The other night I was at the "Y" on my favorite machine.
Headphones were on since I like Bravo at the "Y". And since I got there late for various reasons I was going till 10:00 and until I saw who won and lost "Top Chef."
Then, at about five till'-- like three guys walk in the backdoor via one of the workers and they exchange bravados and beer. I am the only one left in the big room with these dudes chilin' out with their beverages. And my headphones are on, and I am watching the winner and loser of "Top Chef".
I feel like a spectacle. And so when I get off because it is 10:00 and I know the winner and the loser of "Top Chef" I can use a voice and say...."You guys getta hang out in here tonight? That's my dream"...."well you can stay in here with us" (spectacle confirmed). "No, I want to have this place to myself with no one else."
When I leave I ask about the "guys"..."They're carpet layers" the two tell me." O.K. ..."Just thought I'd ask, it felt uncomfortable."
Where is the violence?
My uncomfortability had a place...and maybe they were laying carpet, and I was there and they had beer. O.k. , fine.
But there was a strangeness, a history, a vulnerability and several cultural, sexual, saturations at play.
At the YMCA.
1 comment:
So, I want to explain this post further. I do not think that I experienced violence, in the traditional sense, that night (This is certainly true if his experience is contrasted to rates of domestic violence and rape nationwide). But something about the context and the players felt threatening. I have gone to the "Y" since I was a little girl (I believe it is one of Boise's core community centers). I did not like the way I felt like the place was being used, unbeknownst to Tim Severra, and other folks who run the place, for a beer like party atmosphere after hours . The carpet is new...but it looked to me like it had already been put down just fine. Maybe they were going to apply sealant? Did they need beer? Did they need to all so obviously watch me finish my workout?
So I had to cal it out to the folks at the desk, and there response was nervous and awkward too...this didn't help my unease. I was shaking the whole way home, something felt wrong.
But is has also occurred to me that my perceptions are mine. And the real violence was in my inability to be o.k. with the gender dynamics at play. That these guys, are not just guys, they are humans, and nothing was going through their minds at all. They were just there to do work, and I was the one taking so long to finish my workout and so my putting them into a category of having the desire to watch me as a spectacle is indicative of a larger social ill. Namely, that women cannot feel safe round men they don't know, because of cultural conceptions which place men in roles by virtue of that history.
Either way, it was an interesting experience. One, I would not like to repeat.
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