To the Guy On The Internet Who Tried to School Me in How to Be a “Proper” Woman

There’s nothing I love more than the unsolicited advice of entitled men.

Oh hey, you!

Yeah, you know who you are. Congrats — this should really stroke your ego — I’m writing an article about you!

Because, honestly, the advice you gave me of “how I should behave to be an established woman” really resonated with me, and I just had to share your wisdom with the masses.

I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear this.

So let’s jump right in because the world has to hear your words, for the sake of humanity!

So, it started innocently enough with your frequent comments under my articles (which were full of ramblings I really couldn’t understand, to be honest).

I was early into blogging on the internet, trying to grow my readership, and grateful for every single comment any reader left (including yours, which again, were in unnecessarily complex language).

I am a polite person, and I am also an eccentric person, so I had no qualms about leaving a smiley face here or there, and throwing in a few grateful statements ending with the “highly suggestive” exclamation point. *gasp*

I thought nothing of it… until you hunted down my work email through what I can only imagine was profile-jumping from several social media accounts to another, an online gymnastics routine, of sorts.

Your email started with, “This has nothing to do with business, I can’t afford your services”. Already, I was highly uncomfortable with the boundary you had crossed — I refrain from posting my personal email online for this exact reason — I’m not interested in unsolicited emails from men on the internet I have never met.

Thusly, it crossed a line for me when you used the only email address you could find and contacted me privately through it, even though your contact had nothing to do with business.

I’ve been down this road before — misjudging men by thinking they’re harmless and then finding that they are actually far more dangerous than I thought.

You may have only seen it as an email —but I saw it as a massive red flag. I see the potential of what it could become.

I started to panic and took every measure I could to further protect myself.

I didn’t block you initially — there was a chance you were completely innocent of being an entitled piece of sh*t, and that it could just be my paranoia and anxiety from my sexual assault acting up. I knew that was a possibility.

So, instead, I just removed my personal phone number from my business website (now the only form of contact can be initiated through filling out an email form), and I messaged a good friend from this platform and asked for her guidance as to whether I should be concerned about your actions.

She talked me down from a massive panic attack, assuring me that she too had had encounters with you, but she thought you were probably just lonely and harmless.

We agreed that I should not reply to your email. So I didn’t.

Instead, I wrote this article, inspired by that inappropriate crossing of boundaries you initiated:

I didn’t stroke your ego, so you retaliated.

I know your kind — I've dated your kind.

The type of guy who feels entitled to my attention simply because you’ve given me yours, whether I wanted it or not.

You’d be the type of guy to forcibly buy a girl a drink, and then when she declines going back to your place for a one-night stand, you’d get furious and shout that she’s “a slut” to the entire bar.

I almost didn’t publish the article above.

What if you realized that it was inspired by you?

What if that pushed you to cross another line?

What if speaking my mind put me in harm’s way?

In the end, I felt it was my womanly duty to hit “publish”.

Because I knew the fear I was experiencing had encouraged many women before me to not publish their work. I knew I would be speaking to a very real reality for women online.

So I sent it out.

Whether it was seeing that article, or the fact that I didn’t reply to your unsolicited email, I’m not sure which but I guess I made you mad.

I guess you wanted lyrical revenge.

I guess you wanted to put me in my meek-and-mild woman’s place.

Too bad for you — Momma didn’t raise no meek nor mild woman.

People like you are why “Block” buttons were created.

It was radio silence for a few days, after my article went out and I didn’t respond to your email. You also didn’t engage with any of my articles.

Trust me, that didn’t at all break my heart.

But, to absolutely no surprise of my own, you eventually did comment on another article.

You were clearly trying choosing your words very carefully — trying to one-up me from an intellectual and poetic standpoint, I suppose.

I’m not going to post your entire comment here, but these were the key points:

• You boasted about spending Women’s History Month reading up on “selfless established female writers” from history (ou, a whole month, go you, you’re a real expert on womanhood now)
• You pointed out that you had read many of my articles, and “suggested” that if I was “full on writing about myself” by now (which in your opinion I was supposed to be), I should start writing a little more “selflessly”
• You “suggested” that I stop writing about myself, and instead write 5-minute articles on the biographies of these 30+ women you had studied for that one whole entire month (clearly, you knew they had an important lesson to teach me)
• You highlighted a quote I had written, which referenced that I would like to inspire other young female readers through the stories of the powerful, gritty female leads in my YA fiction novels
• Following that highlight, you “suggested” (oh, how I love your suggestions so), and this one I have to quote, “If you have anything to opine on about my comments I suggest you take some copious notes on the world of femininity you wish to influence in the world.”

You just can’t make gold like that up!

I found myself in the same predicament as before — should I play it safe and not expose myself to further misogyny online by simply staying silent? Or should I post the response I absolutely drafted right away but didn’t immediately publish because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to give you any further attention than I already had?

Ultimately, my #1 priority is always to protect myself.

That said, your response was, in essence, saying,

“Shut up you self-centred woman, the stories you have to tell don’t matter, take some advice from women back in the day and accept your role as a passive (and mostly silent) observer of life”.

This was different than when you sent me that unsolicited email.

While I admittedly felt some fear, I also felt that ignoring and not responding to your comment would mean I was accepting my role as the silenced, invaluable, mouse-like woman you expected me to be.

So I crafted the following response, and published it in reply to your comment:

Hi X— thanks for leaving your unsolicited suggestions.

I can’t help but notice that there is a portion of your response from above which has been modified from its original integrity — that said, Medium kindly sent your full response directly to me via email.

In your final paragraph, you had written another kind suggestion: “Already read about half of your Medium entries in the last two weeks, so if you have anything to opine on about my comments I suggest you take some copious notes on the world of femininity you wish to influence in the world.”

I’ll have to pass on your suggestion to follow your rigorous and I’m sure exhausting study of feminism and female writing over that long month, and will also pass on your feeling that I need to write “copious notes on the world of femininity I wish to influence”.

I’ll instead refer to the notes I collected through the 4 years of my Bachelor of Arts with an International Development degree, in which I specialized in gender studies and feminism, while also referring to the notes I have been collecting in my 25 years of living as a woman in the “world of femininity” I already exist and thrive in.

Sorry to hear that you feel I’m not the “selfless female writer” of centuries past you believe I should be — what a devastating loss to hear this.

Oh well, still likely to continue writing about my experiences as a woman and a writer, so, unfortunately, I’m not going to take your advice ceasing on that either.

I guess I’ll just continue selfishly sharing my stories of misogynistic encounters, surviving sexual assault and living with trauma from horrible abuse and male entitlement thrust upon me.

Shucks.

Feel free to stop reading or unfollow or block me if this choice does not suit you (apparently you do this a lot, so by all means, block away).

Final Word.

I eventually chose, for my own sanity, to block this guy first, after several more days as of his continued passively aggressive commenting on my articles.

A real loss, I can assure you.

There’s not much else to be said, but I do want to note this last bit — in my first article inspired by this entitled man, I ended it with the following statement:

I shouldn’t have to be silenced just so that I can protect myself as a woman from the inevitable dangers of having a voice and an opinion.

Heads up, I’m not going to be silenced. I refuse to.

I will use my voice loud and proud. I will not be intimidated and shamed into silence.

It was through originally writing that previous article that I found the courage to confront this person and stand up for myself.

I doubt that my words have made any impact whatsoever.

But I didn’t post my reply for his benefit — I posted it for my own.

Because I want to be sure I’m continuing to write from the heart. I want to be sure I’m not being shamed into silence. I want to be true to who I am, without any worry about how I am perceived.

Because I will always, boldly and proudly, be exactly who I am.

“Well behaved women seldom make history.”

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