“A CHALLENGE: I want all of you guys to choose a 48 hour period when you are going to communicate with a number of women and challenge yourselves to not offer one “correction” to what they say even if you feel you know better than them. See how often your ego protests. You guys have no idea how exhausting it is for women to quietly endure it.” … “Tiny, totally unconscious micro-aggressions, devaluing the experience and wisdom of women happens every single.day even by men who seem to respect women. It’s an ingrained cultural habit.”
Perception truly is everything and I cannot possibly perceive things as a woman might, given I have never
experienced life as a woman. I have long understood that things I might mean as a totally positive and well meaning comment can land completely different with a woman. My wife was the first to teach me that. “Wow! You’ve lost a ton of weight!” could be heard as, “You used to be so fat and gross!”
So I had mixed feelings about Goddess V’s challenge. On one hand, I thought I have learned to communicate with women pretty well. On the other hand I know first hand how easy it is to fall prey to old habits. In the first 8 hours alone here is my scorecard so far:
Interactions: 12
Possible micro-aggressions: 9
Apologies: 2
They have included;
- Making an unbidden offer to help and;
- Not asking permission to offer that help first.
- Responding when I wasn’t asked to respond and;
- Not asking permission to offer an opinion.
- Providing unasked for validation of a woman’s idea.
- Making a joke about a sad patriarchal reality.
- Mansplaining with a tone.
For a while, I actually had more mistakes than interactions because I made multiple mistakes in one interaction! Geezus!!
I am going to really try harder here…