aesmael

Originally published at a denizen's entertainment. You can comment here or there.

Something I dislike about working with the public is the gendered depersonalisation that happens. To anyone with a small child in tow it seems I become "the man". "The man" this, "the man" that, "Don't bother the man" (even if I don't mind at all). Unexpectedly cutting since I otherwise manage to avoid that sort of thing. Especially, I don't like being used as a proxy threat to keep someone else's children in line.

I would say I should get a badge that has my name on it, instead of only 'volunteer', but the one I have for the toy library has my name on it and the same thing happens there. It's hard to make signs unmissable.

I suspect this hurts more than I am admitting to myself, but there is little I could do about it.