"I see what you're saying, but sexism is a big issue in many industries," Zac said. "We both have mutual female friends who have told us some pretty shocking stories of the kind of sexist crap they have to put up with."
"Of course there is sexism in industries," I said. "I mean, do you have any idea the amount of free press coverage I got in Australia because I happened to have boobs and long hair? An Australian reporter once called me up when I was living in Silicon Valley. He said, 'Nikki, I need your help. I've got this story about Australian entrepreneurs moving overseas. My editor says it can be on the front page of the newspaper, but only if I can feature a female and have her face on the cover. Can you please be a part of this story? It will be above the fold, which is kinda a big deal. Frontpage of the national newspaper.' I said no because I was busy and didn't particularly want more press coverage in Australia when I was in the US. The journalist pleaded, and I caved.
And that's how my ugly mug got on the front page of the newspaper. It wasn't because I was capable. It was because I was a woman. The way I got press coverage was so sexist, and I hated it and loved it and leveraged it at the same time. At the end of the day, I'm a pragmatist. Give me some lemons, and I'll make some world-class lemonade. Look at me, doing exactly the thing that I accuse the journalists of doing — adapting to the incentives of the system and then justifying it in my own mind.
Anyway, I'm not saying sexism doesn't exist. It does, and I've got some funny stories-"
"Like what?"
"Okay, well, here's one. Back when I was running 99dresses in New York, everyone on my team who worked in the office was female, except Marcin. He was a man in his mid-thirties. I was a twenty-two-year-old girl.
One Sunday afternoon, I was working by myself in our coworking space. Another entrepreneur — a man running a finance startup — came over to chat. He said, 'I have to ask… you're here on a Sunday afternoon, and I always see you working late in the office. I'm trying to figure out how to motivate my team. How does he get you to work so hard?' I wasn't sure what he was going on about until I realized he was referring to Marcin. He just assumed the only male on the team must be the CEO, and I was some young girl that Marcin had hired. I then told him it was my business and my team, so of course I was motivated."
"That is simultaneously sad and hilarious," Zac laughed.
"Yeah," I giggled. "I've actually had a pretty good run compared to some friends. The problem is especially prevalent if you're a young female in a leadership position. People often mistake my CEO friends for personal assistants.
I once worked with a man in his mid-thirties, back when I was in my early twenties. When the relationship fell apart, he wouldn't tell me why. It was like asking for a divorce with no explanation. I finally got the truth out of him. Apparently, he found working with me, quote-unquote, 'emasculating.'
Oh — and you should read the sexist comments that people make on articles about me. If I raise money, I must have slept my way to the top. When I talk publicly about technology and coding education, there are always men saying, 'Look at her! She can't write a line of code!' as if my appearance has anything to do with my intelligence."
"That must make you pretty angry, right?"
"The trolls? Not as much as it used to," I shrugged. "Nowadays, I try to remember Teddy Roosevelt's speech, which is easier said than done."
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong woman stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the woman who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends herself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if she fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that her place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Teddy Roosevelt
"I guess if I look at the situation rationally, it's just a bit sad. If I imagine the sexist person as a little AI bot in a computer game, modeling his environment according to a Bayesian process, it's pretty obvious where unconscious bias originates. If all the data coming into a man's senses tells him that only men are CEOs, it's perfectly logical why he'd automatically put a young female in the 'personal assistant' box. It's wrong, but it's also just math. Math isn't personal.
I dunno. I guess I can bitch and moan about the way the world is, or I can be the change I want to see in the world. It's hard to do both at the same time, so I choose the latter. Besides, everything is always rigged in my favor. I truly believe that. Sometimes I just need to get a little creative in order to figure out how."
"Well, aren't you the eternal optimist," Zac smirked.
"I am," I beamed. "Plus, there are plenty of advantages that come from being young and female to balance out the perceived negatives. I tend to get fired up when people underestimate me. It's good motivation to prove them wrong.
I've actually noticed that the world loves to label everything as black and white, good and bad, smart and stupid, pretty and ugly. We love to fragment the world and put everyone and everything in a box. We call a situation 'good' and a person 'bad.' But is the situation really good? Is the person really bad? Relative to what? Situations that I thought were bad ended up being the best thing to ever happen to me, in retrospect. People that I labeled 'bad' ended up being good people who were deeply hurting and taking it out on me. Other times, I was the one in the wrong, once I'd had some time to reflect on my behavior. I'm certainly not a perfect, enlightened angel.
I just feel like we've lost our sense of empathy and compassion for each other in this world. We talk about racial or economic privilege, but we never mention the privilege of love. You can be a poor boy raised by parents who shower you with love and teach you to respect women. You can also be a rich boy raised by parents who never showed you any love and taught you to disrespect women. In that case, the poor boy is in the position of privilege as well, is he not? We can call the rich man a horrible person for being a sexist pig, but then we also have to call the poor man a horrible person for dealing drugs to feed his wife and daughters. Both broke the moral code of our society, but both also started their life with different privileges.
As with everything, I believe the answer to solving these problems is to focus on yourself. Be selfish. Become the best version of yourself, and help others become better versions of themselves too, so that they may inspire those around them. Yes, push for positive political change. Yes, stand for something you believe in. Do all of those things, but do it with love and not hate. Don't stand against something — stand for something. Be the change you want to see in the world and help others do the same when they're ready. Instead of punishing people for their moral crimes, perhaps we should have some compassion for them. It could have been you performing those crimes, were you just born into a different family or different circumstances. Plus, at the deeper level of reality, you and the criminal are the same person. We are all the same entity, observing itself from different perspectives. When you spit on another, you spit on yourself."
