I am a victim of sex discrimination. I participate in my neighborhood Nextdoor.com group. For the most part it has been useful. Recently they introduced a feature known as interest groups. One such group was called Book Lovers, which sounded like a rather conventional category of people interested in participating in a book club. One woman posted that she was holding an organizing meeting to form such a book club and asked people to sign up if they were interested. I read a lot and enjoy the one book club I’m in so I emailed her. I got a response from her that she had received a lot more interest than she had anticipated and they would be forming four separate clubs. She said she’d be back in touch with me.
A week later she emailed me and said that I was the only man who had expressed interest and the women had voted to exclude me. I found this disturbing. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not outraged or going to sue or anything like that. The organizer said no one wanted to discuss the same kinds of books I read (fiction and non-fiction). I read a wide variety of books and I had sent her a link to my Goodreads reviews which show that variety. I find it hard to believe that not one of these groups would be reading any of the books I enjoy. I asked her what kinds of books the groups would be reading. She never replied. I’ve been in a mixed male/female book club in the past and everyone got along just fine. I actually don’t want to belong to a book club that reads nothing but romances or women’s empowerment issues, so perhaps one or two of those newly formed clubs would not be suitable for me, but all four? In the end, the inverse of the Groucho Marx rule applies: I wouldn’t belong to any club that wouldn’t have someone like me for a member, so it’s probably all for the best. If I’m not wanted for any reason, I don’t want to force my way in. It’s not a glass ceiling I feel compelled to break. It’s supposed to be for fun and that doesn’t sound fun.
But the really disturbing thing about this is that my exclusion was based simply on my sex, without a single one of the anonymous voters knowing me. This is indicative of what’s happening in politics and all aspects of modern life in America, it sees – people don’t want to associate with anyone who doesn’t share their own beliefs and preferences. It may not be as bad as the slavery in the deep south of yesteryear, but the general attitude more and more now is if that person is different from me, they’re bad. It’s called bigotry.
Edit: after I posted a link to this blog post on Nextdoor.com my post was reported for violating Nextdoor’s guidelines. Although it’s not spelled out, I can only presume one of the women who voted to exclude me didn’t like the implication she was a bigot. Here’s a quote from the email I received from the group organizer:
“I need to let you know that you are the only male that responded to this book club start-up; … With 30+ women responding, there was a vote at the first meeting to have it be ladies only.”
Now imagine the following:
“I need to let you know that you are the only black that responded to this book club start-up; … With 30+ whites responding, there was a vote at the first meeting to have it be whites only.”
or
“I need to let you know that you are the only Jew …”
or
“I need to let you know that you are the only gay …”
Judge for yourself.