Step Aside

Note: I've just finished Terrible Virtue, a novelization of the birth control advocate, Margaret Sanger, by Ellen Feldman. I have my feminist rant on. Be warned.

There was an article last year in my daughter's high school newspaper about walking in the hallways at the school. One of the young women at the school did an experiment at the school where she walked down the middle of the hallways and did not move out of the way. She observed what happened and then wrote about it. (I wish I could find the article online, but I can't yet. Argh. If I find it, I'll post it.)

The guys in the school were less likely to move out of the way for women. I am guessing other social scientists have studied this phenomena as well, that the more powerful people perceive themselves to be within a pecking order (i.e., upperclass white males), the less likely they were to move out of the way. The less powerful step aside.

Imagine the White House. If Obama (or any of his 43 predecessors) walks down a crowded hallway, my guess is that the group would part like Moses parted the Red Sea. Everyone would push to the side and let him pass. I doubt there is any formal written etiquette about this like royal families around the globe have. The Queen walks in front, her consort walks ten steps behind. While the President is a big example, smaller ones abound on a smaller scale, but who is to say who is more or less powerful when two people cross paths know nothing about each other? Race, gender, age, class and mental capacity take over, and not in that order. Some people can't read social cues, and will plow through a crowd stepping on toes. Most civilized people will give elderly people with a walker space. But what happens when two middle age people cross paths? Who steps aside for whom?

Here I am conducting my own little social science project with my crappy leg. I can walk, and I make a huge effort not to limp. In my effort not to limp, I pretty much walk in a perfectly straight line, no bobbing and weaving gracefully around people like a basketball star. Think of me as Frankenstein with his straight ahead, lock-legged walk. I bet people get out of his way.

I've recently been to airports, the grocery store, restaurants, walking the dog in the park, etc. Since I can't easily side step to the left or right, I am the one not stepping aside. At times, I feel like ass taking up more than my share of the sidewalk or aisle at Bartell's.

Then there are times where walking is like a game of chicken: who will budge first? Not me. I might stop in my tracks, but I don't step to the side. This isn't intended to be a power play. Once a middle aged man of color stepped off the sidewalk to let me pass. I wanted to apologize to him: I am not being a jerk. I just can't move that way that fast. 

What did I learn? The people least likely to step aside for me are middle-aged white women. I almost got plowed over a few times at different airports this week. Men will look at me and when they see I am not moving, they will step aside. I don't think these women are committing micro-aggressions, but rather they might assume a mutual, half step aside from both parties. I can't yet do that dance.