“Speaking from a platform to a woman’s club, if one is merely an experienced speaker at women’s clubs, one notices whether the audience is smartly dressed, and how smartly.

If one is an American sociologist, one may add observations about the probable class level of the audience and the proportion of professional women (…)

But I never completely lose a still further point of reference—the awareness that my audience wears clothes. (…)

I do not cease to observe whether this is a patriotic group of women, valiantly and self-consciously wearing last year’s hats, or an afternoon group of women who are homemakers, or an evening group of women who, whether they are homemakers or not, don’t do homemaking in the daytime—but this other consciousness: “These people are completely clothed,” stays with me to widen my perspective.”

Implikation: Indem ich versuche den anderen zu verstehen, verstehe ich mich selbst auch anders.