More Hypocrisy Plus a Helping of Cliche

So I promised you people more hypocrisy, and I'm finally going to deliver. Today's episode involves rabid feminists, so if you have a weak stomach I recommend that you skip this installment.

If I had been paying attention when I walked up to the customer service desk, I would have seen the set look of anger on her face and girded myself for battle appropriately. As it was, I was perusing a new children's book and didn't notice. I was thinking of putting the book down as one of my staff recommendations and was bringing it to my co-workers to get their input, so I was utterly unprepared for the snarly reply I got when I tried to include her in the conversation. Personally, I hate it when clerks at stores stand there and talk amongst themselves so I try not to be guilty of the same thing. I even failed to notice that the girl trying to talk to this angry woman was nearly ready to bolt (she's a little shy and the really confrontational customers get to her pretty fast) so when I held up the book and asked the Angry Lady if she had seen this book and wasn't it adorable, she snapped. Like an expert swordsman, she saw her opening and went for the throat.

"I'm sure it's adorable but what is NOT adorable is that disgusting magazine you have on display where anyone can see it." Her bosom was literally heaving. Shy-co-worker flinched like she had been slapped, and the other girl at the counter whom I'll call Token-republican-co-worker (it's okay...she knows she's the only one at the bookstore and she knows we love her anyway) merely blinked. I looked at Shy-co-worker who said she had already called the manager on duty and then she fled. Not knowing what else to really say, I said "um....which one?"

Token-republican-co-worker gave me a look much like I have always imagined death row convicts give as they march down the hall to the room with all the killing devices. But we both listened attentively to the Angry Lady who was nearly sputtering with rage. Turns out she objected rather strenuously to the recent edition of FHM, which had a picture of some wrestler-babe in her underpants with nothing but a rope from a wrestling ring draped around her neck to cover her nipples. Angry Lady treated us to a lengthy diatribe on the various ways this was offensive.

1) As a Feminist and a Woman, she was shocked, I say SHOCKED that we would have something so degrading to women on prominent display. How DARE we perpetuate the oppression of woman and didn't we know that impressionable girls shop here and might see it and think that they too, had to be sluts to get attention

2) Bookstore-who-shall-remain-nameless is a family bookstore and we shouldn't even be selling such trash let alone displaying it face out on the featured title shelf where anyone, where CHILDREN could view it

3) She was going to take her business elsewhere if we didn't Do Something about it right now.

Token-republican-co-worker stepped on my foot to keep me from finishing the sentence that I started with 'then get-'. I took a deep cleansing breath and told her that I understood her point of view but that our bookstore was very firmly against censorship. Angry Lady then made a critical error. She said to me "Well you are too young to understand what being a woman really means and that it wasn't censorship to not sell degrading material".

The silence was deep. Token-republican-co-worker covered her mouth and looked at me with glee in her eyes. I could see that it was beginning to dawn on Angy Lady that she had just overstepped the bounds of customer/retail worker interaction. I truly hate being patronized, especially when people mistake me for a much younger person. There ought to be some compensations for getting old and I have always thought respect for life experience was among them. I bared my teeth in what can only be considered charitably a smile and with very pointy politeness said "Madam...as a grown woman of thirty-four, and a feminist trained to think of all humans equally since I came into this world, I believe any form of censorship is the first step down the road that leads to fascism."

Things would likely have gone from bad to shouting at this point, but thankfully the manager on duty showed up at this point and said pretty much the same thing I said, but without calling Angry Lady a fascist. After she stormed away in a huff, we all discussed the things we wish we could have said in response to her mistaken view of feminism and bookstores. For instance, just because a woman is comfortable with her sexuality and proud of her body, why would that make her a slut? Seems to me that's part of the point of being a feminist is to not be ashamed about liking sex. As for our bookstore being a "family bookstore" well, that's just nonsense. It is first of all, a business...a money making enterprise. It is not for us to decide who can or should buy what because when it comes right down to it, we don't care. It's all money. Secondly, how could we possibly decide what should be sold at a "family bookstore"? What is fine, and good and right for one family could easily be abhorrent to another.

I pointed out to my co-workers that I dearly wished I could have walked the Angry Lady back over to the magazine section to show her the things that make my hackles rise. A skimpy babe on the cover of a rather tame men's interest mag who is making a fortune by being pretty doesn't offend me. A magazine titled 'Shopping' in the women's interest section does. Teeny-bopper mags aimed at pre-teen girls that feature covers detailing Lindsey Lohan's 'amazing' weight loss makes me want to set stacks of them on fire. But here's the thing. I don't have to buy them, and I don't have to like them. I just have to suffer their existence and hope that some day they go out of business because no one cares how thin a teen-star has gotten.

Oh! I almost forgot! I promised a dose of cliche as well. Imagine the above interaction, but substitute Angry Irish Lady for Angry Feminist lady. And instead of a men's magazine, put in it's place the version of the Kama Sutra published by Cosmo. It has nothing but the words 'Cosmo-Sutra...Cosmo magazine presents the Kama Sutra' on the cover and in fact, most of them are sealed in red paper with nothing but a bar code on it. I have pretty much the same conversation with Angry Irish Lady as I had with Angry Feminist Lady, but this time I saw her coming so I never resorted to calling her a fascist. I offered to call the manager so she could speak with them about her problem and then asked what I could help her find in the mean time. Oh little children....darling readers...life seldom gets better than this. She asked me to find the Compendium of Catholic Catechism. That's right, a real flesh and blood red-headed freckle-nosed Irish woman simultaneously got pissed about sex and asked for the catechism. I nearly broke out into hysterical laughter, but I somehow thought she wouldn't care for that. My manager did get her to calm down and stop shouting but when I handed the catechism book over I did hear her say that she was just "going to have to take this to the next level" and I couldn't help but think she really must want to be told to shut up and go away (in the nicest of possible terms, or course) by people higher up the corporate food chain than our general manager.