Saturday, April 9, 2016

I Get Annoyed When...

...someone comes up to me and says, "Hey, do you know a girl named Sophia? 'Cuz she's a girl and she does electric work too."

It's kind of like asking, "Oh! You're from (enter big city name here)? My ex-roommate from college lived there. Do you know Mike?" Contrary to popular belief, us female griplectrics don't have a secret club where we meet once a week to eat junk food and braid each others hair. Just 'cuz she's a girl doesn't mean I know her.

3 comments :

Michael Taylor said...

Granted, that's something of a pointless question… but it's one I've asked of many a female juicer over the years. Given that women are still the exception in the ranks of set lighting, it's just a means of breaking the ice -- and more often than not, the woman I ask does know (or know of) that other female juicer. Not always, but often.

It's not a malicious question -- I don't ask it to embarrass, annoy, or irritate a female juice, but simply to establish some common ground other than that we both hang gloves from our tool belts. Were all on the same team, but guys of my generation grew up in an era when gender roles were much more starkly defined. It's a brave new world now, and if we stumble over the new reality from time to time, understand that we're just trying to reach out, however clumsy and ham-fisted those attempts may seem to you. I can't speak for all male juicers on this, but that's my own personal stance.

We had a female best boy on my last show, and not only was she a great person, but she did a fantastic job. No male best boy I know could have done better. But she didn't know too many other female juicers, and expressed regret at that -- she was yearning for some kind of 728 girls club, where female juicers could let their hair down (so to speak) and vent their frustrations and occaisonal satisfactions at working in what has so long been a man's world. I think that's a good idea, and hope some of you female juicers can get together and make that happen.

A.J. said...

Michael - I know it's not a question asked in malice, but I do find it a bit annoying. While there is no "girls club of 728" (that I know of), the women who I do know, I know because I've happened to work with them... Just like I happen to know any other fellow electrician. And as I've mentioned in other posts, women, and people who hire them, also tend to hire other women, and therefore a more female friendly tribe may be formed where anyone in it may know more women than anyone out of it. But the conversation never goes "Hey, I hear you work with So-And-So. Does that mean you know Other-Female-Juicer?" It's always, "Hey Girl. Do you know this Other Girl simply because you have the same genitalia?" (okay, I'm kinda paraphrasing but you get the point.)

As for your female best boy, I'm sad to say that I've been on a number of sets with other women where we don't really get along (reasons for that can fill a whole other post... and then some). However, when we do get along, it can be pretty freakin' fun. While I'm not sure an official 728 Girls Club would be a good idea (given our diversity, we'd probably bicker about as much as any regular union meeting. See? We're not that different from the guys after all), I do know there's an IATSE Women's Committee and a Women of IATSE facebook page, which is a start.

JD said...

Did you ever work with that girl DP in California Sherri Kauk? Seriously...http://www.sherrikauk.com/

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