I have a vested interest.

In the fourth grade, I was obsessed with marine science and sonar technology, and I’d spend Saturday afternoons watching The Hunt for Red October instead of Saved by the Bell. That summer, I toured a Navy sub in dry dock– my first time! — and I asked the officer leading the tour when we’d be going to the sonar room. “Sorry, kid. It’s classified,” he said. Masking my disappointment, I replied that it was okay, because I was going to be a sonar technician when I grew up, and I could wait until then. “But they don’t let girls on subs,” was the officer’s surprised reply, as he looked at me as if I’d sprouted horns. When I asked why not, he told me I wouldn’t want to be stuck on a sub with a bunch of smelly guys anyway. My “Then…why aren’t there submarines for just girls?” got no reply.

So, I have a vested interest. 

I grew up with a father who told me that he thought women should stay in the home and that childcare was to blame for social evils, and that women were responsible for the poor economy because we were taking men’s jobs (but, he’s proud of me). I grew up with a mother who hated staying at home so much that she subconsciously took it out on us kids, because she grew up in a time when it was still not really a thing for moms to have careers. And then she got divorced her in her fifties with no retirement plan, no savings, no health insurance, and no marketable skills.

So, I have a vested interest.

In my teens, I learned to freeze when I felt an unwanted touch. I learned to make apologetic excuses to the man on the bus slipping his hand inside my overalls, to give a sassy wisecrack to the drunk pro football player who squeezed my ass while I waited tables, and to walk briskly past the catcalling boy’s basketball team with my head down. In college, I learned never to put my drink down unattended, not to do my laundry alone at night, and that abortions are cheaper if you drive to Canada.

So, I have a vested interest.

I went to graduate school in a department that had tenured two women in a century. I was told to freeze my eggs by one visiting speaker who showed me graphs of fertility rates and instances of Down’s Syndrome after thirty; another speaker told me that I should have kids now, because by the time I got a faculty job it would be too late. And then I saw how the women in my program who did have kids ended up leaving academia because the university system had zero support for them. And because I had no role models of successful faculty women who were also mothers, I put off making a decision about having babies until my reproductive system imploded and now I may never be able to conceive again anyway.

So, I have a vested interest.

I work at my dream job in a department that is majority male, with colleagues who sexually harass job candidates during teaching talks and students who comment on my clothing in evaluations and senior faculty who rub my arm when they ask me to guest lecture for their classes, and introduce me as a “good little girl” to colleagues. I am asked to take notes and coordinate department parties, but not to dinner with the chair, like my male co-hire is. I am mistaken for a secretary by university administrators, FedEx delivery men, graduate students, and sales reps, because I am the only women in the office fishbowl, even though my name says “Dr.” on the door.

So, I have a vested interest.

When I go on the internet to talk about my research, or to comment on how women should be allowed to have opinions on the internet without getting death and rape threats, I get death and rape threats. I have called the police and warned them that someone may try to SWAT me, and I have turned all the lights off in my house when I thought there were people outside circling my block to see if I was home. I have had to tell my (male) chair about why someone might contact him about me, because someone on Twitter said they were going to run me out of my institution for saying that sexual harassment at the workplace was wrong.

So, I have a vested interest.

I don’t walk around looking for sexism as though life were a scavenger hunt and the player who can collect the most grievances wins. When I’m watching a movie, or walking down the street enjoying a beautiful day, or reading read a book or giving a talk or buying toilet paper or drawing on the blackboard or running on the track or sitting in a meeting, I am not looking for sexism. Sexism finds me. It jumps out from behind a bush, or pops up from under the table, or falls like an anvil from the sky. It’s a punch in the gut; a slap in the face; a missing stair.

I am not disappointed by articles claiming sexism is dead because victimization gives me a leg up and I worry that I’m losing my edge. I get upset because those articles are biased and flawed and their authors claim that women are unhappy with their findings because we have a vested interest in maintaining our victimhood. As though pseudo-inequality was a job that came with really cushy benefits and perks and a company car. As though there were no opportunity costs, or emotional costs, or personal costs to a real, tangible thing.

So, I have a vested interest.

I have a vested interest in convincing you that sexism and misogyny are real, because they are.