In early January, my mother and I attended a “Drunk TED Talk” in Brooklyn, New York. The event sold more tickets than there were seats, so many of the attendants had to occupy whatever standing room they could find. For two friends this meant standing right in front of the seats I was reserving for myself and my mom, who, at the time, was at the bar. One of the women clearly did not notice that she was piling her belongings on top of my mom’s purse which I knew she would need to access again before the show began. When I tried to tell her, she abruptly cut me off and in a rather coarse manner said, “Relax, I’m not going to steal the seat,” before rolling her eyes as she turned back to her friend. This irked me, and in response I assertively retrieved the bag from underneath the stranger’s things, admittedly with the intention of conveying my displeasure. I am not sure what I expected to happen, but it turns out that all this did was escalate tensions between our two respective parties.
As the show began, I started to regret how I conducted myself. Yes, she was rude, but I did not need to resort to combative tactics to protect my mom’s purse. So at intermission, I decided to apologize for coming off so aggressively. I had pictured my apology to being reciprocated by this unfamiliar adversary, but it was not. She again was rude and rolled her eyes. Initially I thought, “Well, screw her, she is simply less mature than I am and frankly, I don’t really care if I’ve upset someone like that.” The more I thought about it, though, I realized my immediate reaction was unfair, which led me to two conclusions that I had previously not considered.
The first and more obvious is that the point of an apology is not to evoke a similar sense of remorse from the engaged person in order to relieve oneself from experiencing guilt and embarrassment. I should apologize only because I recognized that my behavior as inappropriate and that I could have acted in a more constructive manner.
The second conclusion was that this woman was operating in a sphere of concern that I was and am not. Many men have the tendency (though not always intentionally) to be not only creepy and intrusive in social settings such as the one we were in, but also aggressive, persistent and disruptive. It is not uncommon for men to engage women, often rather forcefully, in interactions they neither wanted nor welcomed. I know this to be true not only because I have been told, but also because I have both witnessed it and probably have been a part of it. Now, I sincerely had no alternative motive in this instance: my sole purpose of speaking to this complete stranger was to get my mother’s bag. However, her response, though I still believe it was unnecessary, was a (likely) understandable one considering the context. Her crudeness was quite possibly a reaction to a reality that she faces on a daily basis as a woman. In our world of normalized power dynamics, those who get the short end of the stick have the burden of interpreting behaviors as specifically inappropriate or not. Not every accusation of sexism or racism or homophobia is going to be accurate. That being said, it does make sense that such claims will be made.
For those of us who find themselves in the midst of these misunderstandings, it is important to take this into consideration in our pursuit of a solution. Additionally, we must really ask ourselves if these claims do not lack truth. Before getting defensive we should be reflective. Instead of being so quick to defend ourselves we should prioritize self assessment so as to make sure we are not guilty of unacceptable action. If we refrain from doing this, we may justify and thus perpetuate such behaviors. As the beneficiaries of power dynamics, it is anyone in a power position’s responsibility to hold ourselves and each other accountable for potentially taking advantage of our positions in any type of hierarchy. Making sure the world is comfortable for those not in positions of power is part of that responsibility.