coldhearted scientist وداد

ON SAYING NO

The reason I like the Eastern and Central time zones less than the Mountain and Pacific ones is not just that the landscape improves west of the Mississippi and then again west of the Rockies; it is that in daily life I feel these time zones to be less sexist.

There in my experience, women are allowed to simply say yes or no to all sorts of things; in the East and South — Eastern and Central time — we are not allowed to just say no, but get policed: “it wasn’t that you said it, it was how you said it.” You have to worm your way out of things, sweet talk, learn to be passively aggressive, or something like this and I do not like it.

The other place, in my experience, where people will take no for an answer and not expect that women, because they are women, should be kicked, invaded and then walked upon, is Brazil.

All of this is very subjective and I wonder: is it merely my experience, or is there something broader to it? My Black colleague says that the reason I feel as I do is in part that the sexism is even worse than I realize, but also because in South I am not necessarily taken for white.

ON WHAT ONE IS ALLOWED TO DO, AND ON HOW PEOPLE FEEL ONE DESERVES TO BE TREATED

That last remark is a whole other topic — I know I am often taken for «mixed» in Louisiana; I was already considered Latina off and on in college (by people who didn’t actually know me). I never thought much about this, although one could comment on it in a number of directions.

Right now I wonder: does the fact that people take me for “brown,” mean that I do not really have as much “white privilege” as I would think?

Axé.