I gained 30 pounds and cried while stuffing my face over cookies and foot long sandwiches. Mmmm, D’Bruno Brothers.

When I had a chance, I vented to a couple of office mates that I likely should have never trusted. Gossip rarely cures gossip. I do think venting is one thing – when someone is injured by someone else, then it is good to not bottle up feelings and to share them. Gossip, on the other hand, is the purposeful assassination of someone’s character for no good reason. There is a fine line between the two, and it is easy to cross when you experience the day in and day out pain of being bullied.

During that time, I had “How to Deal With Grown Up Mean Girls” as a favorite of my obsessive Googling on mean girls in the workplace. I haven’t read it in a year, because quite frankly, I work with kind people who have better things to do than gossip about how weird someone is. We are all weird. It is another office full of women, and I actually have conversations that involve puppies, planets, design and other dorky things nerds like. It is nice to work with women again who have been previously been stuck in the ass crack of women who think their shit doesn’t stink. Yes, a few of these women have also been targets of the mean girls set at points in their lives.

Did I gossip it when I was younger? Sure. The irony is that those who have experienced bullying will bully at some points without being fully cognizant of their defensive actions. While developing a thick skin is at times necessity for economic survival (sarcastic thanks Trump), it is even more important to work with others to come up with strategies to help us heal from our bullying tendencies. It is perhaps the most important decolonization and anti-racism tool.

Oh, and there was the situation with a ‘girls’ identified arts related camp where I may as well have been invisible. As in, the infamous cliques of women that I thought I had freed myself from were in full force. The spoke of croissants, but I was really outside of a delicious bagel. A lot of people like to be the loudest in the room. I don’t want to take them down, because the program benefits young women from a variety of class backgrounds. I cried in corners, feeling like I was at my workplace all over again, unable to disarm my own self-bullying tendencies and defense mechanisms.

If my gender identity matters, I do identify as fluid, or free, or not really attached to  identity.  On the surface, I look like a cis-woman, and of course, I get some of the privileges that come with it, especially when I apply products to my face and hair that make me look even more feminine. To this day, when people congratulate me for wearing a dress with a belt that matches my shoes that matches my hair that matches whatever two tubes of lipstick I have, I get mad and quite wearing dresses. I don’t get the same congratulations when I run a quick comb through my hair, forget to apply lotion to my face or prefer comfort to aesthetics. Oh, and I am queer, bisexual, whatever the hell people call it.  I don’t give a rats donkey about your gender or sexuality. Just be smart, kind and cut the mean-spirited gossip and ostracizing of people who aren’t like you.

Gossip is now as big of a turnoff to me as eating a plateful of raisins. All of these experiences make me shut down when people engage in a character assassinations about others. In groups, I double check to make sure there isn’t someone standing in the corner looking lost, even if they are awkward and shy at first. Not out of pity, but because I am still that shy and awkward person, despite appearances that may suggest otherwise.

Thanks for listening to me vent.