Cognitive dissonance (a Minicon moment)

[redbird]

There was a woman at Minicon with black-and-bright-blue hair. We were in the dealer's room, and started geeking hair coloring. She said that she was a "girl geek", elaborating that this meant she geeked all sorts of what she called girl things, and I would call adornment or (if to be labeled with gender) maybe femme things: hair color, makeup, etc.

I remarked that much as I like the purple, I'm not sure how long I'll keep it, because HR departments might not like it. Her response was "That's what men are for: their job is to bring us money."

This is so far from my view of the universe that I could think of nothing to say in response, so I just drifted away, in the direction of elisem's table. Somehow, pointing out to her that cattitude isn't sleeping on a pile of gold didn't quite seem appropriate, and I was too gobsmacked to start discussing sexism and gender roles. I described this conversation to rysmiel later. Rysmiel observed "That's not even wrong," a quote that seemed entirely apropos: orthogonal universes in a fairly small physical space and among people who probably think of ourselves, most of the time, as being of the same culture and subculture.

Comments

[snippy]

My word, yes, that's not even wrong. It's from a different worldview entirely. I keep hearing about these women, and it always makes me glad I don't actually know any of them (to my knowledge, anyway).

The comment about a common subculture reminds me of something I've read in alt.poly to the effect that just because I share one uncommon viewpoint with someone doesn't imply any other shared opinions. I've really incorporated that in my worldview.

[rdkeir.livejournal.com]

I can grok people believing that it's men's role to bring home the money; I just have trouble grokking a self-described "girl geek" as being one of them. When I was younger, I was more prone to statements that were (as I thought) so ludicrous and over-the-top sarcastic that (as I thought) *no one* could possibly take them seriously. Then I got a little older, and realized how foolish I had been.

an apropos quote, from Buffy:
Oz: That was my sarcastic voice.
Xander: You know, it sounds a lot like your normal voice.
Os: I've been told that.

[flickgc.livejournal.com]

To be fair to her....

That's the sort of thing that I might say.
I wouldn't *mean* it, but it's the sort of thing I might say in a serious sounding way...