Chapter 5. A Woman's Place

Owning a house made me more aware of these stereotypes. When Chuck and I were living in an apartment, people didn't expect us to be like other married and settled couples. They didn't ask me about furniture, so I didn't know that many people expected me to be more interested in house decoration than in writing, teaching or running. Once I knew, I couldn't get over feeling angry and belittled. People talked as though, in all areas of life, women were more interested in surface decoration than content. When my friend Diane, a philosopher married to another philosopher, mentioned having helped her husband write his books, even some of our colleagues at the college assumed that she had proofread his manuscripts and suggested stylistic changes. They looked surprised to hear her husband say that Diane had helped him examine his basic concepts by challenging the weak links in his arguments. Talking about marriages and houses seemed to bring out everyone's sexism.
When Diane was teaching part-time at our college - where her husband teaches full time- she ran into someone from work while she was shopping. Her arms loaded with sweaters, she was looking for a fitting room. The man smiled at her, winked, and said, "Out spending your husband's money?" She nodded curtly and kept walking - when she got to the fitting room and closed the door, she realized that she was holding back her tears.
I understood how Diane had felt. She had been too shocked by the man's comment to respond or to correct him. What distinguishes unjust discrimination from other forms of rudeness may be that we never get used to it: every time, we are shocked and appalled as if it were the first time. I had known about sexism before Chuck and I bought a house. By reading books, attending women's studies classes, or watching interviews on TV never prepared me for experiencing it myself. Every time someone asked me  if I ironed Chuck's shirts, if I planned to work part-time or stay home once we had children, I wanted to cry or slam the door and walk out. I never got used to being reminded that I was "just a woman" and that a woman's place was in the house. I couldn't help seeing the house as something that was used to put a woman "in her place" - a form of punishment.

Kyoko Mori, Polite Lies