Valo sighed and reread the paragraph. A few weeks prior, in her women’s studies class, she’d had an assignment that allowed her to vent her thoughts and frustrations about work: write about a place or situation where gender binaries exist. In response to this, she wrote about her workplace in lurid detail:

When most women complain about their workplaces, they bring up issues such as sexist bosses, getting paid less than their male counterparts, being expected to wear a different uniform or more makeup, and other such problems. However, when I complain about my job (working in the campus gameroom), those aren’t problems to me-- we’re given identical uniforms, all paid the same rate, and get to choose our hours. No, my complaint is about the patrons that I deal with, as this is a primarily male crowd. While there are some polite, non-sexist young men, it’s the disgustingly sexist ones who tend to make their presence far more known. A normal workday includes dealing with these men looking up the measurements of various female celebrities and making comments along the lines of “Holy s**t, check out her rack,” not to mention commenting about various “hot chicks” who make their way into the room, gawking at animated (and ridiculously proportioned) women in various states of undress, and loudly discussing whether or not women are capable of raping men. The few females who dare to come in run the risk of being hit on by a certain guy whose goal in life seems to be getting into the pants of every female he runs across. Most of the females who do regularly come in and are accepted/tolerated are either girlfriends of regular game room patrons or are generally attractive, well-built young women who know to just “sit down and shut up” and stay away from the guys’ games unless invited. Women who are willing to put on a show for the guys are “okay” to them (one such incident comes to mind when two young ladies started making out in the room and letting the guys record it on their cell phones). In short, my workplace is a fine place to hang out, if you happen to be male-- you have free reign of the room and can do pretty much anything you wish. However, if you are female, you will be subjected to various comments and actions that make you feel that you are little more than a sex object in the eyes of these men.

When she got the paper back from her professor, she was not surprised by the comments of astonishment and shock that the professor had left as feedback. For the first time in quite a while, Valo felt completely certain about the actions she had to take in order to resolve these problems, along with others. If no one else was going to do anything to make changes, then it was up to her to make her superiors aware of the situation at hand.

“The time has come for a revolution,” she whispered.


“So, what are you going to write your paper on?” Emily asked Ophelia.

Ms. Gibson had given their class a writing assignment: a paper on any subject of the student’s choice, five pages minimum, and due in two weeks.

Ophelia twirled a lock of hair around her fingers. “I’m thinking maybe discrimination based on weight.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Emily replied, nodding approvingly. “I’m going to do mine on the life of Tennessee Williams. I’m a big fan of his works.”


Tiffani walked over and tossed bags of potato chips to Emily and Ophelia. “The vending machine gave me extras,” she explained.

“We were talking about our topics for Ms. Gibson’s paper,” Emily said, opening the bag carefully, so as to not send the chips flying in all directions.

“I’m thinking about writing about Marilyn Monroe,” Tiffani mumbled, between mouthfuls of potato chips.

“Cool choice,” Ophelia grinned. “Emily’s going to write about Tennessee Williams, and I’m going to discuss weight discrimination.”

Tiffani swallowed the food carefully and asked, “Is it that common?”

“Extremely. There was a woman who lost her job as a flight attendant for being four pounds over their weight limit. Oh, and I also read about this chick who got kicked off the pep squad at a school a few years back; she was supposedly ‘too fat,’ despite being a normal, healthy weight for her height.”

“Don’t forget about that sorority that booted most of its members for not looking a certain way,” Emily chimed in. “I’m sure weight was one of the deciding factors.”


Tiffani’s eyes widened. So, there were others who’ve gone through what I did at the beginning of this school year, she thought. Aloud, she asked, “Did they ever take the problems to court?”

Ophelia and Emily thought for several seconds. Ophelia finally replied, “Yeah, I think so.”

Tiffani’s mouth widened slowly into a smile. “That’s pretty cool. Hey, I’ll see you two later, okay?”

Emily and Ophelia watched her walk away. They exchanged worried looks.

“You know,” Emily murmured, “I don’t think that smile meant anything good.”

“I’m with you on that,” Ophelia agreed. “So, about the next CNC show, I was thinking…”