XX v. XY

by tess

Joe, a college friend whom I recently rediscovered, works in an industry with miniscule female representation. An Old Boys Club. His colleagues are interchangeable -- balding men between 50 and 60 who are struggling through their second sets of wife-cum-kids. Since South Florida is hardly the epicenter of this emergent-technologies-delivered-a-bullet-to-the-brain industry, most of the guys are grunting their last hurrah and hoping like hell that they can make it to retirement before right-sizing, reduction in force, foreclosure, and/or heart failure destroy what's left of their once-golden lives.

Now into this fraternal den of bears, insert one lone woman, Thwarta. Like her male colleagues, she's divorced, middle-aged, and hardly shy about expressing her opinions ... or scratching her balls. Universally vilified, Thwarta has come to represent, if not The EveryWoman, then certainly The EveryEx. Might The Boys respect her expertise more politely if she were one of The Guys? Probably not. But they might at least accept her input with less muttering and fewer harrumphs. Maybe.

Thwarta the EveryEx is ignored as much as possible and certainly not invited to eat or golf with the Men's Club. Not that she'd care to. Her lunch hours are spent adding eye of newt and hair of toad to the cauldron in her office, then she rides her perfectly-maintained, high-end broomstick straight back to her cave each evening.

It's during the five lunches Joe and The Guys share each week that the difference between men and women is most pronounced. It's not the food -- most are trying to take at least a modicum of interest in their hypertension and cholesterol. It's the conversation. Aside from the occasional mention of sports, lunch-chat is limited to work- and industry-related issues.

Certainly female colleagues frequently eat together and discuss their work --- and sports, too. But I would venture to guess that a half dozen women who eat together every day would be hard-pressed not to discuss what are clearly female-centric concerns -- like men, food, cramps, fashion, pets, undergarments, and kids. You know -- interesting things.

So it was particularly amusing when, apparently suffering from a sudden brain seizure, Joe filled a conversational void with the words:
"So last night on Real Housewives, Sherree said ...."

Poor Joe. Dressing-smeared lettuce, croutons, tomatoes, olives, chickpeas, and mushrooms came flying from every angle. His shirt is a vertiable cornucopia of salad bar stains. From now on NeNe, Kim, and Kandi will have to fend for themselves. A-Rod, Kobe, and Lance are apparently The New Black.