I’m white, and married to a black woman. Gotta say, this is pretty accurate. Add shitty service from wait staff when the white person a table over gets regular checkups, and doctors not taking anything she says seriously, even when her symptoms are obvious. And people being rude to her when she asks a question, but nice to me when I ask them the same question a moment later.
It’s one thing to know, in abstract, that racism exists. But experiencing it through what my wife goes through on a daily basis has really opened my eyes. It feels like we exist in 2 separate worlds when we’re not out together.
To add: some of the comics, as well as your, examples are good examples of intersectional discrimination. To take a particular one: the doctors-not-taking-you-as-seriously thing happens to all women. But it’s much worse for black women in particular. And it’s also not as bad for black men as it is for black women.* So, that’s an issue she’s facing in this severity because she’s black AND a woman. There are many such intersectional issues, and it’s important to acknowledge and work against them. Anything related to children is similar.
- I remember that from a statistic, I’ll try to look it up if anyone would like me to
doctors not taking anything she says seriously, even when her symptoms are obvious
I’m married to a white woman, and she also experiences this, so this might be a gender discrimination problem, rather than (or in addition to) a racial discrimination problem, sadly.
Older doctors were literally taught that black women have a higher pain tolerance. This in part originated from an early gynecologist doing experiments on black women slaves without bothering to give them any anesthetics. His justification for it was basically that they could handle the pain, and there are doctors practicing medicine today that still belive it.
We’re both Eastern Europeans in Western Europe, so not visible minorities until we open our mouths.
We were recently house hunting, and my wife is the sole earner.
I can’t count how many times we had to explain that, or how many times we were disadvantaged against people with the opposite situation. When we applied for a joint bank account with both of us working, guess whose name they put on the account. Or try getting hired without getting asked about your family situation. For her, it always comes up in “small talk” in interviews, very obliquely of course. For me, maybe six months to one year into the job.
On the other hand, she opens the street door every time there’s a heavy delivery, as they don’t try to have her carry heavy cargo to our apartment like they do to me, despite it being paid for.
Yea, that part is a gender discrimination issue, some doctors will refuse to even tie a woman’s tubes if they’re “too young” saying shit like “What will your future husband think” and if they are married already even saying shit like “You’ll need your husband’s permission/need to be present”
It’s disgusting.
I think it’s both. It probably starts with gender discrimination (as the medical field highly favors men. Look at the differences in how we are taught about heart attacks for men and women for example) but then on top of that, it adds the racial discrimination.
Black women (and especially queer black women) are among the most discriminated groups sadly
That’s why the term “misogynoir” exists. It’s both, and they pile on and increase each other.
