Now, what did you say?

I'm tired of the double standards. Especially the one where women have to be meek and kind and subservient to get shit done(good thing HerrTech doesn't read this blog, he hates it when I curse needlessly). A couple weeks ago one of my colleagues told me not to become "a bitch, like so-and-so" is. So-and-so is extremely polite and optimistic. She encourages everyone, even douchebags who should be slapped back to Failville. (Failville, the new Farmville for Failbook!) But I guess any woman in authority becomes a bitch. He attempted to correct himself and say that that was ok and necessary in the business world, that he himself was an ass more often than not. But the fact that his immediate impulse was to not appreciate how authoritative, confident and proactive she had become was discouraging.

 

So imagine my lack of surprise when this all broke out on the blogosphere. Where two of my favorite female bloggers were called out for being bullies on the merits that they had called out another blogger for being a racist. Supporting data that when people left comments on their site they actually defended their own opinions on things or disagreed with said commenters. And other people disagreed too. That made it a conspiracy.

 

But the problem here isn't discourse or what has happened to being polite and the usual whining about anonymous commenters on the internet...the problem is two women had strong opinions. This isn't allowed. Even on the internet. Even where either one of them could be a dude in real life pretending to be a woman (for what purpose I don't know, but there you go). All it takes is an internet moniker where someone can place you in the female category and then immediately lump in all their stereotypes about what you're doing right or wrong. Isis gets accussed of blogging about her kid too much or blogging too much about shoes. Because in order to be a "true" feminist, I guess you can't like shoes or heels. That is just wrong. And on the other end of the spectrum Zuska is often insulted as being not feminine enough, one of those "hairy legged" feminists. So there's no winning. And now because people read their blogs some douchebag is asserting they have "power" and that by disagreeing with other people on the internet that is considered bullying. I hope said douchebag moves on to topics of more interest because Isis and Zuska know as well as I do the real crime here; blogging/writing/speaking while female.