u/Bobcatluv

Last year I started regularly swimming laps at my community center for exercise. I was slow when I started, but have become one of the faster swimmers during the morning open swim I attend, which includes swimmers of all ages and abilities. This week I relaxed one morning post-swim in the hot tub, where a man who’d been swimming in the lane next to me was seated. He commented, weirdly in an accusatory tone, “you swam a lot faster than me.”

I responded, “ah yeah, I’ve been working hard since last summer!”

He remarked, “well, you swam faster than me, even with a kick board! I have anemia so that’s probably why.”

Dear reader, this man is at least 10+ years older than me (40s) and smelled like cigarettes, even after swimming. I’ve never seen him working out at the center before, much less swimming in the pool. I swam faster than him probably because I’ve worked harder at it longer than him. Regardless, he felt entitled to confront me about it because he was embarrassed.

I thought about this interaction and several others in my life where I’ve been expected to dim my light for men. When I was a tall child I was asked not to “humiliate” the boys in gym class while playing basketball by simply performing better. When I dated as an adult one ex told me while I was interviewing for a job with a higher salary that he would have to quit his current job for one with a higher salary if I got the job, to “avoid the humiliation.”

So was the attitude of other exes…I could do well, professionally, just not better than them. Me owning a home on my own while dating was also an issue for some men. Despite being the most hard working and qualified candidate for a position at work a few years ago, I was passed over by an older man who didn’t work half as hard because, according to my boss at the time, “it would be embarrassing for him.” (Incidentally, the same guy who beat me out for that job was pushed into retirement for poor performance last month, while I advanced.)

I’m married to a feminist who loves how accomplished I am, but I see how uncomfortable it makes some people feel when we describe our lives together to the point that they feel the need to credit him with accomplishments that were actually mine. He always corrects those people, but it still happens. We bought a house together last year and in our interactions with people in the industry, the assumption is always that he paid more for the home and he is the only one who maintains it, while the opposite is actually true. And the thing is, I’m not some amazing genius or powerful CEO. I’m a regular, middle class woman who got a grad degree, worked hard, and saved her money, just like every other woman I know who’s holding things down in her life.

I know I’m preaching to the choir here when I say this, but it chaps my ass the way the same people who work so hard in my every day life to diminish my accomplishments are the first to say that women are lesser people than men. It infuriates me the way it colors discourse around men and women in competitive environments. For example, the narrative that, “schools are failing boys” instead of girls outperforming them, and every instance of women beating men in competition that leads to accusations of cheating/favoritism or new “women only” spaces being created so as to not cause embarrassment to men. We have a stupid, unqualified man running our country into the ground in the US because low IQ misogynists can’t stand to see a qualified woman succeed where he fails every day.

I posted this because I want to encourage you all to keep kicking ass, to take credit for it, and to elevate the accomplishments of women you know. Women’s rights and freedoms are attacked daily around the world by insecure men and we need to keep pushing back with the truth. Right now, fascists are telling those insecure men that they can feel successful again if they just get women under their thumbs, because fascism depends on misogyny to maintain hierarchy and give those men the illusion of control while they’re being manipulated by those in power. Please, keep doing your thing and TAKE CREDIT!