Attaining Respect in a Man’s World

Really quick post.

Today’s Google Doodle is of the esteemed Grace Hopper.

My ego is not so fragile that i cannot point out when a woman does great things in the field of men and outperforms me. She had a gift and utilized it to it’s fullest potential. I cannot take offense at it any more than i could take offense at Mario Lemieux being able to score more goals than me in the NHL if in some alternate reality i could have made the NHL.

She earned the respect and admiration of her peers not by being a loud mouthed pushy bossy bitch, but by actually being adept in her field and performing at the same level or greater than her male colleagues.

I tried computer programming. It bored the be-jesus out of me. By all rights, Grace surpassed me and many other men by leaps and bounds in terms of knowledge and determination to apply it. She earns not only my respect, but admiration for doing things i cannot, and for working as hard as she did to make it into the Navy.

Just because one can do it, does not mean all are capable of the same.

What i take away from this story is that when women come along that truly want to play in a man’s world, and do so because they absolutely want to (not told to), because they have the skill and ability (not the handicap/affirmative action), and because they want to serve their fellow man/humanity (instead of their own short sighted, short term interest of showing up men), then those women will get the respect and accolades deserving of as any man would.

Grace was a rarity. I honor her achievement and females like her because they worked hard and had unique gifts they shared for the betterment of society like most men typically do. Feminists like to pretend that men do not give credit to women, and this is bullshit. We do give credit and praise when a woman competes on a man’s level and achieves based on merit. Work like a man, achieve like a man, earn respect like a man, you will be appreciated like a man.

No favoritism. No exemptions. No lowering of standards. No affirmative action. No quotas. No female privilege.

It’s just that it’s not very common that gifted women like Grace come around, and it’s disingenuous to pretend that every woman wants to/can be like her.

She was an outlier ( are you paying attention Sophia? 😛 ) and harbored a gift in math. Most woman are not/do not. The statistics bear this out time and again. As the lovely Caroline argued in her post and her comment section HERE, women simply do not flock to these fields because more often than not, it simply DOES. NOT. APPEAL. TO. THEM.

Why?

Because they simply aren’t wired that way.

Women pushed into STEM fields abandon them quickly, not because of patriarchy.. but because it simply goes against their evolved nature. This isn’t a conspiracy, it’s reality. The delightful oddballs are the ones that thrive within a “man’s world”. We shouldn’t feel compelled to drive all women into these fields to ‘equalize’ the numbers. It would be folly to try. Only those that naturally want to should attempt it.

Grace, I commend you and your accomplishments and i recognize you for the outlier that you were.

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Related: What happens to companies when you let womyn in based not on ability but on quota. What happens when you give spots to unqualified ‘equality outcome’ whores.