When I first started looking into "WTF is actually wrong with men" I pretty soon discovered that it was actually a dominance hierarchy social system, one that boys and men are subject to and suffer under as well. The fact that so many of them are so desperate to maintain and uphold that system, even when they have a lot of experiences with it harming them, drives me a bit around the bend. It's not that different from being a part of a cult, I think.

I believe the only way to deal with that is to get more men understanding that and on board with taking on a shift to these norms. Obviously, we won't see all men getting on board, and the fact that late stage capitalism and white supremacy dovetail nicely with the dominance hierarchy aspects of patriarchy doesn't help, but I still think we can and must build on the healthy men's movements that are out there. Some guys are open to that and willing to listen to reason.

How have I not gotten drowned by those who aren't? Well, I haven't worked in an office for over 25 years. While raising my son with James, I got trained as a life coach, and had my own practice (mostly retired from that now). For 13 years I worked for a non-profit that gave pro bono life coaching to women in need. It was an all-woman organization and intentionally created along partnership metrics. It really illustrated for me what is possible when you make the choice to not operate as a dominance based hierarchy and how productive and enjoyable that could be.

The rest, I think, is building muscle to fight back (and otherwise finding ways to fill your own well so you don’t get too depleted). I was bullied a lot as a child (by boys and men) for being a tall girl and I am not about to take bullshit and bullying from any man any longer. Fortunately, James is a great guy who also has a lot of negative experiences of being harmed and bullied by masculine culture, even though he's succeeded by many traditional metrics of masculinity, so he is right there with me on that. Our son is autistic, and although he's not experienced a lot of bullying, it's made us both sensitive to this sort of culture where "not fitting in" is punishable, and how stupid and wrong that is. But, I get that in an office setting your hands may be a little bit tied.

I've definitely had times when I've had to pull back because it's affecting my mental health. If you see me writing something kind of aggressively upbeat, that's usually a sign that I've needed a change of air. But, I've also gotten better at knowing when to just not engage, when to make a quick pithy take-down, and when to actually try to engage in a conversation with an antagonistic commenter. It absolutely is a dominance hierarchy sort of move to treat them like Whack-a-Mole, but at times, I just can't help but do it because I do not always have to be nice, and on my best behavior with people who are being crappy to me. If they didn't want to be smacked down, they shouldn't have assumed I was an easy target and that their baseless confidence in how it feels to them should trump my educated position.

I'd rather reach across the aisle and have a civil discussion, but if someone is coming after me in bad faith, they may just find out what happens when you poke the bear. Being armed with a wealth of research and data helps me do that authoritatively, but that's just my strategy. It's not necessarily for everyone or the only way to be affective.

Wishing you all the best and hope you hang in there. Your voice matters. What they want is for us to sit down and shut up, and even if I have to take breaks from time to time, the knowledge that this is what they are trying to makes us do makes me determined to never let that be the case.