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| source: TheaterVIP |
I'm perfectly willing to admit I got a little choked up during Bridesmaids. Not during the feelings-y crap, no; it would be the scenes where Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph and everybody else were having fun and being ridiculous (so yes, the WFM was pretty tough for me). And at that moment I realized that I am officially sick of being one of the boys.
I am the only woman who attends our weekly writing meeting. And I am usually the only one on the Engineering field trips as well. And it doesn't suck (I do always get my own bedroom at least). I love my guys, and wouldn't trade two-thirds of them for all the ladies in the world. And I like being the Tough Girl who can hang with Tough Tech Dudes. You should have seen my arms after a three-day outdoor concert call: cut like em-effers. But it took watching a two-hour collaboration between all those hilarious, smart women on the screen to show me how much it just isn't the same.
And I'm not just talking about the obvious awesomeness of a wine-and-magazine party. Although, helLO.
Being the only woman in the room makes me pretty easy to disregard. We're a station that targets women, and I often get yanked into rooms to provide The Women's Perspective. But when I say something that isn't total agreement with whoever is talking, I get brushed off with, "yeah, but look at you, you're with a bunch of dudes all day. You're different." If I try to suggest that we aren't all helpless Luddites who cower before Daylight Savings Time (true story), I get reminded that I am only none of those things because I'm an engineer, and therefore a freak. I don't know nothing about The Ladies, because I'm inadvertently surrounded by The Dudes.
If I had another awesome lady by my side, things would be different. She would get it--not only life in general, but the peculiar brand of odd that it takes to be in the industry. When someone suggests we need to do handyman tips because his girlfriend is overwhelmed at the sight of a plunger, it wouldn't be SO bitchy to ask, "geez, who cuts her meat when you're not around?" if someone else was nodding. And when I hear that losing a sock in the dryer causes a woman's mental well-being to go into a tailspin, I'd have someone to roll my eyes towards. AND, when the sales manager asks in front of all the other managers if perhaps A MAN SHOULD DO MY JOB FOR ME because the client wants to rearrange his spot and it might be hard (twice); someone else, for once, would be there saying, "OH MY GOD THAT'S UNBELIEVABLY SEXIST."
But as any guy will tell you, it's hard to meet chicks. We're earning the most college degrees, but I guess none of them are in radio, communications, or engineering. It doesn't help of course, that in my eight years in the game, exactly two production jobs have opened up in my company, and only four that I know of in the entire city. And it certainly doesn't help that the last people who held every single one of them were men. It's hard to see yourself in job if you can't see anyone like you in it.
Where are the fabulous women hiding? Where is the magical island populated by Kristen Wiigs, Maya Rudolphs, Tina Feys, and Amy Poehlers? I want to go to there. I want to be Raptured to there. Now, where do I go to catch the Invisible Jet?
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