[rachelbythebay]

"No feigning surprise" or anything of the sort can be important. Years ago, I was in a college math class where the teacher used an analogy and mentioned John Elway. Yes, this class was being held in Colorado.

Anyway, one of the other women in the class asked who that was -- she needed context to better understand this guy's analogy. He was just flabbergasted, and could not believe that anyone could not know who he was.

It didn't help that this particular student had only been in the state a short time, was from New England, and probably knew nothing about football. This prof couldn't make heads or tails of that and proceeded to tear into her as if she was doing it on purpose.

There were many tears and a lot of bad feelings all around. I doubt she got much out of that day in class. I know I sure didn't.

Stuff like this can make or break a system.

[bitops]

You bring up a good point which is not exclusive only to women. People moving to the United States rarely know anything about football. (Not being born in the US, I had to Google to find out who John Elway is, but I understood from your comment that he was a football player).

It's a very common culture of exclusionism, but, I've observed both in the US and Europe that it's pretty much only guys who participate in it. I've only ever had a woman say "you don't know who X is?" to me in jest. And then she would always explain afterwards.