Sweetheart, Sit Down – I Actually Do Know Things – Uninspired | Unoriginal

Gather round, children. Aunty Kate is about to deliver a TED Talk nobody asked for but everyone desperately needs.

The Art of Being Condescended To While Knowing You’re Smarter Than the Person Condescending

You’d think, by now, the world would’ve learned that speaking to women like they’re confused toddlers is not a good look.

Yet here we are, surrounded by people who treat every conversation like a charity project.

Most offenders are, unsurprisingly, men. They all blend into the same genre of hero-complex mansplainer. They hear me say literally anything and immediately feel the need to swoop in like off brand superhero:

“Fear not, citizen! A woman has expressed knowledge! I must rescue her from her own thoughts!”

And honestly, the hero complex some of these men have is unreal. The way they swoop into conversations like they’ve been waiting their whole lives for this exact moment, like the universe finally provided them with a woman in distress so they can fulfil their destiny.

They don’t just correct me.
They arrive.

Chest puffed out.
Eyes full of purpose.
Voice suddenly thick with that “I am the chosen one” energy.

You can practically hear the imaginary soundtrack in their heads.
Violins. Drums. A heroic breeze. A cape, despite no one inviting wind into the chat.

They talk like I’m standing on a metaphorical ledge, emotionally fragile and ready to leap into the terrifying abyss of…having an opinion. And there they are, ready to “save” me with their pure delusion.

Some of them genuinely look proud of themselves. Like they’re fulfilling a community service requirement.

“Don’t worry everyone, I’ve got this, I will protect this confused woman from her own brain!”

Sweetheart, the only thing I need rescuing from are the fumes coming off your ego.

If I ever needed actual saving, my nephew already offered and he’s an actual superhero in training. Kid’s got moral integrity, enthusiasm, AND functional listening skills. Three things the Marks-of-the-world lack entirely.

Besides, I’ve been saving myself for over ten solid years.
Legitimately saving myself.
Dragging myself out of trauma pits these men wouldn’t survive ten minutes in.
Holding my own life together with grit, therapy, and stubbornness.

These guys can’t even hold a conversation without trying to centre themselves.
But sure, babe.
Tell me more about how you’re here to save me from my own competence.

The whole hero routine is so hilariously misguided that I almost want to pat them on the head.
Almost.
If I didn’t also want to yeet them into the sun.

They don’t want to help.
They want to feel needed.
They want to feel powerful.
They want to be the protagonist in a story where the damsel is too stupid to know she’s in danger.

Newsflash.

To quote Meg:

I’m a damsel, I’m in distress, I can handle this.
And you’re not the knight.
You’re the guy who wandered into the wrong cave and is now lecturing me on how fire works when I have electric lighting and a gas boiler. That and you know I have a degree in chemistry and well fire is simply the result of combustion…

And then there are the women who’ve joined the condescension relay.

Tracy Johnson, yes, we are all looking at you, a woman who speaks with the polished condescension of someone who treats internalised misogyny like a personality trait.

She has that tone, syrupy, glossy, “aww bless her heart,” the kind of tone that could curdle milk. I could deliver an entire academic presentation with sources, citations, charts, a bibliography, and a Q and A, and she’d still say:

“Awwww. That’s precious, darling. But you don’t understand, and you’re wrong.”

FROM.
A.
WOMAN.

Now let’s take a moment for where I come from.

I was raised by working parents who taught me the religion of hard work. Maybe a little too well. Long hours, always striving, always learning, always doing.

But they also gave me something crucial. They never made me feel like being female limited me. Not once. I wasn’t treated like I was fragile or incapable. I was treated like a human being, ambitious, smart, slightly unhinged, and fully able to tackle whatever life threw at me.

I know what I bring to the table.
I have a degree, a master’s, a PhD, a PGCE, a high IQ, ADHD-fuelled hyperfocus that could melt steel, and empathy levels high enough to gather satellite data.

Yet somehow, I get dismissed as:

“an over emotional woman who just doesn’t understand.”

Classic.
The old “emotion trumps intelligence” card.
Wielded by men.
Wielded by women.
Wielded by people who clearly skipped the life lesson that gender isn’t a limitation.

Meanwhile, I’m offering facts, literal peer-reviewed evidence (that they never want, by the way), while they shake with rage because I dared to challenge their favourite YouTube prophet.

And then there’s the trauma bit.

My nervous system has been lovingly preprogrammed by an older man who spent years treating me like I was too young, too female, too soft-minded to have a valid thought. He combined trauma with intellectual belittling like he was baking the world’s worst cake.

So now, when someone slips into That Tone, the “don’t worry your pretty little head” tone, my trauma brain hits the nuclear button before my logical brain even picks up its coffee.

I snap.
I get sharp.
I go full rabid scholar.
Not because I’m “emotional,” but because I’ve lived through being silenced, dismissed, diminished. Because I have PTSD.

And despite all of it, I STILL don’t lord my knowledge over people.

I don’t whip out my degrees like a LinkedIn sword.
I don’t assume I’m right unless I’ve done the research.
I don’t swan around acting like the Internet’s gift to humanity.

Am I a dickhead? Absolutely, one hundred percent.
But I’m a dickhead who listens.
A dickhead with sources.
A dickhead who respects evidence more than ego.

Even Dave, my stubborn, argumentative other half, doesn’t pull the sexist rubbish. He disagrees with me because he thinks I’m wrong, not because I happen to be a woman who dared to speak.

What I want is embarrassingly simple:

Treat me like I have a brain.
Treat me like I’ve earned my knowledge.
Treat me like my opinions aren’t wild hallucinations brought on by estrogen.

Because if you come at me with condescension, hero-complex energy, and blatant misogyny?

If you think I need rescuing from my own mind?

If “sweetheart” is your way of dismissing my intelligence?

Then do us all a favour sweetheart.

Sit.
The fuck.
Down.