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Trading personality for employing unearned traits to get through life sounds like a bad deal. I can perform masculinity to top standards and bullshit my way thr

by mkr-hn 6y ago

Trading personality for employing unearned traits to get through life sounds like a bad deal. I can perform masculinity to top standards and bullshit my way through life, but then I'd lose myself. I doubt it's any different for AFAB people who lucked into good looks and wished they could thrive on merit.

DoreenMichele 6y ago
Thank you for commenting. I was quite beautiful when I was younger. I was also molested and raped and told it was my fault for being too beautiful to resist. I considered becoming a model at one time. I also was one of the top students of my graduating class, won a National Merit Scholarship to one of the two most prestigious universities in my home state and had other academic accolades. My beauty seems to have been more downside than up. It is actively problematic for trying to pursue a serious career that doesn't in some way trade on your sexuality. Most very successful female singers, actors, etc are beautiful and sexy. The top paid ones don't hesitate to pose nude and trade on their sexuality. Men don't have to trade on their sexuality to get to the top of their field and men have many fields outside of entertainment open to them where they can make good money. In fact, it boils down to this: being successful in a career is what makes a man desirable. But a woman is asked to choose to either be serious or be desirable. I have found my looks and gender to actively be a problem in getting good constructive feedback. I suspect this dynamic is part of why Theranos was valued at $10 billion before being uncovered as a fraud: It was led by a pretty young woman. I suspect Theranos would have deflated as the hot air balloon it was well before it hit $10 billion in valuation if it had been led by a man. I have zero interest in using my looks, sexuality or femininity to open doors for me because I have no desire to follow in the foot steps of Theranos. That company has already done plenty of harm to the status and perception of women.
- fsociety 6y ago
  Did Holmes use her sexuality to bring Theranos to a $10B valuation? I thought she actively fought to remove her femininity to be able to prop it up as a founder.
  - DoreenMichele 6y ago
    Well, she secretly slept with and lived with one of her investors who also had some important position within the company. So there's that. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/03/227176/elizabeth-holmes-sunny-balwani-relationship-explained https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/03/227176/elizabeth-ho...
    - hanniabu 6y ago
      You're contributing to a stereotype that if a woman is having a relationship with someone at work that it must be to get ahead.
      - DoreenMichele 6y ago
        Holmes was absolutely not succeeding on merit. She was so very not succeeding on merit that there is a criminal case charging her with fraud. I don't think it helps to turn a blind eye to the issue that women can sleep their way into positions, careerwise, and men typically cannot. We have expressions like the casting couch for a reason. I've spent a lot of years trying to analyze this problem space and find a viable path forward based on actual merit. I'm not going to refrain from criticizing the likes of Holmes. She has done enormous harm to the status of women by her actions, which include sleeping with an investor to get money for a project that had no real merit because it was straight up fraud. So she probably wouldn't have been funded at all if she were male.
        hanniabu 6y ago
        > which include sleeping with an investor to get money Again, unless this came forward in legal proceedings, you're making an assumption. > We have expressions like the casting couch for a reason. It's not an expression, it's a literal thing in porn.
        DoreenMichele 6y ago
        I'm not making an assumption. I'm making an inference. I'm not backing down from my view that Theranos was valued at $10 billion largely because it was headed by an attractive young woman and it would have never been that overvalued and gone in one day from that valuation to zero if the head of the company had been male. I have suggested on more than one occasion that she may have slept her way into power. She was in her twenties and publicly claiming to be celibate because she was so devoted to her company and then it later came out she was secretly living with Balwani. I think the media has really treated her with kid gloves because of this fear of being accused of being mean or unfair or something because she's a woman. I have done my damnedest to tread lightly on this topic over the years because I know it's a hot button topic. But I am in no way surprised to learn that she was secretly living with an investor while claiming to be celibate. I was mostly privately speculating for years that she was probably sleeping with some of these rich and powerful men who helped make her company a success. I'm a woman. I have zero problem getting sexual interest from wealthy, powerful men. I have enormous difficulty getting them to take my work seriously and get constructive feedback on my projects. The Theranos story is one I have paid a fair amount of attention to because it hits a nerve for me. I have a form of cystic fibrosis and I have been getting healthier for 19 years while the world calls me crazy and acts like I'm making that up. There are no wealthy, powerful men expressing interest in the potentially world-changing medical crap my head contains. I can fairly confidently estimate the personal value to me of that knowledge at about $9.5 million dollars (and counting) cuz reasons. So I have no doubt it's potentially worth billions if not trillions if I can figure out how to disseminate it. (At least in terms of impact on the world. Not necessarily profit per se.) And I may die in obscurity because while there is no shortage of men who would love to sleep with me, there are no men interested at all in what I know about medical subjects. So I'm not backing down on my view here. I'm still waiting to hear that Balwani wasn't the only one and she basically fucked her way to power every step of the way. I'm not going to continue this discussion. I have no doubt this comment will be downvoted to hell. The world has a huge problem with the idea that I know anything medically useful and a huge problem with the fact that a woman who spent nearly six years homeless still has self esteem. Have a good evening, or whatever time of the day or night it is where you are.

by mkr-hn 6y ago

DoreenMichele 6y ago

Thank you for commenting. I was quite beautiful when I was younger. I was also molested and raped and told it was my fault for being too beautiful to resist. I considered becoming a model at one time. I also was one of the top students of my graduating class, won a National Merit Scholarship to one of the two most prestigious universities in my home state and had other academic accolades. My beauty seems to have been more downside than up. It is actively problematic for trying to pursue a serious career that doesn't in some way trade on your sexuality. Most very successful female singers, actors, etc are beautiful and sexy. The top paid ones don't hesitate to pose nude and trade on their sexuality. Men don't have to trade on their sexuality to get to the top of their field and men have many fields outside of entertainment open to them where they can make good money. In fact, it boils down to this: being successful in a career is what makes a man desirable. But a woman is asked to choose to either be serious or be desirable. I have found my looks and gender to actively be a problem in getting good constructive feedback. I suspect this dynamic is part of why Theranos was valued at $10 billion before being uncovered as a fraud: It was led by a pretty young woman. I suspect Theranos would have deflated as the hot air balloon it was well before it hit $10 billion in valuation if it had been led by a man. I have zero interest in using my looks, sexuality or femininity to open doors for me because I have no desire to follow in the foot steps of Theranos. That company has already done plenty of harm to the status and perception of women.

fsociety 6y ago
Did Holmes use her sexuality to bring Theranos to a $10B valuation? I thought she actively fought to remove her femininity to be able to prop it up as a founder.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  Well, she secretly slept with and lived with one of her investors who also had some important position within the company. So there's that. https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/03/227176/elizabeth-holmes-sunny-balwani-relationship-explained https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/03/227176/elizabeth-ho...
  - hanniabu 6y ago
    You're contributing to a stereotype that if a woman is having a relationship with someone at work that it must be to get ahead.
    - DoreenMichele 6y ago
      Holmes was absolutely not succeeding on merit. She was so very not succeeding on merit that there is a criminal case charging her with fraud. I don't think it helps to turn a blind eye to the issue that women can sleep their way into positions, careerwise, and men typically cannot. We have expressions like the casting couch for a reason. I've spent a lot of years trying to analyze this problem space and find a viable path forward based on actual merit. I'm not going to refrain from criticizing the likes of Holmes. She has done enormous harm to the status of women by her actions, which include sleeping with an investor to get money for a project that had no real merit because it was straight up fraud. So she probably wouldn't have been funded at all if she were male.
      - hanniabu 6y ago
        > which include sleeping with an investor to get money Again, unless this came forward in legal proceedings, you're making an assumption. > We have expressions like the casting couch for a reason. It's not an expression, it's a literal thing in porn.
        DoreenMichele 6y ago
        I'm not making an assumption. I'm making an inference. I'm not backing down from my view that Theranos was valued at $10 billion largely because it was headed by an attractive young woman and it would have never been that overvalued and gone in one day from that valuation to zero if the head of the company had been male. I have suggested on more than one occasion that she may have slept her way into power. She was in her twenties and publicly claiming to be celibate because she was so devoted to her company and then it later came out she was secretly living with Balwani. I think the media has really treated her with kid gloves because of this fear of being accused of being mean or unfair or something because she's a woman. I have done my damnedest to tread lightly on this topic over the years because I know it's a hot button topic. But I am in no way surprised to learn that she was secretly living with an investor while claiming to be celibate. I was mostly privately speculating for years that she was probably sleeping with some of these rich and powerful men who helped make her company a success. I'm a woman. I have zero problem getting sexual interest from wealthy, powerful men. I have enormous difficulty getting them to take my work seriously and get constructive feedback on my projects. The Theranos story is one I have paid a fair amount of attention to because it hits a nerve for me. I have a form of cystic fibrosis and I have been getting healthier for 19 years while the world calls me crazy and acts like I'm making that up. There are no wealthy, powerful men expressing interest in the potentially world-changing medical crap my head contains. I can fairly confidently estimate the personal value to me of that knowledge at about $9.5 million dollars (and counting) cuz reasons. So I have no doubt it's potentially worth billions if not trillions if I can figure out how to disseminate it. (At least in terms of impact on the world. Not necessarily profit per se.) And I may die in obscurity because while there is no shortage of men who would love to sleep with me, there are no men interested at all in what I know about medical subjects. So I'm not backing down on my view here. I'm still waiting to hear that Balwani wasn't the only one and she basically fucked her way to power every step of the way. I'm not going to continue this discussion. I have no doubt this comment will be downvoted to hell. The world has a huge problem with the idea that I know anything medically useful and a huge problem with the fact that a woman who spent nearly six years homeless still has self esteem. Have a good evening, or whatever time of the day or night it is where you are.