*By Guest Author Meaghan Webster*

“Am I being oversensitive? Is this something that only I think is happening?”

I have thoughts like these frequently at work – particularly when a male colleague starts to explain a concept to me in great detail, such as the complexity of foreign policy, or the structural organization of the United Nations – not because I don’t want to hear about these things, but because my coworker has assumed I don’t know anything about them, and proceeded to “inform” me without considering that I might actually understand these subjects quite deeply, and maybe I had some insight to offer HIM. By the time he’s finished his “explanation,” I’m too frustrated and exhausted to correct him, so I silently wonder if I’m the only woman to feel this way in the professional world.