I had a rather unpleasant experience at the allotment this afternoon with an older gentleman whose allotment is opposite mine; leaving me thinking that sexism is still alive and kicking in certain corners of the UK. Fortunately I learnt a lesson from the experience so it wasn't a total waste. Let me tell you what happened.
I was happily
pulling up harvesting nettles when I saw a car approach, I had pulled my car as far over as possible and went over and asked if there was room. He criticised my parking with the usual adage "women drivers" and said "well move then" I tried to be all jovial and jolly and all "ha ha isn't it funny, silly old me, what a terrible parker", and got in my car to move it, of course stalled and got all faffy trying to squeeze into my space and in the end gave up and reversed into another allotmenter's space. He passed and I began to move back to my space (I didn't think I should park in someone else's spot) and he said "lazy bitch" and something about not walking a few meters. I wasn't sure how to take this. He still seemed to be jokey and talked as if having a laugh, but I didn't really appreciate being called a bitch, I said something about wanting to park near my baby and said to him that I was leaving in a minute anyway. I started packing my things up feeling a bit cross and annoyed at myself for not saying something sensible and he came over and said "leaving already, you have only been here 10 minutes" (bearing in mind I had been there over an hour and who the hell was he to criticise my time spent there when he had only just arrived) He actually often says this and it has become a bit of a running joke. Yes I can only spend a short time at the allotment, I have a 5 month old baby! Anyway, I didn't take it amusingly this time, I was quite annoyed and said "yep off home now" still trying to be polite. He then asked if I was on my school holidays now (I am an art teacher) I said I was still on maternity leave and he then proceeded come up with all manner of criticisms for my being on maternity leave, complaining that he was paying for me to be off, the bemoaning the fact that men can only have a couple of weeks. I said I had payed my taxes and he joked that I had hardly been out of school long and that I hadn't payed my dues. This went on back and forth, him throwing out some sexist criticism and me trying rather pathetically to defend myself, and I got more and more annoyed, in the end I said "Look, when men start lactating then they can take a year off work" and closed my car door and left.
On my way home I felt really cross and upset and suddenly felt like all my energy had been zapped from me, I felt cross at myself for not coming up with some witty response or argument to defend myself better, thinking about what I had said, re-running the scene in my mind wishing I had said something else. I almost felt like crying, I just wanted to go home and sit in front of the TV. I had to do some shopping so went to Asda and got a few bits, and as I was walking round feeling totally drained from the whole thing, I suddenly realised, "it's not me, it's him". He has never been horrible to me before, in fact he has been quite kind, lending me his strimmer and black plastic to cover my weeds, I had done nothing wrong to provoke such a response. I thought to myself, maybe he had had a bad day, maybe his wife had upset him before he left, maybe he has had some kind of unpleasant run in with a woman that has left him feeling emasculated, maybe he needed to make himself feel big and manly, what ever it was, it wasn't my fault he felt that way so why was I carrying the upset and the anger that he had put onto my shoulders, and suddenly I felt lighter, relieved, like a weight had been lifted, "it's not me, it's him" "it's not me it's.......(inset name of someone who has upset me in the past)". If only I had realised this a long time ago I could have lived my life without carrying other people's burdens. I am so glad that I have realised it now, and just hope that I apply it to similar situations in future, it has enabled me to feeling forgiveness, sympathy almost for people who have hurt me. "It's not me, it's them".
