Oh yeah for sure, but this conversation already derailed, so no further dialog was necessary. I was coming from a point of view "small talk on a dinner table during hangout" and she came from a view of "You are sexist and I am mad at you" so, better to let the conversation die down and continue another time.
> she came from a view of "You are sexist and I am mad at you"
Is it fair to you? No, it isn't.
However you need to realize that _that question_ has been used, probably verbatim, in bad ways against her or her peers... therefore she has pattern-matched this into a sexist question too.
This is not an irreversible state. 99% of these communication breakdowns can be solved with a polite correction: "no, didn't cross my mind. I am sincerely curious about what drives that career decision, if I may ask".
I won't get entangled into a straw-man battle-royale, so if the person cannot recognize they made a mistake and correct course: sure thing I'll retreat.
That hasn't happened to me just yet, but I know it could. Fair? No, but it is what it is.
I am aware we are dissecting a quickly summed-up situation here, so my argument might not apply to the actual encounter you experienced. But if it does, I think you and lots of others are skipping on conversations that you actually wanted to have due to a very small and temporary defect on the dialogue.
Because the alternative is she's hypersensitive without any reason. You can, of course, -decide- that the person is just unreasonable, rather than try and figure out what might have caused her to respond the way she did, and be empathic towards it, but it doesn't seem like it'll get you far in life.
Well, the alternative is that a lot of people around her are misogynistic for no reason, so your empathy for her means you're assuming a lot of other people are unreasonable assholes. How far does this get you in life?
I'm a bit sad to see that awkwardness is seen as worse than resolving the conflict. I don't know the situation but I like to think that I would find it worth it to have a difficult conversation rather than keep everyone smiling.
But then I also am not part of any minority group. I'm a white male in a western country who is good at what he does, which would let me incur a lot of awkwardness before someone thinks that the problem is me. That might be different in your situation, or simply in that context, I don't know. Regardless, it makes me sad that there was a need to bury the topic.
