Friend or Foe?

Posted on May 20, 2020 by Jan Wilberg

I came across this one just now and thought, yes! I’m still game for being ‘exceptional.’ Why the hell not?

There is a peculiar blessing in being underestimated, the most obvious benefit of which is having to only slightly exceed people’s very low expectations to be considered exceptional.

Watch the praise heaped on a child who can Velcro the shoes her mother bought instead of shoes with laces which she couldn’t possibly handle. Such accomplishment, never mind the bar is so low as to extinguish any light between it and the floor.

I have been underestimated my entire life. Every woman my age in this country probably had the same experience. No one expected much of us. We didn’t expect much of us. So if we did anything, finished college, had a decent job, paid our own bills, wiped the ketchup off our own chins, well, we were exceptional.

After a while, though, the sexist bullshit implicit in others’ minimal expectations of us sunk in. Wait a goddamn minute! You…

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