The Teensy-Weensy, Itty-Bitty Architect
A cute rant on misogyny
She was an architect. And she was five feet tall.
This mind-blowing, unbelievable, earth-shattering fact was shared with me at the Hearst Castle in California. I was on the last leg of a long journey home from Bali: I had flown from Bali to Toyko to Los Angeles, battling food poisoning and jet lag. (I will spare you the details, but if you have to get food poisoning anywhere, Japan is the place for it.) I was exhausted from 18 months of traveling the world, from working at a hostel in Malaysia to “doing the van life thing” in New Zealand. All I had left was a drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco, a winery trip with my family, and a flight back to Philadelphia for a three-month break before leaving the country again, this time to Chile. Hearst Castle wasn’t a “must-stop” on my mini road trip, but when I looked out the car window and saw the castle’s zebras running around the grounds, I took a quick right turn and booked myself a day tour.
The Hearst Castle is opulence defined. You’ve seen it in music videos or on postcards. The $25 ticket for the tour was a heavy hitter for my skinny backpacker’s budget, but I had been freelancing remotely throughout my travels and could live a little. Show me those pools!
The tour guide took us to the Neptune pool, the Roman pool, and a handful of rooms in between. We gaped at paintings brought in from Italy and the Spanish Colonial architecture. But the thing that I remember most from that tour was the tour guide repeating, five times, how short the architect was.
I didn’t know her name. I had to Google it while writing this blog post. Her name was Julia Morgan. And no, her height is insignificant. I couldn’t give a rat’s ass what her height was or any architect’s height, for that matter. Frank Lloyd Wright? I don’t care! Gaudi? Whatever! I didn’t care, because the woman’s stature had nothing to do with her abilities, but this tour guide would not shut up about how amazing it was that a five-foot-tall woman could be an architect, and a successful one at that.
She was five foot! Wow!
And remember, she was five foot tall.
I swear, he mentioned it five times, as if he had just learned that fact that morning and was afraid he was going to forget it.
As if…what? Five foot tall women can’t…draw? Think? Create?
I remember looking at a young girl on the tour with her mom. Occasionally, the man would give this child an extra wink, as if she was going to hear this amazing man’s secret about the tiny, tiny architect and finally feel inspired to start sketching the next Sistine chapel.
Now, maybe I’m being a grump. This tour guide celebrated the itty-bitty, teeny-weeny woman and her ability to architect. He didn’t doubt her ability to architect, unlike the man at one of my murder mysteries who read about a character from the Wild West and said, out loud, with his mouth, “How could a woman be a blacksmith?” This tour guide was happy to share the story of Julia Morgan with the world, even if you could tell that he was truly flabbergasted by her height. Am I crazy? I assume standing architect desks are adjustable.
And maybe the man’s enthusiasm counts for something. It did for a few years at least, when I told this story. Heck, even, “How could a woman be a blacksmith?” has made for an entertaining story at parties. But these casual reminders of misogyny slap me in the face like Cher slapped Nicolas Cage in Moonstuck. “Shnap out of it!” I have to tell myself. Just because women are able to do things, doesn’t mean that a good hunk of the world believes we can! Just because I grew up in a world where women could have a credit card in their name doesn’t mean that everyone else did! Just because I write a woman as a blacksmith doesn’t mean she’s believable! I guess.
Unfortunately, the shlap of misogyny, however casual, has felt more like a grab of the pussy in recent months. (Did we forget he said that?) Over Thanksgiving break, I was subjected to the same news story about Pete What’sHisName’s nomination. Every hour, on the hour, I felt like I heard the same reporting about how “she said ‘no’ over and over, but he continued to force himself on her.” I felt like I was in a wormhole of assault and lunacy. This guy still got the job! Brett Kavanaugh still got the job! Reproductive rights were overturned by a man named Brett! “Grab her by the pussy” is now the President of the United States! People said that Kamala Harris was unqualified even though she was elected as an attorney general, a senator, and the Vice President! Do people think she’s incapable of being a blacksmith, too? An architect? When I searched “Kamala Harris height” to add a snarky sentence to this paragraph, autocorrect asked if I would like to search “Kamala Harris height and weight.” Who the hell is searching this woman’s weight?!
This tour guide may have praised Julia Morgan’s work because without those $25 tickets, he wouldn’t be able to pay his bills, but his shockingly hilarious misogyny is just the lollipop you get from the doctor before your shots. It’s funny because it’s absurd because it’s just so, so stupid.
So, so stupid.
But at least it gets a laugh?
