I did not even notice I was doing it.

That is how deep it ran.

My father had not taught me his opinions, which I could have rejected; he had taught me a reflex, underneath opinion, in the place where you act before you think — the reflex that says the men hold the truth and dole it out, and the women are protected by their ignorance, and this arrangement is kindness.

Unlearning an opinion takes an afternoon.

Unlearning a reflex your father wrote into you before you could talk takes something closer to a catastrophe.

Mine took exactly that.