Please stop gaslighting femcees with sisterhood questions
Drake releases "Push Ups" and no hip hop analysts are asking "Why don't men get along?"
I’d quietly turned in my two weeks’ notice at a former job. I didn’t make a big deal out of it. I let my supervisor know. I let Human Resources know. And I quietly continued to work for the next five days. Around day six, when I was working from home, a company email went out to the team, letting them know I was outta there in the next few days.
I’ve never been one for long goodbyes. If we’re real friends, it wouldn’t be a goodbye anyway. I’ve lost count of the number of prior co-workers that I’ve gone out to bars, restaurants, parties and movie theaters with. But if we were never chummy to begin with, there’s no need to make a grand announcement about leaving.
So I was surprised when a particular employee from another department came over, leaned over my desk and said, “Is there something you want to tell me?”
I looked up at him, confused. The look on his face told me the answer he wanted me to give him, but this wasn’t someone I regularly hung out with. We’d never gone to lunch together. I’d see him at the occasional company gathering, wave at him in the lobby and played a trivia game with him at a Christmas party, but we wouldn’t have been considered “friends.”
“Is there something you want to know?” I asked, meeting his gaze.
He stared at me. I stared back. Finally, I laughed. This was clearly important to him, although I didn’t really get why. He asked why I was leaving.
My response, “Long story.” I turned back to my computer to continue working.
“I’ve got time,” he said.
I raised an eyebrow and met his gaze again. Why was me leaving such a big deal anyway?
I realized he wasn’t going to let this go. We exchanged phone numbers and personal emails, and he told me he’d schedule a lunch for us to talk. I gave him a thumbs up and assumed that was a lie. Again, we’d never hung out. He gave me hotep vibes, but he seemed nice enough. If I saw him at a company meeting, I’d wave and crack a joke or two. But outside of work, we knew nothing about each other. At the end of week two, he was right back at it with the emails. He absolutely wanted to meet up so he could find out why I was leaving.
After leaving an interview with a potential new client in the neighborhood, I turned my phone on. He had texted me to make sure I was still willing to meet up with him for lunch. I agreed. We met up. I picked out the restaurant to go to. After he paid for our food, he looked at me expectantly, waiting for me to start the story. And so I did. From beginning to end, I told him exactly why I was leaving that job.
By the time I was done, he gave me a “tsk tsk tsk” face and said, “You just seem so angry. I thought your team bonded more. You don’t seem to get along with women.”
I gave him a blank stare. Throughout my story, I’d mentioned multiple women that I did get along with, how flattered I was when two other women in my department invited me out for drinks and dinner before I left, and complimented two other women who’d I’d occasionally go to dance classes with on our lunch breaks. But all he heard through my entire story was that I didn’t get along with two women, and he latched onto that as though it made up the entire female population.
His take reminded me of another boss at the same company who used to constantly ask other female employees if I’d gone to lunch with them as much as two guys who were my regular lunch buddies. Why the VP of a company cared about who I ate lunch with is still beyond me. The fact that these two were friends made so much more sense to me that day.
Shortly after the second guy lectured me on sisterhood, he claimed he had a meeting to get to and stormed away from the table as if I’d just dogged out his mom. It was the strangest goodbye lunch I’d ever had. I finished eating my (free) meal, checked my emails and went right back to responding to new clients. Even cringeworthy hotep lunches don’t stop me from making money.
Deja vu: Femcees get challenged about girlhood far too often
That guy’s memorable reaction to my two-week notice reminds me way too much of recent interviews I’ve watched with Cardi B. and GloRilla. Every single time they get interviewed by a man (or group of men in two cases), the same question keeps coming up: “Why can’t female rappers get along?”
Never mind that Cardi B. has teamed up with Meg the Stallion twice (“Bongos” and “WAP”), or that GloRilla just put out a single with Meg (“Wanna Be”) and gushes over how much fun she’s had hanging out with Beyonce. Never mind that both women worked together on “Tomorrow 2,” and “WAP” introduced Normani, Rosalía, Latto, Sukihana and Rubi Rose to anybody who didn’t already know them.
Yet, these women are still getting asked, “Why don’t women get along?”
What they really want to ask is why all these women who do get along can’t get along with one other woman? This question is not only annoying; it’s hypocritical.
Why? Drake is out here being Thanos to a whole slew of 2010-and-beyond male rappers and not one of these commentators has asked, “Why don’t men get along?” They’ve definitely pondered on what Drake did to have all of these rappers and producers coming at his neck. Instead of asking why the entire male species doesn’t get along, they’re keeping the commentary focused on “Push Ups,” “Like That” and “Might Delete Later.” Kanye and Pusha T are even being thrown into the conversation. Yet with all these men that have been named, I’ve yet to hear a lecture on why men need to make the rap version of “Kumbaya.” Their disagreements are just described as “competitive” and “battle rap.”