I’ve never heard a guy appearing before a women judge say:
* “I tried to downplay my alpha-maleness by wearing a pink tie so she wouldn’t feel that I was trying to challenge her.”
* “I tried to speak in a softer, slightly higher voice, so she wouldn’t get unintentionally turned on by my manly, deep voice.”
* “I didn’t comb my hair over my bald spot when I appeared before her so that: 1) she’d feel superior to me, in that she had more hair than I do, and 2) would be repulsed by my baldness and thus not overcome by her lust for me.”
* “I pulled out the ol’ earring from college and popped it into my left ear, just so that she could relate better to me.”Can you imagine? Yeah, I thought so. Me neither.
I was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1985. Not the dark ages. Several days before the ceremony, my women friends, some of them feminists, assuming, correctly, that I would wear PANTS, began telling me that I could be forever damaging my reputation with Ontario judges by doing so.
I didn’t own a skirt. Didn’t want to own a skirt. Also didn’t want to “ruin my reputation” over such a “silly thing”. And just couldn’t cave to the pressure. Perhaps it was dumb, but I felt that if my “reputation” was going to be ruined among judges because of a pair of pants, I didn’t want he reputation anyways. I was one of three women out of half the student body, to wear a pair of pants with my flowing robes.
In 1990, when I was teaching at an Ontario university, I gained a reputation as a lesbian, primarily because I didn’t wear skirts and dresses, according to my spies. Hilarious. And I had no difficulty being identified as a lesbian, but I was amazed by the superficiality that gave rise to the designation. I DIDN’T take to wearing skirts.
When I had to leave my position due to a long-term disability in 1993, also supposedly not the dark ages, my leave was written about in a NATIONAL gossip rag – once again, I was identified as a lesbian. But this time, as a “Birkenstock wearing” lesbian. Despite the fact that I hadn’t ever owned or worn a pair of said sandals.
Sigh. Major sigh. BTW, I’ve got nothing against skirts and Birkenstocks. I just don’t wear them. Call it an accident of history.
It’s just pathetic …