Survival Mode

"Homie, I'm Professional"

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-LIL DICKY

You wanna know why I really started this blog?

When I recognized that you could be one of the best doctors in the United States and the uneducated, selfish opinion of a spray-tanned narcissist would render all of that education, power, and years of cultivated intellect useless. 

So what are we talking about today?

Professionalism in the workforce.

Or, how I like to call it, the differences in societal expectations for a female’s private life compared to that of her male coworkers.

Fuck it, let’s jump in.

Please don’t start talking about the patriarchy…

Oh, but guess what… I am. 

Acknowledging the undertones of our own patriarchal society means acknowledging the traditional gender roles that are almost universally similar all over the world at varying stages throughout history: from hunter-gatherer societies to modern day civilization, men worked the manual labor, having stronger physical builds, more calloused hands, and really embracing that burly warrior “save me kind stranger” mentality that I am still (annoyingly) attracted to (& why one of my recent Bumble matches extended that to my being attracted to army / marine branches, but not navy or airforce…woops…guilty as charged), whereas women were the child care providers, the “gatherers”, more passive, and ultimately, weak. 

As an aside, we all KNOW men were the little bitch babies who rebranded women as “weak” even though a significantly high proportion of women wake up in a pool of their own blood several days of the month, are capable of growing an entire human being inside of them, and then EITHER PUSH SAID BABY OUT THROUGH A HOLE IN BETWEEN THEIR LEGS OR GET IT SAWED OUT OF THEM, MOVING SKIN, INTESTINES, MUSCLES TO THE SIDE, AND THEN REPOSITIONING IT ALL BACK INTO PLACE AND STITCHING THEM BACK UP LIKE NOTHING HAPPENED.

Anyways, with the industrial revolution and moving away from agricultural roles, more and more men entered the workforce in factories or office jobs and women still stayed at home with the kids. Coupled with years of war after war (because a bunch of men across a variety of countries, who had thousands of acres yet demanded more power and sailed across oceans because men are ultimately selfish fucks and think they MUST “know all” and enact a “best” way of life over people instead of just minding their own fucking business) and Rosie the Riveter propaganda, women diverged from their traditional gender roles, traded their corsets and hoop skirts for pants, and realized they did not in fact need to solely rely on someone else for their health and livelihood.

Now, I will acknowledge, that there is some comfort in the fact that I could probably exist solely on my looks, willingly permitting myself to be a baby machine and collecting enough child support to fund my preferred lifestyle for at least 18 years. My dream, however, is for someone to just pay me to exist with no sexual or birth obligations, ya know, like the lifestyle of a wealthy heiress. Unfortunately, I was born a peasant (read: civilian army brat). But, who knows…maybe, when I’m inevitably still single several years from now, working on yet another degree or creative venture, I’ll back track on that and be begging one of the guys I’ve ignored for years to go back to his simp lifestyle and wife me up. However, that’s unlikely, because if there’s one thing I am above all, it’s stubborn.

I’d rather die of loneliness than admit my need for a man.

Do you know how infuriating it is to enjoy and crave the security walking in a male’s presence offers me as a fiercely independent woman? Ugh. gross. 

Yet, as more and more women entered the workforce, diverging from the “1950’s gender norms and nuclear family” model (heterosexual parents of opposite genders with 3 children where the male was the sole financial provider, spending minimum of ⅓ of his life away from his wife and kids and the female was a housewife who did more than a full-time job taking care of the children for no pay other than her husband’s meager factory earnings), we continue(d) to undervalue positions held by women, while placing excessive earning potential in administrative positions largely held by men, continuing to perpetuate women needing to meet the standards of male superiors across almost every field at nearly every moment in their careers. Unless you were a small business owner, or inherited a sum and could fund whatever projects you wanted, you likely would not have made enough money, regardless of what advanced degree or career field you achieved, to comfortably support yourself and propel yourself out of whatever modern day American caste system you were born into. 

Even now, I hold multiple careers: I’m a middle school teacher at a school in a predominantly low-income area, I work as a contract epidemiologist on SARS-CoV-2 (which, is universally no longer a hoax thanks to the negligence of the Republican lawmakers in Washington, D.C.), I have my own small Etsy business with my art. Yet, my male “Best friend” had the audacity to tell me he didn’t want to read my blog “because he would rather read something like that from someone who is ACTUALLY accomplished.” (Literally the biggest eye roll of my life.)

SIR. I developed an advanced stage prostate cancer inhibitor step-by-step from visualizing and recreating the active site to chemical synthesis to spectroscopically confirming it was the right chemical to then testing it in vivo for efficacy BY AGE 22. AND WAS PUBLISHED IN A HUGE NATIONAL SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL. So, excuse me, if I think that your opinion on what it means to be “accomplished”, just because you inherited a few family businesses in the hospitality industry and make over 5 times the money I do, is shit.

All you’ve accomplished is your Ocala Trump rally became a super spreader of coronavirus. Great fucking legacy. Go fuck yourself.

That’s what happens when you devalue the work that actually matters and keeps society running, yet allow men to desperately think they shouldn’t pay taxes on their 87 hotels that are purely for luxury travel. Build some parks, beautify the community, make things accessible, and reinvest in the people and places that allow you to not care about the difficult stuff as much. Because your little facade that let’s you ignore the realities of the world are because of THOSE people who are the ones that make your grandiose Gatsby-lie is cliché. You don’t need 30 fucking cars while people are committing suicide over the bleakness of the poverty they’re born into. 

The disappointing part is this isn’t just a regular occurrence with my male friends, who pretend to be conscientiously aware, yet still won’t call out hypocrisy when it’s in the form of their childhood best friend, spouting off racist, sexist, or homophobic remarks directly across the table from them, but it’s ALSO universally occurred at every workplace. Just this summer, whilst working on coronavirus deployed to a south Florida county health department, my supervisor sent out a site-wide email detailing the dress code, specifically “no skirt shorter than fingertip length”. Yet, the very next day, after confirming my skirt was in fact, several inches below fingertip length, it “was still too short” and she demanded I go home and change or be fired (which, she had no firing or hiring potential over me, for the record). At one point during the conversation she even confirmed it was well within her clearly dictated dress code policy (from her snotty email the day before), but that my legs, which were underneath my desk, which I sat at for almost every hour of the day other than lunch, were still “too distracting”. I don’t know what kind of perverted lesbian you are ma’am, but you’re making the rest of us queer folk look pretty fucking done with your bullshit subjective sexuality on our bodies. As a white, blonde woman, I pass for incredibly heteronormative, too, so I find it a personal obligation to stick up for the small instances when injustice occurs within my presence, whether or not it involves me, because that’s nothing to what people must do when they don’t perceive anyone noteworthy to be a corroborating witness. I believe the phrase was

“you are personally responsible for becoming more ethical than the society you were born into” and I believe that to be firm and true. 

But some of the worst criticism of women comes from other women–so how can we possibly dismantle a system that has somehow pitted conservative women who prefer the comfort of traditional gender roles against the free-spirited wanderlust hippies who just want love in whatever form it takes possible? Especially when the end goal for both is just valuing deep, meaningful, authentic love, it just takes a slightly different form? How do we convince those who don’t want to listen that we all want peace, security, comfort, and love, but the way to do that is not by refusing to acknowledge other mindsets, withholding public support and assistance, and encouraging a safer world for all? And the world as a whole is angry. So we’re right to be fearful. Within our own country, we are edging towards a modern day civil war, all because our piece of shit tangerine who holds the White House hostage called for a “Stand down and stand by” order for the Proud boys aka the Ku Klux Klan aka literal nazi’s in the United States. DID NONE OF YOU FUCKING GO TO THE HOLOCAUST MUSEUM AS CHILDREN? WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YA’LL WHO CONTINUE TO LOOK ASIDE AT THIS BEHAVIOR?

I won’t get into it within the context of this discussion, but you can find the direct comparison of Trump and Hitler HERE.

The important context of bringing that up is somehow it made more sense to have yet another shitty white male president instead of a false feminist icon just because the “its her time” mentality was a shit platform for a woman to represent a feminist icon to all the youth of tomorrow. Every former Trump supporter I know, and there are MANY, because I grew up incredibly conservatively, went to undergrad in the state of North Carolina, and went to graduate school in the state of Florida, would STILL have made that same exact choice. The stakes for the first female president were high, sure, but they weren’t unrealistic. Inability to meet these standards isn’t because these women don’t exist, it’s because we’ve sequestered power in such a way that women have been historically dependent on men for generations

We’ve allowed men to remain dominant across every society for so long, because of their sheer physical dominance. So our government has become overtaken with a bunch of ex-military men who could just as easily be shitty football coaches but instead go into politics who condemn themselves to cycles of violence because they never learn the value of a life whilst guiding drones from a distance and we encourage people to never step foot outside of their own little bubble, so the WMAL radio show that my stepdad plays every day, an INCREDIBLY right-wing news station, literally has an anchor calling for preservation of Texas as a red state.

Why do you WANT to be drawn to violence?

How could we ever be encouraging a less violent, better world for our children if we’re refusing to help those who show up on our doorstep?

You all are acting like the people who turned Mary and Joseph away. Might I remind you that the majority of you worship a book about a man of color who is murdered by keepers of the law. 

Yet, women have emotional intellect. Women are devious, breath-takingly alluring, cynical. Women haven’t been encouraged to hide their emotions so they parade them freely. Those who do it without giving a damn on the reception of others, become deadly. I would know, because I’m one of them. If you ever were lucky enough to see it in action, you’d understand the alarming nature of this blog is perfectly packaged into an innocent looking actress who can flip tactics at the drop of a hat. Only I’m not playing someone else’s role. Growing up in an abusive household–physically, mentally, emotionally, will do that to a girl. I’ve just chosen to use it for the “Greater good”, instead of the Kyle Rittenhouse version of a misplaced vigilantism that is really just lunacy. Believe me, I’ve contemplated long and hard about what people I would have enjoyed killing. My high school boyfriend beat the shit out of me for four years, I’ve stared down the barrel of a gun, I’ve beaten the shit out of someone who sexually assaulted me, the thoughts entered in fleeting passes while I stoically faced all of these, and many other, difficult circumstances. I think, even for sane people, or at least the majority of men, if you had been in that position, your fight-or-flight would’ve been activated and you would’ve put your own survival over your abuser any day. I’m resilient. A survivor. So if you want me to let the law hold them accountable, stop undermining my faith in its uses. 

If I were a man, my confidence that inevitably teems with sexual undertones due to the physical attractiveness of my outward physical form would be APPLAUDED. My acknowledgment of reality and the need for pragmatic decisiveness would be paraded on a Joe Rogan podcast much like Elon Musk. Nobody would make the “humble too” comments when I specify not feeling the draw to be tied down, because my value wouldn’t be tied to another person acknowledging it’s worth and placing it above their own, and I wouldn’t be assumed to place a greater value in someone else’s career and educational development over my own. 

So in 2020, what is the point of me “shutting up” and “getting used to it” when my aunt had to deal with the same criticism, commentary, and hurtful insinuations over fifty years ago just because it’s the “cultural norm”. Why the fuck do we think that is just acceptable, inevitable? Safer for women? And now that we KNOW better, when we can document account after account to prove this is a HUGE issue across multiple cultures, why the fuck aren’t we refusing to let each and every single one of the 50 states progress at their own pace of dismantling racism until history is in fact doomed to repeat itself because Captain America: Civil War is about to be released and suddenly tubby middle-aged white men are going to act like him taking a “liberal” stance (condemning racism) means they should boycott Marvel or whatever fucking universe he’s from because apparently human decency is a fucking political issue still. How about you channel that rage towards your other white men who are the reason we have to have this conversation over and over and over again? Okay, buddy?

People suck in every color, don’t think whites are so superior. 

When I make any decision in my personal life: sexually, related to social media or how I communicate with my friends, what clothing I choose to buy or be seen in in public, it can never be made without considering what those decisions might prevent me from doing within my career. But why is that so? We have a president who has undeniably sexually assaulted hordes of women, is implicated in a pedophilic sex trafficking ring with two other disgraced former best friends, and yet, even with that, this man was elected as president of the united states. Supposedly the most coveted position in the world. And I still didn’t want the first female president, a symbol for future generations of women to come, to be one who lacked transparency, who stood by her husband and political marriage without acknowledging it, who publicly condemned her husband’s mistress, a young girl who spent time with a very powerful man–a man of whom was supposed to be the bigger person, the authority, of literally every person in the United States. Fucking pathetic excuse of a nation we live in. THOSE were our choices?

And how do we go about enacting change if those of us who have access to higher education, even those like me who take out thousands of dollars of loans because what knowledge gives me will never not be worth it, get drawn into the bubbles of glitter and distracted by our years in debt until we look around and realize the smooth-talking con men of the world have usurped logic and condemned those in the public eye such that no sane person would ever willingly enter it. Your life inevitably going to be picked apart with such vulgarity that Joe Rogan’s Spy-Kids Floop Fooglie’s thumb-men looking ass can somehow roast you for your physical appeal as if there was any world where his opinion was somehow more valid when you were just trying to make the world a better fucking place. 

Maybe its because of the optics. Scientists were historically meager, weak, depressive folks. Our increased intellect meant we questioned the world with such intensity that we realized the bleakness in how far society has skewed humans from our innate purpose on this world–of actually enjoying and learning to appreciate the natural world around us, instead of always desperately building wall after wall because we’re scared of what’s outside. Did we ever think that Albert Einstein maybe looked around, saw the state of the world, and was like “we need to do something about this.” Why do we always reference his depression in studies about his life but not about how depression is inevitable in a society that puts money and individual prowess over enabling safe, loving human interaction? Of welcoming your neighbors? On teaching values of peace without tying it to one particular religion because there’s no “one” right way of life and if we don’t know that by now, then I really don’t think you should be able to vote in a cultural melting pot of a country. 

Or, maybe, it’s because when scientists have spoken out, they die. You can’t tell me those Russian doctors just fell out of those windows on their own. Or that Edward Snowden wasn’t arguably justified in warning the American people, even when, in my opinion, it’s hugely naive to assume every moment of your life ISN’T being watched, unless you live in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. To be honest, having a trail for people gives me, as a single woman, a sense of peace. It’s accountability. And as a woman, 1 in 5 of whom will be raped or attempted to be raped in their lifetime in the United State. Although for every 1000 sexual assaults, only 230 are reported, and 995 of those 1000 perpetrators will walk free. So I like knowing that there may now be some greater chance to hold those people accountable. But scientists are also usually quieter, nerdier, we were bullied when we were younger. I’m currently facing the knowledge that if Trump really does enact his authoritarian rule over the United States and refuse to leave office, come November, with some false claim about the corruptness of the mail-in ballot system, even though he had nothing to say about it when the same system benefitted him in 2016, I might need to escape to Switzerland and hide out for the content on this blog, because it may become “illegal” and I’ll be back in the Salem Witch Trials hysteria I thought we had finally moved past as a society. If you think I’m being unnecessarily dramatic, I would like you to open your fucking eyes to the reality that our federal government is currently preparing for the scenario in which he refuses to leave office and tries to enact martial law with a militarized police and Proud Boys army. 

And there’s truth in Michelle Obama’s infamous “when they go low, we go high” mentality, but it’s also as equally important to draw the line and know when to say “Step the fuck back, what I’m doing with my life does not involve you at all so take your god damn opinion and shove it up your ass.” If white men are wondering why people are still so irritated when everyone has the right to vote now, please look at Congress, to this day, and let me know how a majority of white men are SURE that they are the reckoning force to bring values of diversity, representation, and dismantling oppression into this world when really they’re just telling us they’re still comfortable assigning themselves as the gatekeepers of determining what topics have validity or not… even when they have no actual experience in the fields. 

We’ve also undeniably had an overwhelming presence of military leaders within every level of our government, largely due to name recognition and the power of symbolic imagery, so it’s going to take more than one black, male president to change the cultural ideology, especially when every new colored, queer, or gendered individual is going to be the first _______ whatever position still for decades to come depending on which state they choose to live in, inevitably overcoming the same obstacles time and time again all because we think leaving it up to “state’s rights” means parts of Alabama still exist in the good ole 1950’s, even though we should probably be sterilizing people that contribute to placing less value on knowledge (in whatever form), think LESS government will solve the whole “crime” issue, or just have an IQ below a certain point. I’d rather sterilize them, at least temporarily until they can be educated, than the immigrant women who seek out a better life, only for the “pro-life” (read: really just anti-abortion) crowd to refuse to acknowledge their existence because they want to universally assign a devalued human belief onto an entire cultural group with no knowledge of them as an individual all because they (falsely) believe immigrants don’t pay taxes, despite the fact that undocumented immigrants paid tens of millions of dollars more in taxes to a system whose healthcare they can’t access validly, a system they can’t vote in, yet one whose president, worth billions of dollars, pays less than a middle school teacher with two degrees working in a low income community. I believe it was Miss Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who tweeted, “Just to be clear. There is nothing “pro life” about denying people comprehensive sexual education, making birth control harder to access, forcing others to give birth against their will, and stripping them of healthcare and food assistance afterwards.”

It’s sickening, the hypocrisy.

And the patriarchy IS because of the military, but I find it impossible to believe that your prejudice towards military strength is so usurped by your views that you truly believe a man who created an environment where half of our country, particularly the die-hard, supposedly pro-military regions of Texas and Florida, will question utilizing masks and doubting science, in an age of global warfare of biochemical weaponizing, is a good man. If that’s the truth, then you are an absolute idiot. I have no sympathy in saying that because your judgment is clearly clouded. Maybe all of you constitutionalists were right and only 6% of the population SHOULD have the ability to vote. Plot twist–it shouldn’t be you uneducated cucks. We sealed our fate the day we tied property ownership to voting potential–securing power in the hands of those who take more than their “fair” share in a system undeniably rigged to benefit them. You should hold yourself to a higher standard than that as a human being. If your religion hasn’t taught you to place value outside of monetary gain, then this is the entire problem with organized religion.

And in addition to sequestering power in the hands of (historically) white men of various European descent, those same men now have this delusional sense of importance because they have tangible, real idols in every position and industry that are taught to them from such a young age that nothing seems impossible, except, in the modern world, maybe finding a girl who doesn’t still enjoy shaking her ass to funny lyrics on Tik Tok. Men–we all know you’re just jealous that you feel so restrained your theatre-geek-loving-self is hidden under more layers than Shrek. Get with the times, gents.

It’s that same elevated importance in men too that let’s them just “decide” not to be aware about the realities of the world. They cram a year of emotions into the weeks of their NFL fantasy football leagues–as sports has historically been one of the only ways men have been allowed, by society, in the United States, to actually CARE about something. They can get emotional, but only in reference to competition. But life is a game, baby, and we’re all just here to win. Even Albert Einstein is quoted as saying “you have to learn the rules of the game, and then play it better than everybody else.” But men with small minds, like said aforementioned Joe Rogan, Donald Trump and pretty much any white male still endorsing him, only see a limited sense of competition. They lack that emotional edge that encompasses the nature of unconventional warfare women are so talented at. Whether it’s been repressed for years because they’ve been taught that was the only way to achieve success or they’re just upset that the hot girl from their high school wouldn’t fuck the pompous pig they’ve always been, even back in the day, that lack of connection to empathy will always render them weaker. You see, for those of us who have had to learn to compartmentalize emotions–as I said, it’s a dog eat dog world out there and I’m always going to survive–any man who overcompensates his financial success with material goods and nothing else substantial is always going to come in second. Or, as I like to call it, be the first loser. Mainly because they don’t actually understand true happiness. Their version of winning, like everything else in their life, is a facade. They slap a price tag to success, or a position title, even the most coveted one in the world, now so pathetically devalued that it will never hold the same weight it once did, and cry out desperately for outward validation because they’re unable to provide that inner sense of validation to themselves, and they always will be unable to do so.

Within that same group of men is a special place in hell set aside for the men in STEM fields. Men who have been so pathetically focused in their careers, a great, noble goal (but again, it’s JUST as necessary to learn how to communicate your goals to the general public for it to be relevant, and teachable) that they have to be sat down like children and you feel like a fucking parental figure of a man several years older than you who refuses to set aside the time to expand his own cultural awareness. No, instead, he begs for YOU to set aside the time, time and time again, to be the one responsible for educating him, even though the information is freely fucking available on the internet, but you just don’t see it as a beneficial use of your time unless you can also potentially fuck the source of it one day. Cry me a river. As I said, I’m not mad, I’m just way less interested. I have been, since, even several months into getting to know me, you revealed you were STILL contemplating whether to vote independent or not. What the fuck, dude. 

Or the likes of those researchers, Scott Hardouin, MD and Thomas Cheng, MS, amongst others, who published in the August 2020 Journal of Vascular Surgery issue addressing the “Prevalence of unprofessional social media content among young vascular surgeons”. Which, hear this, went into a lovely, completely fucked up detail in which, a man, went through the social media of male and female surgical trainee, unethically, as he did not have the permission to use the Association of Program Directors in Vascular Surgery database for his “research”. (Which, if you ask me, honestly just sounds like a bunch of hot female surgical trainees wouldn’t fuck him, so he wanted to Mark Zuckerberg his way into the medical field by creating a way to effectively rank them that would negatively hurt their careers or personal sense of worth.) So these MALE students, supervised by MALE leadership, subjectively ranked social media posts of women wearing bikinis, OFF-HOURS, as “POTENTIALLY UNPROFESSIONAL” compared to men on social media. Note: male bathing suits were not “unprofessional”. Even if you wanted to potentially label a male bathing suit like a speedo as “unprofessional”, they WOULDN’T, because that could constitute discrimination towards the LGBTQ community. And medicine is the forefront of this discussion because we, as scientists, as cultivators of the human body, of artists of humanity, should be the most progressive of all, especially of the subjectivity of social constructs related to gender and social norms. Not to mention that women comprise only 10% of active vascular surgery members, so the barriers they certainly already face in a male-dominated field definitely don’t need to be raised. 

WE AS A SOCIETY PROBABLY NEED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE FUCKING FACT THAT PEOPLE SHOULD NOT ALWAYS “BE” PROFESSIONAL. AND YES, I CAN SAY THAT, BECAUSE OF THE VERY MAN SEATED IN THE FUCKING WHITE HOUSE. Seriously. No matter what your job is, you should be able to move through your private life, if you’re not hurting anybody else (which is why all you dumb fuck anti-maskers don’t get to just have your fucking “freedom”) with honesty and not be constantly terrified of the retributions. If the medical community is so progressive that a huge public university’s medical school can shelter a self-proclaimed potential pedophile who was investigated by the SBS and had his parents destroy all records of the child pornography he did in fact access, then we can be progressive enough to stop fucking stigmatizing women. Especially in relation to the blatant sexualizing of the female body through toxic patriarchal and heavily Christian overlapping themes, as medical professionals, you should acknowledge that your “danger zones” or “private parts” are literally just another body part and maybe we should be able to colloquially discuss aspects of health without stigma, and by shaming almost exclusively the female human body, we’ve condemned the women in our society to cycles of violence that are running rampant and unobstructed, led by the man currently housed at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Get your shit together, men. Because I’m fucking sick of it.

Wanna know just a few other bullshit things I’ve had to deal with as a woman in STEM, before you go overreacting or claim that I’m “unfounded”. Ask every single fucking woman for examples of things that they have to do differently in order to not either put themselves at risk in a male-led world or to allow themselves the ability to continue on the clearest, easiest path without adding additional obstacles into their own path–I guarantee you, the list will continue growing.

To date, I have:

-Had a man come up to me and my blonde fellow scientist and grad school BFF at a professional, international conference, and tell us, (making the assumption that we did not already know), that “people will see your beauty and assume you are not smart. You will have to work twice as hard.” We know. This conversation is proof of that. I watched Legally Blonde when I was like, 9, dude.

-Have had my fellow coworkers, one of whom I got the job, team up and basically decide they no longer wanted to be my friend or communicate with me at work, and one even had her boyfriend, who I’ve been friends with for over 8 years, block me on social media because she was so insecure in my friendship with him, while I still worked with them both. He’s literally the only person I can nerd out about pharmaceutical and biochemistry stuff, you stupid bitch. I hope you don’t spend the rest of your life that catty.

-The aforementioned skirt incident

-Been told that I’m “difficult” or a “bitch” more times than I could count–professional and private life alike, even when I was in the right, even related to my studies. Shout out to Tina Fey, because bitches really DO get stuff done, and men still love them. I’m not settling, baby. Get on my level or get your ass back to the dugout. You’ll be back up to bat eventually. Know your place on the roster.

-Have essentially been disowned by my family all because I lived in Florida and posted pictures of my absolutely phenomenal ass because, 1. I can and 2. That’s me, and 3. I’m the one who has to answer for my actions, not you, so once again, shut the fuck up. I went to Europe 3 years in a row. I study the human body. I question the bounds of reality. It’s gonna get a lot fucking weirder throughout my life, you can’t stop it if you tried. So stop trying.

-Have to wear glasses (they’re blue light and do nothing other than prevent me from getting a headache), yet am instantly questioned less and have to defend myself on far fewer occasions than when I don’t.

-If I walk into a room of patients with a male, particularly one who is physically taller than me, HE is assumed to be the superior. They will still ask him for his opinion, even after acknowledging my role as the superior, even though, when the roles are reversed, they NEVER ask for my second opinion.

-People are more likely to ask for a second opinion in general, or have to search or “look further into” my knowledge before they determine that I was, in fact, correct. I speak with conviction and authority purposefully, and yet it still happens. My own mother is guilty of this. 

-A male with the aspirations I have would be met with a constructive tone of acceptance when he explains his life goals. The possibility of a family is never mentioned–he’ll have time for both whenever he decides to settle down. Instead, I get the laughing disbelief and “you’re really something, aren’t you”. Oh, I for sure fucking am, or at least will be. I will achieve every single one of my dreams, and thanks to Claire (my wonderful therapist), I won’t even COMPLETELY discount a family, because there is absolutely no reason why I SHOULDN’T achieve everything I want in life. 

-Nearly every single one of the men I’ve dated in my private life have LOVED that ambitious drive. It attracted every fiber of their being to me. It was a magnetic pull, entrancing, the song of a siren, calling them to their impending doom upon the shores. It’s also the reason every single one of them succumbed to weakness, straying from our relationship with dishonesty and lying of various forms, so pathetic and scared of their own weaknesses that they then used the very reasons they fell in love with me so quickly to also be the reason they leave down the road. And I’m supposed to feel bad for them? No.

I’d much rather be single than undervalued.
Fuck that. 

Like I said, I’ll just keep getting degrees. Asserting my dominance in the most tangible way for females to do so. Because I am questioned, I do need the letters behind my name to command the same, or at least near the level of respect my male counterparts are immediately granted just by their very existence. And because their voices carry more weight, I unfortunately also need them to open their ears and listen to what I’m telling you. And then to SPEAK about it, and be an advocate, to their male counterparts who discount the validity in my assertions. Who actually need to hear it from them because, even if they don’t completely change their mind, acknowledging that behavior isn’t appropriate or DOES exist, STILL, can at least make them that much more likely to identify it if and when they witness it for themselves. It’ll make them stop and think, whether they outwardly admit it to you or not. And eventually they can no longer continue to deny it without looking like an ignorant asshole. 

Luckily, my ass is nice enough that many (white) men do follow me and will actually still take the time to look into it, out of nothing more than curiosity, so it helps me blend into the audience I need to appeal to. The audience that needs to start educating themselves so it can no longer be my responsibility to condemn myself to the task. Thank you Old Row for posting that picture of me on the pizza floatie. I gained like a thousand followers in a few hours, though with starting over anonymously under a pseudonym, I’m no longer reaping the benefits of men sliding into my DMs as frequently, just to pay me for something harmless like pictures of my feet, or me belittling the size of their dick mercilessly. Seriously, y’all are some repressed mother fuckers. 

I’m happy to make the money off of it, but since so many of you do it, the fact that I do make money off of it shouldn’t need to be some mystifying taboo secret. We live in a capitalist society with terrible redistribution of wealth. The median household income in 2018 was $74,600. Which means that, if you lined up every US household’s yearly salary, from least to greatest, and took the middle number, it would be $74,600. Half of all of our households make less than that. The top 1% of families in our country hold 40% of the wealth. The bottom 90% hold LESS THAN 25%. We are in a global pandemic and the wealth of our handful of billionaires increased by trillions of dollars yet most individuals received only one $1200 stimulus check, and that’s only IF they filed their taxes last year. We instead prioritized corporations and businesses over the individual fucking people? What the fuck is wrong with our government. Get that money, sis. They won’t respect you either way, so you might as well cause a fuss while you do it. 

And I played fucking football in highschool so I think I can make that statement. 

Clearly, tying every aspect of ourselves as humans under some guise of “professionalism” doesn’t impact men in the same way that it impacts women. When is the last time someone would see a male in a bathing suit and determine they “weren’t going to use them as a surgeon” based on how their body looked. If anything, the worse it looks, the better. They probably spend all of their time in the hospital anyways. For women, you have to tread this delicate line of being pretty, but not too pretty. You have to be sexually appealing, but your boobs can’t be too large, or they dominate the frame of your face. You can’t look too nice, either, there has to be an edge of mystery. I get assumed to be “slutty” for wearing a bikini in Florida (which was cheeky, yes, but much less risque than the actual G strings of the strippers in the cabana next to me) when you check my instagram, even though I haven’t had sex in 2 years and am a serial committed relationship person in general. (Mostly because the men fall quickly and they fall hard. Like I said, they’re depraved of such intimate connection that the second they see they won’t be judged for it, they’re captivated by the allure, only to recognize the course of their path and draw screeching breaks like the train in Snowpiercer at the realization their independence may be threatened. It won’t. Because mine also won’t be. But this is besides the point). 

And I don’t feel the need to leave that stuff on “private”, because part of my entire purpose in life, and part of public health, is reducing the stigma around things that cause inherent struggles and cognitive dissonance within society. It would be limiting my potential to withhold it, more afraid of the acceptance and how it is perceived than having to compromise my own values. I would rather use myself as an example over and over again than ignore the realities of the world out of “convenience”, even when the things don’t necessarily involve me as much. Because the shape or appearance of my ass has absolutely no fucking relevance to my ability to decipher and analyze data, to formulate opinions, but it absolutely can help me captivate a larger audience. To use my platform and people who otherwise would not come into contact with me for a greater purpose. You all obviously read and listen to this. You’re taking in my mentality, savoring it (or despising, either way, you’re supporting and enabling me, so thank you). I hope I can somehow intrigue you within the process of learning enough that you continue to show your support. 

In fact, one of the main reasons I keep myself in such good physical shape is that when men can clearly acknowledge my physical superiority, and tangible strength, it’s slightly easier for them to acknowledge my mental strength as well. 

It started with the Presidential Physical Fitness test in third grade, sorry Madison, I could do more pull ups than you because I had 3 hours of gymnastics every night. 

Continued into high school, where I ran with the boys in track, because they were the only ones who would actually run more than 2 miles with me, or when I ran 5k’s around the various naval bases, emasculating the marines with my light, elvish footsteps in my Nike Frees. 

Or when I played football and kicked a game winner, so I was finally “accepted”, even though I could have been used just as much to run the ball in, and actually play any other position or even like quarterback because not only was I fast as fuck, but I can read a sports game better than most people. That’s where intellect gets you as an athlete. The Eli Manning of all of my sporting teams. 

Or maybe it was playing baseball when the mom on the opposing team filed a complaint about me jumping in when the team needed an extra player, all because I gunned her son down at home from center field. By the next game, I was officially registered and all of my runs counted. Go take your participation trophy home, lady.

Or on the futsal courts, when I had to body the fuck out of the physically stronger guys, who took those opportunities to let my ass graze up against their pre-teen cocks, only to be like “WOAH!” just because I was playing exactly the same fucking way they played with the guys. You don’t have to go easy on me, ya know. I actually hate that. 

And that demeanor commands respect, because men have become so warped that the only time they are allowed to openly experience emotion in our patriarchal society is through sport. Coupled with the endorphin high of physical performance, and that maybe being one of the only ways many of them have ever been validated or heard words of affirmation, it’s no wonder they tie physical performance to desirability so much. So keeping myself in shape has its advantages. Having a six pack, which, for women is even more difficult than for men, because generally men don’t have a lil layer of fat protecting their uterus, and the muscle definition I have draws the acknowledgement that I can hold my own in battle. I am a gladiator, a soldier. But I shouldn’t have to make myself physically intimidating to hold my own in a progressive world. 

And I also shouldn’t have to soften my striking intimidation, my unconventional warfare, just because it comes across that much harsher from the face of a beautiful woman. You really fail to recognize that Athena, the goddess of war strategy, was ALSO the goddess of wisdom, poetry, and art? The woman born wearing battle armor was still able to understand and appreciate the softer side of the world. It’s all connected to emotional intelligence. That’s how you achieve true strength. 

So instead of stigmatizing women, or limiting anyone’s identity to strictly their professional role, how about we stop being so obsessed with specialization of just one thing that we neglect the multifaceted reality. Specializing and becoming the best is only really important for its generalizability. But the very fact that you seek the spotlight means you don’t want to exist in complete anonymity, that’s where the hermits who wander amongst the Appalachian trail reside. And if we seek greatness, which, historically, the USA has been rather inundated with thrusting upon everyone else in the world, then we actually need to start being great. Of achieving higher levels of self actualization. Of requiring greater standards for the level of humanity in our society, which starts with not creating an environment where your worth, and subsequent political vote, is SOLELY dependent financial status. And those who are truly great do not refuse to acknowledge their flaws.

So knowing that these issues exist, we need to do better. Men, specifically, need to do better. But also the women who use their positions or desperation for a grasp of power to harm other women, instead of climbing the ladder together. Even Drake has been trying to tell y’all that it shouldn’t be lonely at the top–that defeats the purpose. I talk about my experiences all the time, not to highlight the wrong doings of others (that is just a pleasant lil latent effect) but so everyone can learn from my mistakes or the events in my life to better themselves. It’s as self-critical as it is confident. I approach my personal life with the same scientific separation in the quest for knowledge that I do my IRB-approved studies. 

And more often than not, ESPECIALLY in therapy, I struggle to get through these discussions.

It’s HARD to be so resilient and strong.

I didn’t name this blog or podcast “Survival Mode” because I was frolicking through the fucking flowers my entire life.

It’s not easy to sit down and have these discussions with yourself, let alone others. But it’s a lot harder to live in a world that ignores it. 

Nobody is fucking happy for a reason. People are escaping to social media instead of reality for connection because reality sucks. But you have every ability to change the reality you live in, even just a little, and even by example. Let’s stop setting unrealistic standards for humans, even in professional roles. Let’s require accountability, introspection, vulnerability, even from our leaders. Because our leaders should be setting the greatest example of all. 

And life is a competition, yes, but we don’t have to measure the value in it by productivity. The best creation is not rushed. There is value to slowing down, beauty in recognizing and accepting the madness. It is luminescent, ethereal. We need to value humanity for the things that actually make us human in society–our connection, expression of emotion, ability to learn and grow together. Our capitalist society doesn’t need to dictate EVERY SINGLE THING such that every aspect of our lives must be monetized, or you only release art when you think it’s profitable. Learn to express yourselves. Learn to express humility. Compassion. Empathy. It’s far more complex and intriguing than anger.

Learn to once more value being human. 

Sources:

https://medicine.umich.edu/dept/surgery/news/archive/201904/women-vascular-surgery-symposium

https://www.jvascsurg.org/article/S0741-5214(19)32587-X/fulltext#:~:text=Potentially%20unprofessional%20content%20appeared%20in,(6%20accounts%2C%202.5%25)%2C