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I'm a woman and in some sense I had sort of a sheltered childhood. I was one of the top students in my graduating high school class and I had a lot of firsthand

I'm a woman and in some sense I had sort of a sheltered childhood. I was one of the top students in my graduating high school class and I had a lot of firsthand experience with being taken seriously, having my opinions respected and feeling just as entitled as anyone else to speak my mind, etc. And then I became an adult and life did not go how I thought it would and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what went wrong. I will suggest that it can be counterproductive to try to hide the ugly truth from children that the world is often not a nice place, that there are prejudiced people and who you are can impact how other people react to you, among other things. I have been slow to take off my rose-colored glasses and get better at handling bad actors in a more tactical fashion. Girls tend to be taught to worry about the feelings of other people more than their own and to conform to social expectations and to cave to social pressure. Trying to live up to high ideals about all people deserving to be treated well while I was not being treated well by them was something of an Achilles Heel for me. That seems to generalize. I seem to not be the only woman who keeps trying to find some high road long after it's become obvious that the person in question is simply abusive and taking advantage.

notsureaboutpg 6y ago
>Girls tend to be taught to worry about the feelings of other people more than their own and to conform to social expectations and to cave to social pressure. Trying to live up to high ideals about all people deserving to be treated well while I was not being treated well by them was something of an Achilles Heel for me. This is an assertion many people make without any actual factual basis or proof. It sounds like what we think is true so we believe it is true, but that's often how many societies make their biggest blunders. >I seem to not be the only woman who keeps trying to find some high road long after it's become obvious that the person in question is simply abusive and taking advantage. Most people do this. In fact this is a teaching of Jesus Christ, to turn the other cheek even in extreme and dangerous circumstances. I'm not Christian, but it's the largest religion in the US, so you could presume most people would learn this trait (wrong or right as it may be). And you could assume that their religious upbringing is more influential on them than some cryptic, unable to pinpoint, way in which "people" teach girls one thing and teach boys another thing about how to be respected.
chillwaves 6y ago
I value your perspective. Thank you.
ptr2voidStar 6y ago
I am glad we have some women amongst us. Too many people in here suffer from "silo thinking"
bourgwaletariat 6y ago
> long after it's become obvious that the person in question is simply abusive and taking advantage. Do you consciously notice this change in your own perspective? In real time? I only do this in retrospect. I can look back and see the thing that should have been obvious, but wasn't at the time. All the red flags. I have found my ability to detect them has accelerated and my tolerance for them has declined. We are supposed to be tolerant, work hard, do more, stay late, go the extra mile... and, as you said, it's taken advantage of. At some point, I realize people are taking advantage of my good nature. And so then I just walk away. But I wish I could not feel bad about it. Guilty somehow.
- DoreenMichele 6y ago
  I'm older than I used to be. I've gotten better at figuring it out "in real time" and that's been enormously helpful. Life is better than it used to be. I feel like my gender still contributes to some people wanting to play the sympathy card and justify their crap. I think they actually know better and they know it's BS but they think I will fall for it anyway for whatever reason. It gets tiresome to deal with people like that and I think my next big development stage is getting better at shutting people down and finding some way to signal "That's a hard no and stop bothering me. You know better." Some people will just keep pushing on the slightest excuse or opening and they have very selective hearing where if 98 percent of what you say is no and 2 percent is something that could be twisted into a justification, they are all over that 2 percent. And I think the fact that they are clearly being abusive at that point is on them but as a purely tactical thing I am trying to figure out how to deny such cretins that slight opening.
  - bourgwaletariat 6y ago
    I'm not sure it's that you're a woman or that you're empathetic, good natured, choose to avoid conflict, in addition to being technically skilled. There does seem to be a correlation between the two, but in my experience, what you're discussing here isn't unique to women. I see it happen to a lot of men as well, including myself. They are manipulators. Their skill isn't in getting their job done, it's in manipulating other people into doing it for them. I think for me, it's about boundaries. If someone continually pushes or crosses my boundaries, then that's the biggest red flag. If I push back and they push harder, then something is going wrong. You giving of yourself should be an act of freewill in pursuit of something greater for all, not to avoid the negative repercussions of saying no. When I find myself saying yes to avoid being lashed out at, threatened, extorted, coerced, insulted, etc, then it's time to go. I'll tolerate it once or twice or even more times than that. I excuse bad behavior from others away with "I'm too sensitive" or "I know what they say isn't true" or "they don't understand what they just did." But after too much of it, it doesn't matter. At some point, the math tips to it being worse to be around them than not, so I won't be around them anymore. In fact, I suppose, it adds up somehow, I don't know the formula. Like... if someone does something, I let it slide, but if they do it again, then it's not just 1 + 1 = 2, it's more like 1 + 1.25 = 2.25. When it gets to 10, I'm done. A memory multiplier, if you will. "You've done this twice now. I laughed it off the first time, but I'm noticing a trend and I don't appreciate it." Then the third time, it's 1 + 1.25 + 2.50 = 4.75. Why? 1 for the first strike. 1 + 0.25 for the second strike, because it includes the memory of the first one. 2.50 for the third strike, because 2 memories, plus violating a direct ask to avoid repeating the bad behavior. Something like that.

notsureaboutpg 6y ago

>Girls tend to be taught to worry about the feelings of other people more than their own and to conform to social expectations and to cave to social pressure. Trying to live up to high ideals about all people deserving to be treated well while I was not being treated well by them was something of an Achilles Heel for me. This is an assertion many people make without any actual factual basis or proof. It sounds like what we think is true so we believe it is true, but that's often how many societies make their biggest blunders. >I seem to not be the only woman who keeps trying to find some high road long after it's become obvious that the person in question is simply abusive and taking advantage. Most people do this. In fact this is a teaching of Jesus Christ, to turn the other cheek even in extreme and dangerous circumstances. I'm not Christian, but it's the largest religion in the US, so you could presume most people would learn this trait (wrong or right as it may be). And you could assume that their religious upbringing is more influential on them than some cryptic, unable to pinpoint, way in which "people" teach girls one thing and teach boys another thing about how to be respected.

chillwaves 6y ago

I value your perspective. Thank you.

ptr2voidStar 6y ago

I am glad we have some women amongst us. Too many people in here suffer from "silo thinking"

bourgwaletariat 6y ago

> long after it's become obvious that the person in question is simply abusive and taking advantage. Do you consciously notice this change in your own perspective? In real time? I only do this in retrospect. I can look back and see the thing that should have been obvious, but wasn't at the time. All the red flags. I have found my ability to detect them has accelerated and my tolerance for them has declined. We are supposed to be tolerant, work hard, do more, stay late, go the extra mile... and, as you said, it's taken advantage of. At some point, I realize people are taking advantage of my good nature. And so then I just walk away. But I wish I could not feel bad about it. Guilty somehow.

DoreenMichele 6y ago
I'm older than I used to be. I've gotten better at figuring it out "in real time" and that's been enormously helpful. Life is better than it used to be. I feel like my gender still contributes to some people wanting to play the sympathy card and justify their crap. I think they actually know better and they know it's BS but they think I will fall for it anyway for whatever reason. It gets tiresome to deal with people like that and I think my next big development stage is getting better at shutting people down and finding some way to signal "That's a hard no and stop bothering me. You know better." Some people will just keep pushing on the slightest excuse or opening and they have very selective hearing where if 98 percent of what you say is no and 2 percent is something that could be twisted into a justification, they are all over that 2 percent. And I think the fact that they are clearly being abusive at that point is on them but as a purely tactical thing I am trying to figure out how to deny such cretins that slight opening.
- bourgwaletariat 6y ago
  I'm not sure it's that you're a woman or that you're empathetic, good natured, choose to avoid conflict, in addition to being technically skilled. There does seem to be a correlation between the two, but in my experience, what you're discussing here isn't unique to women. I see it happen to a lot of men as well, including myself. They are manipulators. Their skill isn't in getting their job done, it's in manipulating other people into doing it for them. I think for me, it's about boundaries. If someone continually pushes or crosses my boundaries, then that's the biggest red flag. If I push back and they push harder, then something is going wrong. You giving of yourself should be an act of freewill in pursuit of something greater for all, not to avoid the negative repercussions of saying no. When I find myself saying yes to avoid being lashed out at, threatened, extorted, coerced, insulted, etc, then it's time to go. I'll tolerate it once or twice or even more times than that. I excuse bad behavior from others away with "I'm too sensitive" or "I know what they say isn't true" or "they don't understand what they just did." But after too much of it, it doesn't matter. At some point, the math tips to it being worse to be around them than not, so I won't be around them anymore. In fact, I suppose, it adds up somehow, I don't know the formula. Like... if someone does something, I let it slide, but if they do it again, then it's not just 1 + 1 = 2, it's more like 1 + 1.25 = 2.25. When it gets to 10, I'm done. A memory multiplier, if you will. "You've done this twice now. I laughed it off the first time, but I'm noticing a trend and I don't appreciate it." Then the third time, it's 1 + 1.25 + 2.50 = 4.75. Why? 1 for the first strike. 1 + 0.25 for the second strike, because it includes the memory of the first one. 2.50 for the third strike, because 2 memories, plus violating a direct ask to avoid repeating the bad behavior. Something like that.