How we end up with different intuitions about problems

I have female friends who get way more street harassment than I do, even in the same city. I think it’s been ten years since a stranger got mad at me for not smiling. Even when I was a lot younger, it never happened to me much.

It must have to do with what neighborhoods we’re in, what places we go to, our clothes, bearing, etc. I assume I give off a particularly boring vibe. But I don’t perceive these friends as having that different a presentation from mine (for example, one still gets way more unwanted attention even while wearing a wedding ring, so it’s not just that).

If I didn’t hear their stories, I would be really miscalibrated on what’s out there.

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I notice this a lot with portrayals of breastfeeding and formula feeding. A lot of the breastfeeding resources paint it as a brave choice in a world where everything will be stacked against you. Their message is that you need support because otherwise the formula-pushers will surely push you into quitting. I’m sure this has been many people’s experience, especially those of many lactation consultants who raised their babies in the 80s and 90s. But it’s completely different from my experience in 2020s Boston, where breastfeeding was totally supported.

Meanwhile, other people complain about “lactivists” pushing breastfeeding on everyone regardless of their circumstances or preferences. That’s closer to my own experience, though I haven’t experienced the extremes that some people describe.

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The book You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories about Racism was another window into how people end up with such different perceptions of what real life is like. It’s written by two black sisters from Nebraska, one who stayed in Omaha and the other who moved to New York.

One author writes: “I moved away from Omaha many years ago and now I work in New York City, where I write comedy. Everyone I work with is stark raving normal. We don’t have any crazy bigots (dumb enough to run up) and I’m no one’s first Black friend. . . I’ve forgotten, more or less, the constant flow of racism one must endure to live in the Midwest and be the only Black person at work. It is an unchecked tsunami of dumb questions and comments.”

The book is speaking to two audiences: first, people who have been through these situations, who find the situations ludicrous but familiar. And secondly, people like me who have never had these experiences, who might have had no idea this even still happens in the 21st-century US.

As the title promises, much of the book is about crazily bad experiences Lacey has had in Nebraska. I lost count of how many times in the book she got fired unjustly.

In contrast, Amber in NYC describes a situation where an HR person thinks someone may have treated Amber badly. “This woman makes sure that I know that there will be no repercussions for anything I say. She lets me know exactly what would happen to the person if we found them. She asks a million questions. “Has anyone ever said anything suspicious to you at work? Has anyone ever been mean to you at work?” . . . it leads me to one conclusion: I am spoiled to a hilarious degree. She follows up with a phone call later in the week to make sure that I’m sure that I’m sure. I couldn’t believe it. She did such a good job. I’ve certainly been at places where I would’ve killed to have someone like her around. It is so crazy that this woman is the opposite of Lacey’s HR woman. The thought of someone being racist had this lady ready to go off! I loved her. I felt so well taken care of.”

For people who live in the enclaves where HR fires people for even a hint of racism, it’s hard to believe the other world exists. And for people who live in the enclaves where open racism at work is commonplace, it’s hard to believe that’s not the case everywhere. Lacey writes that she’s glad her sister moved to a place “where someone would get fired for out-and-out racism. I love that that really happens. Never seen it, but I love it. Like Santa Claus.”

I realize these aren’t as cleanly divided as “NYC” and “Omaha” – I’m sure there are elements of both realities in both places. But if you live in some places, you’ll rarely if ever encounter the other reality. Depending on which experiences you’ve had (both your race and where you’ve worked), HR people might seem obviously the people who fire you for racism, or obviously the people who fire you for speaking up about racism.

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All of these examples happen even with people from the same demographic. So I could say “I’m a woman, and street harassment has barely been a problem for me” and my friend (also a married white woman in her 30s) could say “I’m a woman, and street harassment is a routine part of life for me.” But we’re both telling the truth about our own experience.

The difference gets even more extreme because we all have access to an internet full of cherry-picked examples. If you believe universities are hotbeds of outrageous discrimination, or that they’re hotbeds of outrageous wokeism, the internet is happy to provide you with lots of examples of either of these.

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I suspect we’d all have better-calibrated senses of reality if we had better access to other people’s experiences like this. I found You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacy helpful because it’s basically a list of a whole bunch of concrete examples. If you notice that other people have very different senses than yours of what real life is like, consider writing up what some aspect of your reality looks like.