“Hey Mami” has become my second name.

It wasn’t a choice of my own, of course. Instead, it was one that men on the street decided to assign, partly as a compliment on my appearance, partly as a possible cure for boredom, and partly as a means of easing the alienation they may feel in the modern city. But I felt that their utterances (sometimes even exclamations!), which ranged from simple hellos peppered with terms of endearment (“shorty”) to explicit comments on my anatomy, and the skills they seemed to think I would possess as a result, came from a deeper place. They were words meant to remind me of my gender, that I was a woman, primed by society to think and behave in a certain way, and to be available to accept condescension at random. They were words to keep me in my place.

Yet in the street, I am allowed to respond with steely silence, my screwface a clear indication that I am not interested, without my even having to say a word. Thanks to what is now five and a half years in New York City, my training season is over, and I can now combine a cold face with an equal indifference in my body language. Words that used to shock my confident stride into a stiff-shouldered awkward gait now go through one ear and out the other—at least temporarily. Of course, really juicy street statements are filed in my mental database and shared with friends who have equally salacious verbal assault stories, but for the most part, they are annoyances that I can disregard, that I can let go long enough to live my life. They, without a doubt, unfavorably influence my thoughts on males of the species, but I find myself hanging up the stereotypes upon a moment’s notice, ridding myself of negative sentiments stored up for men when I remind myself that some of them have good intentions, do good things, and prefer a polite exchange of smiles in the street as opposed to lewd public statements as a method of expressing their pleasure in seeing a girl’s pretty face or figure. Those types of men were “raised right,” I say to myself, and the pent up anger from blocks worth of catcalls dissipates.

But lately, something hasn’t gelled quite properly, even with evidence of “good men.” I have grown to question the standards we have for these types of men, the exceptions to the rule, the men who still give up seats, hold doors, and pay for expensive meals. Were the expectations such men are supposed to meet unrealistic in conjunction with my defining myself as their female equal? Could it be that their actions were, in the end, not entirely antipodal to those of the men who “hollered” at me in the street, despite their having entirely different intentions? Were their actions steeped in respect or simply examples of a subconscious belief in women’s helplessness, our being the so-called ‘weaker sex”?

These are the questions that run through my mind every time men at work (some of whom would yell disrespectfully at their secretaries or forget their wives’ birthdays year after year or who would support legislation that limits women’s reproductive choices) seem dumbstruck by the idea of entering an elevator before a woman or who stall awkwardly if a woman extends the offer of an open door. Is it that such manners are ingrained in their heads, a part of corporate culture, or is it a façade, a get out of jail free card to excuse blatant acts of sexism at all other times? Going even further, I began to ponder one of the key conundrums for the postmodern feminist: is special treatment from men technically a form of sexism?

My Southern roots scream a resounding “no” at this point, as I was surrounded by men who, at least on the surface, were respectful to women. As I grew older, however, I realized that the “Southern Gentleman” ideal was simply that, an ideal. It was an expectation that fostered certain public behavior only to be tempered by behavior behind closed doors that was anything but respectful toward women. Sexism was rampant in the church, in school, in the home, but having doors held and other acts of below the Mason-Dixon Line finesse were surely to distract me from these other ills. The forced patience men exhibit as they hold doors reminded me that I was merely being appeased. They were doing something they had been told to do, not necessarily something that was that much a sign of respect after all. It was not an innate behavior, it was something that, unintentionally or not, was done in order to show that he had passed home training beyond the diaper stage.

Thinking about this as a black woman made my situation doubly complicated. Here I was, considering the impact of accepting an opened door, one of the most trivial situations I’ve ever considered writing about to date, as being contingent upon my condition as an equal—as woman to man, black to white. Both parts of my identity demanded respect. Afterall, it was long overdue for blacks and women, right? And public displays of good manners could be easily read as a gauge for the level of respect a peer holds of you. At the same time, however, I didn’t want any favors. I didn’t want to be treated differently based on preconceived notions, including that of ability. I struggled with the idea of my possibly being considered ungrateful, but to be honest, I did not feel that this distorted, realtime affirmative action based on gender and race worked for me.

As I discussed in an old blog piece on Michelle Obama, black women tend to be caught between a rock and a hard place. It’s difficult to fight for equality as members of the black community but at the same time put our needs on the backburner for the sake of men, often black, but nevertheless, men. The sacrifices black women are expected to make for “the cause,” for the black community, are great, so much so that they stand in the way of our own consideration of ourselves as women. What comes first? Blackness or womanhood? This question, coupled with several objections to feminism by women of color, makes the decision more difficult than it appears. One of the reasons I felt ill at ease in any situation in which a man treated me differently hinged on the interpretations of black femininity.

It had been robbed from us by popular culture and the media as we are, more often than not, reduced to tropes that desexualize or oversexualize us, and in turn, externalizing our womanhood for public, instead of personal, use. As the mammy, we are to act as surrogate mothers, whereas in the role of jezebel, we are to act as surrogate lovers, both actions seen as temporary by our employers (i.e. masters, johns, lovers, and by extension, the society who interprets our role as such), yet a permanent state of being from which black women could metaphorically never escape. We are suspended in time, trapped in roles that have never fit us, but that we cannot shake. In addition, now we have the contemporary stereotype of the black power bitch, the corporate woman in her expensive pants suit with a shoot from the hip, no holds barred assertiveness and a trail of college degrees to match. Like mammy, this stereotype “masculinizes” black women, making us the poster children for intimidation. Yet like the jezebel, this stereotype also makes us inaccessible, impossible to tame or control. Once it was our sex drive, now it’s our hunger for power and social mobility. There is also the popular image of the black single mom—abandoned by her ‘NGBM” or “no-good black man,” or so the stereotype goes. She was sexual at one point, possibly carelessly, but now focuses only on her job and her children. She too is seen as powerful, and any vulnerability she may exhibit is usually on account of financial problems or job woes as opposed to relationship issues, as her prospects in that realm are nonexistent. Her devotion to providing to her children makes her somewhat inaccessible as well. Her attention is reserved for her children or her own personal needs, leaving little time for anyone else. The corporate woman requires no assistance from men for her success, both occupational and personal, nor does the single mom, whose experiences have left her jaded when it comes to men.

This was my present life and my future, respectfully, as laid out by society, making me reluctant on the one hand to refuse gender-based displays of “good manners,” as accepting them could be my ticket to be seen as a woman (read: representative of femininity) as opposed to a Black Woman (read: representative of a masculine stereotype). Yet in rejecting these displays of chivalry, I could claim a connection with feminism, a method through which I might acquire equality. I was dealing with a split mind, as if two sides were competing as rivals for the sake of conquering the other, and I couldn’t make a decision.

Yet in this mental struggle, I somehow struck a balance. I realized that it was not entirely impossible to experience blackness, femininity, and black womanhood simultaneously. There simply had to be a sense of give and take. I could avoid held doors and go Dutch for the rest of my life, but it might make me end up socially awkward more so than it would result in my being seen as an equal. The real shift into equality was more a matter of time and achievement that went beyond the thoughtless few seconds it took to hold a door. But in addition, if I wanted to be treated as an equal, I had to worry far less about action and more about thought. It was a matter of engaging in the process without dwelling on the superficial aspects of it. To be treated as an equal, I needed to consider myself as one in my mind first, and from then on, though the process might be difficult, the pieces would fall into place on their own, one day at a time.