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Did I just have a feminist moment?
May. 23rd, 2007 07:39 amTwice during my life have I ventured out hunting for apartments to buy, and both times it has been with a male partner. The first time I was fairly young and my partner, albeit only 5 years older, still looked very adult compared to me. Also, this guy took an avid interest in property/apartment prices, qualities and details in Uppsala at that time, it became a great hobby of his, so suffice to say he had the voice and eye of a connoisseur when we arranged meetings with various real estate agents.
But I was still struck by the overwhelming rudeness with which I was treated by the agents. All of these agents were male, and even though I brought in a very healthy amount (almost half) of the investment money they never looked at me or talked to me when they presented the various condominiums to us. It was as if I had suddenly become a fundamentalist muslim's wife, with no money or will of my own.
Fascinated by this overwhelming rudeness I started to burst into conversations held between my academic looking and knowledgeable partner and the often pretty smarmy and insipid real estate agent (almost always a suit induced male in his late 20's or early 30's). My efforts to gain attention and a place in conversation gave results, but of various quality. Often the real estate guy started to shift his eyes a bit nervously between me and my partner, not knowing which foot to stand on, and my partner, having a very keen sense for other people's social discomfort, swiftly put him to rest by courteously and effectively asking him some detailed question, making him regain some expertise ground.
I don't think my partner even saw what was going on, he was too occupied with his apartment quest - which was my quest as well, something I was supposed to invest my family's money in, which is why I was so pissed at the level of effort I needed to put into it in order to even be heard by the agent.
I'm 100% certain that the agent had no clue that he was beeing a douche-bag.
But okay, I did look young, and my partner was more interested in the technical sides of the matter. But 5 years later when I went looking for an apartment once more, things could not be explained by such simple excuses.
This time I was the one looking serious, I was 3 years older than my new partner, I was wearing a suit jacket and my partner looked like a fairly non-intimidating (just like me he has a generic "kind" face) version of a metal rocker, complete with a Pantera t-shirt, a leather jacket and baggy jeans with lots of key chains hanging from their pockets and combat boots on his big feet. Yep, this looked like a guy with no money, and it was true, I had the money to invest in an apartment, I was the one buying.
Same bullshit. The fucking agents looked at the person with a dick. This time it was extra humiliating because
a) I was the one who had done all the research, made the calls and knew the numbers, my partner wasn't that interested, he was just there to give support.
b) My partner was behaving like a clear beta-male, timid and not taking up much room, and yet the agent still turned to him first. What the hell did this indicate that I looked like?
c) I had all the money, duh. He didn't even look like he owned a decent coffee pot.
So the song and dance went like this:
We arrived and the real estate agent greeted us and then immediately looked at Anders and asked something like Sooo, what do you have in mind? Worthy of note in this situation is that a) I had made the call and b) "you" in Swedish can be said with two different words, plural or singular, and the agent used the plural form (as in addressing both my partner and me) but only looked at one of us.
Anders then stammered something, glancing at me, signaling CLEARLY that he wasn't the boss of this. Here some very few of the brighter agents caught on to something and included me fairly early on into the game...but staggeringly many did not.
In most cases it took some real pissing in this territory on my behalf to become the main debater, at least 5-10 minutes of "proving myself" in a situation that should have been completely unconditioned.
I know for a fact that I am no ninny, I can stand my ground and I sound confident and intelligent on matters like these. Most women in my position probably recognize this from other situations, it's so blatant and yet subtle at the same time, and there are no real rules for how to handle it with dignity - other than pretend that we don't care, that's always a safe card. Just be polite and wait for the stupid tie to catch on that it is YOU holding the money and the knowledge.
On one specific occasion I "lost it", and frankly, I'm pretty glad that I did, because it is still one of the most vivid and educational moments I have in my life of how things are not equal yet.
I had a hard day at work, my partner came to the meeting after a hard day of skipping classes and playing computer games. He assumed the timid beta-position as the straight-haired guy he after all is. I was holding a bunch of real-estate related papers in a binder, had changed clothes to a suit and black skirt, kinda formal. The Real Estate agent was a profusely smarmy man in his early 50's who I had talked to on the phone, arranging the meeting.
The guy greeted us by shaking my boyfriend's hand and not mine, to me he just said "hi".
And then he started chatting with my partner, asking him a few questions about what "we had in mind".
I lost it.
I said:
If you don't start behaving differently in 2 minutes I'm going home. And believe me, I'm the one with all the money. I do know that you both have dicks, and if you want to discuss this fascinating factor with my boyfriend, then I don't want to disturb, but if you want to talk estate prices and details, then I'm the person with the papers and the bank account.
I'm happy that I snapped...but don't get me wrong, there were some quite horrific moments right after I'd said it. My poor partner looked truly unhappy and muttered "I should go, I don't know anything about the apartment business anyway", and the agent looked at me with...I kid you not, a vile vile form of ice cold hostility.
I won't lie and say that I was not intimidated by the look this man, old enough to be my father, had in his eyes for several seconds. As I said before, I'm a girl with a "nice" face which often has held appeal to older fatherly men. This was so different from what I was used to, but at least he SAW me.
In a few moments he had regained his posture and laughed like the shark he was and said: Okay then, let's start over. And he then addressed only me, completely disregarding poor Anders. I was by then unfortunately shaking and too distracted to really listen, so the meeting was fairly short and he definitely lost a client in me.
I did find a few nice real estate agents during these times, one of them a woman. And the agent I used to eventually sell my apartment was a very nice younger man - but then again, I was on my own when I sold it and set up my conditions.
There are a few other sales occasions where I have experienced a similar phenomena, for instance when I was out buying technical equipment with a guy, or various tools. But real estate was for some reason the biggest pissing territory I've encountered in Sweden.
And here is the beauty of it all:
This is one of those things that's supremely superior in the US, the dicking phenomena does exist, but it is frankly a lot weaker. Money talks in the US, and sales people rarely have steady set salaries, they usually work strictly on commission, and therefore really really can't afford to piss anyone off, not even a woman, just in case she has money or merely influence over the man at her side. So sales people in the US are often better than in Sweden, and by better I mean funnier, less smarmy, more polite. As a consumer you do encounter a fair share of bad sales people here as well, but these are more pitiful, powerless examples.
These moments when we feel that we stare into the eyes, not only of a horrible individual, but of the whole damn ice cold patriarchy, and see through their eyes how it sees us, these moments are truly educational. No wonder women become either chameleons - impersonating alpha-males, or genderless neutrons, or very very stereotypically feminine females.
I've had guy friends describe such moments as well, and these are even more interesting, often connected to them liking something "feminine" like pastel colors, or knitting, or some girly tv show and having the guts to show it, and thus becoming "fags".
But in no matter does the hate become more clear than when good guys become fathers of girls, there are some really touching pieces of text written by such men, where they are so desperate to change something as shifty and hard to grasp as air, and something as all-encompassing. They so desperately don't want their child to experience something they are on the other side of the fence of, an attitude these fathers share garden with and therefore know from their very spine, even if they are not partaking in it.
But I was still struck by the overwhelming rudeness with which I was treated by the agents. All of these agents were male, and even though I brought in a very healthy amount (almost half) of the investment money they never looked at me or talked to me when they presented the various condominiums to us. It was as if I had suddenly become a fundamentalist muslim's wife, with no money or will of my own.
Fascinated by this overwhelming rudeness I started to burst into conversations held between my academic looking and knowledgeable partner and the often pretty smarmy and insipid real estate agent (almost always a suit induced male in his late 20's or early 30's). My efforts to gain attention and a place in conversation gave results, but of various quality. Often the real estate guy started to shift his eyes a bit nervously between me and my partner, not knowing which foot to stand on, and my partner, having a very keen sense for other people's social discomfort, swiftly put him to rest by courteously and effectively asking him some detailed question, making him regain some expertise ground.
I don't think my partner even saw what was going on, he was too occupied with his apartment quest - which was my quest as well, something I was supposed to invest my family's money in, which is why I was so pissed at the level of effort I needed to put into it in order to even be heard by the agent.
I'm 100% certain that the agent had no clue that he was beeing a douche-bag.
But okay, I did look young, and my partner was more interested in the technical sides of the matter. But 5 years later when I went looking for an apartment once more, things could not be explained by such simple excuses.
This time I was the one looking serious, I was 3 years older than my new partner, I was wearing a suit jacket and my partner looked like a fairly non-intimidating (just like me he has a generic "kind" face) version of a metal rocker, complete with a Pantera t-shirt, a leather jacket and baggy jeans with lots of key chains hanging from their pockets and combat boots on his big feet. Yep, this looked like a guy with no money, and it was true, I had the money to invest in an apartment, I was the one buying.
Same bullshit. The fucking agents looked at the person with a dick. This time it was extra humiliating because
a) I was the one who had done all the research, made the calls and knew the numbers, my partner wasn't that interested, he was just there to give support.
b) My partner was behaving like a clear beta-male, timid and not taking up much room, and yet the agent still turned to him first. What the hell did this indicate that I looked like?
c) I had all the money, duh. He didn't even look like he owned a decent coffee pot.
So the song and dance went like this:
We arrived and the real estate agent greeted us and then immediately looked at Anders and asked something like Sooo, what do you have in mind? Worthy of note in this situation is that a) I had made the call and b) "you" in Swedish can be said with two different words, plural or singular, and the agent used the plural form (as in addressing both my partner and me) but only looked at one of us.
Anders then stammered something, glancing at me, signaling CLEARLY that he wasn't the boss of this. Here some very few of the brighter agents caught on to something and included me fairly early on into the game...but staggeringly many did not.
In most cases it took some real pissing in this territory on my behalf to become the main debater, at least 5-10 minutes of "proving myself" in a situation that should have been completely unconditioned.
I know for a fact that I am no ninny, I can stand my ground and I sound confident and intelligent on matters like these. Most women in my position probably recognize this from other situations, it's so blatant and yet subtle at the same time, and there are no real rules for how to handle it with dignity - other than pretend that we don't care, that's always a safe card. Just be polite and wait for the stupid tie to catch on that it is YOU holding the money and the knowledge.
On one specific occasion I "lost it", and frankly, I'm pretty glad that I did, because it is still one of the most vivid and educational moments I have in my life of how things are not equal yet.
I had a hard day at work, my partner came to the meeting after a hard day of skipping classes and playing computer games. He assumed the timid beta-position as the straight-haired guy he after all is. I was holding a bunch of real-estate related papers in a binder, had changed clothes to a suit and black skirt, kinda formal. The Real Estate agent was a profusely smarmy man in his early 50's who I had talked to on the phone, arranging the meeting.
The guy greeted us by shaking my boyfriend's hand and not mine, to me he just said "hi".
And then he started chatting with my partner, asking him a few questions about what "we had in mind".
I lost it.
I said:
If you don't start behaving differently in 2 minutes I'm going home. And believe me, I'm the one with all the money. I do know that you both have dicks, and if you want to discuss this fascinating factor with my boyfriend, then I don't want to disturb, but if you want to talk estate prices and details, then I'm the person with the papers and the bank account.
I'm happy that I snapped...but don't get me wrong, there were some quite horrific moments right after I'd said it. My poor partner looked truly unhappy and muttered "I should go, I don't know anything about the apartment business anyway", and the agent looked at me with...I kid you not, a vile vile form of ice cold hostility.
I won't lie and say that I was not intimidated by the look this man, old enough to be my father, had in his eyes for several seconds. As I said before, I'm a girl with a "nice" face which often has held appeal to older fatherly men. This was so different from what I was used to, but at least he SAW me.
In a few moments he had regained his posture and laughed like the shark he was and said: Okay then, let's start over. And he then addressed only me, completely disregarding poor Anders. I was by then unfortunately shaking and too distracted to really listen, so the meeting was fairly short and he definitely lost a client in me.
I did find a few nice real estate agents during these times, one of them a woman. And the agent I used to eventually sell my apartment was a very nice younger man - but then again, I was on my own when I sold it and set up my conditions.
There are a few other sales occasions where I have experienced a similar phenomena, for instance when I was out buying technical equipment with a guy, or various tools. But real estate was for some reason the biggest pissing territory I've encountered in Sweden.
And here is the beauty of it all:
This is one of those things that's supremely superior in the US, the dicking phenomena does exist, but it is frankly a lot weaker. Money talks in the US, and sales people rarely have steady set salaries, they usually work strictly on commission, and therefore really really can't afford to piss anyone off, not even a woman, just in case she has money or merely influence over the man at her side. So sales people in the US are often better than in Sweden, and by better I mean funnier, less smarmy, more polite. As a consumer you do encounter a fair share of bad sales people here as well, but these are more pitiful, powerless examples.
These moments when we feel that we stare into the eyes, not only of a horrible individual, but of the whole damn ice cold patriarchy, and see through their eyes how it sees us, these moments are truly educational. No wonder women become either chameleons - impersonating alpha-males, or genderless neutrons, or very very stereotypically feminine females.
I've had guy friends describe such moments as well, and these are even more interesting, often connected to them liking something "feminine" like pastel colors, or knitting, or some girly tv show and having the guts to show it, and thus becoming "fags".
But in no matter does the hate become more clear than when good guys become fathers of girls, there are some really touching pieces of text written by such men, where they are so desperate to change something as shifty and hard to grasp as air, and something as all-encompassing. They so desperately don't want their child to experience something they are on the other side of the fence of, an attitude these fathers share garden with and therefore know from their very spine, even if they are not partaking in it.
