Deep Breath

A lot of what happens to women, as a class, makes me deeply and profoundly angry. Hell, it's what people do to other people that makes me angry. But why do women, as a class, take the brunt of it?

I've worked very hard to put myself in a place where I don't have to face harassment, discrimination or abuse on a daily or weekly basis. It basically meant putting myself in a significantly higher socio-economic bracket and more "elite" social class than the one I grew up in. All the way from the rural Midwest, to getting two college degrees and working at highly-admired corporation in a technically challenging field. I work with educated and reasonable people. My peers are students and idealist, young urban professionals with an excessive amount of moral fibre, mean income or free time. Choose two.

As I understand it, all I've done is trade overt discrimination and abuse for the covert and subtle variety. But, hey. That's not so bad. I live a life where I can trust my friends implicitly, they're good people. I'm so lucky. I get to revolve in a social sphere that has a higher standard for acceptable behavior. I have access to EC and abortion and health care and counseling services. But, um, last I checked, I was in the ivory-tower minority.

There is something extremely wrong with our society as a whole.