Fun Adventures in Sexist Assholes
 

Like the cold sore on your upper lip, I keep coming back.

Sooo my first day of class was today, for my last quarter of school prior to receiving my associate's degree. But that's not why we're here! No, we're here to discuss an exercise that went very well until the last three words.

The exercise is, two people sitting beside each other would interview one another: the usual age, major area of study, dream job etc etc and the little bonus "something interesting" at the end, then use that info to introduce your interviewee to the class. This is standard fare to Break The Ice and/or force awkward social interaction. (The guy I spoke with was a retired marine who immediately after receiving his honorable discharge headed to California, acquired some medicinal, smoked up before watching a 3-D movie and during the movie experienced an earthquake aftershock. Not as awkward!)

The last two people were a somewhat petite girl and a guy who had already made a reputation for being outspoken and obnoxious. I'm talking 30 minutes into the first day of class and everyone was already rolling their eyes at him. Soooo they do their interview things, she introduces him to the class and it goes fine. Everyone's like "Hi". Then he goes, says stuff about her, blah blah, and then after the entire introduction says "And she's single!"

Her response "I never said I was single!" sounded particularly concerned and she moved her seat away from him immediately after the class recessed for a short break, can't say I blame her. I asked her at this time if it was like a joke between them, or if he was being a serious creep. She responded that during their interview he had mentioned he was single, and (in my opinion) gracefully suggested that maybe he got confused and said the wrong thing. I was of the opinion she should have pretty much instantly made a Thing about it, but for whatever reason she didn't. I was going to, but I'm still hesitant to interfere in other people's business directly, also for fear of being mistaken as some white knight charging in to protect the poor woman's chastity or whatever you want to say. So I said loud enough for the professor to hear that I was making sure he wasn't being weird and that she was ok.

Fat fucking chance he said the wrong thing and I'm not so naive to think that him dropping that he is single was innocent either. In any case so now I will be keeping an eye on creepster. Fun.

It's every day, here. It can be better or worse depending what class and what cultures we're seeing in the room (heavy Software Design rooms tend to be particularly vulgar actually), and I try and pick gen-eds that are heavy in photography students. They tend to be mostly inoffensive.

Speaking as a photographer, that's just because we save all the raunchiest shit for when we're working. I know dozens of photographers, and we are all the most horrifying of people.

Just remember, next time you see a smiling person in a magazine ad, they're smiling because the 'tog just told them a story about a pug eating its own eyes and they're laughing out of shock.

Man, my degree is in politics. In the South. The fact that I haven't snapped yet is a great indicator of my moral fiber.

People who defend child predators and talk about how racism is perfectly ok and I am not supposed to hit them?

Douchebags will be Douchebags ... you wouldn`t think there actually are people who think they could, perhaps, "score" with the cute girl in the first day of class.. but there are.

Usually, the first day is the "shy day" where nobody breaks out of their shell just yet, simply cause you are aware that you will spent a lot of time with the same people and you just don`t know each other all that well...

On the other hand, there is always that asshole that wants to make an impression. The "day 1 superstar" . Those, when they don`t drop out mid class, tend to either get a girl that likes that stupid shit, or just walk around being all "I`m Alpha Dog in the pack for realz".

Most are actually waaay more bark than bite, just douches being douches... so if you are actually putting out time to "keep an eye out" for him, you aren`t being a White Knight, but a White Sniper... same shit different package.

You can be dame sure he will try a second advance on the same girl, and if that does not work, he will simply move on to another one. Just observe how "where" he sits will evolve over the first weeks of class... the pattern is usually clear as day.

Haha, I'm the Day 1 Superstar and you are just sad because I'm awesome and you're not.
Also man science classes these days are about 75% female from my experience and all the arts classes I took were mostly female so we don't have that shit.

Well, he was a total ass and outed himself pretty much instantly. I want to say he simply lacks any social graces -- it looks like a normal day for him is probably spent crammed into a sailor scout uniform and trolling 4chan -- but I'm long past the stage of trying to invent excuses for people who think it's a good idea to do something like this.

[NewJerseyAccent] Di`s Bums le`mme tells`ya they gotz no class. No Class At`all. [/NewJerseyAccent]

Now watch on future group activities as he tries to tag along with the same girl and take the easiest tasks while making it seems like he has done the most work.

Also for some reason, as you described him, i imagined him with shutter glasses on his backpocket.

You hatin on my extracurricular activities, shiney?

Man, I'm in computer science and aside from jokes about us needing more women in the course, the only shit we have is a girl who goes to every class with her mother who talks about anything with everyone and a teacher whose ethics class once became a discussion on "you never do something that's ethically wrong FOR YOU. It may be ethically wrong for the SOCIETY, but not FOR YOU.".

Cut the cord, yo.
 

Is her mom taking the course, too? If so, that's pretty ace. If not, that's kind of creepy/overprotective.

I haven't had much expirience in classmates making sexist comments at length. The worst thing I can think of that I've seen personally is this one guy who came from the middle of nowhere who was taking a class at a tradeschool that was alos in the middle of nowhere, as I was. Anyway, he used to be in my face all the time about how "we should get drunk and find some pussy", yet what made it dumb and annoying was the fact that he was a complete virgin that never had interest in women. Heck, he even had this dumbass paranoia about how "women are only out to seduce and steal from us honest hardworking men" UGH.

I work in a mostly male dominated field. In my paramedic class, there were 5 girls including myself and something like 20 guys. I've been told a few times to "move over little girl and let the men take care of it," usually when it came to lifting/moving patients. I usually let them go for it; if they think that breaking their backs is going to impress me it isn't, it just makes me happy I'm not lifting said patient. I also find myself having to yell and push my way through a sea of men (usually firefighters) so I can get to my patient.

I had a particularly bad patient one night and the firefighters formed a ring around him for no reason other than to gawk. My partner who is a large guy pushed his way through, but I was the one who had the medical bag with all the meds and iv equipment. The firefighters closed me out of their circle. I tried to be nice and say "excuse me," or push in a little, but I guess they didn't notice me (I'm only 5'1"). So I did the next logical thing, screamed out "move out of the way or you're getting poked with a huge needle!" People scattered let me tell you.

It's not easy to be a female in these types of physically demanding fields. Instead of bitching and moaning though, I just let me technique and abilities speak for me. Once the guys see I can hang, I'm pretty much let into the big circle jerk.