Jen wrote a post last night/this morning after a coworker said some fairly insensitive comments about women, or “mommies,” doing “hard” jobs like flying the space shuttle. While I don’t tend to get as worked up about issues like this as some, it still amazes me that intelligent people can have such unintelligent opinions.
Yesterday I responded to a swap shop ad looking for “volunteers to assist with trail maintenance and learn about free hiking opportunities on the Lone Star Hiking Trail in Sam Houston National Forest. No experience necessary.” The Lone Star Hiking Trail is about an hour and a half north of here, and I’ve thought about heading up there to hike for a day or two multiple times. It seems like it’s the closest thing to a true hiking experience here in Houston. I just haven’t made it up there yet, but helping with trail maintenance sounded like something that could be both fun and for the greater good of outdoorsy people everyone.
I emailed the guy who placed the ad, and he called me to let me know more information. He first asked me if I had any experience hiking. “Of course,” I responded. “I’ve hiked in Texas, Colorado, California, Canada, Peru…” He sounded encouraged by this, so I was excited to see what he said next.
Well, he spent the next 10 minutes explaining that I was welcome to come help if I want to but that 1) most of the people are older than me and 2) most of the people are male.
I didn’t see how either of those things would bother me.
But he continued: I could come help if I want, but usually women aren’t interested in doing the labor in the woods. He goes in with a chainsaw and another guy goes in with a little 4-wheeler to clear trash, etc, and most women don’t want to do that. And oh, that there are actually two clubs, and he belongs to this one, but I might want to look into the other one because if I was really interested, oh, the other one tends to attract more women. And that they don’t do as much trail maintenance because the women aren’t interested in that.
His attitude totally killed my interest at the time, so I just said I’d get back to him and hung up.
What makes a person take that attitude with someone they’ve never met, and someone whose interest in hiking and trail maintenance they know nothing about? I’ve never done any work like that before, but it doesn’t mean I’m not interested or willing. Why would I have contacted him, when ad clearly said “trail maintenance and hiking,” if I wasn’t interested in trail maintenance and hiking??
ugh. *i* get worked up over stuff like this and i’m not even a woman! well, not technically. anyway, i would have told this guy flat-out that he was being a chauvanist pig… but then again, if you confront it, you become a feminazi. it’s often a no-win situation with backward-thinking people like that.
ugh. i commented over at Jen’s regarding the mommy flight issue. The trail guy is a moron. I probably would have said something like your last line. Why did I call you, you moron, if I’m not into doing what the ad says?!?!
On the other hand sometimes I’ve met men who act like the one on the phone out of a genuine (if misguided) sense of protectiveness. Men I have known like that have seen many women come and go through organizations and are trying to save you the bother. Often it is not because of the reasons they mention, but because many of the group members have behavior problems. So the women just leave, not because they don’t like things (like trail maintenance) but they don’t like the guys who are the trail maintenance regulars.
You should go anyway just to see if my theory is true. Plus you should tell him that you are quite comfortable being out numbered by men.
Karen, I don’t think you should make excuses for men that behave like this. An example I’ve used before, what if a black man applied for an academic post and the response he got was “Well, if you’re really interested. But in general, I think people of your race are suited for more manual labor.” Its insulting. And its a terrible shame that there are still people in the world that think its ok to *think* this way, let alone to bring it up in “polite” conversation with a total stranger.
Not to mention, that men have behavior problems is not a women’s problem! If the “regulars” on the trail maintenance staff are regularly scaring off women volunteers, the solution is to get the obnoxious ones to improve their behavior, not become exclusive to only people that can tolerate that behavior.
Without people who speak out about this stuff, it will just keep continuing…
Oh, I’d have confronted the guy. What a jackass. The older I get the less patience I have for this stuff. And the less I feel the need to ‘respect’ others’ opinions when they say things that are patently idiotic.
You can say I’m making excuses if you wish, but the man did not say that Sarah was not welcome, nor did he say that she was not capable of the work. He was however not as enthusiastic as he could be. I just think that our assessment of him should be balanced. So far Sarah has only had 1 maybe 10 minute phone call with the man.
I also think that I have a valid point that there are probably many reasons that the women prefer the “other” hiking group, I just don’t think that this man correctly identified them.
Also I think we often vilify people too quickly. Let’s just suppose that this man has belonged to this group for say 10 years and over that time he’d had several women come to an activity once and then never came back. Would his comments still irk your ire? Yes I agree it would be best if he managed to figure out a way to make a woman’s experience more enjoyable, but to do that you might have to go through a bunch of women to get it right, and he might just be tired of not getting it right.
After all Sarah did not sign up because she wished to do trail maintenance, but that the trail maintenance was in exchange for learning about the hiking in Lone Star …
So if Sarah could learn with the “other” group without having to do trail maintenance, she might indeed enjoy it more.
No, I called because I *am* interested in trail maintenance. If I weren’t, I would go hike the trail myself.
I think that Karen does have some valid points. I also think that he still should have taken a hint from Sarah’s extensive hiking experience and not immediately jump to conclusions, regardless of what those conclusions were based on.
Sarah, I think that you should still go and not let this put you off. Make him change his conclusions. And you know what? I’ll go with you. I saw that ad, thought it sounded pretty cool, but didn’t think too much more about it. Unlike you, however, hearing this makes me want to go even MORE, not less. So, if you want to do it, I’m, like, TOTALLY in. =)
I agree, Karen does have valid points. I also wanted to chime in and say that there’s no call to start imagining “bad behavior” on behalf of the men doing the trail work; nobody here knows of any such behavior and there’s no cause to make stuff up.
Still, what the guy on the phone said? Yeah, I’d have called him out.