structural violets

Group of academics at the breakfast table, they are five women and one man. “So it involves all of my areas of interest,” says one, “gendered language, and… I’ll be doing some structural violence…” She rolls her hand to indicate these topics are known and need not be enumerated. “Oh, interesting,” says her nearest neighbour. The group is companionable and everybody is talking at once. But as soon as the man’s voice is heard (“I did my thesis on that. ~My first thesis,”) everybody shuts up and when I look up they are five women listening in silence, clasping their cups to their bosoms in two cases, gazing at him as audience. In the tiny elevator I encounter one of the women and tell her what I saw. We ride up through the building in peels of laughter. She is clutching a muffin in a napkin, minutely nibbled. “Oh,” she gasps, “thank you, that’s really interesting! Oh, I’m going to reflect that back to the group.”