And actually now that I'm thinking about it, maybe that's part of the reason that people who are benignly (for lack of a better term) biased insist so strongly that they AREN'T, that race or gender or sexuality or religion has nothing to do with their behaviors
Because if "people who might know more than me" is an unspoken category that applies only to Professors, Guardians, Role Models, and Peers- and NONE of those hypothetical persons LOOKS like "girl", in their head, they aren't treating girls like they're dumb- they're treating girls THE EXACT SAME WAY they treat EVEYONE ELSE...... who isn't more intelligent.
No wonder they're always so blind to it! They're looking for a big solid block that says "BELIEF THAT WOMEN ARE STUPID", and they're COMPLETELY MISSING the big, empty hole where "BELEIEF THAT ANY WOMAN MIGHT KNOW MORE THAN ME" should go
We don't *know* what we don't know not because something is missing or something else is in the way, but because it was never there to begin with