I am treacherous with old magic
I had forgotten, or suppressed, the particular kind of knowing discomfort — indeed, a whole-body unease — that accompanies seeing women in highly visible positions being targeted by those determined to diminish them.
For some people…success comes with a threat model - Sarah Jeong, Deputy Features Editor at The Verge
We speak of dog whistles when what we should name is racism. We speak of glass ceilings and glass cliffs when seeking to describe the entirely predictable and utterly pernicious effects of decades of sexism.
We allow insinuations about intelligence to go unremarked. We act is if there is no historically violent context encoded in the vocabulary of uppity Negro, Angry Black Woman, DEI candidate.
There is no hazard pay for harassment — Kim Belair, CEO, Sweet Baby Inc.
To be exceptional already means that the rules were not intended to permit your success.
Even your laughter will be framed as an infraction, as an offence, as a failure to defer. Insufficiently demure, insufficiently mindful.
Yes, well-behaved women can make
history. But when they do, they often lose their reputation for being
well-behaved — Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, 300th Anniversary University Professor, Emerita, Harvard
Attribution
I have been woman for a long time beware my smile I am treacherous with old magic and the noon's new fury with all your wide futures promised I am woman and not white. — from A Woman Speaks by Audre Lorde