Aug 31, 2011

so, i experienced the princess paradox today.

again.

it's something i have to deal with fairly often. *most* men will likely have to deal with it at least a few times in the course of their life, but i get it on a weekly basis. it's likely the result of the obvious gender identification mismatch, it's exaggeration with princesses and the irrational things that princesses do to men's brains. i'll get to this...

for now, what is the princess paradox? i'll provide a definition and an example to explain it.

definition: the princess paradox is the condition where princesses demand unequal treatment from men and cry sexism when they don't receive that unfair treatment. it is a neat label to describe how it is that treating princesses with regular levels of egalitarian respect is paradoxically perceived by them as sexist, likely largely due to their conditioning of being treated with superiority due to their status as princesses. only exceptionally good treatment from men, which is by definition non-egalitarian, is perceived by them as not being sexist.

example...

so, this is what happened today.

i walk into a bank with a cheque. i want that cheque cashed immediately. i can't use a machine because they'll hold it. so, i bring the check and my card up to the counter. counter attendant? princess.

"i need to check to see if your name's on a list. you've been through this before, right? should just take a second."
"what? uh, no. why would you need to check if my name's on a list?"
"i can't cash government checks unless you're on the list."
"well, nobody's ever had to do that before. is it a new procedure?"
"just wait here while i check if your name's on the list."

(i wait a few minutes)

"your name isn't on the list. have you ever cashed a check here before?"
"listen, i don't think you need to check if my name's on a list. can you ask somebody for some help?"

now, my tone of voice was admittedly a little bitchy, and there was "you don't know what you're doing" tonality to it. you know what? she *didn't* know what she was doing, and she *did* need to ask somebody for some help.

regardless, that was a sin. men are allowed to question the competency of other men, and even of less attractive women, but never of princesses as that obviously implies superiority, regardless of the level of incompetency.

in the background a second princess chirps in...

"you don't have to be so patronizing, she's just learning."

a strong man appears out of nowhere..

(i'm exaggerating slightly)

man: "hi sweetie. is this horrible man bothering you?"
princess: "i think i can hand..."
man (to me): "if you don't stop giving her a hard time, we'll have you thrown out of here and banned forever. she's a new employee and she just needed a little help."
me: "well, yeah, that's what i suggested."

man: "do you understand me?"

(pause)

me: "no, not really. she needed some..."

man: "if you don't stop being such an asshole.."
me: "listen, i don't really know what you're talking about. can you help her cash the check?"

princess (to man): "i mean, i didn't even say i wouldn't cash it."
man (to me): "can't you see what you've done?"

(pause)

me: "accomplish my task of getting somebody to help her with cashing the check?"
man: "if you don't show some more respect i'm going to throw you out of here."
me: "listen, i just want to get the transaction done with quickly and get out of here."

as mentioned, i've exaggerated slightly, but you can see the underlying point: even fairly timid, indirect levels of frustration that would be totally normal in a female-female professional conversation are completely taboo in a male-princess conversation. i run into this all of the time: princesses that get upset when i talk to them like adults rather than like children.

this is a slightly boring example, too. i have one very vivid recollection of a princess walking into a door because i didn't hold it for her as she expected and then *yelling at me*, *blaming me for it* as though it was my fault that she didn't look where she was going, as though she *didn't* make the stupid, entitled assumption that it was my responsibility to hold the door for her.

i bet that would be a neat experiment, actually. how many women would follow what they think is a nice gentlemanly boy into work, make the assumption that the door will be held and then literally walk into it when it isn't?

what underlies this? what causes the princess paradox?

i've dealt with it enough to come up with some conclusions.

basically, i think that princesses are so used to being talked down to by men that when one *doesn't* it's such a strange occurrence that they don't know how to parse it. it's just a once in a blue moon thing for them. they're so used to men grovelling and trying to get laid that they interpret the lack of grovelling as a lack of respect. it's quite amazing really; those rare circumstances of communication with actual egalitarians become painful loss-of-status experiences, with the point of torture itself being precisely what they experience so rarely: somebody that sees them on an even level and isn't talking down to them in the expected, safe way. it's the very process of humanization itself that seems alien.

...and, it's actually quite sad when placed in that context.

it probably, ultimately, stems from sexist fathers.

i think that, within the princess' response, there may also be a bit of a reflexive psychological defense mechanism to attempt to masculinize me as my perceived feminine guyness would be naturally and instinctively interpreted as a trojan horse, due to a least risk algorithm, and rejected as anomalous. so, not only is the princess paradox demanding of unequal treatment, it is possibly suspicious of movements that promise equality under the fear that they will lead to inequality at less advantageous terms.

that's a complicated pseudo-syndrome.