You're in luck! Today I'm so driven by procrastination that I'm writing another blog!
The issue I've been thinking about lately is one I've been pondering for a long time. Stay with me here, guys, because it's a woman's issue. I'm curious to hear if anyone else has noticed this phenom.
When I started college and began to circulate in more diverse social groups, I started to notice something. If I was talking in a group of myself and two or more men, I would frequently be either talked over or seemingly half-heard. It didn't matter whether we were discussing politics or parenting, sex or sedatives, but inevitably, I would begin to feel like I wasn't even part of the conversation, and the only thing worse than being left out of it would be to continue talking like an idiot as if someone was listening.
The first few times I noticed this, I felt paranoid, and then I felt angry and hurt (Why were these people who were supposedly my friends/colleagues/servants brushing me off?), but eventually I learned to just shrug it off as part of gender politics.
I would have expected that groups in which the men were the most "liberal" politically (those who would traditionally be most vocal for female rights) would be the least likely to do this. In actuality, some of the worst cases of being talked over/ignored that I can recall were in groups of self-proclaimed male feminists or gay men. This fact makes the "situation" (I hate to use that adjective for fear of evoking images of fake tan or "creepin.") even more troubling and complicated. If someone claims to have your back as a woman and doesn't act like it, you kind of start to feel betrayed.
The male-dominated groups in which I feel most comfortable and virtually never have this occur are 1) several male relatives 2) men who are attracted to me (on the rare occasion that this is the case) 3) men who are intoxicated and have passed out under a bar stool 4) men who are (pretending to be) asleep. So really, the only time men ever listen to me is when they want something (quiet, another drink, the continuance of our familial bloodline, etc.). Isn't that a happy notion?
You might wonder if maybe I'm some man-hating feminist. I am not. I am a feminist in that I believe women should have equal opportunities and receive equal pay. I do not fight the urge to run to the street to burn unmentionables on a daily or even biweekly basis. I shave my legs (but not in the winter).
The simple fact is, I'm never spoken over by other women, nor am I spoken over in mixed-gender groups, so the hypothesis that I'm just quiet or unimposing doesn't really hold up here either.
If you're a woman and have never noticed this, watch out for it. If you're a guy (and probably thinking "I never do that!"), check yourself. That is all.
Disclaimer: Dad, this has nothing to do with a negative male image that you are, right about now, thinking you projected to me sometime during my childhood, nor is this blog applicable to you. Exhale.
