CAPN TAYLOR'S WONDERBLOG

Fortunately, I can compliment women all I want, because I have Gay Power. If a straight guy says, “Damn, you look so hot,” that could come across as creepy and offensive. Add a little sashay to it, maybe a “Dayum gurl!” and it’s just another empowering statement from a (male) girlfriend.

I use it strategically. If I know I need something from a female coworker, I’ll compliment her clothing in the morning then ask for something later that day. “That jacket? Fabulous. Wear it all time.” Plant the seed, then hours later so I seem less obvious, swoop in for the favor.

With men, I’m more confrontational. When I’m dealing with my male vendors or my male coworkers, I just say “This is what I need and this is the timeframe, get it done, let’s go eat BBQ.” I think I might actually drop my voice an octave.

Why is this the way I deal with people? It’s some form of sexism, I base my behavior along gender lines. But the deeper question is, if I were to stop being sexist, what would that look like? Would I be demanding and aggressive with women, or would I say, “Oh my god, John, that greasy Battlestar Galactica t-shirt is fierce and do you think you could have that inventory to me by 2? Thanks guuuuuurl.”

We’re the generation with no role models.

We’re the first generation to have it worse than our parents had it, and we have the statistics to prove it. The previous generations destroyed the economy, foreign relations, and the environment and left us the mess.

Who the hell am I supposed to look up to?

Maybe we’ll be the “start from scratch” generation. Every time somebody says “It’s tradition” or “It’s the way things have always been done!” to us, we’ll gently remind them that they screwed everything up and we have hard data on the subject. “Sorry, gramps, but the fact that ‘It’s the way you always did it’ is more of a reason not to do it that way.”

Is it so bad? We’re going to be poor forever, completely enslaved to the corporate oligarchy, but we get bragging rights. Previous generations get to bitch because of their age, we get to bitch decades early!

Perhaps if previous generations had only known that starting unnecessary wars, lowering taxes too much, the drug war, overstating the importance of home-ownership and deregulating the banking industry was going to cost them their favorite thing of all: their smug sense of superiority. Too late, bitches.

It’s ours now.