When asked about his writing routine, a male author notes that no one is allowed to speak to him until after noon. Now that is privilege.

In a December 2024 podcast replaying highlights from the American Writers Museum, AUTHOR TALKS, a male poet and essayist was asked about his writing schedule. He described what to many would be a blissful existence when he is writing from home. He gets up, meditates in his DOJO, then sits down to write for a few hours every day. He gardens in the afternoon. “No one is allowed to speak to me until noon,” he observed blithely.

The woman interviewer never blinked nor stepped aside from a deferential stance.

How I wished the interviewer had paused and asked about the privilege this exposed: How is it you can do that? Do you have children? Who gets the children’s breakfast? Who takes them to the bus? Who packed the children’s lunch? Who feeds the dog?

This sounds like a scene from a the 1880s when George Eliot wrote MIDDLEMARCH when women were expected to hover in the background, defer their own ambitions, and do everything possible to smooth the path for her husband’s success.