What is missing in San Francisco
I’ve always felt like something was missing in my life living in San Francisco, and today I finally understand what it is.
My new housemate is a drama therapist, an eloquent debater, and a woman who carries herself with both grace and conviction. She’s Singaporean, educated in a world that blends the freedom of individualism with the gentleness of a collectivist culture.
At the house dinner last week, it started like any casual conversation, but the tension quickly thickened. Across from her sat the tech bro — a man of facts and logic, someone who believed the world could be neatly divided in half, like code on a screen.
Tech Bro: “Men and women can always divide house chores equally in half, and we’ll be fine. What’s the big deal? And I’m pretty sure none of you will marry someone who doesn’t do house chores.”
Roommate: “Take pregnancy, for example. It’s something men can’t experience, and it’s a trauma to the body.”
Tech Bro: “Yeah, yeah, I know about the C-section, bla bla bla.”
He answered dismissively, as if her words were trivial, as if he knew all about pregnancy.
Roommate: “No, I’m not talking about complications. Even in a perfectly healthy pregnancy, the body is torn. The chemistry changes. A child listens to their mother’s heartbeat for months before they’re born. They know her, feel her, and even after birth, that bond defines their sense of security. The closeness between mother and child in those first years is critical to their attachment style. And yet… taking care of that child is considered the bare minimum a mother should do. Meanwhile, men often get praised for doing the least — having the child’s name, ‘clocking out’ after work, and gaining recognition for giving a presentation in front of the team.”
Her words hung in the air, heavy and unapologetic.
Tech Bro: “Let’s leave culture out of this.”
I might have been swayed, but my roommate leaned in: “No. Culture is everything. You can’t just take it out of the equation. It’s embedded in how we live, how we see the world, how we raise our children, how we define family, and how we recognize — or fail to recognize — the emotional labor of women. Culture isn’t separate from these conversations; it shapes them.”
Her voice was calm but unwavering, cutting through his resistance with the weight of lived experience.
She wasn’t just talking about pregnancy. She was talking about the sacrifices that women make, sacrifices that go unnoticed because they are woven into the fabric of culture, seen as “just part of the job.” Women are praised for sacrificing themselves for the family, but how much sacrifice is too much? When women sacrifice their bodies (e.g., becoming a prostitute) to support the family, they are looked down upon. But when men sacrifice their bodies (e.g., being a soldier for the country), people clapped.
The tech bro leaned back again and concluded, “I could always counter your points.”
My roommate took it gracefully: “You can counter my points, sure. But I can counter you back too.”
I finally realized what was missing in San Francisco. While people here are knowledgeable and can discuss philosophy, culture, society, and humanity, there’s a profound lack of depth — the kind that only comes from an artful and cultural understanding of experience, emotion, and connection. It’s the humanity perspective that brings meaning to the intellectual, and without it, we are still that Hilter playing with art.
