I had a post all ready to go in response to Rachel’s query about private reactions to public questioning of sexism in library technology. It was an outspoken philippic in the best CavLec tradition of unabashed, fiery candor.
After writing it and saving it as a draft, I got up, walked around the apartment a bit, hopped on the exercise bike and drove it the fastest mile I think I’ve ever driven it, walked around the apartment some more, did a stretch or two, ate some tortilla chips by way of comfort food, sat down again, opened a new post window, and started transplanting the least-inflammatory segments of that draft into this post.
For the record, Rachel, I noticed exactly the behavior you did. I’ve gotten email aplenty on this subject. What’s more, when I politely urged some of my correspondents to take their aptly-expressed concerns and experiences public (for mailing-list values of “public”), what I heard without exception was, “Oh, I can’t—I have to work with guys like that. It’ll play merry hell with my daily worklife.”
I talked last week with another library blogger who’s written on this subject. She’s leery of writing more, though she said she’s got more to say. She’s got plenty of work and personal crises on her plate; why should she sign up for one more crisis?
I explained in my own prior post on the matter that I’d kept another fine, fiery post in draft instead of publishing it. I explained why I did that. It’s worth noting, I think, that after the post I did have the cojones (thanks for the mot juste, Karen!) to publish, two #code4lib members, wholly independently of each other as far as I know, told me that my “airing dirty laundry in public” (direct quote) had angered a third member. Would I please smooth it over, asked one. Next time I ought to talk to the principals first, said the other.
Is it a coincidence that Rachel was the first to ask publicly about the public-private divide in women’s behavior around this? I don’t think so, not at all; Rachel doesn’t work in a library. I do. I surely do fear for my career if I stir up the kind of tornado that I was about to, the kind of storm that if you ask me, this problem deserves.
There’s a pattern here, I will make bold to assert. It’s not just that female systems librarians who have dealt with misogyny and sexism (and I’ve rarely met one who hasn’t) are leery of speaking up about it, though goodness knows that’s hideous enough. It’s that we are actively being silenced, even by extremely decent people who mean nothing but good.
That’s just ugly. Silence doesn’t fix this. Pluralistic ignorance (“oh, nobody else is complaining, so it must be just me”) doesn’t fix it. Fear doesn’t fix it—not fear of saying it, and definitely not fear of hearing it said.
And so now I’ve silenced myself, too. Twice now—quite a bit more than twice if you count the experiences I’ve shut up about, never mind the stories I’ve heard and would like to retell. I’m so frustrated and angry about all the things I want to talk about but don’t dare to—crazy ironies, jawdropping disrespect, absurd defensiveness, common and damaging pushback—that I’m ready to shed burning, acid tears. I want to talk; I want to be heard. I’m deathly tired of this knot of sorrow-laced wrath that wound itself up somewhere underneath my sternum months ago, churning destructively away ever since.
I’m lucky, though. This isn’t a workplace issue for me, thank goodness; it’s only come up in communities of practice. I think that’s what frees me to say as much as I’ve said, just as I noted that it frees Rachel. Sure, I worry about my future marketability, but at least I don’t have to worry about my present job!
I’m lucky to have gotten where I am at all, I now begin to understand. I’m so lucky that Allen and Jerry and Jon and Gene and James and the rest of the PSWG techies held to mannerly and honest standards of personal behavior. Their open respect for me led directly to what I now do, and I do, in spite of everything I’ve just said, love what I do.
