I belong to a professional business club—a great place for meetings, one-on-one discussions and the occasional introspective time (fueled by their extraordinary chocolate chip cookies).

On that rainy afternoon, there were only two of us in the member’s library—a white-haired gentleman and me. The gentleman had spent his time on loud phone call after loud phone call. 

I was aware of his voice despite being in my “happy place,” what I call being in a reflective frame of mind, blissfully alone with my thoughts, and mostly immune to what’s going on around me.

I became aware of a very loud voice. One that’s shouting. Shouting at me.

“Young lady, young lady, I need you over here right now,” says the white-haired gentleman. He’s vigorously motioning for me to come his way as he continues his phone call.

Startled by his urgent tone of voice, I think something is wrong and quickly cross the room. As I get closer to him, he pushes a piece of paper across the table, and speaks into his phone.

“OK, Frank, go ahead. I found a woman here to be my secretary. What’s the guy’s name and phone number?” He points to the piece of paper that’s now in my hand.

I’m shocked.

A war was thundering in my head between my Midwest upbringing and its ingrained sense of courtesy and my spirit of gender equality.

Courtesy won.

Seething, I wrote down the name and phone number. The white-haired gentleman had his fingers on the corner of the piece of paper the entire time I was writing. As soon as I wrote the last number, he picked up the paper and wiggled it in my direction. He continued his phone conversation, never making eye contact or  acknowledging me in any way.

I had been dismissed.

Holy crap.

I grabbed a couple of chocolate chip cookies on my way back to my table. Those cookies are excellent for fueling reflection, not so good for soothing raging injustice.My brain was in hyper-drive.

How dare he treat me like some 1950’s secretary out of Mad Men? How idiotic am I for complying? Was I dealing with gender stereotypes, stupidity, zero social skills? Or was it something else?

Frustrated and puzzled, I packed up my stuff and headed for home, still fuming at both the white-haired gentleman and myself. I’d let myself be a part of gender stereotypes. Grr.

The next day a friend shared a story of how a friend of hers had been the victim of a racial slur. I asked her if her friend had engaged the individual in a discussion about how disturbing the comment was. No, came the answer, it was easier to just walk away.

Just walk away…exactly what I had done with the white-haired gentleman.

Out of the blue it hit me:  two opportunities for teachable moments had been lost. Had that woman and I just talked to the parties who had been involved. We could have been enlightened and perhaps could have done some enlightening of our own about racial and gender stereotypes.

Perhaps the white-haired man and the woman with the intemperate tongue were blinded by unconscious bias.

Perhaps they were unaware of how they were perpetuating stereotypes.

Perhaps they are totally aware of their prejudices and don’t care.

Perhaps the insulted woman and I had climbed the ladder of inference, propelled by our own hot buttons and views of the world. Perhaps we had misinterpreted what we thought had happened.

In the absence of taking the initiative to have a discussion where clarifying questions could be asked, neither one of us knew for sure what factors were in play.

Guess what I’m going to do the next time I see that white-haired gentleman at the downtown business club?

Image credit:  Dreamstime