Smoked salmon over black pepper capallini with a side of misogyny.

One of the many new-to-me experiences this year is the old one that has to do with restaurants and who is served first; specifically women before men. It's not fully new, of course, but far more obvious because a) I am now gendered female and, thus, one of the ones served first when that happens, and b) often due to my professional field, it's not infrequent that I am the only woman at the table. The title of this post comes from the entree I ordered on the last such occasion when I experienced this; at my farewell lunch with my manger and five coworkers last week, at which our waitress was very clearly practicing as was likely the rule of the establishment (it was clearly not happenstance as it involved a separate trip to the prep area after bringing a tray of beverages out and placing it on a jack to retrieve my hot tea and then serve that to me before the beverages to my male dining companions.) I've also had occasion to run into some objections to that practice, though last week's event was free of it.

There are several classes of objections that I am intentionally leaving outside of the scope of this post (I will advise that it would not be wise to believe that my evaluation of this particular subset is an indication of how I view all of the others.) The very narrowly defined case in today's engagement is, in my experience, the one made the most immediately and with significant volume, and I have never experienced this particular one voiced by women (in fairness, I haven't seen it from a particularly large group of men, either, but it has definitely existed.) It is to claim that due to feminism such practices shouldn't still be happening.

That sounds great on its surface, but, from the particular speaker, it fails upon examination. Some of the men that I have observed make this objection never go on to practice any behavior that would be in support of that proclaimed and apparently claimed position.

This is the essence of privilege put on display; men who are so completely accustom to benefiting from their privilege that they chaff the moment they encounter a situation where it does not provide them with the advantages they prefer. It is utter contempt for women, begrudging them even a patriarchally-approved crumb. It is also, particularly in the instances when it is repeated with each course, an expectation and demand that the women present engage with them as representatives, however unwilling, of all of feminism, at the time and terms of their choosing, and to hold them responsible for behaviors outside of their control.

*whump*

Had eight hours of new employee orientation today. I'm now fully a SAS Institute (a.k.a. SAS) employee. Standard disclaimer: I do not speak on their behalf. Also, a first for me, I'll be a bit limited on what I can say at times. In the past, I worked for US universities which is a place where proprietary information is far more limited.

I'm looking forward to this.