A man at work spoke over me twice and I carried it home like a stain

Dear Delyara, It wasn’t dramatic enough to report. That’s part of why it bothered me. He interrupted me in the meeting, then later repeated my point back to the room as if he’d had it himself. Nobody challenged it. Nobody said my name. The meeting moved on in that usual professional way where disrespect gets hidden inside momentum and the person it happened to is left wondering whether she is overreacting. I know this is not new. Women have been carrying these moments home for generations. Still, I was angrier than I wanted to be by the time I pulled into the driveway. That’s the cruelty of low-grade workplace disrespect. It doesn’t only happen there. It enters dinner, enters the tone of your evening, enters the amount of patience you have left for people who had nothing to do with it. I wish I knew how to leave those moments at the office door. I still don’t.