Playing Dumb For Men — A Latina Thing?

I know I’m not the only one who does it.

Recently a male friend of mine remarked upon an interaction I had with another, somewhat arrogant Latino male in a professional situation. He wanted me to do something that was dumb, and I quickly realized he wasn’t interested in my explaining this to him. So I responded in kind and played dumb. “I don’t understand what you want me to do,” I said to him in my best frail woman voice. He just looked at me, smiled, and said reassuringly as he patted my shoulder, “ Never mind,” and walked away.

“I like how you handled that,” my friend said to me. “Thanks,” I responded without thinking, “Playing dumb with Latino men works every time!”

It was only after the words escaped my lips that I realized how depressing it was that such a thing was my reality. Really? As an educated professional, the best way I’ve found to deal with men in professional situations is to pretend like I’m stupid? How sad for me, and for everyone else, I thought.

Later, as I was recalling this conversation with a few female friends who are slightly older than I — neither of them Latina — they looked at me and blinked, “No duh Sara.” They proceeded to tell me their own stories that pertained to bankers, to realtors, to co-workers, to professionals that were not Latino, but were just men, and assuring me that they, too, found it easier sometime to fulfill a man’s low expectations of their intellect rather than fight with them about it.

The fact that this phenomenon is not a Latino thing didn’t really make me feel any better. Is this just the way it is? Are women forever condemned to manage mens’ low expectations by fulfilling them, just to avoid having to fight about something inane? Are men ever going to be okay with the fact that some women are smarter than them, that women don’t need men to constantly tell them what to do, that perhaps someone who’s educated and professional might know what they’re doing — even if they were born female?

I’m sure this is an age-old story, but as far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t make it an any less tragic one.