The *What* Test?

Warning: This post contains an F-Bomb (but not until the end).

I see subtle sexism everywhere, which almost bothers me more than overt sexism because it’s the kind of thing that is shrugged off as a cultural norm or remnant of the 1950’s family structure, but it’s pervasive, and it perpetuates stereotypes and false ideals. I came across a blaring (to me) example of this in a presentation on policy evaluation given by the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. To be fair, I think the offender is merely contracted by the federal government as a consultant, but still; if the government is hiring consultants who say idiotic things, then it needs to hear about it.

So this guy is talking about how to report the results your policy evaluation, and he makes a couple of recommendations such as keeping the message simple and using the “Mom Test.” The “Mom Test” involves presenting your message in a way that “your mom could understand it.” Now, I’m not a mother myself, but I can think of plenty of moms who might have been a teensy bit offended by this statement: Hillary Clinton, for example. But this shit is not acceptable even if he just meant his cute little old lady mother who is a very sweet, but simple woman. His mother should smack him for being such a condescending dolt.

Firstly, and most obviously, mothers, as a rule, are not a bunch of doe-eyed women, sitting around the house, waiting for someone (hopefully a man!) to tell them what to do next (hopefully using small enough words so their mushy brains can comprehend)*. Most mothers are out in the workplace, understanding all kinds of complicated things in order to do their jobs. My brain is reeling at the fact that I just had to say that.

Secondly, even mothers who do stay at home, often make the decision to do so, not because they are too dull for the workplace, but because they view childrearing as a valid and important job (yes, a real job). Society does not value this type of work because it does not increase our GDP, but it is valuable work that takes careful planning and, frankly, policy evaluation. Moms have been evaluating their policies and programs for years. In fact, they could give this guy a run for his money.

Maybe on its own, this is not that big a deal, but the “Mom Test” is just one example of insidious sexism that’s played out daily in our culture. Pay attention to gender roles in movies and TV shows. Commercials are the worst. And like I’ve said before, gender is just the tip of the iceberg. Heteronormativity is rampant. Racial stereotypes abound. And transgendered folks can’t get a break to save their lives.

I wish I had been at the training where this presentation was used, so I could have explained that my mom can understand highly complex, technical information regarding policy evaluation and asked if the “Mom Test” is really the best standard to use if the purpose is to keep the report simple. Fucker.

*I tried to contain all of my sarcasm in parentheses, but it might have (accidentally) seeped out in some places.

Public bathrooms are sexist.

I generally don't align myself too strongly with feminism - not because gender inequalities don't exist. They do. And they are devastating. However, I find that the scope of feminism tends to be too narrow, leaving out huge numbers of people faced with equally distressing circumstances. I'm not denying that women face a unique sort of discrimination, but I think that it's important to recognize all inequality - particularly the types that hit all demographics (especially minorities) such as economic inequality, which is hugely debilitating and rarely seriously confronted.

That being said, public bathrooms are sexist. This may seem like a petty issue (and it is), but I think that it's so fundamental of a concept it really upsets me. I have two main issues with women's bathrooms.

The first is that people always comment about how messy women's bathrooms are, deducing that women are inherently more messy or careless than men. I won't argue that women's bathrooms aren't messy - I've been in them. Of course, I don't spend a whole lot of time in the men's bathrooms for comparison, but I'm willing to believe ours really are the funkier of the two. The problem I have with this is that people seem to forget that women take children into the bathroom with them much more often than men do. For those of you who have never taken a small child in there with you, not only do children need to be closely attended to (making you less concerned about whether your paper towel landed in the trashcan) but also kids are very messy. The combination between poor coordination and natural (constant) exuberance can be explosive. So cut it out with the messy bathroom bit.

But that issue really pales in comparison to my concerns about the actual structures of women's bathrooms. Have you ever noticed that the lines to women's bathrooms are so long that women will actually jump ship and use the men's bathroom, which is often completely empty? I know I've done this on more than one occasion. Did you ever think that maybe they should make our bathrooms bigger? I have. I read a study once that found that women take three times longer just to go to the bathroom than men. This does not include the time we take to fix our hair or complain about our boyfriends. This is pure bathroom essentials. Doesn't it follow that our bathrooms should be about three times bigger? And let's not even get started with what throwing kids into the mix does to these figures.

I'm serious about these complaints. Logically, women's bathrooms should be larger. But getting back to my spiel about feminism being too exclusive, the issue of public bathrooms goes deeper when you're talking about discrepancies between other populations. Think about the difference between "rich" and "poor" bathrooms. How about the problems transgendered folks have just trying to find a safe place to pee? If I weren't being a hypocrite, I would be writing about these things, too.

I realize that this is a silly thing to blog about when so many other terrible things are going on, but sometimes it's the little things that strike you.