Picture a dinner party. Someone remarks that a colleague only got her promotion because the company needed a woman on the board. A few people laugh. A guest near the end of the table, a woman who has heard versions of this remark her whole working life, says quietly that she found it unfair. The air shifts. Forks pause. Someone says, “Come on, it was a joke.” The host brings out dessert. Weeks later, what people remember is that the evening got awkward, and they remember who made it awkward. It was the woman who spoke.

That small scene contains a whole theory of social order. The discomfort in the room was real, and it had to…