My Genderal Interest column this week at Jezebel has a simple message: one mistake won’t ruin your life.
Excerpt:
In his famous 2005 Stanford commencement address, Steve Jobs spoke about the hidden blessings of his very “public failure.” After his firing from Apple, Jobs said he felt “like running away… I had let the previous generation down.” But, he pointed out, his humiliation turned out to be the seed of his liberation: “the heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. (What had seemed like a mistake) freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.”
Yes, there’s a difference between an adult dealing with the fall-out of getting fired by a computer company and a 12 year-old coping with the aftermath of having flashed her boobs on a webcam. At the same time, Jobs’ address didn’t go viral because it was only relevant to male software engineers and entrepreneurs. It went viral because it was a universal human reminder about resilience and the capacity to overcome obstacles. It was a more eloquent version of the same speech we usually give to boys, when we urge them to shake off setbacks as learning experiences and “try, try again.” Teen girls hear that message much less often, and when they do, it’s likely with the implicit reminder that 2nd, 3rd, and 97th chances are mostly for men.
Obviously, Amanda Todd needed and deserved a lot more than a pep talk about getting through the hard times. Ending the “one mistake will ruin your life” narrative must also be accompanied by a war on the cyber creeps who prey on young girls. We also need a (long-overdue) campaign against a slut-shaming culture that pushes girls to walk the impossibly thin line between being sexy and being skanky. While there’s absolutely no need to encourage girls to send nude pics far and wide, it would also be helpful to press home the message that a young woman’s worth has nothing to do with how few –- or how many — people have seen her naked.
We need a female Steve Jobs that, like Steve Jobs, also manages to find a loving, supportive life partner, and, if she desires it, a family.
Ten years ago Sylvia Ann Hewlett made the high achieving, glass ceiling-breaking, childless, crying spinster the nightmarish boogeywoman of Gen X. Lori Gottlieb, who should have known better, seems intent on perpetuating that cautionary tale for Gen Y. We can debate “having it all” until the Rapture, but if this one thing that men take for granted continues to elude a risk taking, mistake making, highly resilient female Steve Jobs, then we’ll never have a female Steve Jobs.
If you think Steve Jobs is great, Hugo, why don’t you strive to do something more like him.
On the other hand, if you think your article writing does more for society, why don’t you think that’s great? Lots more women write articles about gender topics than men. So women must be better than men, and better than stupid engineers, who could never do what you do. Right?
I mean, anyone could invent an integrated circuit, or write complex software, or lay out a motherboard. Hardly anyone can write their opinion about gender relations.
Anyone can write complex software. Few write it well.
Fewer see what less talented software developers miss: that most “complex software” really isn’t complex at all. The best developers and engineers have uncanny knacks for elegance and simplicity.
Likewise, you’re correct: anyone can write about gender. I question whether more women do it though, having encountered numerous men’s rights and PUA blogs written by men.
Few though, like Hugo, write about it well.
“Ellen”, I only suspected it before, but now some of Hugo’s characteristics have come out. I guess because he’s (you are) under a bit of stress with the irritation that someone is negatively critiquing his writing.
You are simply a “sock puppet” of Hugo. If Hugo gives me free reign to describe why that’s the case, I’ll do it – but I’m obviously not going to put a lot of effort into a post and substantiation, just to have it quashed by Hugo.
Shouldn’t it be
!Ellen
?
There are lots of people in the world who downplay what they do – but really deliver something to the world. Richard Feynman (Nobel Prize winner in physics) is an example. He was interested in what he did, not promoting himself.
Other people are great at self-promotion. Kim Kardashian is great at that. Those people have zero substance. Kim is a lot richer than Richard Feynman, though, or likely any reader of this.
Hugo is clearly, clearly, in the latter group. He is over-confident. He is a pretentious phony. But he will garner far more attention than someone with substance. Really a sad, depressing world.
While the innovation was not the same as Steve Jobs, I think the title should go directly to Oprah, who has done more?
Regards,
Austin Walker
Counselor for – Troubled Teens
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