We all have pet peeves, those little things that irritate us beyond reason. This is in opposition to hills to die on, which are also things that may be petty to some people, but they area big deal to (general) you. In other words, they can end up being bigger pet peeves.
My example is wearing a bra at work. On Ask A Manager, there was a heated (much more heated than I expected in 2023) debate over whether bras should be required to wear at work. By women. I mean, the debate was by women–not the wearing of said bras. Yes, that was also assumed to be by women, but that isn’t my point.
My point is that I stopped wearing a bra for good during the pandemic as many women did. I rarely wore one before that, either, but that’s when I realized taht I did not have to wear one at all. Ever. I don’t work outside the home, but I would absolutely not wear a bra if I did. In this post, a person wrote in to say that they had been taken to task for not wearing one. I fully expected the women who read the blog (mostly progressive people) to be at worst equanimous about wearing a bra to work. At At worst! But, no. There were many women who were appalled at the idea of not wearing a bra to work. One even went as far as to say nipples were disgusting. I mean, the OP said they (I believe they were nonbinary) were careful to make sure nothing showed, but the fact that nipples existed and there might have been some jiggle really upset at least one woman in the comments.
I said that if I worked in an office, this was absolutely a hill I would die on. Me wearing a bra had no effect on my ability to do any office work, and I could not stand how they felt. Someone said it was a privilege to be able to say that, and I said absolutely! But I meant it and those of us who had the ability to use that privilege for good should do it! I mean, what’s the point of having privilege if you can’t leverage it in some way?
This is my issue with just telling someone to check their privilege. Usually, the implication is that they are saying/doing something that other people can’t do/say. Which ,ok. That may be true, but what should that person do after checking it? It has become a ‘gotcha’ statement without any meaning behind it. For me, checking one’s privilege should be followed with an action predicated upon checking said privelege.
For me, the bra situation would be me checking my privilege (I could afford to leavea job for this reason) and then using that privilege to speak up on something that other people may not be able to. In addition, there were several women in the ‘suck it up’ category. They were really dismissive of the whole thing, saying it wasn’t that big a deal to wear one. If that’s the case, then why was it equally not a big deal to NOT wear one?
