#Awkward

[drwex]

This happened:

I bought a soda at a fast food place (B Good) that has a fountain set-up with quality sodas. I forget the maker, but it's all cane sugar, natural flavors, gluten-free, etc. I chose the root beer, prompting the young woman behind the counter to remark that the blueberry is her favorite. I replied that I'm not a big fan of blueberry sodas, as they tend to be sweeter.

To which she said, "I like it, but I'm a girl."

I froze in place as my brain tried to process the amount of WRONG in that. Neither her tone nor her face/body indicated she was in any way joking. Approximately two years later (which was only a few seconds in real time, since my beverage cup had not overflowed) I managed to fumble out, "I don't see what that has to do with it."

And promptly felt terrible, because there is really no scenario I can evoke in which it's totally OK for random older white guy to be pointing out sexist assumptions in the speech of younger female persons.

Dear readers, what would you have done?

Comments

[mangosteen]

I likely would have gone with "heh." as a neutral acknowledgement as what was meant as a humorous self-deprecating remark. I would also file the interaction for later dissection because... damn.

I'm not delusional enough to think that I would have come up with something witty and and appropriate in the 3-second window I would have had.

[drwex]

Yeah, that's why I tend to chew these things over once they're past 'cause I figure if it happened once it'll happen again and NEXT time...

[melebeth]

It's true that blue is the ultimate color of femininity.

[melebeth]

Also? Blueberry soda makes me make the "EWWWW" face.

[bluegargantua]

Oh I've got the ultimate color of femininity...


...IN MY USERNAME!!!
Tom

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Hrm. I might have asked, 'Do girls like things sweeter?' or something like that, and if she said yes, I would said 'Heh, ok', much like mangosteen might have done. And I would have gone on my merry way. Not sure I could have come up with something witty or convincing of a different stance than the one she was taking.

I do admit that my back goes up whenever someone makes a 'blonde' comment in referring to someone being less than mentally agile. Not sure if that's a similar situation or not; it's not gender-biased the way your interaction was. I'm never sure what to say that wouldn't sound angry or annoying or like I take it too seriously, even when I take it *very* seriously. If someone ever made a comment like that about women or redheads or lefties, I would nuke from orbit.

[drwex]

Noted. *crosses you off the list of people I should tell my redhead jokes to* My first wife was a redhead; I used to know a lot of jokes.

The "blonde" thing is almost always 'blonde women' so it tends to read as sexist to me. But I could be making assumptions there.

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

I would have done the same thing you did, actually.

[drwex]

Thanks!

[vibrantabyss.livejournal.com]

I would have responded about the same as you did, with an "Excuse me?" beforehand, and without feeling the least bit off about saying it, because that... that is a heaping spoon of irony there.

[drwex]

I'm not sure that's irony, but I get your gist.

[sariel-t.livejournal.com]

I can't say that I would have done anything differently, but I'd like to tell you that I read this and my immediate response was "gosh, this is one of the reasons I like and feel so utterly safe around you."

[drwex]

heh. You have a thing for awkward men who over-think things? *grin*

Thank you, dear.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

taking the interaction as written, I'm assuming the thought process on her part was "well, guys probably don't tend to like fruit-flavored sodas, and I don't see guys ordering them that often, but *I* like them, therefore it must be because I'm a girl."

It probably says something about my age and backstory that it seemed like a mostly-normal thing for her to say, and that I blinked a couple of times in response to your described reaction, and then went "oh, ok, that probably says something about my age and backstory, etc..."

sometimes, a conversation is just a conversation. :)

[drwex]

Sometimes it is, but in the moment it seemed like she was promoting a learned stereotype of how women behave versus men. Whether it's fruit or sweet, it doesn't seem right to me to make the assumption that "because $gender, $preference".

[(Anonymous)]

I recently developed a new perspective on these sorts of things, thanks to a friend who is transitioning from male to female. She noticed, as she transitioned hormonally that her color perception changed. While she used to prefer dark or muted colors, she found herself liking bright colors and pastels much more than before. So, maybe there is some hormonal reason that women like different colors than men do?

We know that genetics can effect how people taste things (cilantro, bergamot, etc.). I've often wondered if my perception of bagpipe music differs from other people's perception, and if so, whether that might be genetic. I simply _love_ bagpipe music, but I understand that a lot of other people don't. Could I hear it differently than they do?

So, I think it is at least possible that women are more likely to enjoy certain foods than men, either due to hormones or genetics. I'd guess, though, that the range of tastes for men and women overlaps more than it differs.

[drwex]

Perhaps so. It's an interesting question but I have no scientific knowledge on which to draw an answer.

[mrw42.livejournal.com]

That last comment was from me… I didn't realize that I wasn't logged in.

[shades-of-nyx.livejournal.com]

Say nothing.
If you butt in, you're guilty of "mansplaining." Nobody likes mansplaining.

[drwex]

Yep. I do it less often these days, but still guilty as charged.

[magically25.livejournal.com]

Girl as in female not male = sexist? Females prefer sweeter?
Or
Girl as in not woman = ageist? Younger people prefer sweeter?
Tricky one

[drwex]

Very tricky. I don't think, even on reflection, that there's a clear right or good answer.

[minkrose]

I hear stuff like this a lot. But, my reply doesn't do you much good... I would've said "Really? I don't like sweet things but my husband LOVES them. He's got the sweet tooth in our household!"

Most of the dudes I know? Love "girly" drinks. Indeed, the person who got me into cosmos was a over-6 ft tall Indian man. He loved pink, sweet drinks way more than I ever did.

So yeah, usually when someone says something that makes a gender based assumption, I say "Oh, really? I know people who don't fit into that category!" Or some other kind of "that hasn't been my experience" counter-example. No idea if this is effective or not, but it makes me feel better.

[drwex]

Nod. I also tend to have quite the sweet tooth for some things, but not others. I take my tea unsweetened by preference, fr'ex.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

I knew my poor social skills had a purpose.

My reaction when I read that was, start to finish: "And?"

(At that, I have toned it down since I was a kid and saw my mother and sisters making-- and eating-- "divinity", a substance I can best describe as candied marshmallows. My response then would have been, "No excuse.")

[xaotica.livejournal.com]

I updated the LJ app and now I see a feed of random people's posts. (in case you were wondering how I arrived)

There are some genetic differences in taste perception which are influenced by gender and ethnicity. For example, I'm a 'supertaster' which is more common in women than men - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supertaster

Mostly it's kinda annoying - I dislike a lot of foods others enjoy. But I can also taste something and easily describe all its ingredients which my cocktail-enjoying friends sometimes find useful. It's based on zero knowledge - I'm a terrible cook ;)

A bigger factor is age... the older people get, the more of their sweet taste perceptions that did off.

[drwex]

Welcome! I had no idea the LJ app would direct random folk here but I'm happy for it. I appreciate your comment and I'm sorry the genes have conspired to make things taste bad to you.

[dpolicar]

I'm not sure what I would have done. But what I endorse doing right now on a couple of minutes' thought is looking puzzled and saying "I don't understand, what does being a girl have to do with liking blueberry soda?"

[drwex]

Yes, exactly.

[wotw]

A lifetime of casual observation tells me that women are far more likely than men to prefer sweet drinks, and that both women and men are aware of this. I have no hard evidence for these beliefs, but they are among the hundreds of thousands of things that I'm happy to simply go on believing as long as nothing important rides on them. So if I'd been in your shoes and she'd said "I like the blueberry", *I* might very well have been the one who responded "That's because you're a girl". I see no reason to presume that her meaning was anything less benign than mine would have been.

In fact, I am entirely baffled as to what *non*-benign meaning you imagine to have been lurking in her mind.

[drwex]

See the other comments below, in which research seems to show that your experience is not typical - at least one study seems to indicate the opposite as well as others' individual experience. Also, I noted that I'm unhappy with any statements of the form "Because $gender, $preference" as I think they embed sexist assumptions.

Subvert the dominant paradigm

[mizarchivist]

Even with the leisure of thinking about it at my own pace, I'm not so sure what I'd say.
I get a lot of gender-assumed shit in conversation thanks to having a stereotypically active boy-child.

Casual conversation at a soda fountain usually doesn't need more than a "huh" or "heh." IMO. But I get it on *wanting* to challenge the assumption. If further ideas come up that click with this kind of encounter tell me, though- I doubt I'll come through again on comments.

Gender training?

[sweetmmeblue.livejournal.com]

I wonder how much the belief that females like sweet things is trained into girls? I can think back to my own upbringing that girls got foofy drinks (even non-alc ones) and guys were steered away from them. What candy we liked, how our peers reacted to our choices... I wonder.

[pisicutsa.livejournal.com]

I might've gone with a smile and a "So is my [insert female relation] but they really don't have much of a sweet tooth. Now my [insert male relation] would live off the stuff if he could!" and just leave her to percolate that nugget of insight...

[dcltdw]

Based on your other comments to other people replying, I'll posit that you're (correctly) afraid of mansplaining to her why her being female has nothing to do with sweetness (this is where I blithely ignore the cited research).

For me, I think the key thing is the starting attitude. I can reply, "Huh. What does being a girl have to do with liking blueberry soda?" in a sarcastic manner, or a straight-up innocent manner. In the former case, I'm mansplaining. In the latter case, I may not be.

*snaps fingers* This reminds me of a technique I used all the time back when I worked at MGH. Lots of younger women working there, many of them wearing outfits that are eye-catching. I would nod to myself and remind myself, "for all I know, they are the Chief of Neurosurgery". So now I'm looking forward to an opportunity to talk to them, because damn, they might be able to teach me something cool.

So now I wouldn't be asking in a deadpan, I'm-about-to-trap-you manner; I'm asking in a huh, I've-never-been-a-young-woman, manner. I think this gets me out of both the "hey let's objectify this person!" area and the "hey let's mansplain to her!" area. I also don't think that a stranger can nudge someone out of sexist thinking; rather, my task as a stranger is to not normalize the background radiation.

[drwex]

I admire elements of your approach but I don't see how this sidesteps the core issue of either acknowledging and dealing with the (apparent) sexism in the remark or letting it remain part of the background radiation.

[desiringsubject.livejournal.com]

"So sugar and spice and everything nice is *literal*? Huh. Never knew..."

That's my best attempt at a witty rejoinder.

[drwex]

I did actually think something along those lines, but that immediately got squashed by the thought: "If a cis-female happens to want to express herself as sugar and spice and everything nice then it's a serious mistake for you (meaning me, but I'm talking to myself here) to comment negatively on her choice just because she's cis-female."

The problem I had (and still have) is that all the surface replies fail to get at the underlying WRONG, which I still see as the basic "my preference is the way it is because of my gender expression." Preferences, great. Gender expression, great. I think we all agree on that. It's the idea that there's an implied causality, or worse a mandatory linking that my brain registers as sexist. Does that make sense?