Last summer, an incident occurred among some “progressive” white Bay area academic colleagues. (Well, they don’t know it was an incident, but it was for me and my black female colleague who shared a few eye-rolls behind their backs.) During a late night post-conference hangout session, they got to rating everyone in the room on a gender scale. Surely, because the initiator was a self-identified lesbian, she could tell people how masculine or feminine they were without recourse. *eye-roll* When it came to me, I — the one who wears modest dresses and skirts most workdays — was told that I was a “6” while my black female colleague — who is known to rock Adidas and cornrows at times — was an “8”. I balked and was upped to a 6.5. What they really meant though was that they saw me as assertive and outspoken while she was seen as passive. Well, she had only been in the academy for four years while I have been teaching for 18 years, so — yeah, I’m more confident, but what they don’t see is that she is actually more outspoken than I am when she is back on our “home” campus. Her deferring to me was out of respect, not passivity. But calling me a man with ladybits, practically, even though I am a fairly girly cis woman, reeked of prejudice: confident black women are manly was the message.
Yes, I could’ve called the “allies” out, but — honestly — the opportunity to bond with my “home” colleague over the thinly veiled insult was worth gold in social currency, and our shared eye-roll was downright delicious.
