Wait a minute, it's not me

I had an epiphany last night. All these times guys have harrumphed and grumped and gotten difficult with me for standing my ground - it doesn't mean I was wrong for standing my ground! I've been so sure there was something wrong with me around that, ever since I was tiny.

A brief anecdote from when I was traveling with my parents at age 16. My mother was buying herself a dress, and I really liked it and wanted one too. The response was, "It's expensive. Who do you think you are to deserve clothes as expensive as your mother?" They bought me a skirt instead - it's not like I went around in rags or anything - but the point is that my immediate reaction was outrage, and later I thought, "Yeah, who do I think I am, anyway?" and I was ashamed for thinking I did deserve it. Coda: my mother gave me the dress later. Was that a sideways apology? Who knows.

Back to these mansplainin' flimflamming business people and ex-boyfriends, I've wondered if I'm supposed to let them save face, if there's some social skill I'm missing that would smooth this out. But no, the only smoothing is surrender, and I'm not wired that way. Not even surrender. Disappearance.

Well, busy dealing with web host hassles, so I'll go ahead and post this, even though it feels unfinished.

Social Justice as a triggering topic

Chatting with a friend, I mentioned my recent epiphany about sexism. She said, "You're choosing to rendezvous with those experiences." I said, "No! That doesn't work for me!" Didn't raise my voice, but was emphatic.

She got very quiet and said I was silencing her and I was jumping on her every time she opened her mouth and she just didn't know what I wanted from her. I kept asking questions and finally I said, "It seems like something I said was triggering for you." She thought about that and said in the past friends have accused her of not caring about the world if she isn't fighting for social justice. She then noticed that I wasn't doing that and in fact I had been speaking about my own experience.

So we unraveled the conflict and ended on a good note, but it was educational to watch the conversation go completely pear-shaped just because I mentioned that it helps me to notice and name institutional sexism. This discrimination stuff is pernicious!