I Didn't Want To Interrupt Him

The text came in around 8:00pm on Wednesday night.

It's the same text that I get every other week.

A question that my husband NEVER gets.

Can you guess who it's from?

Our cleaning person.

Despite the fact that my husband was the one who found her in the first place, now that she has my number, she has stopped communication with him, and now texts me with questions or to confirm she is coming.

Yesterday, I was sitting at my desk working, and she called up to say she was done and would be leaving.

I walked down to thank her, and to say goodbye.

As she was leaving she said, "Say goodbye to Olivier. I didn't want to interrupt him since he's working."

I thought, with a bit of fire in me,... "Um, yes, well I was working too, but you didn't seem to mind interrupting me."

It got me thinking about the gender lines that we can so easily "fall into" unconsciously, or those that we consciously uphold.

Perhaps the woman who cleans our house doesn't even realize that she is unknowingly putting more value on my husband's work than mine, by choosing to interrupt me and not him.

Perhaps she's used to communicating with the "woman of the house" when it comes to cleaning matters.

Perhaps she is so entrenched in her conditioned gender roles, and the hasn't thought about any of this.

In Kristin Neff's newest book Fierce Self-Compassion she outlines 3 different kinds of sexism that we face in our world today.

• Hostile Sexism which "promotes the belief that men are superior to women" where men are often troubled by women who verge from traditional gender roles

• Benevolent Sexism - "the positive form of prejudice that seeks to protect women. He should achieve and she should help. He should protect and she should nurture."

• Modern Sexism "simply denies that sexism exists" and "claims that men and women are already treated the same" and though there are inequalities, they are not due to any gender biases. "Success is seen to primarily depend on one's own abilities and motivation."

So where does my encounter with my cleaning person fall?
Is it sexism?
Is it nothing?

Have you ever encountered someone who had specific expectations for you simply due to your gender?

Originally posted on LinkedIn with comments.

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