Kathy Griffin once said "Women eat their own." I have said that women fight with each other over the crumbs society allows us to have and it does us no favors.
A primary premise of this blog is that women get socialized different from men and this happens from birth such that even women themselves cannot tell what parts of their behavior are "natural" -- grow out of innate brain wiring -- and what parts are learned behavior.
Women get socialized to have lives that exist in an artificially created "private sphere." In other words, they are trained from birth to be wives and moms.
Men get socialized for a "public sphere" existence. The suburbs were designed to separate those two spheres for men.
If you were male, you could have a job in the city, a house in the suburbs and keep your work life and family life separate.
If you were a 1950s style homemaker, running the household was your work and you had no place to go to get away from it. You worked at home. Cooking and cleaning was a large part of that.
For women currently, marrying well is not some kind of reliable life plan they can count on.
It never really was. There were always some women left out in the cold, but these days there are a lot more women left out in the cold if that is the only role to which we can aspire and hope it results in The Good Life.
Women have no choice but to try to find a means to adequately support themselves. We have no choice but to break out of that private sphere role for which we were trained.
It's a matter of survival, not just for individual women but for the human race and society. Doubling down on expecting women to limit themselves to the role of homemaker involves society cutting its nose off to spite its face.
And as women go out into the world to try to earn a living, they run into a lot of issues.
One issue is that nothing they wear for business is "right." If you try to be attractive, you're a sex object and not taken seriously. If you try to be serious, you aren't socially attractive enough to do business with.
It's a no win situation. There are no good answers.
And all women everywhere are trying to find a path forward. Different women try different things because nothing works and different people have different ideas.
And there are no good ways to talk about it.
If you talk about yourself, you get accused of being a narcissist. If you talk about other people, it's "gossip" and they will hate you for it. If you don't use real world examples and try to talk in politically correct generalities, no one understands your point or takes you seriously.
I've tried all of these approaches and none of them go over well. Talking about ME is the least worst one, though it becomes an excuse for men with personal issues who don't know how to have a real relationship to IMAGINE they know me INTIMATELY because they read a few blogs posts or public comments of mine and it also gets me accused of being a narcissist who only thinks or talks about myself.
Blogging seems to be less drama than leaving comments on public forums, but maybe only because I HAVE NO TRAFFIC. So the "not a shit show" answer has, so far, proven to be talking to myself in my little corner of the internet like a child told to sit in the corner and wear a dunce cap as punishment for something and it's likely making zero difference in the world.
Women online attract a lot of negative attention and drama. People are frequently interested in them for all the wrong reasons and engage with them in a very problematic fashion.
Over the years I have said on HN that prominent men ALSO attract a lot of garbage BUT there is enough good in it to be worth their while. They have to put up with a lot of shit, but have money, influence, power. Women get more shit than men and less money and power out of it.
Women as individuals do not generally know how to effectively navigate the public sphere. When two women talk to each other in public, their individual ignorance and ineptitude compounds and multiplies the problems.
I used to imagine women would be allies of mine on HN. In reality, they are typically a bigger problem for me than the men.
And they no doubt see me as a big problem for them.
And there are no good answers there either. Talking to them means we both end up feeling burned. Not talking to them means they think I'm giving them the cold shoulder.
I've tried both and it does not matter how reasonable I am, I get hatred no matter what I do.
The first discussion I participated in on Hacker News about Naomi Wu (aka SexyCyborg) was one where my comments were not well received nor understood but it was not a shitshow. It was me and people who probably understood I was a woman participating in good faith who just couldn't relate to what I was trying to say.
The second discussion I participated in on Hacker News went a lot worse. Among other things, my comment was flagged, I was accused of victim blaming and Naomi Wu showed up to attack me herself.
Over the years, I've reread those discussions several times and blogged about it a few times and later redacted those posts. I stand by everything I said, including:
1. I don't care what she does. She can dress however she pleases. Me participating in discussion isn't some attempt to police her behavior.
2. If she chooses to be what she called a "stem ringer" and write articles or give interviews about it, she should be okay with other women expressing their thoughts about the piece even if they don't fawningly agree with her approach.
3. I was doing nothing wrong by participating in discussion on a forum where I routinely participate in discussion and she was in the wrong to show up in my social circle and attack me.
But thereafter I mostly avoided the topic of Naomi Wu. She's a real person who has been treated terribly for being a woman trying to find her path forward. I'm not interested in adding to her pain and we are not friends where she and I can have a private chat and I can toss out my thoughts for her ears only and she can think about it and possibly modify her behavior if my thoughts do something for her.
I'm not obligated to fight her fight for her nor be her champion. I'm dirt poor and just trying desperately to make my life work and rest assured she isn't championing me.
At some point, someone created a new Reddit account to ask me why I wasn't dragging Naomi Wu publicly and linked to a tweet by Ms. Wu where she had screenshotted my Hacker News comments and dragged me.
Since it was screenshotted and not linked, it was not readily searchable, which was no doubt intentional on her part as she viewed me as her enemy and she has a lot of enemies. She wanted to be able to trash me publicly to her followers without me being able to do to her what she had done to me: Show up in her online social circle and defend myself.
I deleted the comment made on one of my subs advising me of her attacks on me, wrote a few blog posts -- because clearly just keeping my mouth shut about her is ALSO not okay with people -- and later redacted them as was a very common practice for me at one time.
I don't have a beef with Naomi Wu. I'm not happy to learn she talks trash about me. I understand why she has done so but she's in the wrong here.
I'm not going to apologize for making a good faith effort to talk about women's issues on a forum where I am one of the more "prominent" female participants.
Over the years, I've had a lot of different blogs. I no longer keep a personal blog. Instead, I keep a variety of topical blogs.
When men with their public sphere lives and public sphere behaviors make a personal blog, it seems to make them more approachable or something. For me, it only compounded the problem that everyone has a personal interest in me, wants a weirdly faux personal relationship to me and creates a lot of problem behavior.
At one time, I had a personal blog getting 400 page views per post and growing. But it wasn't getting me the kinds of attention or results I wanted. It wasn't getting me taken seriously as a professional nor leading to money.
So I moved it and started over -- repeatedly. I'm finally at a place where I feel I have some idea how to write online and engage the public effectively to further my agenda in spite of 99 percent of the world -- regardless of gender -- seeing women as sex objects or potentially their new BFF or a mommy substitute who will love them and hug them and rub their fur backwards.
I still have pathetic levels of traffic and pathetic earnings but the harassment is way down and serious engagement when I open my mouth sometimes happens.
Ms. Wu is younger than me, she has a different skill set from me (etc), and she's chosen to take the bull by the horns and confront shitty sexist garbage head on. Given that she gets more attention than I do and makes more money, arguably she's "smarter" than me about this.
But I don't want money at that price. I'm content with the choices I've made in a world that affords women no good choices.
I wish people would get off my damn back and not expect me to justify my decision to give her a wide berth and let her try to sort her life as she sees fit. It's unfortunate she felt a need to attack me, though I'm sure she feels I attacked her first.
I did no such thing, though if you study social psychology that's always how feuds start: Both sides feel the other side started it.
I've chosen to not turn this into a feud. Naomi dragging me does not make for a feud. It's only a feud if we both drag each other and just keep upping the ante.
She's not the only woman I've tangled with. Rachel by the Bay likely also hates me though as far as I know she merely avoids me on HN -- aka "gives me the cold shoulder" -- as I do to her these days as the least worst answer I can find.
So far, no one has messaged me to notify me of her dragging me elsewhere on the internet. Though that doesn't necessarily mean she doesn't do so.
Trying to take the high road here and view it as "There are no good answers and I'm not going to wallow in the mud" has so far gotten me nothing as far as I can tell. People still seem to assume the worst about me, no one promotes my work etc.
But given the shitty options available to me, I'm content to continue to choose to not mudsling here. Contrary to what other people seem to think, I can make that choice regardless of what they choose to do.