My CS classes were 90% male, and every professor was male, too. They all genuinely enjoyed my participation, and it was the only environment where I wasn’t objectified or disrespected. Same with my coworkers (again 90% male) when I went into the FAANG workforce; the men were happy to see women excel in a previously male-only field.
The general public was a different story until recently. Women were thrilled, a disturbing number of men refused to listen to me.
I grew up with a lot of snow, skiing, etc in the PNW. As an adult I moved to Palm Springs, where my daughter was born. She and my friends had never seen snow, so one day I thought it’d be great to show everyone. We took the tram up to the top of Mt San Jacinto, where there was about a foot of fresh snow.
I loved watching them marvel at how oddly cold and bright the ground was. They tried and failed to copy me making snowballs, like it was some alien magic trick. I ran ahead and made a sliding jump down a small slope, then stopped and turned around, waiting for them to follow. They did, one at a time, and every one of them slipped and dramatically wiped out trying to navigate the slope. Gods, they just kept. coming. down.
I was horrified that I’d accidentally set them up to go careening everywhere, but the sight was too hilarious and I could only double over and belly laugh as they all crashed about like lemmings on ice!
It’s hard to know about all the wars and genocides, if they aren’t in the standard westernized nations. I only learned of the Rohingya genocide this year.
The best that most of us can do is be like ShittyBeatles and donate to legit charities of your choice.
Anyone who ate hot lunch had to eat everything on their tray, and we weren’t allowed to pass on any part of the meal because children in other countries were starving or something. Lunch ladies checked our trays before we were allowed to leave the cafeteria.
On the days when sauerkraut was served, we’d take turns being the sauerkraut smuggler, cramming that dank crap from about a dozen 8 year old kids’ trays into an empty milk carton, so we could toss it all without the lunch lady catching it. One day when I was the kraut smuggler, lunch nazi grabbed my carton and marched me back to the table. She said I had to eat every strand of the milky garbage we’d all stowed before I could leave.
I tried, but kept gagging and retching. I sat huddled with the collective slop at the table, crying for about 3 hours before my teacher found me and released me from lunch jail.