naamahdarling:

witchlockmonsterfox:

if anyone’s interested: the study my professor did was basically with children who were 2-3 years old.  they laid out toys for them to play with that were commonly associated with one gender or the other (action figures vs. dolls, a pink and therefore “girly” bike vs. a non-pink and “masculine” bike or w/e).  for a while they would observe them in the room and the children would be aware they were being watched by them.  during this period pretty much every child played with the “appropriate” toys

what they did next was then have everyone leave the room, but be watching behind one-way glass, and observe which toys the children would choose when they didn’t think they were being watched. a lot of children would play with any toy, regardless of which gender it was “meant” for.  they had no problem with it.  but they were aware of the fact that adults and other people had a problem with it.  they had already learned what they were “supposed” to do, despite the fact they didn’t seem to honestly care.  just as long as they thought they weren’t being watched and wouldn’t get in trouble for not playing with the “right” toys… which in itself says something

basically it supported the idea that children internalize gender roles at a young age, are aware of them, and it isn’t innately something a certain gender prefers over the other (or someone with one type of genitals innately prefers, as most people correlate gender with genitals, especially regarding a child. so it seems logical to assume it’s unrelated)

they’re just kind of arbitrary associations that seem to do more harm than good

So, basically, children too young to communicate effectively are being criticized and possibly punished for playing with the “wrong” toys.

Good job, parents.  Great fucking job.

glitchedhologram:

psychosomaticpiscean:

Someone with a social anxiety disorder will never get tired of hearing you say:

“I’m here for/with you”
“I like you”
“I love you”
“I value you as a person”
“Your opinions matter to me”
“I’ll go with you if it’s too scary”
“No matter what your anxiety tells you I’m not going anywhere”
“Your feelings are valid”

Especially when they’re anxious
Especially when they’re anxious
Especially when they’re anxious

Even if you’ve already said it. Say it again. And again. Please.
Cause it may seem silly to someone without S.A.D., but it’s actually really reassuring to be reminded of having support even if we were just reminded last week, or last month, or yesterday. It’s important. Really important. Cause the anxiety will often lead us to feel alone, unloved, like the person might go away if we share our feelings, even when we know it’s not true. It’s a million times easier to be convinced by someone else than by our own anxious brains sometimes.

This has been a PSA.

Also don’t get annoyed when they need the reinsurance. They do believe you but their mind tricks them that what you said isn’t true when they truly know it is, they just can’t control it.

witchyroses:

thedatingfeminist:

So this guy hates EVERYONE… except for you. He’s a broody, arrogant misanthrope who just can’t stand people… except for you. You alone are the special, interesting, unique person worth his time, attention, and respect. Everyone else, as far as he’s concerned, is a tedious waste of time because they just don’t get it. They don’t get him!

Sure, his general misanthropy is kind of a character flaw, but it makes you feel sort of special that someone who hates everyone actually likes you. And maybe you can work on those rough edges! He’s nice to you, and that’s what matters, right?

Don’t buy into it, Jane Eyre. This kind of person may make you the exception for awhile, but why? Sure, you’re interesting and unique and you have a lot to offer, but so do some of the people he summarily dismisses. What’s the difference between you and them?

When someone is an asshole to literally everyone but you, he’s not an interesting, brooding soul. He’s an asshole. He wants something from you, so he’s willing to bend a little; he doesn’t think it’s worthwhile to show respect or courtesy to anyone he doesn’t want something from. And all that arrogance doesn’t mean he actually has anything to be arrogant about.

Don’t settle for someone with the personality of a rotten fish. You’re not being let into some exclusive club; you’ve just met an asshole who wants something from you. Pay attention to how a potential partner treats people he doesn’t have to be nice to. It’s a pretty important clue to whether he’s fit company for human beings.

Tah DAH! The post that would have saved my ass six months ago.

hoodooqueer:

hermioneclone:

slinkyinky:

Let’s talk about just how “unskilled” my minimum wage labor
is.

At IHOP, I had to memorize a vast menu of possible
breakfast combinations. Did you know the system contains more than thirty
different choices for how an egg should be prepared? Then choices of pancakes
or French toast, what kind of toppings, was this a custom order or was it one
of our seasonal specials? Oh, yeah, the seasonal specials. Every three months,
we had a four hour staff meeting to discuss the new food items that would be
added to the menu. Most of us came in and spent this four hour meeting in addition to the nearly twelve hour
shift we would work later that night or had already been working early that
morning.

Better memorize the seasonal specials, too, or else you’ll
be screwing up people’s food left and right. And screwed up food means screwed
up tips, especially when it comes to
breakfast. On that note, guess how similar all the dishes looked. When you work
primarily in a breakfast diner with infinite combinations of specials,
pre-designed plates, and custom orders, it is very easy to mistake your table’s
food for someone else’s when it comes out. You definitely don’t want to make
that mistake, though, since IHOP has a system where you might run another server’s
food out to their table. You have to be able to see what a dish is by sight and be able to distribute it to
a table whose order you did not take. Some of my coworkers who had been doing
this for years could take an order completely by memorizing it at the table.
When you are often expected to serve up to eight people at one table, often
several tables at a time, this is a truly incredible feat.

Oh, and dishes come out hot. At my IHOP, the dress code dictated a short sleeved collared
white shirt. The lack of sleeves meant that I had to balance a number of very
hot dishes on my bare arms, then walk to the table and distribute them without
dropping anything. If you’ve never had to successfully balance ten hot plates
on your arms at a time, I suggest you pop some in the microwave right now and
give walking across your living room a shot. (Might not want to try unless you
have carpet or money to spare for new plates, though.)

During football season, IHOP was the only restaurant open
late in my town with enough space for large parties. On these Friday and
Saturday nights I worked until 5 or 6 in the morning, having started my shift at
4 or 5 that afternoon. I took orders for parties of ten, fifteen, and twenty,
often at the same time, with smaller tables as well. I was expected to split
checks and understand how to divide incredibly complex orders, and then take
payment without losing credit cards, mixing up checks, or any other disastrous
thing that can happen when you are holding fifteen forms of payment in your
hands at once.

Even when the actual serving had ended, there were a
number of meticulous shopkeeping duties that had to be done at the end of each
shift. Sometimes that meant I’d be filling 200 tiny cups with salad dressing at
four in the morning, and others it meant I’d be taking meticulous inventory in
my short sleeves in the freezer, restocking from storage where necessary. Everyone
had to roll silverware every night, and when you’ve been on your feet for
eleven hours, you can imagine how it feels to have to roll two hundred forks
and two hundred knives into two hundred napkin and put the sticky tab on each
one, after you wash off all the water
spots and polish the utensils.

Did I mention there’s a lot of lifting in a minimum wage
service job? I’m sure that’s true in other areas as well, but even now that I’m
working as a soda jerk and not a server, there’s tons of lifting heavy objects.
I have to lift large boxes of supplies from the stock room in order to make
sure everything is, well, stocked. I lift gallons of frozen ice cream. I carry
bus trays full of solid glass dishes and half-finished drinks to the kitchen
(you think this job is unskilled? You try scraping all those plates without
actually touching someone’s half-eaten pancakes. It’s impossible).

Not to mention handling to-go orders without tips, people
who come in with coupons that slash their order to nothing and then tip
according to the adjusted total despite you delivering the same level of
service, the fact that the prices were already low because it’s IHOP so tips
were meager. I could complain to you for days about experiences with bad and
ignorant customers that took all my control, all my people management skills,
all my thickness of skin to get through, and I didn’t get paid any extra for
putting up with that shit.

Remember, I only get paid the equivalent of a meal at
McDonald’s for every hour of my work. I deserve better. We all do.

I firmly believe everyone should hold a minimum wage job at some point because you learn to have so much empathy for others workers and become a better human being and better customer because of your own experiences with shitty people. Also the amount you have to know is mind blowing, it’s exausting.

I firmly believe that minimum wage should be raised to something livable on a federal level, including and especially focusing on that of waiters and waitresses.

shiraglassman:

sexistentialisms:

erin-and-rigbys-nerdy-fashions:

sexistentialisms:

I’m
honestly really uncomfortable with all the pressure put on service
industry workers by people in queer circles to use gender neutral
language when interfacing with customers. Like, using gendered terms of
respect (sir, ma’am, etc.) is a part of our job; we’re expected to use
language that indicates our class position, and gendered terms of
respect (including their plurals, ladies, gentleman, etc.) is part of
how it is expected that we do that. If we don’t do that, we come across
as rude, we don’t receive as many tips, we risk losing a customer
interaction, in which the customer has all the power over us
economically, not only by not tipping, but by bringing complaints to our
managers and undermining our job security. This is the shit people
don’t get about working in service. I can’t just walk into your desk job
(provided it’s not a service desk job such as customer service, etc.)
and start complaining to your boss about your performance and get you
fired. And you’re not expected to treat every asshat who walks in with
absolute servility and deference.

Yes, getting misgendered
sucks, but the reason this is even an issue, the reason that service
industry workers are such a visible target of anti-misgendering
activism, is because people feel entitled to demand anything from us no
matter what, because that’s how the customer-server dynamic works. I’m
not saying that you EVER don’t have the right to demand to be gendered
properly. I’m not talking about individual efforts to get your gender
respected. I’m talking about these campaigns of card handouts explaining
gender theory to baristas, I’m talking about these posts going around
on the internet loudly telling services workers they need to educate
themselves, and lamenting the fact that everyone at McDonalds and
Starbucks hasn’t gone through college level safe space training
programs…

Like, I’m one of those college-educated safe space
training program coordinators. I’m also a trans woman. And I myself have
been witness to the coercive nature of gender dynamics in the workplace
in all sorts of ways. YES there are workarounds, yes they are
substitutes, but they’re often awkward, hard to get used to, hard to
implement, and often are received poorly by our customers. It’s a lot of
fucking work to do all that, to be constantly thinking about that ON
TOP OF all the other shit we have to think about when interacting with
customers (do you know just how difficult it is to memorize an entire
menu? Especially for someone with multiple learning disabilities such as
myself)?

I once got lectured in my store by an English
professor from a very prestigious DC university because I called them
“sir”. They told me they’re trying to be a professor outside the
classroom (where they teach queer lit theory) as well, and teach service
workers the proper way to address strangers when they don’t know their
pronouns. They told me, “it’s important to ask people their pronouns and
not assume! For example, I go by ‘they’, and you go buy…” I
responded, I go by ‘she’. He smiled in the most condescending way (this
whole lecture was condescending as fuck) and told me, “See?” Like, wow,
not only are you condescending and telling me shit that I’ve literally
been trained to educate people about, you’re also actively distancing me
from my womanhood now by basically saying “See? No one could have ever
guessed that you go by she! You don’t look anything like a she!” Fuck
off.

As a trans woman in the service industry, I PROMISE you I
get misgendered by my customers a THOUSAND times more than I ever
misgender them. Being misgendered by a trans person isn’t any less
shitty, but it IS less shitty than being misgendered all. fucking. day.
Like, believe me, I do my absolute and 100% best to avoid misgendering
my customers. I really do. But here’s the bottom line: The reason people
feel so entitled to these campaigns criticizing service workers, the
reasons you feel entitled to demand this respect from us (which is
respect that is yours to demand, in any situation, of course) more
readily than you are of say, your doctor, or your neighbors, is because
of the nature of service work. It’s because you see yourself as our
boss-by-proxy.

I see more posts going around about the need to
educate service workers than I do about the need to educate doctors
about trans issues. And that’s fucked up, weird, and it says something
about people’s expectations from others based on class position and
profession.

Hi ho, agender cashier here!

I go by they, and mistdam/Mx. is great, but have you ever called a random person mistdam or Mx? Most people don’t know what the fuck you’re saying. I’ve been called rude and been told I have a bad attitude, and been called stupid when I try to explain. So yeah, normalizing gender neutral terms is fabulous. But I’m too desperate for my $8 an hour to risk it.

Yeah exactly. It’s part of this liberal attitude where they think simply saying things or saying things a certain way actually changes them (see item: “makeup is gender neutral!”). 

That’s not how this works. Gender is still real and coercive and it’s coercive effects on those of us working in service are very felt.

If a service worker misgenders you, all you need to say is, ‘yeah,
I’d like a latte, and also the “miss” isn’t necessary’. I promise they
will be falling all over themselves to apologize and move the fuck on,
because they’re trying to save the interaction now that you’ve voiced
your discomfort. You don’t have that power in other situations with
non-service workers and I actually encourage you to use it, but
recognize where that power comes from. We don’t mind being corrected,
it’s part of our job. But going home and ranting on facebook about the
ignorance of service workers isn’t the solution, I promise.

And people have asked me about educating service workers when it’s situationally appropriate. And like, I want to say that if we’re not busy we’ll listen to your schtick and a lot of us will probably learn something. But I think my friend put this really well:

Imo
i don’t think any constructive conversation abt important shit can ever
really happen when one of the participants is essentially being coerced
into it and required to show subservience/“respect”

[and] even
if a productive conversation could happen, that conversation is p much
meaningless unless you are changing the structural and material
conditions behind the whole mess. The conversation itself does fuckall.
At its best this is liberal faux-activism and at its worst rly
condescending to trans proles [proletariat workers] who are being coerced into listening to
you

-Sandow, communistduelmonsters

So yeah, assuming our need for education is also a condescending attitude, and not recognizing the dynamics at play is really a problem. Just correct us when we misgender you and move on, and fight for actual structural changes that help service workers and trans folx have autonomy and self determination.

OMG, I’m so angry at him for the bolded part, and so hurt on your behalf. ARGH.