Excuse me, sir.

I spend a fair amount of time working outside during the summer. Usually, it’s because there isn’t any room in the workspace. Sometimes, it’s because I’m dealing with noxious chemicals best used in more ventilated conditions than the stuffy shop. It is never solely because it’s a nice day out, although sometimes that is a perk.

Today, all three of these were relevant. I spent the majority of the day essentially welding a cage out of EMT. EMT is great for running electrical wires through. It is not, however, so great for running electrical current through (i.e. welding), in the sense that it is quite bad to breathe in when heated to high temperatures.

Anyhow, working in front of the shop means that every so often, I have to deal with a passerby who pulls me away from whatever I’m doing. This is typically to either ask for directions or comment on my project. Mostly harmless. It is worth mentioning that there are many, many tourists about during the summertime, and alot of jerks.

Occasionally, I’ll get some guy who will interrupt me specifically to make some disparaging comment related my gender and line of work. I once had someone come up to me, pick up my tape measure, open it and then ask me if I was aware of what “all those little lines” meant. He was so certain that my gender made me that incompetent. I’ve found that I get a lot less snarky comments if I look especially scrubby, or better yet, if I can blend in as a member of the stronger sex. I can pass pretty well for a scrawny man when I’m in full welding gear. You wouldn't necessarily know it looking at me during off-hours, but I've learned from experience.

The rest of the shop, all men except for those in the paint department, gets a kick out of keeping track of every time I get “sir-ed.” Every once in a while, someone will stop to ask me a question that begins “excuse me, sir...” That’s getting sir-ed. Usually I’ll take my glasses or mask off before I answer so I can get the inquirer’s embarrassment out of the way.

I’d imagine part of the reason these people are so often shocked is that, even in this century, it’s quite uncommon to find a woman behind a welding mask or wielding a hammer. It’s great now that we can be doctors, lawyers, and businesspeople with some regularity. But there’s still a mental block most people have against females working hard, and being good at it.

I don’t think I’d be as much of a feminist if I had chosen a different line of work and didn’t regularly experience sexism first hand. I’m sure that it exists in many other fields, but in alot of these, less blatantly.

It is not surprising to me that with a legislature made disproportionately of old men, that an equal rights amendment has never passed. It boggles my mind how any self respecting woman would deny herself the right to equal pay, for instance, by continuing to vote for such sleazy fools. Or not by not voting or caring at all.

Electing a female president won’t change a thing. Just because she’s there, doesn’t mean everyone will respect her. Every flaw she has, every mistake she makes, will simply be attributed back to her initial “flaw”—being born a woman. I have high hopes that society will someday evolve into an entity that cherishes equality and fairness, but I don't believe I will see this during this lifetime.