Sexism in the City, Part One: I object.

So, you're gonna get to read a lot of my random thoughts about the jury system, now that I've spent an incredibly long and frustrating time getting to know it (and now that my AMAZING SHOW AT THE KODAK is over and I can begin to breathe again). We're gonna start with something that happened during the first two days of my service, the voir dire days. (Ahhh, the voir dire days.)

Now, overall, I quite liked the presiding judge in my courtroom, and found him even-handed and kind and he got lots of points with me for apologizing very sincerely one time when he thought he had reacted over-harshly to a mistake a lawyer made. However, he did one or two things that really pissed me off, one being to kind of humiliate me, but we'll talk about that another time. The thing I want to describe here didn't particularly piss me off, but I did notice it and think about it a bit. I'm pretty sure that it is unintentional and that if it were pointed out to him, he'd fix it, but who knows. Here's the deal.

Every potential juror had to start by introducing themselves and answering a certain set of questions that were posted at the front of the room. You had to state details like your name and your occupation, your marital status and number of children, the occupation of any other adults living in your household, whether you'd been on a jury before, and whether you'd be a victim of or a witness to any crimes. Then the judge would ask you some further questions, sometimes details about something you'd said in the first bit and then some additional questions that related to the trial at hand, like whether you rented or owned your home.

Here are some sample conversations. Can you spot my complaint?

0.
Potential Juror: I am a librarian for an elementary school and I have two kids. I am divorced.
Judge KF: How old are your children?
Juror: 9 and 12
Judge: What does your ex-husband do?
Juror: He is a history professor at UCLA.

1.
Potential Juror: I am a real estate agent and I live in Glendale with my wife and 5-year-old son.
Judge KF: Does your wife work outside the home?
Juror: Yes, she is a nurse.

2.
Potential Juror: My name is Potential Juror. I live in West LA. I work at Smart & Final. I am a widow.
Judge KF: I'm sorry to hear that. What did your husband do?
Juror: He worked in construction.

3.
Potential Juror: My name is Potential Juror. I live in West LA. I work at Ralph's. I am a widower.
Judge KF: I'm sorry to hear that. Did your wife work outside the home?
Juror: No, she was a stay-at-home mom.

Did I make it clear enough in those last two examples? To every man he'd use the very politically correct phrase, "Does your wife work outside the home?". To every woman he'd say, "What does your husband do?". I think he loses the political correctness that way - he wouldn't dream of saying, "Does your husband work outside the home?"

Perhaps I should note that I'm not normally on the lookout for slights, to my sex or my ethnicity or anything. I am not easily offended and this didn't offend me, but I certainly found it interesting and was very curious to hear how the judge would react if it were pointed out to him.

What do you think? Am I over-reacting by having noticed it at all? Is it perfectly reasonable, given that it's still much more common for married women to not have jobs than it is for married men? Is it one of those subtle things that undermines progress toward equality and needs to be rooted out? Is gender equality a big ball of crap? Was I really bored enough during jury questioning to have noticed this? Am I still typing questions?

Discuss.

P.S. This post was originally titled:
Q: How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?
and its first line was:
A: That's not funny.


PPS Just found this and was a little amazed, having just said, "I mean, I'm not like a raving Femi-Nazi or anything," like, two paragraphs ago.

A Freudian slip is when you say one thing but mean your mother.

So, today someone accidentally called me (in writing): ReadDanceBills. Ha! Even more appropriate just now, coming off my lucrative month-long stint as professional juror at a whopping $15 a day - yeah! ReadDanceBills it is.

Nude Descending A Suitcase

So, did you read my post about the adorable Kate Micucci? Before I wrote it, I was trying to describe her to someone and couldn't remember Kimya Dawson's name, so I said something like: You know, the Juno soundtrack? The Rotten Apples or something?

Yeah, RDB, it's The Moldy Peaches. Close, though. A for Effort.

And so, the last boy I dated was a few (six) years younger than I am, and someone jokingly accused me of, I kid you not, "stealing the carriage".

I totally knew what she meant, knew it was totally wrong, and yet could not come up with "robbing the cradle" for a full five minutes because I was laughing too hard.


Um, that's all. Ha.



Ok, that's not really all. How great are the designs at Glennz Tees? Hysterical, right?

The Top Six Reasons I Love Yoga

...specifically, Dario's Mixed-Level Flow class at Annie's Yoga:

0. "Feel how wonderful it is to be in your eskin." Dario has an accent, but you don't notice it that often. Words that start with 's' do sometimes acquire an extra vowel sound at the beginning, like in the espeech of many eSpanish espeakers, and I love it, both the reminder to feel good in my skin (why should we need reminding of this?? God!) and the particular cadence of it with Dario's accent.

1. "This moment here and now is for you and you alone."

2. "Open your eyes, from bottom to top." My first thought the first time I heard this was, "What other way is there to open one's eyes?"
But then eventually I slowed my crazy brain enough to slo-o-owly open my eyes, so I could really feel the bottom-to-topness of it, and it's fantastic, especially when you are opening your eyes to a dimly lit yoga studio, looking at yourself in the mirror sitting cross-legged like a yogi. I think of the Southern Oracle from "The Never-Ending Story" every time! Only, in a calm, meditative way, not in a "Run Atreyu, Run!" kind of way (that link takes you to a video clip of just that bit of the movie!).

3. "You brought yourself here, you did the work, the credit is all yours."

4. a) "Deep, conscious, luxious breathing."
    b) "Lubricate the pose with your breath."
Ok, yes, I'm not sure what exactly is meant by this word luxious which may or may not actually exist... but I think of it as a mix of "luscious" and "luxurious" and the idea that my breath can be luscious and luxurious... yum! So great. Lubrication? My breath can lubricate motion? Amazing, Dario, amazing.

5. "Watch your eyes." I love language. I love that you can say a construction like this which on paper would be so clearly meaningless, and yet it can make sense. I love that not only *can* you say it and make sense, but Dario *does* say it, at the end of every class, after the lights-dimmed "final relaxation" stage, before he turns the normal lights back on. It's sweet of him to warn us, and it's even more than sweet of him to remind me, at the end of yoga class, that I love language.