I was blessed with a birth and a death, I guess I just want some say in between

Dear Shower in My Apartment,

I just wanted to give you a heads up that simply toggling between arctic cold water and flesh-peeling hot water does not, actually, amount to the same as sending me reasonably-tempered warm water. I know that your current method seems logical, and considering that you have neither skin nor sensory organs (sucks to be you, by the way), I suppose there's no way for you to have known that the law of averages doesn't apply to you. And I wouldn't be surprised if spouting out dynamic extremes like you do is more fun than just serving up a stable middle ground, so I'm sympathetic to your error. But, for real, cut it out. You have the knowledge now; behave appropriately.

Soapily yours,
Linda

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There are a handful of subjects I tend to avoid writing about in here, and one of them is feminism (slash gender, gender issues, and b'grrl stuff in general). It isn't because I don't think they're worthy or interesting topics of conversation, but I do think the debates are well-known and equally well-worn. I have little to add.

Plus, even I, Jane Fondite that I am, get tired of listening to people talk about how women are socially conditioned to seemingly naturally want to fit into the pearls-and-apron Cleaver model of placid and passive domesticity. Blah blah princess toys for girls and trucks for boys blah blah boys can misbehave and girls can't blah blah men find women who make more than them unattractive blah blah. Sure, this is a serious, worrying, and very real phenomenon, but it's one that I've not only learned about but lived since I was a wee, Barbie-playing, dress-wearing, cootie-avoiding button. It's sort of a "duh" thing at this point.

But, occasionally, randomly, a gender disparity will catch my attention. Usually, it's something painfully everyday ("quotidian," if you want to be douchey about it), one of those normal life "givens" that gets surreptitiously warped by the lens of gender.

My most go-to example for this is, in the spirit of being as quotidian as possible, the experience of walking down the street. Anytime I walk around alone, the thought, "Is someone going to attack me?" is floating around somewhere in my brain. This worry explodes into a veritable cognitive plague in after-dark hours, when, with every step, I mentally monitor how easy-to-attack I look at that particular moment, run through what I'd do in the event of an attack, and maintain vigilant awareness of any potential threats around me. I go out of my way to take more well-lit, populated, or clear paths.

I'm led to believe that, in general, most ladies quickly empathize with this sentiment, while most gentlemen fail to relate.

It took years for it to occur to me that the average male doesn't share these horror-movie moments during their afterhours walks. A dude might casually carry a pocket knife or something, but he's probably relatively confident that he'd be able to hold his own in a fight, even if he's muscularly challenged, and he's not terribly concerned about rape. The fact that my life, in general, is to a greater degree than theirs permeated with fear pisses me off, in a way that thinking about my affinity for baking or inclination to wear make-up fails to do.