Sarah Hagi's "God give me the confidence of a mediocre white man"
I had a bit of a revelation this morning
I think I haven't been getting treated the same as my male coworker’s because I don't act like a dude. You know? Like I don't just make decisions with the assumption that my ideas are great and my work will be useful. Or really that other’s will recognize them as being great and useful. If I'm missing information or resources, I wait for guidance or permission instead of just pursuing them. Not that that's a totally white male thing, but it's a common mentality.
So now I'm going to use Sarah Hagi's "God give me the confidence of a mediocre white man".
And I'm not saying all white men are horrible, cocky creatures, just that they have different experiences and privileges that ultimately result in different expectations from life. Women and other marginalized peoples encounter an accumulation of micro- (and not so micro)- aggressions and biases that we internalize over a lifetime. Fundamentally, they mold us into adapting certain behaviors and avoiding others.