Fascinating read (and very well written). My first-principles take on behaviorial dynamics and why this cycle perpetuates:
1. Men that are successful develop strong egos, attributing their success to their talents - they establish the idea that they are 'special'.
2. They continue to invest in work and tie up their self identity with work.
3. They neglect their relationships and overtime these devolve. This creates further investment in time at work, intimate withdrawl from the relationship as it is harmful to the ego to not feel 'special'. There is a deep fear that actually stems in their psyche.
4. When they meet a thoughtful / attractive women that they feel drawn to her as a way of being made whole, a panacea for their damaged psyche - i.e. If the woman shows interest in me then I am whole.
5. They neglect that the journey to be whole is one that has to be taken internally. That relationships are work.
This all comes from a place of weakness. There are also plenty of men that are successful professionally and prioritize personal/family success who would never act this way. Its unfortunate that many men (and frankly, women too) in Silicon Valley don't have a sense of self-worth past their external success. For me, it's one of the most alientating things about living here.
My POV is that a lot of it has to do with being raised in a way that love is given for good academic performance and taken away when that doesn't happen.
Fascinating take, Mihnea, and great to hear from you old friend :). I really agree with a lot of these points, and I do think that ultimately the predatory behavior indicates something tragic about the men themselves. Your point about academic success being tied to love is also interesting and rings true for me (not in my family, but I saw it a lot at fancy private school).
I also think there is a dynamic where people who tend to care less about other people (lower empathy) are better positioned to climb to the heights of power. You just have to do so many hard things to get up there (firing people, disappointing people, telling people to do things they don't want to do, etc), that people who are big feelers may choose to step off the path, leaving the people with lower empathy at the top. None of these are universal rules, of course, just something I've noticed. I also absolutely think that the majority of men in the Valley and otherwise are not the people in this article.
One of my favorite thoughts - “if you’re so fucking smart, then why can’t you figure out how to be happy?”
The answer is because happiness is not an exercise in the brain, but rather in the heart.
This ties to your point about empathy, overworking the brain but not the heart is a soulless endeavor.
Starve the ego and feed the soul is not what’s taught to us growing up because the world is positioned in a competitive way from an early age instead of a collaborative world.
Hmm... yes, I think it’s already been determined that at the top of the “ apparently successful” career ladder of CEOs, Entrepreneur & “ got rich young” brigade, there are a whole lot of sociopathic types. Nothing or no-one will stand in their way and manipulation, coercion and “ whatever works” is all OK. Low empathy and self obsessive narcissism , typical characteristics. Found in politicians too....🤮
I can intimately relate to every word of this. All the men who talked to my male co-founder while casting surreptitious glances at my legs or chest. The donor who told my male co-founder, in front of me, that it was a good strategy to bring along a "pretty girl in a skirt." The man who positioned himself as a donor but really just wanted to get me drunk off martinis. The all-male Board who refused let me hand off my duties as Secretary because they were above taking notes.
"Slow shrinking" is such a brilliant way to put it. From one formerly optimistic Brown grad to another, thank you!
Oh Jesus (excuse my language). I mean the fact that you and I can both easily generate a list like this is disgusting. I'm glad you liked the slow shrinking, it has taken me some years of distance to come to an understanding about what exactly was happening to me and why. I'm happy to be able to share it, even if I wish it hand't happened.
I’m not a “founder” of any kind but having worked in a line of work , starting years ago when only about 15% of employees were female ( primarily lower level, & only 2 of 9 in my intake, female), I know I was hit heavy by “Slow Shrinking”.
What a great term for that persistent eroding of self worth that women are subjected to, particularly if you try to define or attempt to establish some kind of level , equal, playing field. Do not dare to speak up....
I’ve watched the women who did “ get ahead”, take the route of becoming social secretaries, takers of the less glamorous, lower paid but essential though boring job roles, or sleep their way to job elevation. Some of them became alcoholics .....
To be honest, Rae, reading this is emotionally painful so much I identify with it. (Were these scenes in a movie, I would probably roll my eyes too.) At the time, I convinced myself these kinds of interactions ware validating. My femaleness is my secret weapon. Surely I can just learn to walk that fine line, right? I'm so lucky -- to be seen, to land these meetings so effortlessly. The man who almost led my seed round was also trying to sleep with me; I have such vivid memories of sleeping on that ethical quandary and cognitive dissonance. Do I admit to our follow-on female investor that's the case? If he puts down the money, does it matter? If I don't actually sleep with him, and he feels tricked, that's on him, right? Does that make me a bad person? He is actually interested in my start-up idea too, right?
I also have a vivid memory, as a recent college grad doing biz dev, of my male manager doubting me whenever I would land a meeting: "why did this founder want to talk to you, and not me? Are you sure his intentions aren't romantic or does he actually want to discuss business?"
I've never lived and worked in an environment that made me so doubt my self-worth. It's taken me years to recover.
Anyway, you're a beautiful writer. Thank you (I think!) for putting this into words.
Omg I can't handle reading this thing about your almost seed investor (but also thanks for sharing, I mean, it must be told, over and over). I have also struggled with the tension between the power that comes with being noticed, and the obvious dark side. Like what am I complaining about, right? People think I'm worth noticing! Just go with it! But that voice is a trick--it's not like the only options are "never be noticed," or "be noticed and harassed."
I remember watching my husband navigate raising his series A when we were both startup CEOs. There was one night where a potential lead investor called him at like 10:30 pm. Another time a potential lead flew him on a private jet to a meeting. And I was like, damn if either of those things happened to me, it would be such a complex mess of doubt and sussing out the situation, and it would have undertones of fear, and I would spend all this energy balancing everything. For him it's just, like, business.
So much tension. Took me years to realize it’s a trap and I’m grateful women such as yourself are now articulating it so well. The mental fatigue inherent to navigating that tension is probably another reason women burn out or... step aside.
I loved your essay and found the ending so poignant. You asked how we have coped with being objectified in professional settings and this is what I did, or, rather, did not do. I did not become a fraction of myself. I gained so much weight (80 lbs, in my unhappiness) that I became a multiple of myself, at once taking up more space, holding my ground, finding my voice, and invisible as I got older and became disabled and disappeared completely into irrelevance. While the weight gain was likely a side effect of medication I began taking if not just a by-product of chronic stress, and did not lead to men investing in my career success, it did help in the long run: I regained my self- esteem about everything but my attractiveness and sexual desirability.
Wow, that is such a powerful story, thank you for sharing. The notion that gaining weight, getting older, becoming disabled and "disappearing into irrelevance" resulted in you regaining self esteem (other than sexual desirability) is...fascinating and counterintuitive and wonderful and tragic...I don't even know the right words to pick. Is it the case that we can either feel attractive (conventionally), or feel self esteem in those other areas? I hadn't thought about it as a tradeoff before. Thanks again for the note, Lesia.
Oof, as a super fat woman, let me tell you, it doesn’t stop men from hitting on you, but they get to make you feel “lucky” that’s the case, which is actually worse :/
> By year three, there is anxiety that rises whenever I meet a man who tells me that my startup is interesting
This struck me the most. All the things that happened, every unfortunate encounter, has led to an anticipation of more. We tend to think of these incidences as isolated affairs but they compound on each encounter and leave such a lasting impression on your future actions.
Thank you for a powerful essay and sorry you had the experiences that allowed you to write it.
I really appreciate you articulating it this way--emphasizing the cumulative affects. I think this is the part of sexism, racism, etc that is hard to understand if you are not experiencing it.
Yes, it’s definitely the “ cumulative effect” that damages your psyche/mental health over time..... but if one tried to explain to others, all they perceive are “insignificant incidences” which you should just “ disregard and let fly over your head”. 😟🤨
I totally relate, having worked in the blockchain industry for so long... was once told, "let me buy you something... pick anything you want" followed by, "I tell my wife everything, we're good like that..." 😩
The question that lingers and the dance that's difficult as you acknowledge is dialogue without offending the other... I've been wondering, seriously, if studying comedic forms of communication might be a solution...
Thank you for sharing so many examples - you're definitely not alone in these experience
Ugh, sorry that you've had all the same. What a creative idea to study comedic communication. While I wish you didn't have to worry about finding solutions here, I do love the creativity you're bringing :)
Oh David, I appreciate it, but I do not think all men are like this. I am married to a very wonderful man (who works in Silicon Valley!) It is certainly the minority of men who do these things. Unfortunately, that minority is still strong enough to make these types of experiences almost ubiquitous.
Unfortunately, they are often in positions of power because they make the rules that keep them there. Social gerrymandering, I guess you could call it.
Why do I keep developing post ideas in your comments, Rae? It must be because you consistently make me think!
Forgot to answer the question: "When have you experienced the slow, unrelenting hacking away at your sense of self and self-worth? What, if anything, did you do about it?"
Answer: In my school and my corporate life until 1990, when I quit corporate life.
Glad to hear that. And while I would never behave like any of the men you describe, your powerful post made me realize that avoiding that behavior is not sufficient. Men need to call out that behavior when they hear about it or see it. That's the only way it becomes unacceptable.
I think that was my point as well, although thinking about killing them instead was maybe a bit eliminationist. However, this dehumanizing crap is something I’m in total warfare mode over.
I mentioned a while back that if I were king of the world, I would donate a few dozen pink Abrams tanks to the Yazidi women who suffered so much at the hands of ISIS savages. Level the playing field. The tanks would also need loud speakers so the women inside could ululate. In the ISIS faith community, a man does not end up in Paradise if killed by a woman. The second to the last thing going through their minds would be the knowledge that a woman pulled the trigger.
I’d also make available to any young Iranian woman who yearns for freedom a Glock pistol, training, plenty of ammo, a pitchfork, and practice stalking their prey. Solzhenitsyn talked about how, during the mass arrests in St. Petersburg, it would have taken only a handful of resisters to make sure some of the state agents didn’t make it home at night to cause the entire evil to collapse.
Same in Iran. If a few young women tracked down the religious police on their way home after a long day of oppressing people, winged them with the Glock, pinned them down with the pitchforks for a meaningful conversation about rights vs. oppression, it would take long to changes things. If not, then give them some pink* Abrams tanks.
*pink not because it’s a stereotype color for women, but so the dirt bags who do the oppressing would know with certainty who the rabbits with the guns who shoot back are.
“Not all men” is the one counter argument we hear the most.
We, of course, know it’s not all men, but since we don’t know which men, we have to protect ourselves from all men. Being wrong can have serious consequences.
Rae, I’m glad you wrote this excellent essay. Thank you! Also, a big thank you to the people in the comments who shared their stories.
I don’t think your experience is unique to tech, but since my day job is ghostwriting thought leadership for tech executives I thought I might weigh in here.
You did a great job of capturing the personal toll this kind of disgusting behavior takes. I think it’s pretty obvious, based on the comments here and the experiences of the me too movement more broadly, that this toxic shit scales and that far too many people have experienced what you’ve experienced, and sadly, far worse.
But one line in this piece really jumped out at me. It was the comment about liking female founders because they know when to step aside. For me, that comment spoke volumes. I’ve written for hundreds of tech executives, but I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve written for a woman. I’m sure that says a lot about why these kinds of problems persist, but it also says a lot about the kinds of business ideas that ultimately make it to market. So in addition to the awfulness of the personal toll on you, there’s also a very high price for society to pay in terms of the kinds of products and services that are available to us. Not every company is going to save the world, or even change it, but hearing your story made me wonder what the world might like if fewer female founders stepped aside--or weren’t pushed aside, undermined, diminished, or held to ridiculous double standards?
Food for thought. Again, thank you for writing this!
Thanks for bringing this topic up, it's so important. I'm sad but not surprised that your client base is so devoid of women. I have thought about this so much in the last five years, it definitely deserves a whole post. I think one of the reasons I stuck around tech as long as I did was a feeling that I owed it to "women" to stay and rise, or something like that--I had all the right training and credentials, like, if I wasn't going to do this, who would? It's a bit of a self-aggrandizing take on the situation, but I did feel a lot of guilt about not going further, and it makes this issue especially sitcky for me. We do need more women at the top, and I gave up on being one. But on the flip side, I had to leave, to save myself.
But aside from that, I think you are getting towards the core thing that drives this whole machine, which is the devotion to growth at all costs. And basically, what I saw, was that fewer women were ok with the "all costs" part of that, whether those be moral and ethical sacrifices, or personal life costs, or whatever. That's probably what this investor was observing: women seem to more often decide not to make that sacrifice, and then they design a way to exit.
I had this really crazy experience once when my company was in Y Combinator: most of the women in the batch went out to lunch (yes, we could fit around a large lunch table--the batch had over 200 founders), and it was around the time we were all raising money. At lunch, one by one almost every person at the table admitted they took a lower valuation for their company than they could have gotten if they had just focused on maximizing valuation. They did it because they wanted to choose who they worked with, or just felt that the number they got was fair, or it was enough. I did the same. It was uncanny how similar we all felt, and we all whispered this to each other, like it was this shameful secret. The current system doesn't reward this kind of thinking and behavior. This is why I don't think Leaning In will ever help much. As you implied, it's systemic change that's required. What exactly that change looks like I'm not sure, but I sure am keeping my eye out for models.
I hope you write more about this topic, especially the feeling of guilt about what you owe women in general. My sense is there's a lot to unpack there, and I suspect that your feelings are quite common.
As for your Y-Combinator experience, I'm not surprised by any of that. One thing I've noticed from my weird little seat as the op-ed dude is that the women I do write for are both highly prepared for our meetings and overly grateful, to the point of self-deprecation, for the opportunity (PR and op-ed programs aren't cheap within the context of a typical start-ups marketing / comms budget). In contrast, men who are significantly junior to these women in both title and experience often come to me with a lot of entitlement. I don't think I'm saying anything that would surprise you here. And I don't know what the answers are here, and maybe there aren't good answers, but please keep writing about this because you really are on to something!
I think about that point a lot, too, Michael. And not only all that's lost when women step aside, but what's lost when we don't invest in diverse founders more generally. The ripple effects abound.
It’s world-shaping stuff. I like Substack, for the most part, but I’d love to see a platform that wasn’t founded by people who are so very similar to the people who founded all the other platforms.
I'm nonbinary but was raised as a girl...the chipping away of myself over the years felt just like this. People wonder why I apologize so much but it's a very hard thing to undo when you've been made to feel small...
Fascinating to hear your thoughts on this--you have a unique perspective as someone with experience being treated as a girl and as a nonbinary person. I could imagine how hard these habits are to undo, I personally am sure I will never undo my apologizing and caveating. I've also come to view it a little more softly than I used to. Previously I was like, apologizing is weakness! Using exclamation marks in emails is girly! Be harder! But now I'm like...maybe it's nice when people emote and show concern for how their behavior impacts others? It's a balance, of course.
Oh yeah I think it can be comforting seeing people emote! I also tend to struggle with reading people so a little extra emoting tends to help too.
I went on low dose testosterone therapy for a bit over a year then stopped as I just wanted a lower voice, so now it's interesting seeing people think of me as a man, albeit a teen guy along as a woman sometimes. It's 50/50 but definitely interesting. I think I still come off as insecure either way due to being socialized as a girl with a very toxic dad growing up, oof! But slowly working on it. Trying to be kinder to myself too!
I’m sorry but I just have to add to your comment that I also think it can be nice, sometimes! I have even used an exclamation mark strategically, if it elicits a reproof that tells me something and I have an opportunity to starts a discussion.
I won’t bother listing all the ways men have hacked away at my sense of self and self worth. What I did about it; this spring, instead of letting it slide, I filed a formal complaint of sexual misconduct with the College of Psychologists against the psychologist treating me for anxiety and depression. I am amazed what that has done to improve my sense of self worth and my sense of agency. Initially it felt scary to have done it but the response from the College to date has been incredibly supportive of me in its investigation. I am feeling much more empowered and am now working with a great (female) psychologist.
I am SO glad you made your move AND have gotten a supportive response. I wish that weren't so rare. Here here to feeling self worth and empowerment as a result of speaking out.
So so many times working in the arts. It’s exhausting. You put it SO well. When I was younger I didn’t want to believe it was happening which meant I went further into the tunnel of bad situations: This is a great gift of being older. It doesn’t happen in the same way. There’s a greater sense of equality that I myself carry - and of course men pick on younger women generally. Youth is a magnet no matter what you do. It’s dreadful. I want to support everyone who is going through this in a grand collective gesture. Good on you for writing about it and so well. What I can say is, my Gen Z sons totally get it and are quite outspoken on subjects like these.
Sep 27, 2023·edited Sep 27, 2023Liked by Rachel Katz
Thank you for sharing your story with us Rae! The more we talk about it, the more women know they are not alone. I was gritting my teeth the whole time I read your story for you, myself, and all the women who have unfortunately experienced this atrocious treatment in their lifetime.
I once had a boss who kept hugging me at work until I finally had the nerve to ask him to stop and he did, but it took me awhile as a 20 something back then to muster up the courage to speak up for myself at the beginning of my career. As a result of that experience, it put me on guard about men in the workplace and in general. Thank you for being you, Rae! Keep shining your beacon of light and truth in the world with your writing!
Thanks for the kind words! And I find it impressive that you were able to muster the courage to ask him to stop in your twenties! Is that sad that I'm impressed? But I do think it's a rare move. Hopefully he learned something from it.
While my slow shrinking came about from different kind of 'unrelenting hacking' the outcome was the same. My self-worth was gone. I had no idea who I was anymore. It's been over two years of trying to come out of that demoralizing fog. I've blocked out so many of the different events because my brain just can't go there. Partly because there was no one big 'main event' it makes it easier to just sweep it away, ignore, forget, dissociate. Until 5 years worth of daily indignities piles up on your inner psyche and your body and brain breaks.
I can definitely relate to the "blocking out" approach. There are other incidents that I only vaguely remember, or I can't really remember who the guy was. It's just too much.
So true. So many stories. I feel like you've triggered some bit of PTSD in me.
I don't wear skirts at work any more. I don't go to "mixers" or events that involve drinking, so matter how much they'll help my career. Oh gawd do I ever avoid tech bros.
And then my daughter, when she was 10-ish, said that when she grows up, she wants to do whatever is the exact opposite of my job.
What demented vision of success teaches us that this is ok, that we need to be polite and complacent?
Ack, that's a painful thing to hear from your daughter!
I totally am with you regarding social events and mixers. I also mostly stopped going a few years in to my startup, even though that's THE thing to do for networking. I still attended big conferences though, which were always awful for me, I would literally get sick in the lead-up due to the extent of my dread.
There was an Adam Grant interview with a filmmaker last winter-ish that really struck me - he said you go to networking events to meet networkers. But you want to meet the do-ers. The only way to meet them is to become a do-er yourself.
I can relate to this feeling of being minimized, reduced, flattened by (mostly) older men just because of their money, age or status. Nothing really happened but you feel dirty and unsafe.
Dirty and unsafe indeed. Have you seen the Barbie movie? I loved the scene where she first walks into the real world and tries to describe the feeling she has walking on Venice Beach. "I feel kind of ill at ease, like…I don’t know a word for it, but I’m conscious but it’s myself I’m conscious of...”
Fascinating read (and very well written). My first-principles take on behaviorial dynamics and why this cycle perpetuates:
1. Men that are successful develop strong egos, attributing their success to their talents - they establish the idea that they are 'special'.
2. They continue to invest in work and tie up their self identity with work.
3. They neglect their relationships and overtime these devolve. This creates further investment in time at work, intimate withdrawl from the relationship as it is harmful to the ego to not feel 'special'. There is a deep fear that actually stems in their psyche.
4. When they meet a thoughtful / attractive women that they feel drawn to her as a way of being made whole, a panacea for their damaged psyche - i.e. If the woman shows interest in me then I am whole.
5. They neglect that the journey to be whole is one that has to be taken internally. That relationships are work.
This all comes from a place of weakness. There are also plenty of men that are successful professionally and prioritize personal/family success who would never act this way. Its unfortunate that many men (and frankly, women too) in Silicon Valley don't have a sense of self-worth past their external success. For me, it's one of the most alientating things about living here.
My POV is that a lot of it has to do with being raised in a way that love is given for good academic performance and taken away when that doesn't happen.
Fascinating take, Mihnea, and great to hear from you old friend :). I really agree with a lot of these points, and I do think that ultimately the predatory behavior indicates something tragic about the men themselves. Your point about academic success being tied to love is also interesting and rings true for me (not in my family, but I saw it a lot at fancy private school).
I also think there is a dynamic where people who tend to care less about other people (lower empathy) are better positioned to climb to the heights of power. You just have to do so many hard things to get up there (firing people, disappointing people, telling people to do things they don't want to do, etc), that people who are big feelers may choose to step off the path, leaving the people with lower empathy at the top. None of these are universal rules, of course, just something I've noticed. I also absolutely think that the majority of men in the Valley and otherwise are not the people in this article.
One of my favorite thoughts - “if you’re so fucking smart, then why can’t you figure out how to be happy?”
The answer is because happiness is not an exercise in the brain, but rather in the heart.
This ties to your point about empathy, overworking the brain but not the heart is a soulless endeavor.
Starve the ego and feed the soul is not what’s taught to us growing up because the world is positioned in a competitive way from an early age instead of a collaborative world.
Hmm... yes, I think it’s already been determined that at the top of the “ apparently successful” career ladder of CEOs, Entrepreneur & “ got rich young” brigade, there are a whole lot of sociopathic types. Nothing or no-one will stand in their way and manipulation, coercion and “ whatever works” is all OK. Low empathy and self obsessive narcissism , typical characteristics. Found in politicians too....🤮
“Some politicians ( not all)”
I can intimately relate to every word of this. All the men who talked to my male co-founder while casting surreptitious glances at my legs or chest. The donor who told my male co-founder, in front of me, that it was a good strategy to bring along a "pretty girl in a skirt." The man who positioned himself as a donor but really just wanted to get me drunk off martinis. The all-male Board who refused let me hand off my duties as Secretary because they were above taking notes.
"Slow shrinking" is such a brilliant way to put it. From one formerly optimistic Brown grad to another, thank you!
Oh Jesus (excuse my language). I mean the fact that you and I can both easily generate a list like this is disgusting. I'm glad you liked the slow shrinking, it has taken me some years of distance to come to an understanding about what exactly was happening to me and why. I'm happy to be able to share it, even if I wish it hand't happened.
I’m not a “founder” of any kind but having worked in a line of work , starting years ago when only about 15% of employees were female ( primarily lower level, & only 2 of 9 in my intake, female), I know I was hit heavy by “Slow Shrinking”.
What a great term for that persistent eroding of self worth that women are subjected to, particularly if you try to define or attempt to establish some kind of level , equal, playing field. Do not dare to speak up....
I’ve watched the women who did “ get ahead”, take the route of becoming social secretaries, takers of the less glamorous, lower paid but essential though boring job roles, or sleep their way to job elevation. Some of them became alcoholics .....
I loved “slow shrinking” as well
To be honest, Rae, reading this is emotionally painful so much I identify with it. (Were these scenes in a movie, I would probably roll my eyes too.) At the time, I convinced myself these kinds of interactions ware validating. My femaleness is my secret weapon. Surely I can just learn to walk that fine line, right? I'm so lucky -- to be seen, to land these meetings so effortlessly. The man who almost led my seed round was also trying to sleep with me; I have such vivid memories of sleeping on that ethical quandary and cognitive dissonance. Do I admit to our follow-on female investor that's the case? If he puts down the money, does it matter? If I don't actually sleep with him, and he feels tricked, that's on him, right? Does that make me a bad person? He is actually interested in my start-up idea too, right?
I also have a vivid memory, as a recent college grad doing biz dev, of my male manager doubting me whenever I would land a meeting: "why did this founder want to talk to you, and not me? Are you sure his intentions aren't romantic or does he actually want to discuss business?"
I've never lived and worked in an environment that made me so doubt my self-worth. It's taken me years to recover.
Anyway, you're a beautiful writer. Thank you (I think!) for putting this into words.
Omg I can't handle reading this thing about your almost seed investor (but also thanks for sharing, I mean, it must be told, over and over). I have also struggled with the tension between the power that comes with being noticed, and the obvious dark side. Like what am I complaining about, right? People think I'm worth noticing! Just go with it! But that voice is a trick--it's not like the only options are "never be noticed," or "be noticed and harassed."
I remember watching my husband navigate raising his series A when we were both startup CEOs. There was one night where a potential lead investor called him at like 10:30 pm. Another time a potential lead flew him on a private jet to a meeting. And I was like, damn if either of those things happened to me, it would be such a complex mess of doubt and sussing out the situation, and it would have undertones of fear, and I would spend all this energy balancing everything. For him it's just, like, business.
So much tension. Took me years to realize it’s a trap and I’m grateful women such as yourself are now articulating it so well. The mental fatigue inherent to navigating that tension is probably another reason women burn out or... step aside.
I loved your essay and found the ending so poignant. You asked how we have coped with being objectified in professional settings and this is what I did, or, rather, did not do. I did not become a fraction of myself. I gained so much weight (80 lbs, in my unhappiness) that I became a multiple of myself, at once taking up more space, holding my ground, finding my voice, and invisible as I got older and became disabled and disappeared completely into irrelevance. While the weight gain was likely a side effect of medication I began taking if not just a by-product of chronic stress, and did not lead to men investing in my career success, it did help in the long run: I regained my self- esteem about everything but my attractiveness and sexual desirability.
Wow, that is such a powerful story, thank you for sharing. The notion that gaining weight, getting older, becoming disabled and "disappearing into irrelevance" resulted in you regaining self esteem (other than sexual desirability) is...fascinating and counterintuitive and wonderful and tragic...I don't even know the right words to pick. Is it the case that we can either feel attractive (conventionally), or feel self esteem in those other areas? I hadn't thought about it as a tradeoff before. Thanks again for the note, Lesia.
I was a bartender once... and literally thought it would be easier to be fat than deal with it, the men. I didn’t mean for to work so well.
Oof, as a super fat woman, let me tell you, it doesn’t stop men from hitting on you, but they get to make you feel “lucky” that’s the case, which is actually worse :/
True.
> By year three, there is anxiety that rises whenever I meet a man who tells me that my startup is interesting
This struck me the most. All the things that happened, every unfortunate encounter, has led to an anticipation of more. We tend to think of these incidences as isolated affairs but they compound on each encounter and leave such a lasting impression on your future actions.
Thank you for a powerful essay and sorry you had the experiences that allowed you to write it.
I really appreciate you articulating it this way--emphasizing the cumulative affects. I think this is the part of sexism, racism, etc that is hard to understand if you are not experiencing it.
Yes, it’s definitely the “ cumulative effect” that damages your psyche/mental health over time..... but if one tried to explain to others, all they perceive are “insignificant incidences” which you should just “ disregard and let fly over your head”. 😟🤨
Well put!
I totally relate, having worked in the blockchain industry for so long... was once told, "let me buy you something... pick anything you want" followed by, "I tell my wife everything, we're good like that..." 😩
The question that lingers and the dance that's difficult as you acknowledge is dialogue without offending the other... I've been wondering, seriously, if studying comedic forms of communication might be a solution...
Thank you for sharing so many examples - you're definitely not alone in these experience
Ugh, sorry that you've had all the same. What a creative idea to study comedic communication. While I wish you didn't have to worry about finding solutions here, I do love the creativity you're bringing :)
In my experience, comedic comm is met with hostility because the counterparty perceived it as sarcasm. A big no-no for narcissists.
I'm sorry these men felt entitled to take advantage of their position to make you feel less than.
We're really not all like that, but in any case, I apologize on behalf of the male species.
Oh David, I appreciate it, but I do not think all men are like this. I am married to a very wonderful man (who works in Silicon Valley!) It is certainly the minority of men who do these things. Unfortunately, that minority is still strong enough to make these types of experiences almost ubiquitous.
Unfortunately, they are often in positions of power because they make the rules that keep them there. Social gerrymandering, I guess you could call it.
Why do I keep developing post ideas in your comments, Rae? It must be because you consistently make me think!
Forgot to answer the question: "When have you experienced the slow, unrelenting hacking away at your sense of self and self-worth? What, if anything, did you do about it?"
Answer: In my school and my corporate life until 1990, when I quit corporate life.
Glad to hear that. And while I would never behave like any of the men you describe, your powerful post made me realize that avoiding that behavior is not sufficient. Men need to call out that behavior when they hear about it or see it. That's the only way it becomes unacceptable.
I think that was my point as well, although thinking about killing them instead was maybe a bit eliminationist. However, this dehumanizing crap is something I’m in total warfare mode over.
I mentioned a while back that if I were king of the world, I would donate a few dozen pink Abrams tanks to the Yazidi women who suffered so much at the hands of ISIS savages. Level the playing field. The tanks would also need loud speakers so the women inside could ululate. In the ISIS faith community, a man does not end up in Paradise if killed by a woman. The second to the last thing going through their minds would be the knowledge that a woman pulled the trigger.
I’d also make available to any young Iranian woman who yearns for freedom a Glock pistol, training, plenty of ammo, a pitchfork, and practice stalking their prey. Solzhenitsyn talked about how, during the mass arrests in St. Petersburg, it would have taken only a handful of resisters to make sure some of the state agents didn’t make it home at night to cause the entire evil to collapse.
Same in Iran. If a few young women tracked down the religious police on their way home after a long day of oppressing people, winged them with the Glock, pinned them down with the pitchforks for a meaningful conversation about rights vs. oppression, it would take long to changes things. If not, then give them some pink* Abrams tanks.
*pink not because it’s a stereotype color for women, but so the dirt bags who do the oppressing would know with certainty who the rabbits with the guns who shoot back are.
“Not all men” is the one counter argument we hear the most.
We, of course, know it’s not all men, but since we don’t know which men, we have to protect ourselves from all men. Being wrong can have serious consequences.
There is always the hope that “this one is sincere”. That it’s seldom true is the soul crusher
Rae, I’m glad you wrote this excellent essay. Thank you! Also, a big thank you to the people in the comments who shared their stories.
I don’t think your experience is unique to tech, but since my day job is ghostwriting thought leadership for tech executives I thought I might weigh in here.
You did a great job of capturing the personal toll this kind of disgusting behavior takes. I think it’s pretty obvious, based on the comments here and the experiences of the me too movement more broadly, that this toxic shit scales and that far too many people have experienced what you’ve experienced, and sadly, far worse.
But one line in this piece really jumped out at me. It was the comment about liking female founders because they know when to step aside. For me, that comment spoke volumes. I’ve written for hundreds of tech executives, but I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve written for a woman. I’m sure that says a lot about why these kinds of problems persist, but it also says a lot about the kinds of business ideas that ultimately make it to market. So in addition to the awfulness of the personal toll on you, there’s also a very high price for society to pay in terms of the kinds of products and services that are available to us. Not every company is going to save the world, or even change it, but hearing your story made me wonder what the world might like if fewer female founders stepped aside--or weren’t pushed aside, undermined, diminished, or held to ridiculous double standards?
Food for thought. Again, thank you for writing this!
Thanks for bringing this topic up, it's so important. I'm sad but not surprised that your client base is so devoid of women. I have thought about this so much in the last five years, it definitely deserves a whole post. I think one of the reasons I stuck around tech as long as I did was a feeling that I owed it to "women" to stay and rise, or something like that--I had all the right training and credentials, like, if I wasn't going to do this, who would? It's a bit of a self-aggrandizing take on the situation, but I did feel a lot of guilt about not going further, and it makes this issue especially sitcky for me. We do need more women at the top, and I gave up on being one. But on the flip side, I had to leave, to save myself.
But aside from that, I think you are getting towards the core thing that drives this whole machine, which is the devotion to growth at all costs. And basically, what I saw, was that fewer women were ok with the "all costs" part of that, whether those be moral and ethical sacrifices, or personal life costs, or whatever. That's probably what this investor was observing: women seem to more often decide not to make that sacrifice, and then they design a way to exit.
I had this really crazy experience once when my company was in Y Combinator: most of the women in the batch went out to lunch (yes, we could fit around a large lunch table--the batch had over 200 founders), and it was around the time we were all raising money. At lunch, one by one almost every person at the table admitted they took a lower valuation for their company than they could have gotten if they had just focused on maximizing valuation. They did it because they wanted to choose who they worked with, or just felt that the number they got was fair, or it was enough. I did the same. It was uncanny how similar we all felt, and we all whispered this to each other, like it was this shameful secret. The current system doesn't reward this kind of thinking and behavior. This is why I don't think Leaning In will ever help much. As you implied, it's systemic change that's required. What exactly that change looks like I'm not sure, but I sure am keeping my eye out for models.
I hope you write more about this topic, especially the feeling of guilt about what you owe women in general. My sense is there's a lot to unpack there, and I suspect that your feelings are quite common.
As for your Y-Combinator experience, I'm not surprised by any of that. One thing I've noticed from my weird little seat as the op-ed dude is that the women I do write for are both highly prepared for our meetings and overly grateful, to the point of self-deprecation, for the opportunity (PR and op-ed programs aren't cheap within the context of a typical start-ups marketing / comms budget). In contrast, men who are significantly junior to these women in both title and experience often come to me with a lot of entitlement. I don't think I'm saying anything that would surprise you here. And I don't know what the answers are here, and maybe there aren't good answers, but please keep writing about this because you really are on to something!
I think about that point a lot, too, Michael. And not only all that's lost when women step aside, but what's lost when we don't invest in diverse founders more generally. The ripple effects abound.
It’s world-shaping stuff. I like Substack, for the most part, but I’d love to see a platform that wasn’t founded by people who are so very similar to the people who founded all the other platforms.
Yup, same.
Agreed.
I'm nonbinary but was raised as a girl...the chipping away of myself over the years felt just like this. People wonder why I apologize so much but it's a very hard thing to undo when you've been made to feel small...
Fascinating to hear your thoughts on this--you have a unique perspective as someone with experience being treated as a girl and as a nonbinary person. I could imagine how hard these habits are to undo, I personally am sure I will never undo my apologizing and caveating. I've also come to view it a little more softly than I used to. Previously I was like, apologizing is weakness! Using exclamation marks in emails is girly! Be harder! But now I'm like...maybe it's nice when people emote and show concern for how their behavior impacts others? It's a balance, of course.
Oh yeah I think it can be comforting seeing people emote! I also tend to struggle with reading people so a little extra emoting tends to help too.
I went on low dose testosterone therapy for a bit over a year then stopped as I just wanted a lower voice, so now it's interesting seeing people think of me as a man, albeit a teen guy along as a woman sometimes. It's 50/50 but definitely interesting. I think I still come off as insecure either way due to being socialized as a girl with a very toxic dad growing up, oof! But slowly working on it. Trying to be kinder to myself too!
I’m sorry but I just have to add to your comment that I also think it can be nice, sometimes! I have even used an exclamation mark strategically, if it elicits a reproof that tells me something and I have an opportunity to starts a discussion.
I won’t bother listing all the ways men have hacked away at my sense of self and self worth. What I did about it; this spring, instead of letting it slide, I filed a formal complaint of sexual misconduct with the College of Psychologists against the psychologist treating me for anxiety and depression. I am amazed what that has done to improve my sense of self worth and my sense of agency. Initially it felt scary to have done it but the response from the College to date has been incredibly supportive of me in its investigation. I am feeling much more empowered and am now working with a great (female) psychologist.
I am SO glad you made your move AND have gotten a supportive response. I wish that weren't so rare. Here here to feeling self worth and empowerment as a result of speaking out.
So so many times working in the arts. It’s exhausting. You put it SO well. When I was younger I didn’t want to believe it was happening which meant I went further into the tunnel of bad situations: This is a great gift of being older. It doesn’t happen in the same way. There’s a greater sense of equality that I myself carry - and of course men pick on younger women generally. Youth is a magnet no matter what you do. It’s dreadful. I want to support everyone who is going through this in a grand collective gesture. Good on you for writing about it and so well. What I can say is, my Gen Z sons totally get it and are quite outspoken on subjects like these.
I'm very excited about your gen Z sons! I do feel optimistic that change will continue, slowly bu surely.
Yes! Changes are happening. This is in many ways a time of watershed
Yes, I have experienced this. It was called marriage. And now it is over.
Ditto here. Except it's not over. Literally sitting here today looking over what seems to be an abyss.
Thank you for sharing your story with us Rae! The more we talk about it, the more women know they are not alone. I was gritting my teeth the whole time I read your story for you, myself, and all the women who have unfortunately experienced this atrocious treatment in their lifetime.
I once had a boss who kept hugging me at work until I finally had the nerve to ask him to stop and he did, but it took me awhile as a 20 something back then to muster up the courage to speak up for myself at the beginning of my career. As a result of that experience, it put me on guard about men in the workplace and in general. Thank you for being you, Rae! Keep shining your beacon of light and truth in the world with your writing!
Thanks for the kind words! And I find it impressive that you were able to muster the courage to ask him to stop in your twenties! Is that sad that I'm impressed? But I do think it's a rare move. Hopefully he learned something from it.
I've been eagerly awaiting this one Rae.
While my slow shrinking came about from different kind of 'unrelenting hacking' the outcome was the same. My self-worth was gone. I had no idea who I was anymore. It's been over two years of trying to come out of that demoralizing fog. I've blocked out so many of the different events because my brain just can't go there. Partly because there was no one big 'main event' it makes it easier to just sweep it away, ignore, forget, dissociate. Until 5 years worth of daily indignities piles up on your inner psyche and your body and brain breaks.
Thanks for sharing you're experience.
I can definitely relate to the "blocking out" approach. There are other incidents that I only vaguely remember, or I can't really remember who the guy was. It's just too much.
So true. So many stories. I feel like you've triggered some bit of PTSD in me.
I don't wear skirts at work any more. I don't go to "mixers" or events that involve drinking, so matter how much they'll help my career. Oh gawd do I ever avoid tech bros.
And then my daughter, when she was 10-ish, said that when she grows up, she wants to do whatever is the exact opposite of my job.
What demented vision of success teaches us that this is ok, that we need to be polite and complacent?
Ack, that's a painful thing to hear from your daughter!
I totally am with you regarding social events and mixers. I also mostly stopped going a few years in to my startup, even though that's THE thing to do for networking. I still attended big conferences though, which were always awful for me, I would literally get sick in the lead-up due to the extent of my dread.
There was an Adam Grant interview with a filmmaker last winter-ish that really struck me - he said you go to networking events to meet networkers. But you want to meet the do-ers. The only way to meet them is to become a do-er yourself.
Become a do-er, I love this.
I can relate to this feeling of being minimized, reduced, flattened by (mostly) older men just because of their money, age or status. Nothing really happened but you feel dirty and unsafe.
Dirty and unsafe indeed. Have you seen the Barbie movie? I loved the scene where she first walks into the real world and tries to describe the feeling she has walking on Venice Beach. "I feel kind of ill at ease, like…I don’t know a word for it, but I’m conscious but it’s myself I’m conscious of...”
Yes. It's exactly this. Feeling self conscious because you are unsafe and you better be vigilant.