Hey everyone,

I was chatting with a colleague this morning and she asked me if I was going to dinner with the girls this weekend. Now mind you, I work with around 30 women so even though I am severely outnumbered, I am certainly one of the gang and they have always extended their invitations to include yours truly. We shared a short conversation, chatted for a minute where I thanked her for inviting me, but I respectfully declined. Then, I think I made some joke about not getting the official email invite maybe because I was a guy. Anyway, we started to wrap up the watercooler chat and I proceeded to leave the kitchen but not before she hit me with ‘well, we are still trying to acquire gender equality Ash so, you are probably getting paid more than us.’ In my mind, I was like…what did she just say? That comment really kind of took me by surprise and I actually felt weird about it.

Friendship Disclaimer – if you’re reading this and can figure out who I am talking about, this post is merely because it was thought provoking. I actually thank you for drawing my attention to the topic and it made me post-Double points for you.

OK, back to it…so, why did I feel weird? Well, simply because I don’t think that way, the thought of getting paid more than my female counterpart has literally never crossed my mind. I thought about that for a second, a couple of ways. One, because my unawareness is an example of the ignorance. And second, because like I said, I don’t think that way, even when I was searching for a career or a particular job, I absolutely didn’t expect that I would get it because I was a man or that I would be expected to get paid more solely based on my gender. Now, I do know it exists and it sucks, but I feel pretty confident that the world is moving in the right direction in correcting some of these wrongs.

Just yesterday, March 8, 2018, was International Women’s Day. Happy belated to my family, friends, and female readers by the way, you ladies are all amazing. To not be treated equally based solely on gender is ludacris, actually for any reason really. I cannot begin to appreciate what it must be like to have to face those types of obstacles and challenges. I commend all those who have been in trenches fighting for equal rights, they/you have a lot to be proud of.

So guys and girls (see what I did there), I decided to chime in with what I thought was a bit of a reverse stereotype-ish kinda thingy. I guess, it’s easy to assume that just because you are a certain sex, ethnicity, race, etc. you share the same beliefs. Listen, those rules were made by old geezers in weird mustaches who ruined it all of us, for guys like me. I work and have worked with mostly women all my life but that’s not what I look at, I look at the fact that I work with people like me, my peers…my friends. I look at people for who they are on the inside and it matters not their gender and any other difference for that matter. To think this stuff is still a thing shows us that we as human beings still need  a ways to go but we can get there, we just need every one of us to do it.

Take care ma peeps, until…