​A case of the patriarchy

Every June I spend a week at the big global anti-fraud conference put on by one of my professional licensing organizations.  It’s always an excellent event, with great speakers and tons of sessions on interesting topics.  The conference location changes every year, moving around the country, and this year it was in Las Vegas.  It’s a place designed for conferences with every major casino offering great deals on venue space in exchange for the influx of thousands of attendees to eat at restaurants, see the shows, and feed money into slot machines while they’re in town to learn or network or be a fan.  Vegas is also cheap to fly to from basically everywhere so it’s a win win win.

Because it’s such a hub for conferences, I’ve made dozens of trips to Vegas of my career.  The town where what happens there stays there also happens to be one of my least favorite places on earth.  It’s endlessly flashy, ceaselessly loud, and overflowing with people everywhere at all times of day.  The architecture is enormous and every corner, edge, and detail is a spectacle.  Everything about the place is Extra.  There isn’t a silent hallway or elevator without music.  There are no walls without extravagant art or enticing advertisement or both.  Absolutely everywhere feels like a party at all times.

At best, it’s exhausting.  At worst, it’s assaulting to the whole nervous system.  And that’s just the ambiance.  The other patrons of the place also fuel my distaste for it.  Thousands of people thronging together through a sensory overload experience, looking for a place free of the usual requirements of everyday decency.  Most people are drunk or on the prowl or both.

One year while I sat at a restaurant eating dinner with a colleague I saw a gaggle of fem-presenting humans walk by wearing short skirts and carrying excessively sized (undoubtedly alcoholic) beverages in commemorative cups.  A few tables away from me was a pack of masc-presenting humans in Tshirts with popped collars.  As the gaggle passed, one popped collar clad individual started barking.  Yes, barking.  Like a dog.  In an attempt to get the attention of the short-skirted folks.  I was grossed out to the max, but to my horror IT WORKED.  The skirt crew turned around and made the acquaintance of the Tshirt brood.  I watched in disgust as the two teams made plans to join forces later for an exciting evening.

I’m not sure if any of those folks were conscientiously participating in that misogynistic mating ritual.  I assume they were all just playing out a script they thought gave them permission to be naughty for the night.  I can’t imagine the short-skirt friend group had a conversation in their hotel room before going out that went something like this: 
“You know what I want tonight?”
“What?”
“To be objectified and demeaned.”
“Oh yeah, totally, me too.”
“Yeah I can’t wait to be used by someone who has absolutely no regard for my desires or boundaries.”

Who knows, maybe they did.  Maybe they had an entire discussion about consent and safety and aftercare and went out looking for that exact moment I was witness to.  I think it’s more likely they internalized the list of ways femm folk are allows to “let loose” as approved by the Patriarchy.  It’s okay to be a slut as long as it’s in service of fulfilling a man’s fantasy and you can all go home later to your respectable lives and pretend it never happened.

I’m all for uninhibited self-expression and I heartily approve of folks exploring the full depth and breadth of their humanity.  I am even in favor of a place available to explore those baser parts of our selves we can travel to and leave behind for the real world.  But the thing about this Sin City is it’s really only meant for a narrow slice of the vast vice pie.  And entrance to the playground doesn’t include consent or agency.  It’s not an escape from default society, it’s a super concentrated dose of it.

This year was especially challenging for me due to a constellation of factors.  For one thing, my long covid symptoms include increased light and sound sensitivity.  Bummer.  The timing was also unfortunate because Monday was the second anniversary of the US Supreme Court overturning Rowe v Wade.  I wore a red shirt in solidarity with women who went on strike that day, refusing to perform the unpaid and often unrecognized labor they usually do.  My wardrobe choice seemed to go utterly unnoticed, so it didn’t feel like much of a statement.  The invisibility of my protest against the invisibilizing of the everyday experience of women and other femm folk hit me hard right in the feels.

It was also June.  So I spent one whole week of Pride month in the straightest, most hetero-normative place imaginable being decidedly gendered as a woman.  As a newly out non-binary person it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever experienced, but it was grating.  Not one person asked my pronouns (or anyone else’s), which was in stark contrast to my usual home city experience.  I am extremely lucky to live in such an affirming town, but it does make it harder to go other places.  It has taken me four decades to feel like I’m allowed to be myself in ways that don’t conform neatly to societal standards.  And I still can’t really exist in my thus-far fullness outside the little bubble I live in.

I did well maintaining my constitution with extra doses of self-care and long-distance support from home, but it all finally became too much the second to last day.  I was sitting in a session listening to the presenter mansplain about implicit bias and I started to feel out of sorts.  I waited until the break and retreated to my hotel room where I discovered I was running a fever.  I pumped myself full of infection fighting herbs and vitamins, took a nap, a hot bath, and went to bed early.  I slept horribly, awakened alternately by fever, chills, and disturbing dreams.  I skipped the final day of sessions in favor of rest and continued consuming medicinal quantities of anti-viral and immune boosting herbs.  By the time I was packed, I was feeling much better.

Since my malaise came and went so quickly I concluded that I had come down with a case of the patriarchy.  On one hand, that’s hilarious because it’s just so absurd.  On the other hand, it makes perfect sense.  I share this as a reminder that the stress and trauma of our lives has an impact on our physical form.  Please be sweet to yourselves in some way each day and take the time to shed the doomgloop of the world in whatever way you need to.  We have to the heal the world, and in order to do that we have to continue to heal ourselves.  Good luck out there.

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Information and Inspiration

• reddit: OK, why do people REALLY come to Vegas? How can they afford it?
• LinkedIn: Racism, Sexism and Antisemitism: Welcome To Fabulous Las Vegas
• NPR: Where things stand since 'Roe v. Wade' was overturned two years ago
• TikTok: mrsmunks7414: Women's Strike 2024​
• Black Women's Health Imperative: Statement on the 2nd Anniversary of the Dobbs Decision Overturning Roe v. Wade
• The Guardian: We need to move on from self-care to something that cannot be captured by capitalism