The other night, Katie and I went out on a date. It was going to be one of
our lasts for a while because Katie will be heading back to OK for
over a month with Kinley. I wasn’t in the mood to do anything fancy
so we just planned to go get dinner and MAYBE go see a movie
afterwards.
Where we went to eat was close to the movie theater so we figured we
would stop there first and see what was playing and their show times.
Katie has mentioned that she wanted to see the movie “What to Expect
When You are Expecting” but it wasn’t opening for couple of days. We
were very surprised to see when we got to the theater there was one
showing of that movie that night. We said, “Great”, and bought two
tickets for the 8:00 show and went to dinner.
After dinner when we presented our tickets to the ticket taker, he
looked at me and said “You aren’t allowed”, I laughed because he was
obviously making fun of me for seeing a girly movie. This is where it
gets interesting. He went on to explain that he wasn’t joking and the
showing was for females only. I was dumbstruck. I couldn’t even
begin to understand. I soon was told that it was a “Girls Night Out”
showing and only women were allowed in. At this point, my behavior
probably began to embarrass Katie. I started asking questions to the
manager like “You aren’t going to let me in because I don’t have the
right body parts?”, “Okay, fine, so when are you having the ‘Guys
Night Out’ showing” and “Is this even legal?” They were not amused.
Least amused were the women going to see the movie. They looked at
Katie and me with disdain. They were laughing and making commentary
to our argument of how this just couldn’t be. They really hated men
and wouldn’t tolerate the fact that men would be in the same room with
them.
At no point were we told that it was a “special” or “restricted”
showing when we bought the tickets. They just shooed me away at the
door. I wasn’t alone. There were at least three other men with their
wives who were in the same situation. They told us we could get our
money back or see another movie, but we would have to go back to the
ticket office. All of us, who were discriminated against, walked
together grumbling about this injustice and how it could not stand the
whole way.
Once at the ticket counter our resolve solidified and we (the men)
just got angry. I must say, I never got as angry as my counterparts
but I did follow their lead. At one point, the guys said, “what are
they going to do? I say we just go in!” A collective yell of
agreement went through the lobby and one of the guys reached around
the counter and ripped the tickets being processed for refunds out of
the lady’s hands and we stormed into the theater. We marched right
through the ticket taker and straight into our seats. Well, not
straight into our seats. I had no idea how sacred these women held
this event. Several, booed and hissed at us as they saw us looking
for our seats. We heard “Get out, this is girls only!” Did I mention
that these were grown women making these comments?
The movie was better than expectations. And no riots or walkouts
happened because a few men were in the crowd. Well, there might have
been one walkout. It was really unbelievable. If we were back in
America, I would easily have made some serious money if I had filed a
lawsuit.
On the way to the parking lot, Katie and I were laughing about the
experience and I said something like “I wonder if this is how Rosa
Parks felt”. We laughed at how ridiculous that comment was. But that
is likely one of the only times in my life that I will get to
experience what discrimination, even as trivial as this was, is like.
No comments:
Post a Comment