Do You Think I'm Wrong?

I haven't been able to return to the clinic for the last few weeks. I was out of town for work, and so this post isn't about my experiences as an escort, but a different type of bias against women that I dealt with firsthand on set.

People ask me all the time if advertising is really like Mad Men. What they're asking me is a lighthearted question about whether we really spend all day drinking whiskey and napping in our offices. And some of those things are true--there's probably a lot more bourbon at my office than there is at my dad's bank. But the not-so-funny truth of it is that things haven't improved as much as people would like to think in terms of the everyday sexism that we experience. Some of it is subtle--the kind of subtle where some would dismiss it, saying, "Well that's just someone being rude. You can't attribute that to sexism." But those are-they-sexist moments are just the filler between the times when our competency is called into question, our beings are reduced to our bodies, and our "niceness" suddenly becomes the defining characteristic of our professional abilities. And these things are not happening quietly. They are occurring in public, in front of our colleagues, in settings where it is intended to undermine us.

We were casting for a Latina actress. The first girl we saw was great--warm, charming, and handled every weird instruction we threw at her perfectly. ("Okay, so you're waving to this guy, but then you realize he's sleepwalking. So at first you look happy and flirty, but then you're confused...") As other women came through, one producer began making comments while the actresses were still in the room about whether or not they looked "Latina enough." I shushed him. Then a particularly beautiful actress came in, and he started making comments--again, with her standing less than ten yards away--about how she looked and how he wouldn't mind being the one she was waving to.

Writing it out, it sounds almost innocent. And if we were talking about two preschoolers, it would be. A girl waving to a boy she has a crush on is sweet. But an adult man talking about how he wishes a woman that he's in charge of giving work to would "wave" to him (and you could hear the quotation marks in his voice) is harassment. The actress was visibly uncomfortable, and when she left the room, I turned to him and said, "You need to stop creeping out our actresses. I'm serious." He didn't respond, and we went on with casting.

Between actresses, the director (a woman), my art director (also a woman), and I were discussing what we had liked so much about the first girl we saw, and mentioned that many of the other actresses who had come in had been much more made-up and didn't exude the girl-next-door feeling that we were looking for. And then the producer chimed in again.

"Well that's just how they are. That's the slutty Latina thing. It's just part of their culture."

I didn't have time to think before the words came out of my mouth, and if I had, I don't know if I would have been brave enough to do it. This producer is far, far more senior than I am, and undoubtedly has more professional clout than I do.

"Excuse me? You absolutely cannot say that."

If, at this point, he had tried to backpedal ("Well, uh, "slutty" isn't the right word. But you know what I mean--they tend to wear tighter clothes and more makeup...") it still would have been slimy and gross, but unsurprising--I don't count on older white guys to give particularly nuanced opinions on race and sexuality. Instead, he actually defended himself.

"You think they're not? You think I'm wrong? Just go turn on a TV! You want proof? Turn on the TV. Do it right now! Do you think I'm wrong? Do you think I'm wrong??"

Everyone else in the room was completely still. I was sitting straight up on the couch, just a few feet away from him, only somewhat aware that we're both yelling.

"I do think you're wrong. And I think you're being extremely unprofessional right now."

"Well..."

And then he just sat back. And I sat back. And a few minutes later, he left the room "for a call" and didn't return.

At this point, another male producer turned to me and said, "You know, I would have said something too if..." I don't remember what his excuse was. Something about how it might have impacted him professionally. But let's be real: between a man with 20+ years of experience and me, who do you think the repercussions would have come down on?  "I would have if..." doesn't help me, or those actresses, or anything else.

Over the course of the shoot, every single woman I worked with shared a story at some point of the men they worked with dismissing them, or launching personal attacks on them in front of the entire crew, or making comments that would be considered inappropriate in any professional context.

"Are you always this awful?"

"So you just want me here for the orgasm." (Referring to the fact that shooting a commercial is the culmination of months of work.) And then, even after being asked not to make those types of remarks, "Yeah, I'll just come in and masturbate over it." Complete with hand gesture.

"Do you even know what you're doing?"

None of these stories came up in a "what have men said to you on set?" conversation. We weren't having a consciousness raising. They were just anecdotes that people shared over the course of our two-week shoot. And yet none of the men with us ever offered a story in which they had been called incompetent in front of everyone they worked with, or been told that they weren't being "nice" enough when asking for the shot they needed.

It's a nice sentiment to believe that Beyonce and Jay-Z should be getting paid an equal amount for performing. And it's a safe one. You're not going to come across many people who will publicly argue that they shouldn't. But what the women I work with have found, time after time, is that there are plenty of people who still don't believe that we really know what we're doing, or that we belong here. Or people who would stand up against what they know is wrong if it didn't potentially have any negative consequences. We're still surrounded by men who may not say that Beyonce should be back on the tour bus making sandwiches, but they certainly wouldn't object if she were.