January 16, 2010

Being Bad-Ass w/o the Arrogance

Category: Uncategorized — Biella @ 3:21 pm

bad-ass

For the first time in a long while I took a vacation in New Zealand where I am for LCA. I decided to also take a break (mostly) from the Internet but I decided to it was worth to come back to write a brief response to Clay Shirky’s “rant about women,” which I find pretty unsettling. So the basic upshot of his entry is that for women to get ahead in this world, they need to not only behave more like men but in specific, like all the effing blow-hard jerky self-promoting men like, well Clay Shirky (I guess, right? and he in fact might be proud, I a woman, made this accusation).

What I appreciate about the post is the fact that he does not pigeon hole women as caring, maternal, and meek. I have always resented the idea that women can’t be assertive and confident. However, confidence and self-esteem, which I agree are vital for getting noted, does not inherently entail jerky behavior.I think Shirky’s perspective might be skewed because of his home field, which is filled with just the type of guys he is describing. I call them pundit-entrepreneurs (though to be sure some are pretty darn nice).

If you take the field of anthropology, for example, it has traditionally and for a long time been known for grand slam female scholars from Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead in the past to the ones of the present like Nancy Scheper Hughes and Jean Comaroff. During grad school, I was surrounded by strong, smart, witty, confident ladies and always felt I had role models to follow and emulate. They were not, however, low-life jerks clawing their way to the top of the academic mountain leaving a trail of destruction behind their path.

Then when I started to go to the tech and media academic conferences, I was soon swimming in a sea of mostly white men and the vibe was different. I was ignored and talked over a handful of times, which had never happened to me before. There was a lot more self-promotion than I had seen in other fields, in part, it seemed because the media pays more attention to this field so folks are trying to get the media light focused on them.

While I don’t disagree that many fields from medicine to law promote and reward “blow-hards” and massive unrestrained arrogance, I would rather not create a false binary between meek/low self-esteem/female and total-jerky/arrogance/confidence. Why not instead promote and highlight behavior that rewards confidence sans the arrogance?

Here are some thoughtful related posts.

10 Comments »

  1. [...] Interprete » Being Bad-Ass w/o the Arrogance gabriellacoleman.org/blog/?p=1878 – view page – cached For the first time in a long while I took a vacation in New Zealand where I am for LCA. I decided to also take a break (mostly) from the Internet but I decided to it was worth to come back to write a brief response to Clay Shirky’s “rant about women,” which I find pretty unsettling. So the basic upshot of his entry is that for women to get ahead in this world, they need to not only behave… Read moreFor the first time in a long while I took a vacation in New Zealand where I am for LCA. I decided to also take a break (mostly) from the Internet but I decided to it was worth to come back to write a brief response to Clay Shirky’s “rant about women,” which I find pretty unsettling. So the basic upshot of his entry is that for women to get ahead in this world, they need to not only behave more like men but in specific, like all the effing blow-hard jerky self-promoting men like, well Clay Shirky (I guess, right? and he in fact might be proud, I a woman, made this accusation). View page [...]

    Pingback by Twitter Trackbacks for Interprete » Being Bad-Ass w/o the Arrogance [gabriellacoleman.org] on Topsy.com — January 16, 2010 @ 3:39 pm

  2. [...] other posts I found today, talking about Clay’s rant. First, Gabriella Coleman, Being Bad-Ass w/o the Arrogance: I have always resented the idea that women can’t be assertive and confident. However, confidence [...]

    Pingback by Quick hit: About a rant about women | Geek Feminism Blog — January 17, 2010 @ 8:33 pm

  3. Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by BiellaColeman: http://gabriellacoleman.org/blog/?p=1878 my brief and ranty response to @cshirky on gender, beahvior, and getting ahead in the world…

    Trackback by uberVU - social comments — January 18, 2010 @ 8:41 pm

  4. [...] saved a few browser tabs with the better responses: Gabriella Coleman’s Being Bad-Ass w/o the Arrogance argues that in disciplines where women aren’t bashing against glass ceilings, for example [...]

    Pingback by On Self-Promotion « BlogHalt.com — January 26, 2010 @ 3:35 am

  5. Women don’t get the credit that they deserve. No matter how hard we work and how much we succeed it’s hard for women to get the same appreciation and gratitude as a man. Bu with all of this, we must remember that there are many, many men out there who will say that it was their mom, wife or sister who made them who they are today.
    I am a editor at http://www.powderroomgraffiti.com and this article reminds me of a article that one of our writers wrote about a female superhero character from “Avatar”. If you would like to see it, please go to http://www.powderroomgraffiti.com/love-it/films/i-am-neytiri.html
    I would love for you to join and contribute to the site. We would gladly compensate you for any articles that you would contribute. It would also be great if you would link to our site.

    Comment by Floral Joy — January 27, 2010 @ 1:56 pm

  6. Floral,

    I am super behind but thanks for linking to the site and article. I will surely check it out. Looks interesting!

    Comment by Biella — January 30, 2010 @ 11:46 am

  7. Thanks for getting back to me Biella. I really enjoyed what I’ve seen of your site so far. I can’t wait to see more.

    Comment by Floral Joy — February 2, 2010 @ 8:01 am

  8. [...] Being Bad-Ass w/o the Arrogance (gabriellacoleman.org) [...]

    Pingback by Nice Guy: I'm Tired of Being a Loser With Women — February 3, 2010 @ 5:24 am

  9. [...] I realized that though I first thought his rant was a reflection of his personality (at least his public persona, I am sure he is a nice guy), in fact the rant is valuable to an [...]

    Pingback by Interprete » On Internet Punditry and Engendering Change — April 20, 2010 @ 7:22 am

  10. [...] been some time now, but in january i read a post here that made reference to yet another blog post [...]

    Pingback by FIA » i wanna be arrogant! — June 1, 2010 @ 12:56 am

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