openness

I think Danah is so brave for being open about sexist experiences, as in her last post. When I first read her last post my first thought was oh, Danah, don't, don't write that, pretend not to mind! You'll ruin your professional reputation if you talk about those things!

Of course I've experienced things like Danah. I feel awful, I tell a couple of girlfriends, and pretend to the world that everything's OK. I'm building my career, I'm just starting out, my contract runs out in April: I want people to like me and I don't want to be thought of as demanding or difficult. So I smile and pretend everything's OK.

And that's the thing of course. The more we don't speak about these stinging remarks and situations, the more we can't speak about them, and the more easily people can brush aside our hurt and discomfort telling us we should lighten up, have a sense of humour. That's why Danah is brave and wonderful to post these things.

I'm not sure I have the guts to do it. I'd be embarrassing people (the colleague who "missed my babbling", which is nice you know, but would he call a male colleague's conversation babbling? Such a belittling word! Though friendly, which makes it hard to deal with), betraying confidences (the snide comments after a presentation that it was a pity I wasn't as good at answering questions as I was at smiling charmingly, of course not said directly to me, but passed on, such an archetypical put-down of women isn't it, to encourage charm and high heels then refuse to take them seriously because of them), it'd be unappreciative (the uncomfort of realising your audience consists of 14 men and 2 women, heck, it's brilliant that many male professors are interested in blogs, but I wish I wasn't almost the only woman there). If I spoke up about these things and others, wouldn't I just be labelled a difficult bitch?

Each of these uncomfortable situations is small in itself. Not important. Yes, I shrug it off. Don't really tell anyone, or maybe just a girlfriend. But each of these hurts. And there are many of them. They build up.

Perhaps if each of us spoke up each time a little thing like these hurt us it would make a difference. It's damn hard to do though. And we can't do it alone.