Binders Full of Women, or Reasons I Want Workplace Equality that Don't Pertain to Kids

I’m sure all of you guys watched the debate last week. Really I know you did, because I’m friends with y’all on Facebook and I follow you on twitter and if you’re cool enough I follow you on Tumblr too, and all my dashboards/TLs/newsfeeds were blowing up with Obama/Romney foolishness. I guess I should get on the socially conscious/responsible citizen bandwagon and talk about the election at least once before, you know, the election, so today we’re going to talk about one of the hot topics from last week’s throw down before it gets replaced by hot topics from tonight’s throw down.

You guessed it. Binders full of women.

I’m just kidding. It is way too late for me to get in on the Binders Full of Women joke so I’m not even gonna try. All I’m going to say is that there had to be a better way to say what he was trying to say, and I’m gonna leave it alone. I am, however, going to go in on something else dear old Mittens said that got on my nerves.

I do not need flexibility and fairness at my place of work because I need to go home and cook for my kids.

I am barely 23 years old. I just graduated college. I’m in grad school. I don’t have a boyfriend, I don’t have a fiancé, I’m not already married, and I think it’s pretty safe to say that I will not be taking that plunge anytime soon. I also don’t have any kids. Shocking, I know, considering 28.6% of young women in my age group had kids in South Carolina last year, but if you know me that’s not shocking at all. I don’t want kids. It’s not a secret. I do not want children, and though that may change later on, right now I am 23 and ain’t nobody got time for that. Don’t come around here talking about some, “Ooh, we’d make a pretty baby!” because I’m probably going to punch you in the jaw. Who did that line work for, exactly? I might punch her too.

Don’t laugh. I know people who have had that line thrown at them. That was not a joke.

What is a joke to me is that out of all the non-work related activities you could reasonably come up with for an example of why a woman might need time off, the first thing that pops into your head is kids.

I do not need flexibility at my place of work because I have kids.

I need flexibility and fairness at my place of work because I have a life. You know, that whole work/life balance thing? I’m not trying to be a workaholic and have ulcers by 35. That is not fun. That is not cute. Maybe I need to dip out a little early one day because I’m doing something with Zeta.  Maybe I start playing golf and need you to understand that I’m taking a day because I have an 11 o’clock tee time. Maybe I have bills to pay around town. Maybe I have to scoot down to an embassy in Atlanta to get a visa. Maybe I’m not staying late for once because my friend is in town from California and we have plans. Maybe life just happened and I need to go! Stuff happens! Stuff happens to women! Stuff happens to women who don’t have kids! Fancy that!

And that 72¢ to every $1 a man makes that was referenced during the debate? That is a white woman’s 72¢ to ever $1 a white man makes, and actually that number is a little low. As of 2010, white women make 80 for every $1 a white man makes, while I’m looking at 69¢ on that same dollar. I don’t know if you’ve checked out vending machines lately, but 69¢ can’t even get you a honey bun.

I am not shelling out for degrees to make 69¢ on the $1, booboo. That is not the plan. I cannot live on 69¢ to the dollar. Do you know why I can’t live on 69¢ to the dollar? I can give you a whole list.

I have student loans. I’d like to have the option of saving some of my money. I like expensive cars. I like nice houses. I want a Birkin bag. I think shoes with red bottoms and French names are pretty. I like shiny new toys like tablets and video games and digital cameras. I prefer to eat good food. Foreign cheeses are tasty. I like to take vacations, and when I take those vacations I like for them to be on an island in the Aegean Sea. Have you seen the USD/euro conversion rate lately? 69¢ is not going to work with that, and damn it Black hair care is EXPENSIVE.

Am I making sense? Yes, a lot of those reasons are superficial, but money is superficial, and I’m spending a lot of it right now to make myself competitive so that I can get some more (it’s a vicious cycle)! 69¢ on the dollar is not competitive! This is not acceptable!  One of these days I’ll actually move out and have bills and I’d like to have some cash left over after I pay them! WHO’S GOING TO BUY MY LOUIS BAGS IF NOT ME?!

I guess I’ll just go get myself a husband and spend his money. Obviously though I’m going to have to marry a white man*, because that’s about the only way getting married for financial gain is going to work. Asian men seemed to have discovered some way to actually earn more than white men ($1.10 to $1) so kudos to y’all (also, holla at me), but no one else has been so fortunate. Black men earn 74¢ on the dollar, which is just barely better than 69¢, and Latinos…that number is so sad I’m not even going to write it down. If I don’t write it down, it’s not true. I write it down, all hope dies.

The struggle is 69¢ worth of real.

*I sincerely hope y’all know I’m kidding. If I marry a white man, black man, polka dotted man, or green man it will not be because of how much money he makes (even if it is leaps and bounds over me). My mama did not raise me like that. It’s a joke. Laugh!

Studying should not be this difficult

If you’re at all like me, you are never in an environment that is conducive to studying.

This somehow always seems to happen to me. Sometimes it’s my own fault. Freshman year I spent too much time hanging out with my friends after class and tried to study from 11 PM to 1 in the morning. Sophomore year I had plenty of time but lived underneath 2 of the heaviest-footed people ever to walk Clemson’s campus. They also liked to play really loud music. And throw each other on the floor. Over and over again. Junior year was better, mostly because studying wasn’t all that necessary as I spent half of the school year bro’ing it up in Europe. Senior year, I had a roommate who thought that primetime to argue loudly with her boyfriend in the apartment was between the hours of 10 and 4 (AM). I also spent a lot of time chasing her cat out of my room and keeping the damn thing from breaking my dishes and climbing on the counter. Yeah. It wasn’t good. I spent a lot of nights in the library with a blanket, a pillow, and my laptop senior year. And Nick. Remember the Christmas Fort we set up in the corner on the 5th floor before finals first semester? Good times, good times.

But now there are no good (studying) times because I live at home. With 3 other people. None of whom know how to use their inside voices. This is a typical scenario on any given day when I really need to hit the books:

“Y’all, I’m trying to study.”

“Shh, she’s trying to study!”

And it works for two minutes. Then…

“AFPGIEPAJEPOJNVZ;MBS;ODHQE-[AIGFEQ-4298W=ASFGHEOHFSPOUENDFOJHDA[-QEZ.”

That’s what it sounds like. Brackets, semicolons, and all. It should probably be bolded, too. Usually I can fight the noise for an hour, and then I get frustrated and I just give up and stomp around the house hating everyone for the rest of the day. Their solution to my studying issues? Go to the library.

Oh that’s a brilliant idea, guys. It’s so easy for me to get to a library, seeing as I have my own transportation and don’t have to work myself into anyone’s schedules or anything. You are so smart. Why didn’t I think of that? You must be, like, Stephen Hawking.

So here’s a few things that might help your workload for those of you who, like me, live with people who have serious problems respecting the fact that sometimes you really need some quiet to hit the books:

1. Get as much done as you can while they’re gone. They have to leave the house sometime. Take advantage of the relative quiet and try to get as much done as you can, especially if it's hard stuff. Like accounting. Ugh, accounting.

2. Find somewhere quiet to go that’s nearby. I know I was horribly sarcastic to this suggestion earlier, but if you have the means, find yourself somewhere quiet to go. Is there a library near your house? A Starbucks? A Panera Bread? Get in the car and get to getting.

3. If someone asks you to go somewhere with them, don’t go. This one's hard. I know it's hard. But don't. Go. With. Them. If your friends/family are anything like mine, you will NEVER go to that one place they say you're going and come back home. You'll end up spending 4 hours in Lowes or being otherwise counterproductive. It's not worth it. Don't go.

4. Study in blocks. This doesn't work for everyone, but I've tried it and it's good for me. Study for a while, then take a break. Study some more, take another break. Has anyone ever heard of a site called Unfuck Your Habitat? They have a pretty good system for cleaning that also translates well into studying.

5. Reward yourself. Did you get 2 pages of that 8 page paper done? Awesome! Give yourself a cookie. Read a few pages of that book you've been trying to get through. Watch an episode of Awkward Black Girl. Sometimes when I'm just being insufferable about work I won't let myself eat dinner until I get done. That's a little extreme, though. Y'all should probably stick to the web shows.

6. Noise cancelling headphones. I can't use these because they make my head feel funny, but I'm about to give in and get a pair; consequences be damned. Noise cancelling headphones are awesome, and they're cheap, and they're so versatile. You can  use them at home. You can use them on planes. You can use them in cars. You can use them in the library. Just stick them on your head, and BAM! no more noise! And you can get them for like $25 from Amazon.com or Walmart! Trendy, more expensive headphone brands (Beatz, Bose, etc.) usually have noise cancelling models too if you want to shell out for something that'll work with your iPod. Best. Invention. Ever.

It's a short list, but hopefully that helps someone out there. What do you guys do when you need to study and your housemates won't chill out?

Now get off the internet and do some work. I'm going to price some headphones.

My city is, apparently, white.

Last week, I had an interview for an internship. I think it did really well, but it did lead me back to something I wanted to talk about like 2 months ago after orientation. You know how at the end of an interview the interviewer always asks if you have questions? Well for once I actually had a few questions, and me being me, I had to ask where the company stood as far as diversity.

I had to ask this question because of orientation. I swear I’ll run out of orientation stories soon, but this one needs talking about. Either on the second or third day of orientation, a panel of local HR people came to speak with us about general hiring practices. Should have been awesome, right? It was. Until we got to how they recruited people to come to Greenville.

“Greenville,” said one of the panelists, arguably the most self-involved (seemingly), “is a great place for white families. It’s hard to get minorities to come here.”

Excuse me, sir, but what did you just say? I bet you thought you were safe because you were speaking to an almost homogenously white crowd and you probably didn't see me sitting in the back row. No. No no no no no how many times can I say n-o NO. This shall not be borne. And it wasn't. Up went my hand to ask a question, and something like this followed:

“Well, I’m from Greenville. I’ve spent most of my life here. This isn’t just a place that’s good for white people. If that’s how you feel about us, then how do you get minorities to come work for you?”

His answer? Essentially, he doesn’t. And that made me unreasonably angry.

What exactly about Greenville makes it so awesome for white folks that isn’t translatable to other people? In case you missed the memo, sir, we do the same things you do. We join wine clubs. We use groupon.  We travel. We shop designer labels. We use the freaking internet (does anyone else remember when white sociologists were making studies about how Black people use twitter? Because I do). We go to sporting events. We eat out—we even eat foreign food. We go get advanced degrees. And you know what? You can do all of that stuff IN GREENVILLE, and if for some reason you can’t find it here, Charlotte and Atlanta are only 2 hours away!

Greenville is my city. I love it here. We’re awesome. We have great schools, an awesome downtown, and nightlife. We’re the 4^th fastest growing city in the nation (or at least we were in 2010), and you mean to tell me you can’t find a way to market us to minorities? You mean to tell me that my city isn’t good for me? Have several seats. Get your life and have several seats.

Come to Greenville. We’re great for white families. We’re good for Black families. We’re good for Asian families. We’re good for—you get what I’m saying.

Come to Greenville. We’re great.