Tag Archives: feminism

L'ecole Polytechnique: 25 Years After

25 years. Wow.
I’d just turned 16. I grew up as the last generation to be bombarded with cigarette advertising everywhere, when Virginia Slims still sold us the idea that women’s liberation was Mission: Accomplished. We’d come a long way, baby.
But then December 6th came. An angry man had a murdering rampage, killing 14 sharp, ambitious, promising young women, all engineers at L’ecole Polytechnique.
It blew my mind. I was young, death didn’t have the same impact as it does now because I was still innocent and hadn’t encountered much loss. And I didn’t really get why women trying to be engineers was such a radical concept to a backwards murderer like Lepine.
What I did understand was that these women were killed because they wanted to play at the big boy’s table. I understood this was a crime motivated out of resentment, pettiness, and jealousy.
The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve understood that petty misogyny that drives hateful men like Lepine.
I’ve gone from not wanting to be identified as a feminist when I was young to now being of the “goddamned right I’m a feminist, and why the hell aren’t you?” persuasion.

Something Must Have Caused This

Back then, I thought this terrible rampage was a backlash from women’s lib. The old cause/effect argument. “Women are changing things, men are reacting to change.” Simple.
It seemed then there were only two ways things would go. One, awareness would increase that violence against women wasn’t some Hollywood plot point, but rather a real social ill needing remedying. Or two, we were just getting started and an era of blowback was yet to come.
I didn’t take option two that seriously. We couldn’t be just starting an era of blowback… could we?
Maybe we could. 25 years later, we’re still seeing crimes against women happening because men feel entitled to attention from women, or they feel entitled to career advancement over women, or all kinds of other situations prefaced by the phrase “men feel entitled.”
Marc Lepine killed 14 women because he felt he was entitled to attend an engineering school, and that women had no right to occupy his space in the program. He didn’t make the cut, and instead of taking it to mean he had to work harder, he chose to believe women were accepted as a quota, that they hadn’t earned their space.
He felt entitled. Angry. Bitter. Vengeful.

And He Wasn’t Alone Then — Or Now

I look on the internet today and I see a lot of angry, bitter, vengeful entitlement making the rounds. Usually middle-aged white guys who are bitter they’re not more important at their jobs, or wealthier. They see women being smart or successful as further threatening their status quo, and they hurl insults about how ugly the women are (as if women are only trophies), cut them down professionally, and lob rape threats.
God help us if these anonymous, spiteful men ever screw up the resolve to grab a gun and let their bullets do the talking.
Misogynists are everywhere. You hear them defending those accused of serial rape — like Cosby and Ghomeshi. They spew ridiculous defenses, usually about how maligned men are, and the accusations by “spiteful” women are a conspiracy to destroy lives, et cetera.
There are GamerGaters verbally attacking female journalists because they don’t like their opinion, threatening them with rape, and worse.
There’s the infamous, ongoing brogrammer culture in Silicon Valley, celebrity serial misogynists who never get reined in. We even had a mass killer in California who blamed women for not sleeping with him.

A Flickering Light in the Tunnel

Despite all these recent reminders of just how big this struggle is, there are signs, I think, of women saying “enough is enough.” They’re exposing misogyny online in Italy and France. Just this week, a pair of Indian women went viral for beating up men harassing them on a bus. Women coming forward against beloved celebrities like Ghomeshi and Cosby are actually being believed.
There are signs.
But still I sit here today, aware that a quarter of a century has passed and we have so far to go.
In 2006, the first time I blogged about this day, I wrote:

“I think there’s good to be found in remembering what was lost that day, especially in proximity to Christmas, a time of joy and rebirth. I try to remember that in the smoke of that gunfire was borne a new kind of feminism. I like to think some part of me is a product of that day.
It’s the only way any of it can ever make sense.”

And five years ago, I wrote this remembrance of L’ecole Polytechnique, about how far we still had to go with the feminist struggle.
And here we are, 25 years on, still fighting an uphill battle as a new generation vacillates between accepting gender equality and railing against it.

Let’s Hear it For the Boys

But “feminism” is still a dirty word. There are those who still deludedly think it’s a female-supremacy movement. (No, but equal pay would be nice.)
These days, the only time feminism gets good press is when a man comes out and speaks up about why feminism is important, like Terry Crews did recently, which is going viral as I write.
And yet, I saw someone snarking “Oh, [Crews is] just saying what all these smart women said before him.”
But isn’t that what we fought for? Isn’t it in the benefit of all women that guys start identifying with why feminism is important? Isn’t it a bold new day when guys like Crews are standing up to say “If you’re silent, you’re a part of the problem”?
It’s helpful to the cause when guys like Crews explain to other men that it’s not about female supremacy, but rather just leveling the playing field. If they understand that, they might be able to accept that change is needed.
Mediocrity & Misogyny
Marc Lepine didn’t get that change was a long time coming. Instead of understanding that women should be in the engineering program, he felt they were stealing his opportunity. But he just wasn’t good enough to compete in a crowded arena.
Mediocrity, perhaps, is the greatest enemy of gender advancement. Men like Lepine don’t make the cut and then, instead of thinking “Well, hey, I’ll work harder and get in next time,” they blame the bitch who stole their spot.
It’s sadly ironic, but the only way feminism wins is when more men identify themselves as supporters of the feminist cause, when more men like Crews keep saying that silence means you endorse the status quo.
When I was a kid, I thought women would be truly equal by the time I was 30. Now I’m 41 and hope an era of change is upon us and maybe I’ll see a different world for women by the time I’m 60.
Maybe.

Fuck You, Hollywood.

We’re witnessing the end of an empire at the box office.
Sex and the City 2 is lying there like a dead fish, with all the appeal of a used-up 45-year-old prostitute after a night of chasing 8-balls with gin after running the line for a sex-train at a frat party.
Naturally, Hollywood is CONVINCED it’s because the chicks in it are all old.
“Well, of COURSE Sam needs a vibrator — she’s 54!”
Let’s for a moment forget the ages of the women acting in the show. Let’s forget that they’re all around 50+ now.
Let’s do something wacky and think about the movie itself. And, hey, let’s think about the writing.
First: Have I seen it? No.
Here’s why not.
If I’m watching a show where some lead actor/actress from a flick is out whoring their movie, putting on the charm, and they play a clip — just ONE 30-second clip from a 90-minute movie — and the clip sucks shit? I mean, they’re supposed to be showing the one most appealing, funniest, engaging, COME-WATCH-US clip they have from the ENTIRE movie. And it’s shit? Well, I know the other 89:30 probably isn’t gonna be an improvement.
But if that 30-second clip is from a 2-hour-and-25-minutes-long movie and it still sucks shit?
I’m in favour of euthanizing everyone who views it in the theatres.
The shame!
Everything I’ve seen of Sex & the City 2 looks like has-been writers puked up every failed cliché they’ve ever heard, slapped some pretty weird dresses and shoes I’ll NEVER afford onto fancy-pretty chicks, and spliced that shit together.
Let’s see what some of the critics on Rotten Tomatoes are saying about it:

  • There’s only one thing worse than faking an orgasm: faking laughter. Shame on you, Sex and the City 2, for being a 2.5-hour laughless fake-a-thon that never finds the right spot.
  • Shoes, money, outfits, shoes, vagina, money, shoes, jewelry, outfits, money, shoes.
  • It goes from being what we know and love to… what were they thinking?
  • A flagrant insult to the audience that made the first film a phenomenon. Shame on the writers of this soulless drivel for trying to pass this Canal Street bootleg sow’s ear off as a genuine Alexander McQueen silk purse.
  • Early in Sex and the City 2, I started a list of things that could easily be cut because they go nowhere. It’s a long list.
  • It has no plot to speak of, little in the way of wit or intelligence, and is about 50% longer than can reasonably be justified.
  • A degrading portrait of women through an unfunny story about four Ugly Americans abroad.
  • It’s supposed to be Sex and the City. This is Sects and the Souk.

And that’s what pisses me off.
This movie isn’t failing because of the actresses. It’s failing because a director with shitty judgment had his hands on a shitty script that some fucko chose in a Hollywood office, and Decider Dude’s probably been sleeping with vapid starlets and hasn’t had his finger on the real-life pulse of America for three decades.
YET he thinks he knows what’ll appeal to broad-spectrum women around the world. Yeah. Right.
This movie is failing because it’s nothing of what the original series contained — cynical-but-true jabs at being single, sexy, smart women trying to get by in a big-city life at a changing time in American city culture.
So, it’s got nothing that made it great, except for actresses that play characters who aren’t the characters they were when America fell in love with them. Brilliant. Sure, that’ll be a raging success.
And the problem with these failing movies that have “older” actresses is, they’re usually shit from the get-go. They were shit on paper, they’re shit being shot, and they’re shit when they’re edited together for the screening room.
What’s the deal? Actresses don’t get great money-making projects past 45, so they get all scared about their future, then jump when Hollywood says they’ll slap a couple million payroll for ’em onto this lame-ass “but it’s sure to be a hit, look at all the OLD actresses we’ve lined up to appease the suburban-mom contingent!” movie.
The even bigger problem is with fans who’ll take anything shovelled at them under the guise that it’s even REMOTELY connected to the original story enterprise. Yeah, you know who you are.
This has NOTHING to do with the original series. It’s a bunch of chicks doing stupid, contrived things that only a BAD Hollywood writer would come up with.
We need great indie filmmakers to make awesome movies about women in their 40s and 50s that are edgy, ironic, bitingly funny, and not apologetic about crashing a few stereotypes. (I remember one called The Graduate.)
The movies we’re making for women have NOT improved. This is the same stupid-ass writing that’s brought us horrible, horrible, horrible chick flicks like The First Wives’ Clubs and The Women and The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants and all those cliché my-time-of-the-month films.
Apparently all women have to do in their 40s and 50s is to be unhappy about love, confused about life, and needy about having friends.
The problem here isn’t the age of the actresses.
It’s that Hollywood doesn’t know what real life for women actually entails. It doesn’t know that life’s more complicated than soccer-practice “taxi” trips and bill-payments.
Hollywood doesn’t understand that not every woman gets manicures or pedicures.
It doesn’t get that not every woman is sitting around deviously hatching a plan to manipulate a man.
It doesn’t get that some of us actually love ourselves and our lives.
It doesn’t get that my quality of life isn’t determined by the ratio of man-delivered-orgasms versus personally-given ones.
Hollywood doesn’t understand women. At all. It didn’t 20 years ago, it doesn’t now.
I’ll confess: I’ve never been a real fan of Sex & The City.
That’s more because I’m not a girlie-girl and don’t really get into “girl” shows. I enjoyed some of it sometimes, but I’ve always been annoyed at how much validation its characters received from the male sex, or how much they all had to rally together and prop each other up against the un-validation given to them by male characters.
It always was a cliché — but a really well-written cliché with great laughs and realistic characters, and more true to some of the struggles of women in their 30s/40s than it is about them aging.
Now, though, it’s just another money-grubbing cliché-spewing pathetic example of why the mainstream movie machine is still broken.
And you smart, sexy, intelligent, successful women who are giving your money over to the box office to watch this piece-of-shit movie that stereotypes, demeans, and mocks the modern woman:
You’re part of the problem.
Shame on you.

6 Decembre 1989: Remembering a Formative Tragedy

I was 16 on December 6th, 1989, when gunman Marc Lepine stormed into Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique, an engineering school.
When the blood had spilled and screams for the 14 dead women faded into muffled tears, it was found that the gunman had left a note explaining his actions — he’d wanted to kill feminists for making his life so much harder, thanks to quotas and changes in hiring practices.
bigI don’t remember where I was when I’d heard about the killings, but I remember slowly growing aware of what happened and why. I remember the confusion I’d felt as as a 16-year-old and the anger and fear this massacre opened in me.
In 1989, things were pretty “advanced” for women already. We had the old soul sisters Annie Lennox and Aretha Franklin belting out that “sisters are doin’ it for themselves,” and movies like Baby Boom were showing that women no longer felt they had to have a man in order to make a “family” work.
I knew I could do anything I wanted to — that being a female really didn’t mean much anymore. Or did it?
Then, all my naivete changed. Continue reading

RANT: You Think You're A Feminist?

I can’t stand elitism. I can’t stand the “we’re better than you” mentality. And I sure as fuck can’t stand when someone’s got to get their hate on just to get ahead.
A particular blog post from someone in the sex blogging community is ridiculously sexist and moronic in its simplicity, in my opinion. Because I don’t feel the need to sling mud and hurt anyone’s reputations, I’ll leave it anonymous.
The blogger in question had a shitty day. Some guy, after she admitted she was responsible for causing a car accident, mouthed off with “It’s always the woman’s fault.” Because of this, she turned around and decided to slag all “privileged white males” as being asses.
Now, if she’d gone and said instead that she WORKS with privileged white males who are all asses, that’d be different, but her post more or less painted all as the same, and THAT is something I have a problem with.
Here’s the deal. Continue reading

My Own Private Dichotomy

Fear is not my friend. I don’t care what the bookstore’s self-help section says.
Fear is a bitch. A mean, driven bitch.
I am not a fan of fear.
I bought that book. Twice. Feel The Fear and Do It Anyways. Sometimes I do it anyways. But I always feel the fear. Ever-present, always-niggling fear.
Fortunately I know that I’m apparently invincible. Continue reading

From There to Where? How Far We've Come.

The INT ran a fascinating story on the end of tradition in Albania last week. The article begins:

Pashe Keqi recalls the day nearly sixty years ago when she decided to become a man. She chopped off her long black curls, traded in her dress for her father’s baggy trousers, armed herself with a hunting rifle and vowed to forsake marriage, children and sex.

Women in Albania have long had the option to hold power traditionally reserved for the family patriarchs. The catch is, they’d have to abdicate their femininity, a la Keqi.
Once considered the only way a woman could be strong, by pretending to be a man, it’s now considered outdated and unnecessary, and women, for the first time ever, are making serious strides in a very old-world country. The longstanding opinion of women is stated succinctly here:

Under the Kanun [a code of conduct that has been passed on orally among the clans of northern Albania for more than five centuries], the role of women is severely circumscribed: Take care of children and maintain the home. While a woman’s life is worth half that of a man, a virgin’s value is the same – 12 oxen.

But things are changing, and quickly. There’s no longer the belief that a man or pseudo-man must be around the homefront to keep worlds righted and working. It’s now understood women can handle it all, too.

________________

There’s a lot of rah-rah “sisters are doin’ it” cheerleading going on on the stump in America today, with Obama trumpeting Hillary’s gender-bending run for the presidential nominee as the two engulf headlines with their show of unity in Unity and the their travelling love-in.

And I think it’s easy to get a little cynical and just dismiss it all as politics as usual when someone like Obama lauds Clinton by saying not only can women do it better, but “do it in heels…” But it’s important for us to really dust that cynicism off, especially for those of us under 35 who’ve never really seen how damaging sexism once was.
This is no time for that cynicism, though. For a little while we deserve to be proud, too. This is a great time to be alive. It really is. There’s a lot of hope for the future, with all these walls coming tumbling down these days. Black folks running for the highest office in the land, beating a woman for the job. It’s a wild time.
When you look at the sacrifices made by those who’ve gone before us, like the women in Albania who’ve opted for a life of virginity and pretending to be a man so they might adopt control of their families, or those who’ve been skewered in the public for saying a woman can do a better job than a man, like Hillary did, it’s been a long fucking road.
Girls today maybe don’t even realize that most of us females have had the right to vote for less than a hundred years. We had to fight for the right to have a say.
Women today maybe still don’t realize that most women never worked a job until this century, and pay still isn’t equal for equal roles, most of the time.
But, wow, have we come a long ways, baby. I get a little dejected sometimes when I see the Paris and Britney wanna-bes coming up in the ranks, but then I see the new generation of women who can’t stand their P/B contemporaries, who are smart, sexy, driven, resourceful, and promising.
It’s going to be all right. I suspect some tough times may still be ahead, but that light at the end of the tunnel just keeps getting stronger, doesn’t it?
It’s a great time to be a witness, don’t you think? An even better time to play a role.

Should Irwin Have Changed After Kids?

So, earlier I asked if you have the right to ask a risk-taker to tone down their lifestyle once you get hooked to them.
My opinion? No. You do not. And if they tell you you can go ahead and tell them how to change; don’t. You’d fucking with what oughtn’t be fucked.
In a nutshell.
My posting was inspired by the death of Steve Irwin. There are those who apprently think he should’ve “settled down” since he had kids. Yeah, as a kid, the first thing I wanna know is that my father gave up almost everything he loved so he could raise me — sit in a fucking armchair with a remote and tell me how he “used to be like that” once.
Terri Irwin got a precious gift that most of us might never, ever, ever receive: She fell in love with someone who kept all the qualities that made him so loveable as the person he was when they first met. Bloody sweet, that. And she had it for a while. And then it got snatched. Love happens, death happens, it all is what it is.
Life’s a truckload of hurts some days and there’s no getting around that.
The point is, it’s hard enough to be ourselves in the face of everyday life. It’s harder still to remember who we are when we get lost in the arms of someone else. To be able to hang on to your identity despite your love for someone else and your wish to be with them, why, that’s as downright admirable as it gets.
To hell with those who think otherwise.

_________________

In other Croc-Hunter news, let me go on record to say that, while Germaine Greer periodically says something intelligent, I:
a) think she can be a complete twat who has done as much to hinder feminism as she has to further it. She’s arrogant, dismissive of men, flighty, inconsistent, hypocritical, and far too militant for my tastes. (Despite my believing I’m a feminist, thank you very much. Ain’t no fucking eunuch here, baby.)
b) think she’s a far bigger bitch than I’d thought before now that I’ve read her comments on the death of Steve Irwin.
I do not believe that to be a strong woman I need to demoralize men. I believe that, as a strong, independent chick, I can exalt men in my life and cater to them as I wish, because I fucking well know who I am when I go to bed at night (most of the time; we all get a little too lost in our relationships some of the time). I take no backseat to any man. But I’ll hold the door open for ’em if they’ll let me, because I have nothing to prove. I’m empowered by the mere fact that I don’t need to seek power, all right?
I’d get into my whole beef about how feminism has been executed, but I’m too tired and it’d take too damned long. Suffice to say that while I fight for my equality, I don’t think it needs to come at the cost of emasculating men. There’s room enough for us both, and I don’t think chicks like Greer understand that concept, but then I don’t like her enough to read her work. I listen to others gripe about her and praise her, so I’m ignorant, but by choice.

Putting My Foot Down On You, Dr. Scholl

I’m interviewing at an ad agency or two tomorrow. No, I won’t be doing any of the ad copy work or anything, more of a save-the-sanity support office worker, since I excel at that. But advertising is something I’ve always been very, very interested in.
Remember the movie Crazy People, from years back? Daryll Hannah and Dudley Moore? “Jaguar: For men who like handjobs from beautiful women.” Or, “Volvo: They’re boxy, but they’re safe.”
It was a comedy about truth in advertising that emerges when an ad-copy writer has a breakdown and is sent to an insane asylum. He decides to stop lying to the public and tells the truth. He enlists the help of his fellow nuthausers and they reinvent advertising. (My favourite was the Sony one, where the shortness of Japanese assembly-line folks meant better quality control as they were hovered closer to the microchip boards than the tall, gangly American counterparts who were so tall they couldn’t see the fine melds and such. Heh.)
Every year, I go and I see the film of The World’s Best Commercials for that year. I love good advertising.
But I fucking hate bad ads.
Case in point: Dr. Scholl’s for Her.
There’s this new open-toe gel shoe pad made for stilettos and the like, by Dr. Scholl’s. For some fucking reason, there’s this chick in a skin-tight micro tube dress, wearing strapless stilettos (that magically stay on) as her legs dangle off one side of a bareback horse, and she lies back over the hump of this horse, prostrated.
Because I do that in my stilettos every fucking day. And other things I do in my stiletto, apparently, include walking my dog on a reinforcing dike in the ocean, playing tennis, and more.
Who the fuck is this ad for? Who’s the guy smoking crack who seems to think THIS is what’s gonna sell these shoe pads to a woman?
How about having a real situation? Oh, I don’t know… maybe an intelligent woman with spring in her step as she delivers a brilliant closing statement in a law court case? Maybe you have a group of men, all sweating and nervous, desperately awaiting a job interview in a crowded, awkward office, as this sexy chick who holds all their fates in her hands strides towards them, with a I-Own-Your-Ass, And-You-Know-You-Want-Mine look on her face?
I’m surprised they didn’t just get to the point and have some chick in clear pumps spinning her way down a pole, since apparently we’re all just whores who use our bodies for advancement in life.
How about we move the fuck away from more of this objectifying, lame-ass look at chicks today, and into the realm where women really are becoming powerbrokers? Remember, sexy and smart don’t have to be oil and water.
They’re only oil and water because the media doesn’t want us to forget that it’s our asses that count, not the grey matter in our heads.
I, for one, will never, ever buy another Dr. Scholl’s product. This ad pisses me off THAT much. I’m sick and tired of seeing women whose bodies you can bounce quarters of, with brains the size of the quarter, as being the ideal that I’m supposed to somehow strive for.
My ass is copious. As is my intellect. How about selling to me, you assholes?

(If you’re looking for an update on my employment woes, I’ve been keeping that shit over on the other blog. It’s been one hell of a week for me, emotionally, and keeping it together’s one of the hardest challenges I’ve ever faced. I’m scared as hell, but I’m proud as hell of how I’ve been dealing. I’ll be glad when it’s over. I hope that’s soon. I’ve earned the reprieve. If I know anything, I know that.)

Etiquette for Restaurants: Part 2

This is part two of the basic etiquette for restaurant dates. It began with a rant here, and continued with part one here.
First, a couple addendums raised in part one’s comments:
A. As mentioned by an anonymous commenter after the first posting, if you’re picking your date up, do not call her and tell her to be outside. Do not honk. Do not wait in the car. Go the hell in and get her. Yes, it’s nice to bring flowers if you want to, but try to avoid the clichéd dozen roses, and do not bring carnations. A single rose, or gerbera, or orchid, whatever, is always a nice touch. I could be wrong on this, but I feel corsages are dated and behind the times, and often plain unpractical. I’d stick with flowers for the table. What’s more, if it’s a nice date, she’ll enjoy the flowers more the next day.
B. It’s totally cool and actually good to help a date with a coat. Help take it off, help her get it on. It’s just a nice touch. Unnecessary, but certainly nice. Hand it to the waiter or give it to her to put on the back of her chair, if coatcheck isn’t an option.
Back to bizness. You’ve got wine, you’ve got food, and now you’re dining.
1. How you eat is important. Eat small bites. Use cutlery as much as possible. Cut your food precisely and delicately while being relatively strong and assertive about it. (Press harder with your knife, do controlled movements.) Try to not make noises with the cutlery or against the china. If you’re responding to her question or statement as you cut, make sure you at least glance up to make eye-contact as you’re talking. Always, always show you’re aware she’s present when you’re speaking. And hello? Small bites, please? Chew? With your mouth closed. Do not speak with food in your mouth. Remember in grade two when they said to chew every bite 17 times? Please do that on dates. BONUS: It will reduce the chance you’ll get gas later!
2. If you want a refill of coffee or something, inch the drinking vessel nearer to the edge of the table closest to where the waiting staff will pass it by. An industry professional knows this is the sign for a refill, so you shouldn’t need to shout for them.
3. Never take the last roll, butter, or bit of wine without asking her if she’d like it first. She’ll almost always say no (it’s a date thing) and give it to you, but give her the chance to do so. If she offers to split it with you, say no if you just can’t handle more, & say something like “I’d love to, but I’m set to burst.” Sharing’s nice though. It’s sexy and intimate, and feel free to take her up on the offer.
4. Tear off bits of bread as opposed to gnoshing on an entire piece. Tear it over the plate, so the crumbs don’t pile up on the tablecloth. Butter it as you go to prevent yourself from getting thumbs into greasy badness. If you’re dipping in oil and vinegar, please, don’t double dip, tear bite-size pieces for dipping.
5. If you’re still eating your meal, you rest your knife and fork at 4:00 and 8:00 on your plate, respectively, between bites. Don’t hold your cutlery through the whole meal. Keeping it in your hand all the time – especially for women – tends to look aggressive. Take moments where you focus on your companion. (Goes for both sexes.) When you’re finished and want them to take it away, you set your knives, forks, and spoons used thus far at the 5:00 position.
6. If your server is stupid and tries to take your plate before your companion has finished, then they have clearly missed the basic training course. Tell them you’re not through, and gesture at your companion’s plate. If they succeed and take the plate away, she’ll be left feeling awkward eating in front of you. This goes both ways, so be a man and say something.
7. If she’s getting up to go to the bathroom – it’s not necessary, but it’s extra special classy and will probably get a small grin from her as she walks away from you – you can always push your chair back and stand as she leaves the table. When she returns, you can stand upon her arrival, wait for her to sit, then give her the napkin, or better yet, lay it on her lap. (You can be sexy about it and “accidentally” brush a finger down her thigh as you return to your seat, departing-like.) As I say, this is a real throwback, and is probably a little over the top for most evenings, but if you’re having a more special dinner experience in celebration of something, then yes, go ahead. It’s quite formal.
8. After dinner, your napkin gets folded (casually, in a tidy bunch, whatever, just not tossed down in a heap) and placed BESIDE the plate, not on it.
9. Paying! All the guys want to know this. Going Dutch is fine, but really, if you make more than her – she’s a student, you’re working in an office – then it ought to be on you. If you asked her out and chose the location, then it ought to be on you. If she asked you out, then it should rightly be dutch, unless she’s making your salary look comical. But if you want to feel like your balls are intact at the evening’s end, you probably shouldn’t let her pay, not entirely, but that’s your call. Some women will judge you for not paying. You know I’m right, as much as it galls you. A good move is always to pay, especially if you like her, and playfully ask if she takes trades for a home cooked meal, or tell her she can get coffees later or something. (If she balks at paying anything ever, then she’s a money-hungry minx and you need to be wary, in my humble opinion. Anytime a woman or man feels entitled to something, it’s time to be wary. Me, I like a man to pay, but I’ll always insist next time I do some cooking, and the way I cook, it’s a win.)
10. If it’s old-school car locks and we’re driving for the night and we let you into the car first, lean over and open our lock and let us in. Women, if a guy lets you in first, you don’t have to lean over and let him in, but it’s the kind of small gesture a guy really digs. Ever seen that old Cameron Crowe film Singles, when Keira Sedgwick lets Cameron Scott into his car? He’s bowled right over and is in love from then on. It shows you can not only graciously accept his chivalry, but that you’re woman enough to not feel threatened by reciprocating. Me, I’d always let the guy in. It’s just the right way to act. [Ed. Note: Do people even have these locks anymore? Lots has changed in the four years since this first was posted!]
11. When you’re dropping her off, and this is for anyone dropping a woman off – date or not – always, always wait until she’s gotten inside before you drive away. It’s a sign that you’re concerned about her safety, and honestly, our entrances aren’t always as safe as we’d like.
12. Not related to restaurants, but time to be said. Can we, for once and for all, move past the “don’t call the next day” bullshit? Call. Tell us it was a good time. Even easier and just as good, in the age of email, send her a quick note. “Wow. I had a great time. I’ll call you later in the week. Looking forwards to more with you.” That’s it. “Ooh,” we’ll think, “a guy who doesn’t play games.” You’ll get laid sooner, you know. Drop the bullshit head games. Keep it casual, light, and don’t make promises you can’t keep. Call her later in the week, don’t mention a specific day, but you’ve bought yourself time now. Just a note! A text! A quick email! It’s a lovely way to play.
If there are other dating scenarios you want the etiquette for, let me know via comments or emails. Happy dining this weekend, kids.

Etiquette for Restaurants: Part 1

This is part one of two for restaurant etiquette. It was preluded with a rant yesterday. Yes, I’ll answer questions about going dutch, etc, but that’s next time. Tried to put this in the order it transpires on a date, but I’m sick and my head’s fuzzy.
I have had men saying women don’t respond to chivalry, and the chicks are just confused. I’ll write something about that in the next week or so, since it’s an important part of this topic, and maybe I’ll try to wrap my head around why that’s still happening and how to defuse it.
Anyhow, this is largely addressed at men, but there are women-related comments throughout, and a lot of it is knowledge both sexes ought to have about the dining scene.
Feel free to make comments about other areas of dining dates you’re not sure about how to behave during, and I’ll amend my part two posting if anything’s missing. Thanks!
Another thing? If you’re under the delusion that “manners” & “etiquette” mean the same thing, not true. Etiquette is about behaviour, social conventions, and even tradition. Manners have far less scope. This is Etiquette 101.
1. If you’re picking her up at her place and you’re seeing her pad for the first time, then find something positive to say about it. If you honestly love it, then flatter her tastes, tell her it’s very revealing. If it’s pretty uninspired, find a photo of her or something you can relate to. “Hey, I read that book. What’d you think?” Or “That’s a great photo of you. Was that in college?” Be interested. If you want us to care about sleeping with you, kissing you, or even just being with you, then be very, very interested in us. Women are like houseplants – give us a little attention, and watch us thrive. This’ll help you break the ice and give you a conversational direction to head in. It’s helpful on many levels.
2. Hold the door open. If I reach it first, I’ll hold it open for you – as any person ought to do for another. (Hear me, women?) When you’re holding it, look me in my eye. Don’t look at the ground like you’re sorry to be old-fashioned. Be proud, god damn it, and look at me as if I should know it’s that you respect me that’s spurring you to do it. It’s the kind of sexy thing Bogart would do. Be like Bogey. Smile, even.
3. Do I need to say this? Turn off your damned cell phone. Do not text message. Do not talk. Do not even acknowledge the thing in her presence. If it rings and is audible, shame on you. And women? Double for you! Jesus Christ, people. Put the fucking phones away on dates. I always do. Can we for five minutes pretend to be rapt in attention of those whose presences we’re in? Is it so hard?
4. When you’re seated at the restaurant, if the waiter doesn’t do it for you, put your napkin on your lap immediately. This signifies that you have class and upbringing. It also tells the service that they’re dealing with a well-trained patron, and they will give you better service (most of the time) if they see you know how to behave in such an environment. Believe it or not, I’ve read stories where waiting staff confess that a patron’s tendency to put their napkin on their lap influences whether the waiter thinks a good tip is coming or not — and you know what that conclusion means.
5. Your order will never get taken if you have your menu open. When she’s done and has decided and has closed her menu, casually pick it up and place it atop yours, the edge of them protruding slightly off the table, so the staff see you’re ready to order. Well-trained waiting staff understand this to mean “take our order, please.”
6. It’s all right to order for your date. It’s sexy. Don’t be a pompous ass and do it without her approval or input, though. Ask her what she’s leaning towards, and then casually mention that you’ll be happy to place the order for you both. If she smiles, you’re on. If you’re doing the ordering after she’s consented and the waiter asks you what you’ll be having, look him in the eye, then meet your date’s eyes, nod at her and smile, and look back at the waiter and state simply that your companion is having X, and you’ll be having Y. There are reasons she would decline you ordering for her, particularly if she’s a Meg Ryan type from When Harry Met Sally. I’ll have the dressing on the side, and your face in my lap, thank you.
7. Don’t order your drinks without asking the woman what she wants, either. Women know more about wine and drinks than they ever have, and you need to respect that. Ask her what she’d like. When the waiter comes over with a wine that you’ve mutually selected and you know your date knows wine, if the waiter extends the cork for you to inspect and pours a taster’s sample, tell him you’re deferring to the lady. Let her make the call. It’s sexy and shows you’re confident in yourself, and that you trust her judgment, and you don’t feel threatened. Hold her gaze as she sniffs the wine, tastes, and gives her verdict. Nod in agreement to whatever she says. Taste the wine, and hopefully you agree with her verdict. If you don’t, just keep quiet. Taste is subjective, and if you disagree, such is life. Next time, you can just make the move to order some for yourself. Or, you can cover your ass and ask the waiter to recommend something that complements both your meals. (Obviously, if the wine’s turned bad, it goes back.) And, DUDE, sniff your wine, not the cork. You sniff the cork, you’re smelling cork, not wine. Duh.
8. If you’re pouring the wine, never, ever pour it more than one-third to a half full, depending on glass type/size. Wine drinking is a subtle art, and science proves that 40% of our taste experience comes from our sense of smell. By filling a glass too full, you reduce the amount of aroma that “cups” in the wine, since it’s in swilling the wine around the glass that you cause the smell to rise & improve the taste. You’re throwing out flavour if you have a full glass. It’s uncouth. What’s more, it flies in the face of science!
9. When drinking, always hold your glass by the stem, particularly with white wines (less important with red). The more of your hand to cup the glass, the more heat transfers to the glass, thus elevating the temperature of the wine, thus doing bad things to taste. Common perception is that “room temperature” means whatever the hell the yuppies have their thermostats set to. Um, no, kids. “Room temperature” speaks to an era before central heating, to hundreds of years ago, to the temperature of natural caves and cellars. Somewhere around 14-16 Celsius, maybe 55-65 Fahrenheit. (Bad wine form irks me.)
More tomorrow. Sounds snobby? Hey, I come from relatively low-income heritage — farmers, fishermen, that kind of thing. We never had a lot of money growing up, but my mother taught me that just because I didn’t have money didn’t mean I couldn’t behave like I did. So, yes, class and etiquette instilled from a young age, and I’m grateful for it. It’s taken me far, in some regards, from my roots. Not an entirely bad thing, so long as your memory’s good. 😉