When you have real power, you can afford a scene.

A scene is a luxury of the strong.

When you have none — when the man in front of you holds your entire livelihood in his hand and can end it with a shrug — a scene buys you nothing but the brief, expensive satisfaction of having made noise, and it can cost you a reference, a final check, your last shred of dignity clawed at in front of a man who will only enjoy the clawing.

So I did not fight, and it was not weakness.

It was a hard, clear-eyed calculation made in half a second by a woman who has had to make such calculations her whole working life.

I would keep my dignity by keeping my silence.