On Being Dismissed
Reflecting on moments of dismissal—and interrogating the mechanisms and power dynamics that shaped them.
A few days ago, I had a discussion with one of my professors about a story I had put together for his class. I was proud of the story—I thought the angle was very timely, and I’d interviewed dozens of sources who had validated the problem I’d observed. My professor gave me lovely feedback.
His response was encouraging because when I first tried to share the story with others, it didn’t feel like anyone was interested. I didn’t get any outright rejections, but when I tried talking to people about it, they just weren’t hearing me. When I shared that with my professor, he seemed incredulous that people wouldn’t be interested. I told him I wasn’t. In fact, I’m used to it.
Of course, I can’t say for sure whether that’s what happened here: Maybe the topic just wasn’t something people were interested in, which is a real and regular part of reporting. That’s part of the uncertainty and slipperiness of being dismissed, and what makes it so hard to recognize. Talking with my professor felt validating, then, because he affirmed I wasn’t totally off-base. But it was also infuriating, because I realized how much I’ve normalized not being heard.
I’m sure anyone who’s part of a marginalized community has felt this complex cacophony of feelings: doubt, frustration, anger when your points are dismissed outright—or, even worse, not acknowledged at all. This conversation reminded me of all the other times I’d had those experiences. They happen so often that I can almost join the dots together, creating a shape I cannot describe but whose boundaries and restrictions still define how I feel about myself and what I think I’m capable of.
Today, I want to give space to the pain of being dismissed and not taken seriously, especially because I first found the language to acknowledge dismissal while working behind the bar. I cannot transpose my feelings onto others, and there are experiences I’ll never understand nor be subject to because of the privileges I have. But I know so much of being dismissed is a lack of recognition. I can only hope that by sharing, others may feel a glimmer of recognition.
Neutral vs. Other
Recently, in my gender and women’s studies class, my professor (not the one above) wrote the following sentence on the board:
“Woman is devoid of or cannot have a ‘self.’”
She asked us to ruminate on what that quote meant to us, and I immediately thought of all the times when my identity felt tethered to a cis man.
Early in my coffee career, I worked at a shop with a regular customer who I’ll call Harry. We knew he didn’t like women: He’d specifically ask the male-presenting baristas to pull his shot of espresso. The owner of the store treated this behavior as an annoyingly charming quirk of a reliable customer who pumped $3 daily into his business.
One day, I was on bar, working with a barista—a man—who saw Harry’s behavior. We decided not to waver: I would pull Harry’s espresso, and we would not capitulate if he asked my colleague to jump on the machine instead. I pulled and served the shot; Harry took it, drank it, and thanked the other barista.
I complained to the shop owner, and he dismissed my concerns. He didn’t doubt the incident had happened, but he seemed to believe it was no cause to feel any emotion, and that my frustration was unwarranted. My emotions simply could not exist to this person, because nothing like this had ever happened to him.
The quote my professor wrote alludes to some of the themes of “The Second Sex,” Simone de Beauvoir’s seminal book on feminist theory. De Beauvoir argues that society considers men neutral or standard, while women are “the Other” and constructed in comparison. “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman,” she writes. The experiences of men are seen as the default; the defining perspectives society is built around. Women only exist in relation.
I remember the first time I read “The Second Sex.” All the undergraduates in my school were required to take a social sciences sequence. I took a course called “Self, Culture, and Society,” and de Beauvoir was assigned to us during the second quarter. It was the first book we read that was written by a woman. (We also read Franz Fanon around the same time, which was the first work by a Black author I was assigned—our reading lists were long and completely dominated by white Western men.)
De Beauvoir’s concept of “the Other” resonated with me when I first read her at 19, but not in a way I could articulate then. I couldn’t yet connect the experiences of my life with her conceptual frameworks. But I remember this sense of hollowness. I felt it viscerally, like my body was forming around the ideas and viewpoints of others. I had no natural form: I had to bend and twist myself to fit neatly into the world.
Re-reading her recently, I noticed both the limitations of her work—she only speaks to the struggles of white women, and doesn’t apply any sort of nuance to the concept of identity—as well as how different my response was to it. I could more easily make direct connections with my own life—I was transported to that moment behind the bar, my existence wiped away by the customer and dismissed by my boss because what happened to me had no root in the experiences of men.
For a while after that interaction happened, I doubted myself. Perhaps I was bad at making coffee, and Harry avoided me specifically. Still today, every time I feel dismissed, the first emotion that comes up isn’t frustration—it’s doubt.
I felt it again a few years ago, when I had a conversation with a coffee shop owner. He mentioned an article written about him for a trade publication, and I told him that I had written that article, and that we had chatted months ago via email. But he kept referencing the article and the author as if I weren’t standing right in front of him.
Instead of insisting he was talking about me, I ducked away from the conversation and hurried to my phone to check my past emails to make sure we had actually talked. I was concerned that maybe I was mistaken.
Dismissal and Power
To some extent, we all have to be dismissive—there’s too much information in the world for us to process and consume. And at some point, we’ve also all been guilty of dismissing others unfairly, imbuing our biases with how we assess a person’s lived experience. I know I’ve unfairly dismissed others; likewise, I know that I’m afforded more care than others because of the privileges I possess.
In my gender and women’s studies course, we’re reading manifestos from feminist movements throughout history. Boss Barista can trace its origins to a manifesto—my former co-host, Jasper, read a feminist coffee manifesto at an event I attended in 2016, and I felt immediately drawn to them.
In one of the pieces we read for the class, called “Poor Black Women,” Patricia Robinson argues that Black women should have agency over the choice to take birth control pills, and deftly breaks down how power structures continue to exist by dismissing the needs of the marginalized. “One’s concept of oneself becomes based on one’s class or power position in a hierarchy. Any endangering of this power position brings on a state of madness and irrationality within the individual which exposes the basic fear and insecurity beneath,” she writes, arguing that the survival of systems that enshrine certain groups’ needs over others depends on dismissing those with less power. She calls capitalism a “male supremacist society,” and says that to rebel is “to question aggressive male domination and the class society which enforces it, capitalism.”
Rebellion doesn’t come without pain, without feeling like you’re being slowly worn down. In “The BITCH Manifesto,” Joreen writes about women labeled as “bitches,” who don’t conform to societal expectations of what women should be. And while Joreen celebrates these women, she also acknowledges the feeling of trying to conform to a society that refuses to see you fully. “Like other women her ambitions have often been dulled for she has not totally escaped the badge of inferiority placed upon the ‘weaker sex.’ She will often espouse contentment with being the power behind the throne—provided that she does have real power—while rationalizing that she really does not want the recognition that comes with also having the throne.”
Both Robinson and Joreen offer promise, though, a route of reclaiming power. Robinson encourages others held under the thumb of white patriarchal supremacy to align “with the have-nots in the wider world and their revolutionary struggles.” Joreen reminds us that for whatever society has to offer, “bitches seek their identity strictly thru themselves and what they do. They are subjects, not objects,” challenging a world that sees them as “the Other.”
The pattern of certain groups holding control and dismissing those without it marks every kind of power struggle. For me lately, that’s looked like examining struggles between business owners and workers. Many union fights we see run on this exact premise: Workers’ concerns are frivolous, and paternalistic managers and owners want to lay claim to knowing what’s best for employees.
Still, understanding more about the power structures that create this dismissal—on a personal level and on an industry-wide scale—doesn’t make it any less painful to experience. Even knowing what I know now, I still have to work through the matrix of checkmarks and what-ifs every time I run up against a dismissal.
I usually leave a note for my editor, Claire, when I’m not sure how to end a piece. (It’s usually written in all caps, with an ungodly number of question marks and exclamation points.) It happens often: I’ll leave first drafts unsure how to close out my argument, and Claire generously gives me feedback and we usually cobble something together. But I’m not sure how to end this story because I’m unsure if there’s a direct pathway forward, a happy conclusion to take away. In fact, I’d argue that being dismissed stings more with age, as the signs become more apparent.
Maybe there is no conclusion, no neat little bow. What I do know is that telling stories about the truth of these experiences offers catharsis—and maybe that’s enough for right now.
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I’m in the swing of journalism school again, so next week we’ll be off. See you in October.
I'm not a writer. I'm a craftsman. And one of three left In the US in my specialty of antique mechanism restoration. I have had my 65 years of experience dismissed, by the arrogant, the ignorant, the unknowing, and with the desultory denigration of those who feel superior, or are of the instant gratification generation... and by cheapskates who dismiss my experience with the sobriquet "you are too expensive."
This used to hurt my pride of workmanship and my earned title of "Master Craftsman."
Internally I would seethe, and develop an attitude about these customers.
Dismiss me and my skill? Dismiss my whole shop and crew with over 165 years of experience?
Demean us with your superiority, self involvement and your Youtube "knowledge"?
Please, kindly go somewhere and fuck yourself to death...
I would summarily ban them from my shop and tell my colleagues to refuse work from them.
Me and my team work in all mediums. Wood, Metal, plastics, Cad design. robotics, and artwork.
I have well over a million dollars invested in my shop.
After a few years of this, I developed an instinct about customers, based on short conversations with them about what they wanted restored, or fabricated, or designed.
Now, I decided that there was no longer a need to take all work requested, but only from those who were sincere, and would not complain about price. Now we all feel better.
We do have a laugh at the expense of the unreasonable ones. but I still reflect on some of the very personal attacks I've endured from ungrateful bastards..some injuries are slower to heal than others.
As a result of years of this abuse, we are accused of being a bunch of assholes..by some.
Many times true, when the requests are ridiculous..I try to kindly throw them out.
But other customers rave about our work and its quality. Our good ones. whom we go far above and beyond the parameters of the job for. Who we love to see..
Now we are being dismissive, sending some away, the balance of power shifting slightly.
I could rant on with anecdotes about the worst offenders, others who think we should complete the work at Amazon speed, or work for free, but this is enough..
It comes down to being secure about knowing your worth, and that the bad behavior of others is no
reflection about the authentic You. It is their defect, and you need not accept it.
This dismissal is an artifact of the "Critical Culture" of the internet, when those with no demonstrable skills except how to pound a keyboard. try to bring this online attitude to the real world.
I'm ranting...My apologies..
Get to know our own heart, with an honest evaluation of yourself, not filtered through the eyes of others. Then stand firm. It may be scary at first, but ultimately you will feel strong..
Love to all of us work actually work for a living to keep food on the table, gas in the car, and the bills paid..
An Old Guy
Just popping in to say I appreciate your vulnerable ending. Your struggle to find a clear ending on these topics resonated with me, makes sense I think. Do we end with hope that the work is changing the world? Do we end with acknowledging the ongoing ways the systems seeks to ignore and erase our visibilities as BIPOC, queer and disabled people? I never know. But I like what you did here.