Growing up as the only daughter/sister and being significantly younger than my brothers put me on my proverbial back foot. Having a shockingly sexist, primary parent, mother didn’t help (she made it clear my job was to cook and clean for the males, and then to take care of her when she got sick). I remember Mom saying to a friend of hers, “[Son 1] will be a great writer. [Son2] will be a great artist. Leslie will end up dancing on a table someplace.” Yeah. I was born, and definitely raised, for therapy.
The “artist” has been an insufferable know-it-all forever. I really have no idea how his wife has put up with that behavior, especially since he is often flat-out wrong. He will never admit it. He will simply pull a face that is shockingly similar to Hegseth’s sneer. Yikes. Regardless, he isn’t a total idiot and made it on Jeopardy! before I did.
When I made the show, I had one primary goal: to do better than he did. I mean, winning would be nice, but beating him was what I had to do. For me. He had humiliated me and been emotionally abusive to me since birth. If I did worse, he would wield it like a sabre. He was a cruel bully and to this day has never been held to account for his behavior, except by me (I have not been supported by my family in this). Back when I was going to go on Jeopardy!, though, I knew that doing better than he did would hurt his ego and, yeah, I wanted that.
I did do better than him. Substantially so. Actually, I did really well (18 right including one Daily Double, missed one; 94.7%) and would have won but for a poorly worded Final Jeopardy question. I even got invited back because of that bad FJ clue and did money-total-wise better the second time (16 right with 1 DD, 1 wrong; 94.1%) but I still came in 2nd to a machine of a player–she was, at the time, called the female Ken Jennings.
How did he do? He got 10 right and 6 wrong (62.5%) and did not even make it to Final Jeopardy.
The “great writer” never quite finished his BA. The “great artist” got his BFA but was not accepted to grad school (at Ohio State). Me? I was asked to apply to grad school (at Ohio State) and given a scholarship and TA-ship. I did my MA and all my PhD coursework (I got me too’ed and did not take my exams or write a dissertation). I was told I’d had the highest results of my class on the MA exams. Years later (after Jeopardy! actually), I got a full scholarship to law school.
After being convinced my whole life that I was the least smart of “the kids,” it has taken me until shockingly recently to realize I am, rather, not only the most educated, but also the smartest (and, not for nothing, the most physically active). Even writing any of that now is uncomfortable, but I believe it is true.
That said, I also have struggled the most both personally and professionally.
These things are not disconnected. Women are constantly downgraded in their own families and by society. In hetero relationships, when they are “good” relationships, we do more. Just one general example: our most loving partners regularly dump the mental load of life on us then don’t understand why were exhausted (and bitchy for it). In our careers, we don’t get respected or paid enough. We have to do much more than our male (especially white cis-het) counterparts to be seen as even close to being “equal.” It’s exhausting and infuriating.
I remember working for a small, struggling creative firm, and, as a part of my studio manager job (which, of course, also required me to answer the phones–I know, right?!), I figured out how to restructure it to be more profitable and run more smoothly. I reported my findings and plan to the owner who, like a day later, called an all-hands meeting and read the bullet points off, verbatim, except for one where he gave one of the male employees the strategic planning position I should have received. The owner never acknowledged that the plan was my work and then gave the undeserving male employee a big promotion and raise (that guy was already making much more than I did–I knew this because I also did the payroll). I was flabbergasted. When I asked after the meeting why he did that, the owner acted like he had thought up most of the plan and said “[Male employee] would have left if he didn’t get the position.” I replied that, after getting screwed like that, I was leaving, and I walked out right there and then. But I did so crying, shaking with tears–feeling undervalued and asking myself if I was being too…demanding?
In personal relationships, I’ve done back flips to help the men in my life achieve their goals, supported them in their struggles, and far too often paid more than my share just to make sure the men didn’t feel like I was taking advantage of them. I have not asked to have my needs met because when I did, I have been called “demanding,” or “dramatic,” etc. I have been physically and sexually assaulted, by partners and others. I have worked on relationships, alone in trying to make it better, more often that I like to admit (that is, the guys didn’t work to change their behavior to make things better, but I did).
And I am not at all unusual, as a woman, in any of that.
I was raised to devalue myself. To see myself as less than, simply because of my gender. To feel that I must be wrong if I think I am as smart as (forget about smarter!) than my brothers or co-workers; or that I was equally deserving of respect and support; or that I was upset that people in my family would not take sides, my side, when I told them of the abuse(s) I suffered. I accepted it all as the cost of being a part of whatever the tribe was (family, work, partnership).
It took me a lot of therapy to do better in my own head about all of that. I was lucky I could do that–so many women can’t access that kind of help. And all my Buddhist studies also helped. But I still have days where I struggle. De-programming is a lifetime of work. Fighting the patriarchy is an added burden. But I am… better.
I cannot stand being called “Les.” And I choose to pronounce my name with a voiced z-sound (lez-lee). I always have and never could explain why. Very recently I recognized that it may have been a subconscious way of saying something important:
I am not less.
And certainly not less than.