“I’ve dealt with severe pain thanks to my arthritis for about four years now, and while it doesn’t affect me all the time anymore, it’s bad when it does. When it hits me out of the blue, not everyone understands how this can happen and why I don’t talk about it as much. I don’t want this disease to be what defines me. Recently I ran into a situation that hit me in the gut. I’m a college student and had to miss class one day because of a flare up in my knees. I couldn’t walk and explained that to all of my professors. One professor emailed me back with a snarky response saying ‘I guess that sounds legit and you can be excused.’ There seemed like a hint of doubt which alarmed me but I brushed it off. That is until my grade changed hours later from an A to a C+ in the class for missing class. Surely its a mistake that could be fixed by me explaining in person why I had to miss class that Tuesday.
Nine days and several attempts to reach out to him later, we finally got to meet during his office hours. After barely speaking for more than a few seconds about how this situation has been upsetting, he proceeds to raise his voice over mine. ‘YOUR EMAILS HAVE BEEN VERY RUDE! EXPECTING A RESPONSE WITHIN TWO TO THREE DAYS IS UNREALISTIC! YOU ARE LUCKY I’M YOUR PROFESSOR AND NOT YOUR EMPLOYER BECAUSE YOU WOULD BE FIRED FOR THIS!’ I just wanted to explain what was going on with my arthritis. I couldn’t speak for ten minutes because he proceeded to interrupt me every time I tried to. When I eventually got to speak up I explained my arthritis…and told him I just wanted clear the air by explaining my absence instead of over email. He was still clearly heated and didn’t want to step back from his defensive stance and told me ‘arthritis is not a condition I would think I need to be sensitive about.’ He eventually half apologized by saying it was both of our faults and then told me I needed to clean up (referring to my blotchy face from crying) before coming to class. I’ve let people walk over me and directly and indirectly call me a liar about my arthritis, and this time I didn’t want to be stepped on any longer.
It sucks that standing up for yourself in the most professional way can lead to you being pegged as rude, defying the status quo and disrespectful. I’m glad I stuck up for myself but it’s given me time to reflect on others who have faced similar or worse circumstances. I can’t imagine what women of color face in this exact same situation...it’s not right. All women should be believed for their pain. Sticking up for yourself, especially toward authority should not be met with degradation. Believe us and support us.” –Ingram
Statistically, women are already less likely to be believed when we say we are in pain or something is wrong with us. The likelihood of this happening goes up even more if you are a woman of color. To discredit a woman’s symptoms because you don’t think they are “bad enough” or something you need to “be sensitive about” is a prime example of you falling into the group of people that continue to perpetuate the notion that a woman doesn’t know her own body and can’t be trusted.
Ironically, women also statistically have a higher pain tolerance, so while you’re over there bitching because your nuts got tapped, we’re over here trying to convince our doctors that our uteruses feel like they are being pulverized in a rusted blender while we walk on fire and swallow glass… but hey, we probably don’t know our own bodies, so–by all means–please tell us to go home and sleep on it. Fucking ridiculous.
