It’s story telling time!

Like every other women out there, I’ve faced casual sexism, mansplaining or other misogynistic behaviors pretty much my whole life. Things have greatly picked up pace, since I dabbled my feet in the maybe most manly / touchy area of life: mechanic and motorcycles!

Talked about this before especially here: facing casual sexism. That was a while back and well, thinks haven’t evolved really, but instead of just complaining about such behaviors, I want to share those as the little stories they are.

So here are my 3 latest encounters… Not all have a happy ending and despite having troubled me at the time, I’ve come to realize that it’s ok. Because you have to know which battles to fight.

Never a dull moment at the paint store!

I was at the store, where I buy the paint for the renovation of my second motorcycle, in addition to a few other supplies. In need of the product to clean my spray gun but I couldn’t remember what I had purchased the last time.

The sole customer who was there was a professional painter, wearing his painting gear. Obviously, he had to start explaining to me, while I was actually discussing with the store clerk, that he often used white spirit.

“Thank you, but that’s not it” “It’s a stronger cleaner I need, to clean my spray gun“. I replied.

He continued “oh? for a spray gun?! for like painting cars?” with a smirk on his face.

“Yeah, this sort of spray gun, but… I don’t do cars” I replied, smiling as well and waiting for his body language to confirm what I was suspecting.

He smiled and his smile indeed said that he obviously never thought I was painting cars because well, that’s a man’s job and stuff.

So I added super seriously: “I only paint motorcycles.”

And that, my friend, wiped his smirk away! Conversation ended there and I got my thinner.

The hunter and the motorcycle

It was dinner time at my dad’s place and a neighbor came to drop off a dead bird, he had just shot. Unfortunately, he extended his stay to explain to me, a vegetarian/vegan, how hunters are preserving the environment and regulating wild boars etc etc.

That didn’t go well, as you can imagine! I will skip.

Since neither of us were going to change their minds on the hunting topic, I thought that by switching the conversation to the motorcycle (which is a neighborhood celebrity), we could end this encounter on a more pleasant ground. Boy, was I wrong!

First, and obviously, motorcyclists, like all cyclists and all pedestrians should be forbidden to go out, during hunting season (which last at least, from end of August to beginning of March, in most areas in France! Yeah over 6 months!)

Secondly, I learned that I was just selfish for not agreeing to lend my motorcycle, to my brother. OK, in case you missed it (How could you?) my motorcycle is an Indian from 1941 that my dad and I renovated together. My brother helped with bits and pieces. But this pretty much only gives him the right to admire it, certainly not to drive it.

I’ve worked on this so hard! No one else but me gets to drive it!! Yes, I’m selfish, but with good reasons.

So anyway, I tried to explain that there were a few good reasons why my brother couldn’t drive it. For one, he doesn’t have the appropriate driving license. That seems to me like enough, but apparently it wasn’t. The second good reasons, is that the insurance only insures me, as a driver. That definitively seemed like a good reason… Nooo, it wasn’t. The third reason, is that my brother doesn’t even have a helmet, so he clearly has none of the other required protecting gear. Obviously, at that point, it didn’t matter.

You know, I don’t think that my brother actually even wants to drive it. He probably doesn’t want to be caught without a helmet or a driving license, or maybe he simply doesn’t want to kill himself! Driving a vintage motorcycle isn’t like riding a bike.

Nothing mattered. This hunter displayed a typical angry white man attitude and I’m just a bobo vegan stupid chick. This was never going to have a happy ending.

And the smell of our diner, burning in the oven, is what finally saved me from my misery…

Yes, please explain to me how Photoshop works

I’ll admit straight away that I am light years away, from being a Photoshop expert. The struggle is real! I’m far more proficient in Illustrator or InDesign, although still not an expert there either.

Anyway, when Photoshop is required, I try and I’m not afraid to learn!

So I’ve just finished a cool montage of all the part of the Indian. Yeah again but this time it doesn’t matter. What matters is that I used close to 200 pictures taken in high resolutions, put together on the largest possible background, with countless hours of work cleaning, reshaping, adjusting colors, placing bits and moving them again and again, etc etc.

And I was showing such montage to a friend, because I think it’s cool!

He then asked me to send him the file. Humm no, I don’t really want to! At least not yet. So I said that the file is too heavy (because I’m chicken and too polite to say f@#$k off!). To which he started to explain to me, that I could just reduce the file size, because who works Bitmap in Photoshop, instead of vectors?! Hummm???… I didn’t reply because I just didn’t want to, but a good answer might have probably been: every photographer?

I actually don’t know. Really don’t know. However I have a feeling that if you want vector images, you mostly going to use Illustrator, not Photoshop?! I certainly do. I could be wrong and in some case, you might want to use Photoshop but not for something like I did. Again I’m absolutely no expert, but the thing is that I seriously doubt he is one either. I don’t even think he has Photoshop installed on his computer…

And yes, I could send him a lower resolution and smaller size file. I just don’t want to spend any time creating it!

So thanks, I still love you…somehow!

*****

Happy Women’s day!