"The Women's Movement has ruined you, Marianne."

One of my professors actually said this to me the other day. In case you were wondering, the professor is a man--an older man in his sixties, who dedicates himself to dressing (unironically???) like a cowboy every day. Many of us have also decided that he has serious issues with women, as can be illustrated by the quote above.

Ever since I started my MA at Duquesne in 2003, this professor and I have engaged in an intermittent battle of wills and wits that has played out largely in the context of elevators: it's amazing how many witticisms can be exchanged between the second and sixth floors of College Hall.

Last year this battle intensified. A week into the fall semester, I realized I had the same schedule as this professor. Not only that: we taught in neighboring classrooms in buildings across campus. So, I often found myself walking with him to and from class. He did most of the talking. I would listen bemusedly most of the time, but sometimes I actually felt some pity for him: here he was, a few years from retirement, completely jaded and quite obviously certain that he had made little to no impact on students during the course of his career. And I became empathetic to the degree that I sometimes thought, "God, will this be ME in forty years?!"

But then we engaged in a pointless but furious battle of wills that led me to retract most of the empathy he had worked up in my hardened heart.

We began arguing over which route we would take back to our building after class. Imagine, if you will, a petite, young-looking graduate student squaring off against an older man in cowboy attire over whether we would take the direct route or the circuitous route that led past a university construction project. He became bizarrely insistent that I walk with him past the new building; I, in return, became equally insistent that we take the direct route.

Nobody really won: I went my way, he went his. This parting ended the battle for a while.

But now I'm in his class, and from the very first night I have been that obnoxious student who asks too many questions in a manner that borders on disrespectful. I am the opposite of demure, and I strongly suspect that he prefers demure women.

This preference of his became apparent during our next pointless battle, which took place in front of the microwave in the graduate office, i.e., MY office. I was in the process of microwaving a frozen dinner of some sort, and had realized that it needed to cook for another minute. Just as I placed the dish back in the microwave, I caught a whiff of cigarettes, whiskey, and stale coffee. Guess who? It was him, and he wanted to nuke his coffee. He insisted that I let him budge in front of me. I, of course, was equally insistent that he must wait, and pushed "start."

And that's when he said it, that thing about the "Women's Movement" ruining me.

(Seriously, who calls it that anymore???)

He says things like this to be controversial, the token misogynist in a department filled with feminists. Knowing this, I simply replied, "No, actually, I blame my father for that."

This statement, while a quip, holds quite a bit of truth. I've inherited most of my personality traits from my dad, so if my personality sucks, it's his fault, right? And then there's the whole 16 years in prison and unexpected death. Could these things count as "ruining" me?

Well, I guess that depends on what "ruining" means. In this professor's opinion, "ruining" appears to mean making a feminine-looking girl act in a way that traditional western society has dubbed "masculine": being stubborn, independent, assertive. And yes, I admit, rather bossy, snide, and aggressive from time to time.

Blaming this on feminism, though, is a fallacy. Yes, I am a feminist. Is this status responsible for my personality? Um, no. Does it keep me from repressing my personality? Sure. Isn't that called social progress? Does social progress ruin a person? As a Liberal, I answer that question with a resounding NO.

A-hem. Okay, I admit, I am beginning to sound strident. But, seriously Professor X. Stop being a dick.