I May Have Re-Found My Outrage or Stripping Away Adaptations and Accommodations

Today I had the misfortune of partnering with an unbearable man for one of my mixed doubles teams. He tried to order me around, argued with me when I wouldn’t do what he wanted me to do, refused to listen to me when I made a suggestion, berated me when I missed a shot, and blamed me for lost games apparently forgetting his missed shots and errors. This felt an awful lot like some of the professional situations I have been in before and it sucked that it was on the tennis court which is supposed to be a fun hobby and form of recreation for me.

I should have walked off the court and I am pretty disappointed in myself for having endured the verbal and non-verbal abuse out on the court today. I stayed on the court out of courtesy to our opponents (they came out to play and I didn’t want to ruin their experience) and because I didn’t want to disappoint our captain.

I should have graciously apologized to our opponents and retired from the match. In fact, when I apologized to the male opponent, he said he would have walked off as he couldn’t believe the verbal abuse I was taking from my so-called partner. And when the female opponent came up, held my hand and said she was sorry for what I had to endure, I was even more sure that I made the wrong decision to continue to play.

I did what I have done in the workplace for years. I endured bad behavior from a man simply to avoid disappointing others or rocking the boat unnecessarily. To my credit, I did attempt on three occasions during the match, to ask him to be kinder, more gracious, and more generous on the court as my partner. Each time I requested it, he said either, let’s just play the game or told me to do my job at the net. I repeated the request along with the threat that if he was not able to agree to be kind, gracious and generous, that I was going to retire from the match at which point he started to point out the errors that I had been making with no mention of his own contribution to the loss.

I should have walked off the court to demonstrate how serious I was about NOT taking the abuse and that his behavior will not be tolerated. Instead, I continued to play. I did tell him in the latter part of the second set that if he made one more negative comment, I was going to leave the court. I was serious and was looking for the opportunity to do so. Enough of the match had been played and we were down in the set so I didn’t think it would be that much of a disappointment if I called the match.

I am cutting myself some slack, though. I did confront him despite how uncomfortable it was to do so. I didn’t let up when he tried to avoid answering my request. And I continued to challenge him on his bad behavior. This is a good start. Recognizing when the bad behavior is happening and challenging at the time is a big deal. So often I recognize it later and wish that I had responded differently. I am grateful for the opportunity to practice this in a non-professional situation so that I can perfect if for the professional situations.

I was challenged yesterday by a friend to continue to fight injustices when it comes to women and realized that I wasn’t fighting hard enough. I had become passive and was avoiding the situations because in years past, the challenges had either fallen on deaf ears or created a negative situation for me.

But no more. I am staying alert to situations that I may have ignored in the past but really do need to be highlighted in order to begin to change behaviors. I’ve even caught myself challenging some of the things my husband has said to me when he thinks he knows best when it turns out he doesn’t. I am standing up for myself and not just going along with it.

So thank you, bad partner. Today you have helped to re-ignite my passion for fighting injustice, standing up for myself and others, and continuing to put pressure on the bad actors perpetuating behaviors that prevent the achievement of gender parity.

I refuse to endure that abuse on the tennis court again and I will most definitely have the courage to respect myself more than I care about the disappointment of others, graciously thank the opponents and walk off the court. I can always say that I am retiring due to an injury…due to a pain in my ass!