Will you find sexism if you look for it?

I read this story today, titled “Sexism is Hard to Explain”. It was very well written and, despite the title’s warning, did a great job sharing insight into how many times a day women are subjected to sexism.

But I think there was a bit of unfairness in it…the main action was attributed to sexist behavior…instead of civility.

I’ve opened doors for both sexes before, and the accompanying nod is a gesture that says, “Yes, im holding this door for you”. I havent ever considered my ability to open a door as a way of imposing my power over someone, or that when they went through it they were becoming subservient.

He smiled at me and gestured me over to his side with a head nod. “Let me get the door for you.” (He meant let me get these doors over here for you.) I capitulated, averted my path over to his doors, smiled and said thank you

Words are powerful. “Meant” and “Capitulated” are implying quite a history between these two characters, where simple gestures carry so much weight.

Imagine two robots, lets call them M and F

They coexist in harmony and whenever possible, help each other. They both need to exert energy to walk and to open doors.

There is an entrance with two doors, at point A and point B. M is at Point A and F is approaching at Point B. M sees F, and decides that holding the door for F would be beneficial (as F wont need to exert that energy to open the door). F’s trajectory is for Point B.

If the exerted energy to change trajectory is greater than the energy for opening a door, F goes through Point B. If not, F goes through Point A.

It only becomes sexist once we add genders to the robots. There is no reason for the action to be seen as anything other than an operation for civility.

Now, once M thinks it’s being helpful by making F wait, well, now it’s being condescending. F can obviously open the doors, and in fact, should be holding the doors open for M.

Why didn’t F open the door for M? I’d love to hear your opinions as I lack this particular speculation gene.

This feels like another instance where we are “over-thinking” a situation. Not going through the door being held open is your choice, and the way the person thinks of you after is their choice. Doesnt this sound like its all because we care too much about what someone else thinks of us?

As Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said What’s it to you if I love you?

I thought of the men on Reddit who call women cunts because some ladies don’t want the door opened for them.

That makes me think of women on medium who call men sexist because they held the door open for them.