Golly, people. Sometimes I just don't have anything to say, alright? So here's a stupid story. Don't saw I didn't warn you.
When I was a third-year university student, I had a lecturer who was something of a Militant Lesbian. She'd bombard us with tirades about the horror of the first Sydney Mardi Gras (as well as the injustice of The System, and why being gay was just, like, the coolest thing ever) during lectures about multiple regression, exploding like a large angry hand grenade in the desolate wasteland of statistics. She even chose the colour of our course outline based on its name: Xena.
I also had her as a tutor for the same subject. Rather than tell us how to go about using the unadulterated evil that is SPSS (behold the evil of the corporate website!), she would generally sit on the edge of the desk up the front of the classroom, swinging her legs back and forth while telling us about her research, which seemed to consist of proving With Science that heterosexual individuals (ESPECIALLY men, those filthy pigs) were inferior to homosexuals in just about every important way, especially morally. Hmm...
One particular research project focused on homosexual stereotypes. First, she asked the class to come up with positive stereotypes about gay males. "Good dancers," "fashionable" and "hot bodies" were immediately offered up by the row of blonde girls up the back of the room. Militant Lesbian nodded her approval at these flattering-but-inaccurate-at-least-in-my-case descriptions, and then asked: "How about lesbians? Can anyone think of good things to say about lesbians?"
And you know what? My mind went blank. Someone put forth "wears sensible shoes" and another came up with "good with power tools," but that was it.
"See!" Militant Lesbian cried with approval. "Lesbians! The second-class members of society! Thankyou!" And then she went back we went to statistics, as if the whole thing had never happened. Well, Jesus. Maybe if you smiled a little more we could be a little nicer.
Militant Lesbian was (is) a scary woman, but one who somehow commands my respect. At one point I was thinking about doing my honours thesis with her, and awkwardly brought this up with her when we were in the lift one day. "Look," she told me. "If you want to make your fame and fortune from psychology, my area isn't going to be one you'll do it in. But who knows, you may learn something about yourself."
She was probably right, but instead I chickened out and wrote a thesis in the domain of cognitive science, which brought me neither fame, fortune, or greater insight. Ho hum.
Earlier this year, and for absolutely no reason, Jenny and I started up a joke about lesbians, and how all of them (no, really! Allof them!) own cats, drink copious amounts of tea and have long boring discussions about their feelings. The most common insult in our house is “go and drink some tea,” closely followed by "fucking cat owner." The very mention of "tea-drinking cat owners" is enough to send us both into hysterics. I guess you have to be there.
I see Militant Lesbian wandering around the psychology building now and then, and I can never help but wonder whether she would like to hear these new sterotypes we've come up with. I suspect not.
