When Your Backbiter Is a Fucking Woman
Can we all just lift each other up instead of tearing each other down?
You all know I want to smash the fucking patriarchy into smithereens.
You also all know that I am deeply in tune with the fact that misogyny is embedded in so many things, from entertainment to social media to corporate culture. So it will be no surprise when I share my simmering rage about an experience I had professionally and its roots in exactly that.
This shit happened a while ago now, but it sticks in my craw and gave me agita again this week because I opted not to pursue a director-level role at work. For the uninitiated, the elusive director level at a big company like mine is like winning the fucking Corporate Olympics. It’s the black box of authority and is considered the gateway drug to whateverthefuck “executive leadership” means these days.
The reasons I’m not going for it are actually simple:
I’ve had enough upheaval in my life in the last two years to last me a fucking lifetime and the last thing I need is more instability and unknowns
My team and org have been through a shit ton of change this year and I joined to try to provide some stability and leadership and hopefully get our business back on steady ground. That job isn’t done yet and I want the win.
I’m fucking tired and taking on more responsibility right now seems…like a bad idea.
I don’t need a title to validate that I’m really fucking good at my job.
But as I was contemplating this, I remembered something a very senior person gossiped behind my back a couple of years ago as she talked to someone else about my director-level potential:
“She doesn’t look the part.”
Now there are a million ways to interpret this. None of them are good or even constructive. She said more, and I’m not going to share it here because I don’t want to give the venomous words more oxygen. But suffice it to say: what the actual fuck?
One of the things that chaps my ass is when the internalized and weaponized misogyny is coming from inside the fucking house. I mean, isn’t it hard enough out here to deal with fucking glass ceilings and Chads trying to grope us at the company picnic without women tearing each other down, much less behind our backs like so much bitchy playground nonsense?
Some internet incel (who drives a recalled Cybertruck and listens to a lot of Joe Rogan, probably) once said to me that the reason women are shitty to each other is because we’re all fighting for mates and sperm. This is the kind of shit I have come to expect from the internet so I wasn’t surprised so much as bemused by the thought of all of us in some kind of existential cage match to try to earn the attention and stunted swimmers from a specific group of men who for sure don’t know how to give a woman a singular orgasm.
But to have this kind of backbiting, snipey bullshit from a member of my own gender? To reduce our assessment of one another’s capabilities, potential and power down to cheap and temporary characterizations like their weight, wardrobe, or looks? We have to fucking do better than this.
There’s a lot on the fucking line out there right now if you’re a woman. Bodily autonomy is under full-scale attack across the country and globe, we’ve done fuck-all to close the gender wage gap, the pandemic had a disproportional impact on women’s careers, trans women have to fear for their very fucking safety on a daily basis, racism is still rampant and perpetuating bias…I don’t have enough fucking time or flesh left on my fingers to type out all the rest but suffice it to say it feels like we’re in reverse gear here and judging by some of the apparel choices I’ve seen in the stores in the last few years, it’s more than the ancient crustaceans in Congress and Arizona legislators that would like to see us timewarped back into the 1800s.
So here’s what we’re not fucking doing, okay?
We’re not infighting. We’re not getting on the fucking internet to tear down the work of other women unless they’re doing active harm (for example, JK Rowling gets zero exemptions and has opted out of being a decent human being so she gets what she gets). We’re not using the gossip mill at work to sling petty insults around and reduce women, whether we like them or not personally, to their looks or weight or grooming choices. We’re not throwing road spikes in front of other women as they drive past us in their life achievements.
What we are doing is losing our fucking voices because we are cheering each other on so loudly. We are remembering that achievement is not pie and there is enough for all of us. We are holding one another accountable but we are doing so in the name of leveling all of us the fuck up together, intersectionally, and with the knowledge that the rising tide of magical fucking women doesn’t just lift all boats, it equips them with cannons and armor and swords and decks packed shoulder-to-shoulder with the absolute fucking valkyries that will change the world for the better. We are sitting with one another through rough seas, we are making each other feel seen, we are celebrating that we each find small joys that others of us do not in any way understand, we are linking arms and daring the patriarchy to come the fuck over, Red Rover, so we can clothesline your ass.
So I’m not going to be a director right now. But it’s not because I don’t look the part. It’s because I fucking act the part, and that means I have the self-awareness and care for the challenge I’ve committed to right now to know where my path is—and is not. My time will come. I am patient.
And I am out here with all of you incredible women and non-binary badasses who know damn good and well who the enemy is and that it is absolutely not one another.
Off to don my stilettos and red lipstick (NARS Dragon Girl is the moment) and apparently keep cosplaying someone successful. I’ll see you all out on the battlefield, and if you forget your chapstick or need a tampon, I’m your girl. You all absolutely look the part and I’m honored to be out here with you.
See you next time, fuckers.
I cannot like this enough. And as someone who “doesn’t look the part” and is more than fucking competent and really good at my job. I support this 110%. I work in a male-dominated industry and I get more backstabbing from female co-workers than I ever do from men. We shouldn’t be mean girls. And we shouldn’t let how we look be more important than our competency in our jobs. Praise young girls for the work they do, not how they look. Same for women at work. Make that the regular compliment instead of basing a compliment on looks and I firmly believe we can help turn this tide.
There’s a special place in hell for women who act this way. It’s right outside the gate.