Welcome to p
art seven of my series, How to Survive at Sea: A Stage Crew’s Guide. Click here to see last week’s post, or click here to jump to the first in the series.
Sexism Weighs About As Much As a Piano
There’s a lot of fun to be had working on a cruise ship; I know I haven’t touched on much of it yet, but that’s because it’s a lot more humorous (and interesting) to rant about the really terrible parts of working on a cruise ship – like the horrible unending battery of sexism!!
You know the whole #yesallwomen phenomenon? Well, the real world ain’t got nothing on cruise ships, baby.
Now, my job probably put me in the ‘line of fire,’ as it were, more than many other jobs would have, because I was working in a traditionally male area. Even on land, theatre technicians are probably 80% men, and the ratio on board was even more skewed. There were two women in my department on both ships I worked on, out of about 34 employees. When I first got my call that a job had opened I wasn’t sure if I would be able to take it, and they warned me that it could be awhile before another one opened up because I had to wait for a woman’s contract to be over. “Uh, sorry, what?” I asked. Turns out they bunk women together, so there always have to be an even number of them (and that number is two). And since there were so few women, the company didn’t bother with silly things like providing women’s clothing or women’s shoes – nope, our uniforms were “unisex,” which is just code for “made for men deal with it.” (I looked ugly for six months. Most of the time I didn’t care.)
My experience with my coworkers was actually better than stories I’ve heard about some male-dominated professions. Every time I met a new coworker he would offer to help me, often using the phrase ‘because you’re a girl’ or ‘you can’t handle that.’ I would get really mad, physically wrest the object out of his hands, and tell him that they wouldn’t have hired me if I couldn’t do the damn job and not to treat me like a princess. That ritual seemed to earn me their respect, and from then on I was generally one of the boys. Generally.
About halfway through my contract on one of the ships, the piano player in the band left, and the new one said that a keyboard simply wasn’t good enough and he needed a grand piano. Apparently that was no problem, because we had one in storage. The problem was that the locks on the wheels weren’t strong enough to handle the pitching and listing of a cruise ship, so for safety reasons, every time we wheeled the damn thing on stage we had to lift it, put blocks under the wheels, and put the piano back down. Then after the show we had to do it all over again to clear the piano off-stage for the next performance. (yeah. it was as fun as it sounds) So the first time we had to do this, I made an attempt to lift the piano. It was pretty epicly pathetic. I wanted to try again and my boss told me, and I quote, “If you can lift that piano I will cut my balls off.” Challenge accepted. I started going to the gym every day and lifting weights, and three weeks later I strutted in, rolled up my proverbial sleeves, and lifted the damn piano to cheers and applause. (He did not cut his balls off.)
So earning the respect of my coworkers wasn’t really the problem. The problem? Everyone else. Let’s say there’s a band playing on the upper deck. That means we have to drag all of their equipment from the storage locker at the front of the ship to the stage at the back of the ship. I’m lugging drum kits, amps, the usual roadie gear. Every single time – I am not exaggerating, I wish I were – someone would stop me and say either 1) You shouldn’t be doing that, you’re a woman/girl! 2) Why would they hire a woman to do this job? 3) Here, let me help you! No no I insist (as they bodily drag whatever it is out of my hands). Sometimes it was passengers (usually elderly American men), often it was other crew members, and always it was apoplectically frustrating.
The worst part were the days when I was really, really tired. And I found myself thinking, you know, if someone else wants to do my job for me, I’m not going to complain. I really don’t want to do my job. But then I felt like I was betraying some kind of sacred trust by not screaming, “I AM WOMAN HEAR ME ROAR!” and hauling an amp over my head like some coked-out bodybuilder while proving women’s equality and independence with the strength of my biceps.
The days I let other people take heavy things from me, I felt less tired, but more guilty. The day I lifted that piano? I felt fucking invincible.
Join me next week for weird rules about alcohol, and weird rules about sex, and all of the people who were having it.