THE REST OF IT...

A caveat, tho. I'm also disabled by multiple conditions that make it extremely unwise for me to be out in public much. In younger days, however, I would have given as good as I got...and better (and more than once, did)..

That's not to knock YOU. Not at all. That SHOULD NOT have happened. Period. Starting with the stupid joke and going downhill from there.

And I bet with Margaret Cho there, she would have embarrassed him and every other so-called "comedian" telling sexist jokes on that set. That would have been a sight to see.

I know it's difficult to get past the brainwashing into being polite, smiling women. Not dissing you at all for still being there.

What I found most helpful to me was to act in such situations as if I were playing a scripted role. Like, for instance, imagine yourself channeling Margaret Cho or Sara Silverman, or any of our many other fine feminist comedians. Maybe even rehearse that now and then. Memorize a Cho set from a recording and act it out. Really get into that character.

And then let your inner Margaret Cho SHINE when you need her to be there.

NOTA BENE: I used to be one of the most painfully shy girls you can imagine. A couple of lines from a short story of mine featuring me, of course, on speaking in class:

"Given the privacy of the printed page or a blank notebook, she excels. Confronted with a direct question in public, she panics. Her face turns bright red and hot, her tongue feeling thick and useless. She sits, hearing her voice ramble in the thin, fragile air outside her body while the teacher and her classmates stare at her in confusion."

Yet somehow I ended up being a college professor and speaking comfortably in front of large classes.

You don't have to keep on being the same person you are right now. Funny thing. The route to fixing that is by pretending to be someone else. Particularly someone you deeply admire.

It really really REALLY works.