Blogger Z wisely writes:
I was wondering about the advice and doom mode, people do do that about pregnancy and children, I was wondering why … and then thought: they do it about other milestones for women as well. Everything is always going to be awful.
I never understood, after always doing well in school, why people thought more and more that I would fail the further I got. When I became a professor the doom and gloom factor from others got so high that I wanted to leave the profession just so they would stop terrorizing me.
I have just realized, they do it about everything.
Yes. Yes. Yes. This is exactly how it is. If I had a dollar for every apocalyptic prediction people gave me whenever anything whatsoever happened in my life, I’d be a very rich person now. I’ve had to stop talking to people at all about my progress towards tenure, because I can’t process that much negativity.
I think this comes from the remnants of the mentality where a woman should stay at home with a broken leg (an old Spanish proverb), or the end of the world will ensue.
Clarissa's Blog 
I don’t have any views on pregnancy or even on the next generation. I’m sure they’ll turn out fine. Or not fine. I’m sure they’ll turn out not fine. I’m inclined to the view that the current generation of humanity is quite rubbishy, but that this is only because they have been rubbished by nonsensical ideologies, vapid materialism and consumerism. This has very little to do with reproductive processes.
LikeLike
Sometimes people appear to be cruel and insensitive simply because they are envious. Women who cannot or who did not have children often envy deep down those who do. People who have insecure jobs or no job at all deep down envy those who are exuberant about their chances of securing tenure. It is important to view comments from such sources with understanding and sensitivity, and not always to take the view that they are trying to drag you down.
LikeLike
People are basically confused about everything. I have someone asking me on YouTube whether Westerners can be shamans. I say that there is indeed a Western type of shamanism, contractible through Nietzsche and Bataille and through the African writer Marechera, if you are already African enough to understand him.
This person writes back that these authors would make a “good start” for writing her forthcoming essay.
I responded, truthfully, that it took me over a decade to understand Nietzsche and that Bataille is difficult, too.
They responded, somewhat sarcastically I think, that one has to “start somewhere”.
But this is so much not the point. To achieve something as recognizable as a building of oneself, or to propose comparative measures in terms of the amount of knowledge one has accumulated, is not an essential part of shamanism. One has to go through the process of learning, which can take decades, but this doesn’t mean anything unless the outcome is what one had wanted. One could just as easily spend years on a useless project or on the wrong path.
Making comparisons whilst you are asking for knowledge as to how to make your own way seems singularly pointless.
LikeLike
People tend to get very upset when they discover that somebody has a project of conscious self-fashioning or a consistent worldview. When somebody writes for years from the position of “I’m a victim of inexplicable confusing circumstances and I will sit here whining about it forever”, nobody has a problem. But when somebody writes “I’m trying to figure out how to live a more fulfilling life and here are some great results I have achieved, the outrage is overwhelming. ”
Also, the idea that actions have consequences also seems to be extremely offensives.
LikeLike
So much of it is people demanding there must be an easy road to follow. Then they end up making fools of themselves, but can’t understand why. You can only take the hard road to understanding yourself, I think. But people have the stupid attitude that either Westerners “can” or “can’t do” shamanism (based on what criteria? There is nothing self-obvious about the question, as for example a system of permission.) Then, they think, if they are “permitted” to “do” shamanism, they must be guaranteed a successful outcome.
LikeLike
It’s the consumerist approach. Who needs to work for years when you should just be able to purchase shamanism or anything else?
LikeLike
Yes, it’s consumerism alright. It’s very funny, because people who think like this are not even speaking the same language as I.
LikeLike
This is true, but it takes a while to figure out. So this set of facts needs to be advertised more, I think. It is hard to tell, initially, that these are peoples’ motivations (and one does not like to think people have such motivations).
LikeLike
Oh and actually, there is a Peninsularist at UIUC who has a good rap on this. She says “people said I would never get a job, my husband would never marry me, I would not be able to get used to this state, I would not be able to have both tenure and a baby…” etc. … she has a longer list than that and it can recite it with much humor. She figured it out but from what I gather, not before going through quite a lot of exasperation listening to the doom and gloom predictions.
LikeLike
I wish I knew how to avoid this either than going into complete isolation.
LikeLike
I’ve also never experienced any “milestones for women”. I’ve had a lot of angry aggression directed at me in the past, for all sorts of superficial “reasons”, but they all seem to relate to other people’s deep cultural and moral projections, that I’ve never been able to understand.
LikeLike
Not “milestones for women” — that wasn’t very well written — I mean milestones, for women, i.e. if women do anything definitive, get married, get a PhD, etc. and people know about it and comment, they tend to go negative unless you do only some of the things and in the safe order (according to them).
Correct order is, for instance:
1. Marry.
2. PhD/job OR baby but not both.
3. If a couple moves for a job it should be for the man’s job primarily.
Etc. If not … you get the doom and gloom speeches.
LikeLike
I’m too far out of the zone for people to even notice me (or my strange antics) anymore.
LikeLike
“If I had a dollar for every apocalyptic prediction people gave me whenever anything whatsoever happened in my life, I’d be a very rich person now.”
I hope you wouldn’t become TOO rich and successful doing this. BECAUSE THE CONSEQUENCES WOULD BE HORRIBLE
“I think this comes from the remnants of the mentality where a woman should stay at home with a broken leg (an old Spanish proverb), or the end of the world will ensue.”
This would make sense, if it wasn’t for:
A) This stuff happens to men too, and,
B) This whole ordeal started because everyone was doom and gloom about your pregnancy. I’d imagine if people were so concerned with making you stay within the boundaries of your gender role, they’d be praising your decision to have a child and also encourage you to give up your career, or something.
The easiest answer would be people are just jealous of your success, but I wonder if it’s because people can’t empathize with anyone who isn’t downtrodden. Look at television and movies – a protagonist is always either an underdog or a successful, entitled guy who learns the error of their ways. Every extremist ideology (white nationalism, communism, radfem) likes to imagine they are underprivileged and look down on those who DO have “privilege”.
Real life, though, isn’t a movie or a political meta-narrative, and anything can happen. So when someone is faced with the problem of someone like becoming successful, they have to rationalize ways they still suck just so they’re capable of liking them.
LikeLike
They can’t say, “I am probably still stuck because of certain apelike characteristics. But, I will not be beaten! I will write a blog, offering my advice, entitling it, ‘ASK APE’?”
LikeLike
It is not just women. I have frequently, all my life, encountered such naysayers warning of impending doom. When I was in elementary school, a high school student I knew asked me if I had ever gotten an F in anything. I said “No,” and he told me “You will when you get to high school.”
The same thing happened when I was a high school student going to college the following year. This time three different college students, not just one, told me that I would indeed fail some courses in college.
This sort of thing continued, and continued to this day.
LikeLike
Sorry. “…continues to this day.
LikeLike
OT: I am looking for the right post, where this comment would be appropriate and I am failing because I am tipsy. Yes, I went directly to the supermarket post gym and bought Spanish wine, Rioja. Why:
child development.
In gym I ran into current teacher from my daughter’s elementary school. The daughter I later authorized to quit school because she was so traumatized already but she never told me details about elementary school.
They do not only have formal, ritualistic corporal punishment for students whose parents sign off on it. I knew this. I did not know they are also allowed to do other things like pick first graders up and push them against the wall at adult eye level to yell at them!?!?!
I am starting to believe in home schooling. These things are happening now in Louisiana public schools and I should have realized but I am shocked, shocked.
The justification is, “It is a country school.” F—. !
LikeLike