Everything's Trash, But It's Okay

by Phoebe Robinson

  The following is a biggie, and I’m writing it as much for other ladies as I am for myself because I’m guilty of this behavior. In fact, I just did it a week ago. I had ordered an Uber messenger to pick up a package from my manager’s office and deliver it to me at my home in a part of Brooklyn that is not conveniently located. It sucks, but I was a broke mofo who freelanced when I needed a new place to live, so I couldn’t be choosy. It was either move to that apartment or back home to Cleveland, Ohio. And over the three years I’ve lived here, I’ve gotten used to the distance. Other people like this Uber messenger? Not so much.

  As I expected, it took him more than an hour to bike to me, and when he arrived, He. Was. Not. Happy. It was a blustery afternoon in March, so I knew the breeze was inspired by the Prodigy song “Smack My Bitch Up” and was not kind to his face. Feeling guilty, I immediately wanted to make up for weather I couldn’t control by being extra cheery when I greeted him. His response: “Man, you live so far away. If I had known you lived so far away, I wouldn’t have taken this job.” No “hello” or movement to hand me my package. It’s as if he just traveled an hour to tell me that my apartment is in a garbage location. Um, yeah, dude, I’m reminded of that whenever most of my friends take a magazine they’ll barely have a chance to flip through during their short train rides while I’m schlepping around the entire The Lord of the Rings collection in my book bag like some nerd version of CrossFit because it takes an hour and a half to get to my hair appointment. I’m fully up to speed on the suckage that is the location of my apartment. Yet he continued venting his frustrations about his travel time and how he had to get on the train because he was sick of riding his bike. I patiently listened, and then before I could even stop myself, I apologized. This seemed to please him, because he handed me my package. End of transaction, right? Wrong. He continued griping and laid this whopper on me: “You know, this trip was so bad, it kind of ruined my day. I don’t even feel like working anymore. I might just go home. I mean, I was feeling pretty good today and then I came here.” Bitch, huh? But I knew that calling someone you don’t know “bitch” is a surefire way to getting cussed out, so I just apologized profusely, and he stood as if there was something else I was supposed to do. A beat passed; I apologized a third time, and then he left. Just to recap: Not only did I apologize to him three times, but I could tell by the way he was pausing and staring at me that he was expecting an apology. How fucked up is that?! Even though I did nothing wrong, it was my fault. He knew his starting point as well as my address and still took the job, but again, it doesn’t matter. It was my fault. And apparently, I agreed with him.

  That was not an anomaly. Some days are peppered with moments of feeling bad for taking up space or having an opinion, and I subconsciously think that in any interaction with a man, I’m taking up valuable time I’m not worthy of. I’m not alone in this. All my girlfriends have dealt with these thoughts and I’m sick of it! Women have to stop apologizing for things they don’t need to apologize for. A guy bumps into us, we apologize. In a pitch meeting, a man cuts us off while we’re talking, and we say, “Sorry. You were speaking. Go ahead.” Society conditions women to believe that their baseline for operating ought to be gratitude. Not gratitude as in appreciating being alive and healthy, but gratitude as in, “You should feel lucky we’re even taking a chance on you. Don’t fuck it up.” Society’s like some shitty club we got dressed up to go to because we’ve been convinced it’s amazing even though, truth be told, da clurb needs us. The bouncer’s an asshole, makes some snide comments, reminds you that he normally wouldn’t let you in, and then, once you’re inside, the DJ is just playing the Black Eyed Peas and Hoobastank all night, and you and your girlfriends look at each other like, “I went to some bougie spa and let my vajeen get steamed like it’s an eight-piece dumpling appetizer at a restaurant for this?”

  We’ve been sold a bill of goods, ladies! This notion that we must have an apology locked and loaded at all times has been perpetuated by weak people whose only source of strength is planting seeds of self-doubt in others. Well, I, for one, am putting on my gardening clogs like a Martha Stewart minus the talent and ripping all that insecurity out by the roots, then putting down new topsoil, and . . . I’m sorry. I truly know nothing about gardening outside of the fact that Annette Bening’s character in American Beauty did it and then smashed a real estate agent played by Peter Gallagher and his sexy-ass eyebrows. So what’s the moral of the story? The days of me behaving and believing that my life is an imposition on others is over. And I want that to be true for every woman alive. We belong here, society, so get used to it, or you can take your sorry ass home.

  The fact that the stand-up comedy field is male-dominated and, therefore, seedy and sexually inappropriate goes without saying. Over the past year, we’ve seen famous and revered comedians have their careers crumble due to their bad and offensive behavior coming to light. And while it’s nice to see certain folks answer for their past crimes, that doesn’t mean that the industry has cleaned up. It hasn’t. Big offenses are being taken more seriously now, which is wonderful, but the truth is that sexual assault isn’t the only pervasive problem. There’s also harassment, which is what allows the culture of sexual assault to exist. Thankfully, I’ve never had to deal with the life-altering crime of rape or sexual assault, but I’ve had my fair share of harassment.

  I remember one time, early in my stand-up years, I walked down the street to a comedy club. A comedian I knew was standing in front of it with a couple of fellow male comedians. He repeatedly yelled at me, “Hey, slut! What’s up, slut! Look at you being a slut!” Of course, all of them laughed. Once I got within earshot, I let him know that he was not going to be calling me a slut in public or otherwise. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said. You know that fucking Joey-Lawrence-from-Blossom “whoa” BS men like to do when they’ve done something messed up and behave like you’re overreacting? This fool came at me with a few “whoa”s and claimed he was joking and figured I could be “cool.” In what world is a white man backed by a group of white men screaming a sexually derogatory term at a black woman a joke? Damn sure not the world that neither of us are living in. What he was doing wasn’t for jokes, but to intimidate, however, he and his friends messed with the wrong chick and quickly learned they will never treat me like that again.

  Often that kind of bullying is what female comedians deal with in order to do their job. And we’re warned that bad behavior comes with the territory, that we just need to have thick skin and not let it bother us. It’s screwed up, but that’s what so many of us do. We know that any time we’re in a predominantly male industry, harassment is done to test us, to make us feel insecure, to throw us off our game, and to challenge our strength. But other times, it’s done because a dude is a motherfuckin’ creep.

  About seven years ago, I was at a rooftop party with a bunch of comedians. It looked like a rooftop party from a music video except all the dudes had soft bellies and there were PBRs instead of bottles of champagne. Not glamorous, but there’s something charming about a bunch of newbies who don’t have money and feel as though blasting music from a crappy speaker is all that’s needed for a good time. There was a bit of a lull in the party, so I snuck off to a corner table and called my parents for a quick chat. A few minutes into the convo, a male comic who had been in the industry for a while came up to me. Let’s call him “Richard.” Richard and I had been on maybe one or two shows together and had been on friendly terms. So it was nice to see him, and I said a quick hello. But him being a comic, he immediately and rightly teased me for being on the phone while at a party. I laughed and wrapped up my call and we chatted.

  “What’s the situation?” he asked. I assumed he was asking about the party and he corrected me: “No, what’s the situation . . . down there?”

  “Excuse me?”

  He looked down at my crotch and raised his eyebrows.

  I was pisse
d off, but I didn’t want to cause a scene, so I simply told him what he was doing was disgusting and to knock it off.

  “Oh, come on,” he started. “It’s not like we’re colleagues or anything.” Oh, hell no! Because I was a newbie comic and not on the same level as him professionally, it was totally fine in his eyes to sexually harass me. Screw that! You should respect me whether this is my first day in stand-up or I’m a legend like Wanda Sykes. I stood my ground, he backed off, and I never talked to him again, and thanks to us being at different stages of our careers, we were never really on the same shows much after that.

  Until a few years later, when I arrived early to a gig and saw that Richard was also on the lineup. Seeing his name caused that uncomfortable moment to come rushing back to me. Fuck. I tried to keep my cool. All the comics on the show eventually trickled in one by one and were greeting each other with hugs. Then he appeared. I didn’t know what to do, as I was sure he didn’t remember what he said to me all those years ago. So I did what a lot of women are conditioned to do: I thought about the situation from every possible angle, considered what his feelings might be if I acted a certain way, and then decided his comfort was more important than mine. I hugged him and said it was good to see him. It wasn’t. It sucked, but I didn’t want to make him feel weird if everyone hugged him except me, so I “took one for the team.” I know, I know, but in that moment, I couldn’t overpower what society had conditioned in me. I hugged him even though I didn’t want to touch him, let alone be in the same room as him. His presence reminded me of when I was new on the scene and male comics would test the waters to see if they could disrespect, harass, or intimidate me. I felt small again. And that’s the thing people forget about harassment’s real power.

  Harassment is not designed to be temporary; it’s intended to stay with you, keep you in line, never allow you to fully relax and be calm. That way the perpetrator doesn’t even have to do the work of oppressing you. You’ll inadvertently do the work for him long after he’s forgotten what he’s done. So that instead of remembering how you stood up for yourself and using that memory as strength to propel yourself forward, you’ll be taken back to when you felt weak. Harassment is not just about harming you that one time; it’s about lingering around for every time afterwards and chipping away at you without you realizing it.

  To be honest, that kind of treatment is sort of the norm for this business. Women starting out in stand-up are subjected to demoralizing behavior, and there’s no HR to report it to. Furthermore, you can’t tell other male comics because they won’t believe you or they’ll pretend to believe you and then go behind your back and do a smear campaign against you. So, us ladies confide in one another, sharing tales of horrific comments, inappropriate touching, innuendos, etc. And like me, some of us struggle with how to handle mistreatment and its aftereffects. I am happy to report that as my career has advanced and I’ve hit certain milestones, I’m no longer on the receiving end of this kind of behavior, but isn’t that kind of sad? That simply because I’m a woman, I’m not afforded the baseline of respect as a coworker that’s afforded male comics. I have to earn it, and by “it,” I mean my humanity. That’s fucking ridiculous.

  This is related to the above but is a far lesser offense. I’ll be in a crowded place and a guy is trying to get past me, so he places his hand on the small of my back. Ick! Way too intimate. Rule of thumb, straight boys who think that women don’t deserve autonomy over their bodies and aren’t well equipped to decide who is and isn’t allowed to touch them: If you don’t think it’s appropriate to invade another man’s space, then you don’t a woman’s. Or, in other words, if you’re not putting your hand on the small of Chris Christie’s back when trying to walk through Buffalo Wild Wings, then keep your filthy paws off my silky drawers. #RizzoHadBars.

  Noncontroversial statement alert! I’ve had it up to here with Aunt Flo and her indecisive nonsense. I’m specifically referring to when you think your period is done-zo, so you stop using tampons/pads/DivaCups/Thinx, and then the next day, your period starts back up again and all your clothes get ruined. Da hell? This is kind of like that song “Damaged” by girl group Danity Kane, which, if ya don’t know, is an early-aughts classic. It’s three minutes of pop perfection, and just when you think the song is over because they stop singing, Diddy comes in and talks nonsense and keeps the song going. Periods, don’t be like Diddy.

  I know that purses are the jam, but sometimes I don’t feel like carrying one and instead want to roam the Earth like a stoner dude at a Dave Matthews Band concert, meaning I wanna rock pants that are more pockets than actual pants. So, clothing companies, throw all us ladies a freakin’ bone here and stop with fake pockets in pants. Even worse than fake pockets are the tiny pockets that only go knuckle deep, so instead of being able to relax my hands and arms comfortably, I’m now engaging my biceps, triceps, and traps in order to rest my fingers in pockets they’ll never fit in anyway. What in the huh is this P90X class that I didn’t sign up for about?

  IDK if this terminology is used or not anymore, but when I was growing up, I was a certifiable tomboy. I was not into wearing dresses or makeup. I freely burped and farted (still do). I played pick-up basketball, tackle football with my older brother and his friends (side note: we also played badminton—lol times infinity). Most importantly, I watched wrestling, basketball—both professional and collegiate—ditto for football, tennis, track and field, baseball, and almost anything else where there was a clear winner and loser. And I mean it about the almost anything.

  Golf? Naw, dawg. Golf takes place at basically all-white country clubs (except for the staff, who are “conveniently” 95 percent people of color) and consists of a lot of middle-aged white dudes walking in pleated khakis for long stretches of time while a person of color carries all their shit and an umbrella to shade them from the summer heat. Y’all, I ain’t got time in 2018 to see a bunch of rich white dudes try to low-key bring back the cute parts of colonialism the way fashion is like, “Hahahaha! Everyone forget about the crack epidemic of the eighties and just focus on us putting shoulder pads back in women’s blazers so you all look like Melanie Griffith in Working Girl.” No. Fucking. Thanks. Golf.* So to recap, I like most sports except golf and, while we’re at it, NASCAR (but I think it’s obvious by now why I wouldn’t be into that one either). But that’s not the point I’m getting at.

  What I find highly irritating is that when you’re a woman and a sports fan, dudes want you to prove that you’re really into the game before they’ll believe you. Whenever I tell a straight guy I love a particular sport, I’m always met with an “Oh, yeah?” or a “Really,” and an up-and-down look. This is, of course, followed by a litany of questions, testing my knowledge. I’m sorry, unless you’re wearing a blazer with elbow pads and drink minestrone soup out of a camping thermos (I literally have no idea what teachers eat and am basing my knowledge solely off of Clueless and Boy Meets World), please do not launch into a pop quiz, especially since it’s not to help me pass a class but to validate me in the eyes of a nonfactor in my life who is under the misconception that I care about his judgment.

  News flash: According to a 2015 Gallup poll, sixty million women in the US watch sports on the regs. And no, we’re not doing it to fit in and be “one of the guys.” And no, we’re not doing it to get a guy to like us. And no, we’re not just jumping on the bandwagon of whatever team is hot at the moment (and let’s be real, tons and tons of men do that, too, so let’s stop thinking that is gender-specific behavior). We don’t have to prove anything to anyone, especially some jabroni we met five minutes ago. So, all sport-lovin’ dudes, the next time a woman says she’s into a sport, don’t say shit. Well, actually, don’t say nothing; that would be awkward. Just save your incredulity for the guy who talks about the New England Patriots and constantly uses the word “we,” even though he’s not on the team. Sir, they, not you, won the championship as they
play on the team and you do not. In fact, the closest you’ve gotten to “playing” football is the fantasy league in which you and your pals mostly just sit around, rank professional athletes, and risk paper-cut injuries printing out stats. But, sure, the Patriots couldn’t have done it without you wearing that old-ass jersey that stinks of BO and having a Roth IRA that’s maturating at a reasonable rate.

  Health care and reproductive rights. Like I mentioned earlier in the intro, the fact that members of the House Freedom Caucus (a group of white men led by Vice President Mike Pence) were the only ones in the room where it happened and were deciding what women are allowed and not allowed to do with their bodies is upsetting. No matter what progress is made, women not only are greeted with resistance but also are dealing with legislators and insensitive folk who are determined to make society go backwards. Don’t believe me? Then check out this sampling:

  Roe v. Wade happened forty-five years ago, yet there are still seven states that only have one clinic left that provides health services for women including abortions. According to the World Health Organization, depression is the most common mental health issue for women, and for those under the age of sixty, suicide is a leading cause of death. A 2017 article published in Marie Claire revealed that black women are more likely than other women to receive the wrong treatment for breast cancer. Many conservatives in the GOP seem hell-bent on making life difficult for poor and low-income women (twenty-five million to be exact) by rolling back Medicaid, which is how many of them get primary, preventive, specialty, and long-term care services. But they’re not the only ones feeling the GOP’s wrath. Working mothers are also at risk, as conservatives are trying to make it so that insurance companies are no longer required to offer maternity care in their health packages. And Quartz reported with the backing of research from the Lancet medical journal: