[erikpukinskis]

I wonder if part of it isn't the "landmine mode" that minorities have to be in to succeed in the workplace. As a woman you have to be hypervigilant about how you are perceived amongst your coworkers. There are very small runways of acceptable behavior between pushover and bitch, between slut and ice queen, etc. There is the pressure to fit in and "go with the flow" but then there you know that when shit hits the fan (as it did here) your every move will be scrutinized and every opportunity to blame you for your misfortune will be taken.

As a result, I think minorities in the work place have a constant running double, triple, quadruple-checking loop for their behavior. Everything they want to say need to be run by a bunch of checks to make sure it meets the "safe for a male-dominated workplace" test.

As a result you're much slower to react to thing. As a majority member it's much easier to just blurt out your first thought, or to act out your first reaction... since you're the norm, it's reasonable to assume that your first instinct will be acceptable to the group.

But as a minority, you learn to second-guess yourself. Therefore even as someone is forcibly kissing you, you are second guessing what your options really are.