The Diversity Hire
Peeing quietly was never an issue for me.
Before I came to Wolf & Wilhelmine, my peeing experiences had always been relatively stress-free. Sure, there was the occasional moment of discomfort when searching for an available bathroom or a suitable tree — but I had never before felt self-conscious while committing the act of urination itself. I lived in carefree, ignorant bliss about the sound of my pee.
These days, I contemplate each trip to the bathroom with dread. W&W works out of a converted one-bedroom apartment in the West Village called the Den. It’s a delightful, cozy, warm space full of scented candles, rosé — and women. Strong, kick-ass women with leather jackets and cowboy boots, but women nonetheless. I have no doubt our office is a perfectly comfortable place for my coworkers, but as the only man at the company I find myself waging a daily battle with my physical surroundings.
It took me some time to realize that I am not just clumsy. No one else seems to have trouble navigating the office’s layout, but after repeated apologies for playing inadvertent footsie with coworkers around our communal table, countless bruises covering my shins and even a few broken wine glasses, it finally dawned on me: no one else has these problems because no one else is six feet tall. This space is so. damn. small.
I remember the moment when this realization struck me. We were all gathered in the living room, seated in a circle for an all-company meeting. I was feeling good, relaxed and at ease in a chair, when I happened to glance down at my legs. As men are wont to do, I had them spread — and with my knees extended, I was taking up well over a third of the circle. As I looked down at my seven coworkers all crammed up against each other, it suddenly occurred to me that I was being — quite literally — a dick.
I have spent the vast majority of my life freely projecting as much masculine power as my body was capable of. It wasn’t always a lot (sports were never exactly my strong suit) but whether I was a little boy or a gangly, awkward adolescent, I did my damnedest to carry myself like a Man. And from elementary school playgrounds to class presentations in college and shoulder jostling on New York City subways and streets, a deep voice and spread legs have always served me well.
But at W&W, displays of masculine dominance are totally inappropriate: 1) there isn’t enough room in the office to sit without crossing your legs, 2) that’s really just not the vibe, and 3) as the new kid on the block, I am the lowest rung on the company totem pole. Plus, these chicks ride motorcycles — I’m pretty sure they’re more badass than I’ll ever be. And Heidi could definitely beat me up.
Yet it’s hard to adopt respectfully unassertive body language when you’re a full head taller and 50lbs heavier than most everyone else. People are judged by their physical appearance regardless of their character — and in my case, as a relatively tall white man my body creates a domineering impression even though that couldn’t be further from my intention. Since that one moment in the circle, I have become for the first time in my life quite self-conscious about being male. And that’s how we get to my newfound discomfort around peeing.
From the bathroom, I can hear people moving about the Den in excruciating detail — every ruffled paper, every re-crossed leg, every sneeze. And so every time I stand over the toilet — sitting down somehow seems like too much of a castration, too much of a betrayal of my identity — I wince as I am reminded of just how much noise urine makes as it falls several feet into a toilet bowl. But there are countless other instances where I feel conspicuously male: when we’re signing off on a conference call, my ‘bye’ is jarringly discordant with the high-pitched chorus; when I see coworkers struggling to lift something heavy or reach something on the top shelf, jumping in to help or standing by somehow both feel rude.
This sensation of being the token demographic outsider is entirely novel for me. I’ve never before felt like I stood out for characteristics about myself that I did not choose; that’s the reality of being a straight white man. Part of the privilege of masculinity is never feeling like you as an individual represent your gender more broadly. I’ve always been free to be my own person — but now, just going to the bathroom feels like declaring to the world: I am Man, hear me Tinkle.
From this new perspective, I’ve found there are certain aspects of the gender dynamic that strike me as somewhat… imbalanced. When the woman who runs HR sends out an article to the whole company titled “Dong Watch: Your Penis Beauty Standards,” it’s hard to imagine the shitstorm that would explode if the genders were reversed. When the CEO replies that you — the only one in the office with such a body part — just missed a new employee screening process (one imagines, “please submit two copies of your resume and a dick pic”), it makes you wonder: why doesn’t that bother me? Should it?
Yet the fact that I truly am okay with being teased about my penis is actually quite revealing. My time at W&W as a workplace minority is giving me an experience that is rare for a white guy, but the reality is I will never know what it is to live this across a lifetime, to be unable to escape that sensation of being out of place. I can complain about the size of the office, but I likely will never know how it feels to be disabled and live in a world designed for other people’s bodies. I can worry about coming across as an asshole, but I’ll never struggle to be taken seriously — even if I write about going to the bathroom in the company magazine.
Even if I might at times prefer it if I were somehow less obviously a man (or at least if there were separate bathrooms) for now I say keep the dong emails coming, Wolf Pack. It’s a privilege to read them.
