...and the fun is just beginning

Yesterday was the first day of training in San Diego. The driving went pretty well. I even took this little picture of a military helicopter on the way down:

Okay, so maybe I'm the only one that thinks that's an interesting picture.

Anyway, I got there and was able to determine pretty quickly that they had in fact weeded out most of the weirdos from the first information meeting. I still had the misfortune of selecting a seat at the very back, right next to some diehard feminist. Last night's class was focused on the historical views on domestic violence, sexism, and sexual assault. The feminist next to me was on Cloud 9. She could barely contain her enthusiasm for the topics. She was quite literally sitting on the edge of her seat part of the time, and when she wasn't interrupting the instructor to share additional information about atrocities against women, she was back there muttering about it under her breath.

Now don't get me wrong, it's not like I don't appreciate a little gender equality, but I just can't get behind this "all gender roles are evil, all men prey on women, and the whole world is conspiring against us" kind of mentality. That being said, when the class launched into the portion about women in marketing, I just couldn't seem to muster up any feelings of outrage over advertisements that depict women as sweet and submissive, and men as strong and aggressive. Frankly, I'm pretty okay with those stereotypes. I mean really, what self-respecting woman really wants to seem tough and aggressive? The feminist to my right obviously had a different take on things. She audibly gasped at each picture, and then sat over there shaking her head in disgust. I related a bit more to the women to my left who let out a little grunt of dismay for each ad they showed for the "women as sex objects" portion of the slide show, which I found to be quite disturbing. Although, I still couldn't quite figure out the need for additional sound effects.