Wanted: Asian bride who attends Morgan Stanley Events

I don’t think you’re making too big a deal of this, but comments like these are said so often and so casually, will we speak up about it every time? When I read it, I assumed that all of Morgan Stanley’s exec’s are men, so I was surprised to read what you wrote, Becka, below about female exec’s. I wonder if husbands have the same expectations placed on them as the wives. Not having read the article in its entirety, it also strikes me how the writer attributes Pandit’s wife’s nonattendance to a “cultural” difference. Maybe she didn’t want to do what she was expected to do as a wife. Maybe she doesn’t like the social scene. Maybe she has a very full and active life that doesn’t involve her husband’s job.

 

 

Is addressing these seemingly small, yet very illuminating, phrases helpful in creating a more just and equitable society for men and women? Sometimes I think of all the subtle messages we get like this (we being women) throughout our lives, since childhood, and it causes me to speak out against pretty much any and all matters of speech that I think could be offensive (much to the chagrin of family, friends, and boyfriend).

 

For example, recently, my friend posted an indignant accusation in response to a facebook comment on someone’s status message.

 

The status message said, “What’s the last thing you bought?”

Someone replied, “I bought an Asian bride.”

My friend posted, “Is that supposed to be funny? Or just as racist as it sounds…”

 

She then doubted whether or not she should have posted a rather fiery response with a very charged word on a friend’s facebook page, and I think she questioned whether the comment was really racist in nature. I think it was. The comment is funny (or tries to be) because it’s offensive, and if it wasn’t meant to be funny, it would be very, very sad (thinking of a friend who recently told me his cousin-in-law is a mail-order bride from Asia). While I give the commenter a break in that maybe his comment was an inside joke, inside jokes should not be displayed for all the world, or at least a well-tended to facebook page, to see. His joke pointed out the tragic truth that women can be bought and sold, but it seems like it was carelessly flung out as a message to catch an ironic laugh with little forethought of the pervasive exotification and commodification of Asian women, and the incredible tragedy and abuse inflicted on women who are actually in the position to be bought and sold.

New York Mag Gaffe

Yesterday, in my weekly devouring of New York magazine, I came across something completely surprising.  I alternated between feelings of anger and indignance towards the writer, and complete shock and bewilderment towards the magazine for letting something so out of character get past the editor and onto its pages. The article I was reading was a feature about Vikram Pandit and his catastrophic fall as Citigroup’s CEO.  Here’s the infuriating passage, in a section of the article discussing Pandit’s days at Morgan Stanley:

Pandit was of two worlds, and the subtle cultural bias at Morgan Stanley didn’t make it easy to fit in. His wife, Swati, was frequently invited to Morgan Stanley events in which wives were expected to appear, but she never did.

Did you catch that? In which wives were expected to appear? What the heck? I am completely baffled as to why the sentence wouldn’t read “in which spouses were expected to appear.”  Pandit really started to rise through the Morgan Stanley ranks in the late 90’s, and it was 2000 when he was made President.  Even if outnumbered, there had to have been female executives and higher ups at that time.  Indeed, this very article names some of them.

 

I mentioned this to a couple of friends last night, one male and one female.  The female noticed this right away, the same way it jumped right off the page when I read it.  The male, however, said it went right over his head, and couldn’t figure out what was wrong with the sentence until I pointed it out to him.  It’s not necessarily this specific article that gets me so upset (except that it came from New York).  It’s more that this is indicative of a society where gender roles are just assumed, and where even forward thinking pillars of our culture, like media and the free press, subtly perpetuate stereotypes and discrimination. 

 

What do you guys think, do you agree, or do you think I’m making too big a deal of this?   

From one em to another.

Several months ago, I became increasingly disgruntled with the terminology for women. I wasn’t sure whether or not to call myself a girl or a woman, and while I decided to self-identify as a woman as much as possible, I discovered that many women my age, older, and younger objected to being called a woman, because it sounded “too matronly” or “too formal.” Those who objected felt more comfortable being called a girl. I asked myself, at what point do we stop being girls and start being women? And why do so many non-man gendered names have negative connotations? Somehow, every word for non-guy, non-trans people can be used to degrade and demean women. For example, girls. My former boss called me “a girl” all the time. It’s not appropriate to call your adult subordinate a “girl,” and this only exacerbated feelings of condescension I sensed from him already. One only has to listen to Comedian Demetri Martin’s bit on using word “ladies” to sleeze up a sentence to see how loaded this word is. Females is not accurate, as it describes anatomy and not gender. And the other words (gal, babe, chick, mama, etc.) carry with them their own ideas and meanings and influences.
 
I noticed that the term “guy” seemed to work pretty well for men. The word hasn’t been abused nearly as much, and it only carries judgment when coupled with a certain tone of voice or qualifying word: Nice guy, smart guy, bad guy, guy’s guy. I’ve never heard a guy object to being called a guy. In fact, the word works so well that sometimes it refers to both men and women when used in the plural: “Hey guys.”
 
I don’t think an equivalent for “guy” exists for those people with vaginas who call themselves girls when they are young and women as they get older. While I hesitate to once again create something for myself in response to my anger towards a gender-biased world, I think that what words exist in our language and how they are used impact our society and culture. By creating a word for women that is free (at least currently) from abuse and misuse, that doesn’t yet have any negative, positive, sleezy, or otherwise connotations, I don’t have to feel the frustration of not being able to accurately self-identify.

What do you think? Is there a better word out there?