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>“When I was younger, I used to think that my unconventional upbringing was a weakness, but over the past few years I’ve learnt to see it as one of my greatest
by ktta 9y ago
>“When I was younger, I used to think that my unconventional upbringing was a weakness, but over the past few years I’ve learnt to see it as one of my greatest strengths,” she says. “I never had a single thing handed to me, I had to fight for everything I wanted, like my education. When I was harassed and discriminated against, I fought as hard as I could — because I hadn’t gone through all of that, I hadn’t worked so hard my entire life, just to have someone take it away from me.”
- myth_drannon 9y agoJust survival bias, for every fighter like her there are 99 others that fell through the cracks. Not everyone is born with such a strong will to succeed.
- jonny_eh 9y agoWhat's the bias here? She seems to deserve all the positive attention she gets.
- vailripper 9y agoAbsolutely, but I think it can also be said that it's a pretty messed up system where it requires that will to succeed to have success.
- cjbprime 9y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
- DoreenMichele 9y agoOr perhaps the world is not so black and white. Perhaps her experiences taught her things women often seem to not know. Perhaps she had various forms of support that are not obvious here. I homeschooled my sons. Lack of formal education prior to university is not evidence that one is not getting support. There are parents that actively quash the dreams of their kids and insist the kids pursue something the parent feels matters. They push their kids into pursuing a particular path. This is often seen by outsiders as a good thing, but it usually is not. It usually means the kid never got to decide for themselves what they wanted out of life and simply did as they were told.
- r00fus 9y agoI fail to see why her being proud of her success both despite and because of her upbringing should be cause of criticism just because she fails to acknowledge her "class peers" who failed to make it where she did... it's sort of implicit (esp. since she didn't in any way denigrate them for "not working hard enough").
- erikpukinskis 9y agoI think the point is that as a group we should care about bias even though some people are able to fight through it. It’s like people who say “how could America be racist if Obamacare got elected” which I have been hearing a lot lately. You can have a system that’s massively unfair... the existence of a handful of people who succeed despite unfairness is not evidence of anything except that some people are extraordinary.
- r00fus 9y agoTo not expect bias for someone only talking about her own experiences (and not comparing herself to others) sounds like you're trying to be criticize for criticisms's sake. It's the onus of FT to contextualize Ms. Fowler's comments, if that's what you're getting at, but then again, it is FT not People magazine (take it for what it's worth).