What on earth is your problem? Calm down.
I have a mild-but-illustrative #NotAllMen / #YesAllWomen story to share.
I was taking a rideshare service to the Austin airport on Saturday, and the driver was super kind, and also chatty. I generally can go either way with chatty drivers, so I didn’t mind.
He asked what I did for work, and I shared that I’m an artist and recovering strategist for social justice. We got to talking about the state of the world — his politics were roughly aligned with mine, all fine ’n’ dandy — and then he asked if he could get my number.
I said, “Aw, that’s kind, I’m really private, though, and I don’t share stuff so much. You can follow me on social media though.”
He perked up. “Facebook?”
I said, “I only use it for friends and family…”
“I’d really like to follow your work! I do art, too.”
“Well, I’m on Instagram and Twitter…”
“Hmmmm, I haven’t gotten into those. Maybe we could have coffee when you come back to Austin?”
Me, silent, awed, that this dude is Not Getting Any Hints.
Now: did I feel endangered by the situation at this point? Nope.
But: did I calculate that I was in a rideshare, on a highway, and not in control of my situation? Yep. So did I say, “EFF YOU DUDE BURN THE PATRIARCHY DOWN!”? No. What did I do? What almost every other woman, femme and gender nonconforming person does: I do my best to deescalate, be deferential, change the subject if possible, etc. I try to direct him towards local action groups that he might be interested in.
At one point he hands me his phone so I can put my website into it. While we’re still driving. So I did as I was told. Again, did he hold a gun to my head and demand my contact info? Nope. Do I know the social rules of interaction between men and women well enough to calculate that we’re pretty close to the airport now, and whatever, just do it? Yup. Did I hate myself a little bit for it? Yup.
Because at no point did this dude threaten me, and I can feel and hear a million voices saying “WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM, WHY ARE YOU SO DEFENSIVE, OH YOU THINK YOU’RE ALL THAT EH.” But at no point did I feel like I was in control or even really had minor input into the situation. At no point could I tell how this would end. And he’s prolly harmless, yeah, but no one has ever schooled him on how to take a f***ing hint, either. But it’s on me to manage, to deflect, to guess, to intuit, to calculate, to perform, because I have no idea if this will go badly, and I’m not willing to find out, because I just want to get on a plane and go home. And I’ve got a ton of relative privilege in the situation, too — he’s white; I’m white, cis, abled, etc.
But I know what my “place” is, what my role is. And every time I play it, it feels like another piece of me dies a little. Add these incidents up over time, plus all of the stories we hear from our friends and in the news, and tell me: are we overreacting?
