Texan who was tricked by Used Husband into moving to Milwaukee. Fomenting feminist revolution based on potty parity, pockets, and psleeves. Bad bacon eater. Also, cats. Also, REVOLUTION.
At my old job, I needed to talk to a male VP – a middle-aged white guy. Let’s call him Mike.
I had spoken to Mike many times on the phone, but we had never met, as he worked out of another office. He was in our office for a meeting and I caught him at a break. I knew what he looked like, so approached him and started talking to him.
He interrupted me. “Are you Texan?” he asked.
Oh right. I had not introduced myself! Rude!
“Yes,” I answered. “But how did you know?”
“I recognized the sound of your voice,” he replied.
“How bizarre!” I said. “You must be really good at voices, considering there are so many women at this company!”
The only other woman in the room, Cynthia, started laughing so hard that she almost fell out of her chair.
From one of the many “What Were You Wearing” exhibits showing the clothes women were wearing when they were raped.
There are many reasons I do not take Uber or other rideshares, not the least because even now, I still have it drummed into my head never to get into a car with a stranger and the news is full of stories about how Uber is failing to address the rape problem it has with its drivers.
(The other reason is that rideshare companies exploit the drivers, taking so much of the revenue that drivers are basically just monetizing their cars. I did the math with a driver once – I had to take one for work because we were not allowed to rent a car if Uber was available – and the only way he made any money was because he could do his own repairs.)
(Also, this driver was a jerk. He’d had a factory job with insurance, but his divorce decree said he had to provide insurance for his children if it was available to him through his job, so he quit the factory job to drive instead – as an independent contractor with no benefits – so he wouldn’t be spending that money on the extra premiums.)
I made the stupid mistake of reading the comments on a New York Times story about Uber and rape and sure enough, the “BUT WHAT ABOUT THE MEEEEEENNNNN” guys appeared pretty darn quick.
You know – the ones who – any time women talk about rape and how most rapes are not reported and the ones that are are rarely prosecuted and when they are prosecuted, the defense focuses on the victim’s clothing and sexual history etc etc etc.
Speaking of a victim’s sexual history:
Mr T’s nephew – the one who has gone full MAGA – was accused of sexual assault a few years ago. We know this only because the nephew asked Mr T to send $5,000 from the nephew’s trust to a lawyer for “pre-trial investigation.”
We never got all the details, but the best we can figure is that the “pre-trial investigation” was really “finding any possible evidence that the victim had had sex before and had communicated with the rapist and maybe met him for a date therefore it is not rape.”
The DA did not prosecute the nephew’s case.
Nephew’s father told Mr T that nephew had been exonerated.
Nephew is dead to both Mr T and me.
Back to the Uber story about rape and how Uber keeps drivers accused of assault on the road (and about Uber’s mild, pathetic attempts to offer a women-only service that men cried about because again, allowing women to select only women drivers is so unfair to men).
John is very concerned about the men who are falsely accused. That is the biggest issue society faces today. Not the rape of women. But the false accusations of men.
Many “claims” we’re never proven or outright falsely alleged. I know this is a sore subject for women but it’s even sorer subject for men being falsely accused. Now if these claims were proven with corroborating evidence than the drivers should be terminated
Hopefully this article will be a wake-up call for the ride share industry. If a driver requires seeing a video to understand they shouldn’t sexually assault someone…then why are they hiring them in the first place.
Kath in Houston
I think the solution is enough men yes men because they are the ones making these decisions with the balls to do the right thing.
I know. It won’t happen.
Until then, my friends, do not get into a car with a man you do not know.
Can you do the emotional labor for your partner’s – oh heck let’s say it your husband’s – job?
It seemed like Samantha’s only purpose in life was to cater to Darrin and that the only way she could do so was because she could use magic. Source
I thought the days of women who existed solely to support their husband’s careers were over.
Not far from over, but over.
And yet, my friend’s Silicon Valley Google/Facebook/tech bro ex-husband told her that the reason he needed to divorce her was because she was not – and I quote – “CEO wife material.”
When their kids were little, my friend Layla’s husband was told to spend a week at an off-site meeting. And to bring his wife.
Layla and Malik had just moved to Fargo. They had no family there. They had made no friends. Layla had her own job as a nurse. How on earth was she supposed to drop everything and go out of town for a week with Malik? Who would watch their children? How would she get time off from work?
I have another friend who to this day always dresses nicely when she leaves the house, even to walk the dogs. I think she might do this no matter her life situation – she is not a slob like me, but one of the reasons she does it is because her husband is a big shot and she doesn’t want to be seen doing anything not appropriate for the wife of big shot.
(Also they are in Dallas, which matters for this story. If they lived in Minneapolis or Milwaukee, my guess is it wouldn’t matter so much – the Midwest is so much more practical about these things.)
(Or even if they were in Fort Worth. But Dallas – whew, Dallas is its own thing for sure.)
She is not expected to produce supper at the last minute when Darrin brings Larry home without warning, but her husband could never have reached his position without her hard work. He acknowledges this and he, too, has worked extremely hard. They deserve everything they have earned. But the truth remains that he could not have put in 60-hour work weeks unless he had had her support.
All that emotional labor? I guess it’s Women’s Work, according to a Bad Guy on Elsbeth.
“All that schmoozing and glad-handing,” says the judge who is actually a murderer and presided over the trial of the innocent person he framed for the murder. “It’s so undignified. Leave the pleasantries to the wives.”
But when men actually do have CEO wives, they don’t want to acknowledge it. Remember when Lorna Wendt and her GE Capital Services CEO husband divorced? She said she deserved half of everything because without her, he never would have reached his position.
Her high-school sweetheart husband of decades said she had nothing to do with his achievements.
The facts (including, I think I read once, that she would stand next to him at work parties and cue him about the other attendees: “That’s Bob and Betty. Their oldest kid just got into Yale. Remember we had them over for dinner last summer?”) would seem otherwise.
Also, Gary, were you interested in her problems? Were you interested in your children’s problems? Did you know the names of your children’s friends and teachers and doctors? Did you take them to get their vaccinations and physicals? Did you organize their overnights and summer camp? Do you think she might have been busy taking care of every single detail at home so you could focus on work?
In the case, Mrs. Wendt presented herself as someone who had helped put her husband through Harvard Business School, gave up her career as a music teacher to rear two daughters, created an elegant home, gave dinner parties for his clients and co-workers, accompanied him on business trips and provided daily support — all of which contributed to his success.
(Don’t you love how the Times says that Lorna “presented herself” as opposed to stating things as fact? It would be pretty easy to verify that someone did indeed work while her husband attended grad school, then quit her job to raise the children rather than hire a full-time nanny, then threw dinner parties and accompanied him on trips. These are all facts. Not speculation.)
The courts were all, “But is it really work for a spouse to take care of everything at home?”
But the case — which also sparked countless office water-cooler arguments and much concern in C-suites — also hinged on two tricky legal questions.
One was whether a stay-at-home wife should be considered an equal partner for the sake of dividing marital assets that had been largely, or completely, acquired as a result of the corporate husband’s job.
Connecticut law requires an “equitable distribution” of marital assets — not an automatic 50-50 split. And “equitable” in the courts often translated into “not nearly as much as 50 percent” for many stay-at-home corporate wives.
Lorna did the work that men do not value and do not want to do themselves. She did the emotional labor. (Emphasis mine.)
She later told Fortune, “I complemented him by keeping the home fires burning and by raising a family and by being CEO of the Wendt corporation and by running the household and grounds and social and emotional ties so he could get out and work very hard at what he was good at.”
I would have made a lousy CEO wife. I hate dressing up and washing my hair and putting on makeup even for formal occasions, much less for running to the store or the library or anything where exercise clothes and a ponytail will do. I hate being nice to people just because they are “important.” I hate work suppers and making small talk with people I can’t be honest with.
I don’t even know the other rules for being a CEO wife. They are as opaque to me as the rules for being CEO itself. (Although I know one main CEO rule – be in possession of a white penis.)
I am not CEO wife material. I am not CEO material.
My friend’s ex?
Still not a CEO.
Apparently ditching the inappropriate wife and picking up a younger model and having the oh so essential white penis is not enough.
But thanks to California’s community property laws, he has lost half his wealth in the process with no debate about if his wife had anything to do with his success.
Also, why is it always girls and women who pay the price?
In search of a happy, feel-good show, I started season 5 of Call the Midwife yesterday
Do not do this. Do not watch season 5 if you want warm happiness.
If, however, you need a reminder about how horribly the world has treated women in our lifetimes and how this treatment has put female lives at risk – and even killed them at times, I am sure (CTM is not going to let all of the characters in trouble die, but they are going to get darn close), then watch.
Leaving aside the thalidomide issue, which has presented itself in several of the episodes (AKA incomplete medical research without consideration of how women would be affected), there’s a girl who is hiding her pregnancy while her mother is pretending to be pregnant. The story will be that the mother had the baby. (The girl’s father is away at sea, so there’s no other grownup who could notice that mom is not really pregnant.)
The mom is doing this to protect her teenage daughter from the shame of an out of wedlock pregnancy.
(“Do you know how many of our neighbors have done the same thing?” the mom asks when the daughter protests.)
(Eric Clapton thought his biological mother was his sister.)
Which means the girl gets no pre-natal care and which means when it’s time for the girl to deliver, there is no medical help. True, mom has had four kids and knows how this goes, but when the placenta takes too long to come out, mom is very worried. She gets the advice to pull on the cord to remove the placenta, but while I am watching her do so, I am screaming at the TV, “DO NOT DO THIS! DO NOT DO THIS!”
I thought she would rip the placenta from the uterus and cause hemorrhaging, but that’s not what happens.
Instead, she pulls her daughter’s uterus out (which is something I didn’t even know could happen but seems almost as bad as hemorrhaging).
Please notice nobody is going out of their way, at the risk of his health and life, to protect the father of the baby from shame.
The other episode that struck me (but I am not done with the season yet, so who knows what other horrors await) is the one with the pregnant unwed teacher.
She is pregnant by another teacher – a married man.
But she’s the one who loses her job.
She’s the one whose landlady kicks her out.
She’s the one who sticks a clothes hanger into her uterus and lacerates it, meaning that she collapses in the street, bleeding, and is sent to a hospital where they have to do a hysterectomy, meaning she will now never have children.
She’s the one who faces criminal charges for performing an abortion.
Yes, even if she did it to herself, she could be charged.
Texan in Exile 