Mr Fixit was grumbling about a colleague who resorted to tears as a means to get her own way, and how unfair this was because his gender would militate against this tactic working for him. Consensus held that tears at work were unprofessional, manipulative, and generally irritating. They also led to sweeping generalisations and were thus profoundly anti-feminist.
Carnivorous Cow felt a bit awkward. She hated manipulation, she hated games, she preferred directness and honesty, and frankly didn't buy arguments of structure overwhelming agency in most of the cases she encountered of such manipulation. These were not victims on the fragile end of a power dynamic, but strong personalities who'd grown up with all the cultural capital and structural advantage available to white women of the comfortable classes. Her sympathies were limited.
But at the same time, she resented the neo-liberal attempts to reduce people to "human capital", assets (or liabilities) on a balance sheet, stripped down to the single dimension of their productive power and potential contribution to the "knowledge economy". She felt strongly that people were _people_, that their nukke en grille were as much part of them as their capacity to manage their budgets, and that all of that needed to be accommodated in the place in which they spent most of their lives. Whether that took the form of allowing them their children's photos as wallpaper on their PC, or the subversive flirting around the photocopier, or their predilection for odd ringtones on their hellphones - well, that was who they were. So long as it wasn't offensive or toxic to the environment or hampered colleagues in the execution of their duties, she saw little harm in it.
Which created a contradiction. Colleagues were always grumbling about Sybil, who had 28 distinct personalities dependant on her hormonal cycle. "She should leave her moods at home," they grumbled, "or take industrial strength hormones to control them better. And put up a biorythm calendar on her door, so you know when it's safe to approach!" Like male vs female nipples, this showed signs of gender war terrain. Which made Carnivorous Cow feel obliged to defend the right of Sybil to vagaries of her hormones, though she also found the fallout difficult to live with.
Which presented her with a real problem - principles vs pragmatics. What you say and what you do. And whether crying was something to condone, tolerate, or decry (sorry!). She felt trapped by the conflict between What She Felt She Should Say, and What She Wanted To Say, and didn't know how to backtrack gracefully out of the cul de sac into which she'd argued herself. Anyone who's seen a cow would know that backtracking gracefully was not physically possible, but that didn't absolve this bovine of the discomfort. So instead, she did what grasshopper minds are also renowned for, and changed the subject.
"Do you guys prefer badger badger or the Llama Song?", she asked brightly.