Open thread, Jul. 04 - Jul. 10, 2016

MrMind

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If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

Or, you know, find other gender-related things to not accept. When I was looking for a copper rod (to cut into some pieces for electron microscopy), the sellers looked at me like I was weird or something. Later, the guy who cut it for me didn't want my money on account of me being female (but I threw it at him and escaped). And before that, the lady in the pawnshop where I tried to pawn it to get some urgently needed money to commute to work, was completely thrown (I guess they didn't want copper much). All of these occasions were rather outside my comfort zone, but I do not see why I should not have done it.

Later, the guy who cut it for me didn't want my money

specifically on this example; I would suggest that if you were only getting a few really short cuts it's almost not worth the effort to charge.

For all of 5 minutes of work; factors like; accounting and working out a price and finding change and anything else involved in the transaction is not worth the effort involved. I have had similar experiences getting pieces of wood and glass cut on the fly, and people are generous enough to not charge. Was the person explicit about your gender? (even if the... (read more)

0Jiro10y

Presumably you were buying a copper rod because you needed a copper rod, and you had no choice but to be gender-noncomformant if you wanted one. It's not as if you had an option to pick gender conformant scientific equipment and non gender conformant scientific equipment and deliberately picked the noncomformant one. Also, there's a difference between being considered unusual and being considered socially weird.Last time I ran into someone riding a horse on a city street I'm pretty sure I stared at him for a while--but that was because you don't see many of those, not because I thought that someone who rode a horse in the 21st century was violating a taboo.