No Need To Worry - Discrimination Is Alive and Doing Well

One thing that fascinates me is how our "defaults" control our lives. (I do admit, there are many many things that our subconscious does that just blows me away, this is just the one I'm going to get on my soapbox about today.)

 I use "default" to describe what I / people do without thinking; our programmed response even before we have time to process the information; what our mind does because that is what it has always done and will keep on doing over and over and over again, till we spend the time and energy to reprogram ourselves to react another way.  

The most resent slap-in-the-face of a default happened last week. To quickly set the stage:

1. I'm female.
2. I have my own interior design studio I'm attempting to build into my livelihood.
3. I'm in the middle of a remodel I'm over my head in.
4. I'm a women's right advocate and believe we are just as important as men and deserve the same respect and treatment.
5. I'm proudly a tiny bit of an airhead (it makes life with me fun!)

Here's what happened....

A very nice person responded to my posted plea on social media  for painting help; a builder offered me 4 hours of labor!!! (Wow; insert happy dance here.) I checked out who it was, looked at the profile, the pictures (all of which were of work done, nothing showing the person,) miss read the name, got excited, daydreamed about networking with *her*.  Within a day I had created in my mind a new friend and a chick-y-poo I could build a professional women building crew with. I was completely geeked about how amazingly we were going to connect during the hours she was volunteering her professional time to me without expecting any monetary compensation for her skills and knowledge.

The morning of the "get-together" arrived... The builder called confirming details and giving me a time frame of when *HE* would be here. There was a MAN's voice on the other end!!! I totally messed up the name and the sex of the person coming over!!! --- This is where it gets interesting --- I'm fine about a man coming over, as an interior designer I work with contractors all the time, this is second nature to me. The completely surprising, mind-blowing thing is that my first thought was "I need to pay him!"

When I (a women business person and women's right advocate) thought it was a chick coming over, I NEVER thought to pay her.  But, the second I discovered it was a guy - the tables turned and I moved to my default programming of "I needed to compensate for his inconvenience."  

I wasn't alone in this notion... After hanging up the phone I immediately called a close friend to update him on the change and to ask what I should do; his response: "Well, in that case you should pay him..."

Just for clarification - two small business owners, both believing in equal rights for men and women, had no problem NOT paying a hard working, knowledged and skilled  female builder, and believed, without a questioning doubt, that a man we knew nothing about deserved to be finically compensated for volunteering his time to help me.

REALLY!!! What an eye opener! I am speechless I did this! It was completely against what I say I'm committed to!!! Nice to know I have a unknown default about how men and women should be treated. I will admit, it does give me a deeper understand about why I do things. I hope I will work on my programming. I truly hope I will do things differently in the future. I hope... I hope... I hope... 

I'm curious... What would you have done? What's your default? Is it in tune with your commitments? Are you sure? (I thought I knew what I would have done.)