I don’t know how to start this post. I want to preface it by saying I’m not sexist, but whenever people feel the need to tell you they are not sexist, racist, what have you, I feel like they are really just acknowledging that they are those things. So I’m not going to preface this by saying I’m not sexist.

Ill simply acknowledge that in my life I have met women who were considerably more intelligent that I am, or will ever be. And contrarily, I’ve met girls who are functioning idiots. The point being, that neither could drive very well.

I am a college undergraduate specializing in Mass Communication. In an advertising ethics class today we looked at a case where a notable Ad exec said that he believed women were unable to balance family with work. Due to the tremendous backlash within the industry, he stepped down two weeks later.  I can’t remember his last name, it was like Ford, or Long, or something.

Usually we only spend like 15-20 minutes on a single case, but my professor decided to dedicate the rest of the hour to talk about sexism in the work place. I don’t think she originally intended to spend so much time talking about this subject, but once she started she had a lot to say. Apparently the advertising industry is about 70% female, but the majority of people in higher level positions are white men. This ratio is more than reflected in my class’s demographics. Usually there are about three men (including myself) out of 25 total students.

So while this lecture was about how bad it is for women, and how wrong the system is, all I could think about was how nice it would be if this were really true. All of my fellow students are in actuality my competition for internships and jobs, so I’ll take whatever advantages I can get. The more my professor went on about how unjust the system is, the more hope it inspired in me. So far in my life being a male has been of little benefit to me, it’s about time to cash in on this.

The longer she dwelled on how its only men who get promoted, the more I wondered, maybe these men were just simply more ambitious, or more qualified, or just better. If we acknowledge that there are fundamental differences between the sexes, maybe it’s those differences that make one sex better suited for…you know I’m just  going to stop there.

So basically I had a day of hearing about the many ways men are bad (in that they only promote other men) and how the industry is bad as a result; which I accept as the truth. So I go on about day, finishing up classes, going to work, and when I got off of work I went to my PRSSA meeting. PRSSA stand for Public Relations Student Society of America and it’s basically an organization that all of the people in the department who actually care about getting jobs post graduation go to.

We have a small department, and I would say that the members of prssa are the best students within our department. I believe we have something like 17 member, and of that 4 are men, and of the men, only 2 (including myself) showed up to today’s meeting. Our faculty advisor wasn’t there so the meeting was much more informal than usual.  We got through about two points of interest before the group was unmanageable.

By that I mean, that it was so loud with the sound of groups of girls talking about their day, their social situations, and yes some gossip. There was loud, high pitched laughter, and for some reason even a few gleeful screams. It sort of reminded me of when a group of girls have a sleep over, if you’ve ever been around one of those you know what I mean.

While all this was going on me and the other boy sat quietly. He turned to me once and ask how long we have to stay here. “I don’t know” I replied, “this defiantly doesn’t have anything to do with prssa.” I was looking for a time to get a word in with our president to ask if we could bounce, but she was deep in a conversation about (not making this up) how she went hiking in Estes Park CO, in UGG’s because she didn’t think the other girls would commit to the hike for very long, and that she ripped her $200 jeans.

The other gentleman and I continued to wait for the discussion to head back to something more official, but it never did. That guy happened to have the same ethics class earlier in the day, and we talk about it a bit before he asked me, “Would you promote any of these girls?” I thought about it for a moment, listening to the girls banter, the cadence of the conversations resembled children more than college seniors. I looked back at him and said, “No, I wouldn’t even hire them.”