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Sometimes, I Fantasize About Taking Down My Highest Earning Story
The trolls keep coming and they don’t stop coming
This morning, someone commented that my eggs must be dusty because I voiced irritation with how frequently media depicts women obsessing over babies, as if this is our default mode of being.
And yes, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman writing online about being a woman will attract the occasional troll. But it never ceases to surprise me, the things that people will say online with the guise of anonymity.
For whatever reason, I spent my first year or so on Medium without attracting the attention of such men (because, let’s be honest, it is usually men). I even started to think this was a magical corner of the internet where this kind of sexist trolling didn’t exist.
But then, I wrote my first piece that uses the hashtag “feminism.” And there, I found them. Or rather, they found me.
Like any piece of writing, there are things I would change now about what I wrote when I first penned this article about why I stopped teaching Wonder Woman in my superhero themed writing course.
Some of the commenters made interesting points which have shifted how I think about the issue. I like to think I’m not overly precious about my own opinions.
But, as I teach my intro to college students, you can’t have a true dialogue without some mutual rules of engagement. And the men who comment on this article often break those rules in the language they use and the assumptions they make.
They do not come seeking to further the dialogue. They come fists out, aiming to hit me where they imagine it hurts most. They come with profiles that use fake names and screen names they can hide behind. They come to poke and prod and, I assume, try to get a rise out of me.
In addition to the aforementioned reference to the (in)viability of my eggs, I’ve been told that I must have body image issues, that my students won’t learn anything from my class, that it is a pointless waste of money.
That last one, I must admit, did strike true in the soft underbelly of my imposter syndrome.
