Watch Out Ladies

Something I discovered this weekend - there are people who feel threatened by women with opinions.

My column on Sequart that expressed my opinions on a store closing got some folks riled up, which is fine. They have a right to their opinions as much as I do. But, it amazed me that once the intelligent comments stopped the remaining comments were not that I was wrong or mean, but that I was a bitch, that I was angry because I am a woman trying to keep up in an industry dominated by men, that my husband should brush up on his Shakespeare and read "Taming of the Shrew" and even (I'm not kidding) something about me having lobsters living in my vagina - but the 10 year old couldn't spell vagina so it was more like "v** i**a." (Is this something new, or did the 10 year old mean crabs? Either way, he's never been near my vagina or probably any other vagina aside from the one that gave birth to him.)

Somehow my critique of a store already gone, but never named, was far more insulting than trying to insult the fact that I'm a woman. At first I was insulted, but then I remembered some advice I gave to a fellow blogger when she found herself being insulted by these types - when you express strong opinions people will disagree. The better you express them the more people will have their feathers ruffled. It just means your doing something right. And when the best insult people come up with is that you are a woman suffering from penis envy with lobster crotch, that's proof that some people can't handle intelligent women.

Oh, and something that's true for both men and women, most of the time when someone fails at something, it is their own fault. Sure, it's easy to blame others and play the victim. In fact it almost seems like a human reflex to do so. But, truthfully it is usually ones own fault when one fails. The smart person tries to learn from that in order to attain success in the future. The fool blames everyone else, calls him or herself a victim, and is doomed to fail again.