We have to quit rewarding these fuckers.

Mediocre insecure men in power are the worst.

So, I have this friend. She’s a complete badass and champions other people at every turn.

She’s a brilliant, capable woman in charge of a very successful program at her very large company. Like, she crushes that shit. Demonstrably and with the receipts.

But one of the contributors to this program is your stereotypical white dude with an inferiority complex who managed to get promoted to a position of visible incompetence (while, btw, not a few years ago publicly denigrating people, including me, with the exact same role as having meaningless jobs). And for weeks—nay, months—he has been a fucking dick to her. About everything.

He’s mad that he’s not getting enough attention. Not enough attaboys and accolades. He’s being a passive-aggressive asshole in emails, refusing to respond to things as if they’re beneath him, then demanding the whole fucking world stop turning the moment he needs his egotesticles scratched. He’s being a belligerent, confrontational bully in meetings and generally making everyone’s fucking lives miserable by throwing histronic temper tantrums when he doesn’t get his way.

And as my friend was sharing the recaps of these meetings and emails with me—after I stopped wanting to set everything on fire—it dawned on me…

Can you fucking imagine the reprimands women would receive for the same fucking behavior?

It’s not enough that the slightest hint of fucking strength from a woman or a refusal to constantly soften boundaries is labeled as bitchiness, aggression, or hostility. It’s not enough that some women in my mentions were telling me that they were chirped for “sitting negatively” in a meeting because they had their arms crossed while I have worked for manchildren who fucking threw chairs across rooms when they came across information they didn’t care for. It’s not enough that we’re told to fucking smile while we’re supposed to be serious, told to lean in but not that fucking far, to stand up after being told to sit the fuck down too many times to count. And all the while, we’re supposed to be gracious, humble, and nurturing while people tell us we’re not doing enough to be our own advocates.

Now, NOW, we have to watch and listen as these fucking fragile little bitches sit in meetings and push people around and get elevated to senior, visible roles as if their petulance and thin skin are to be rewarded while WE are told we’re the emotional ones, the mercurial ones, the ones who need to rein it in and keep our cool as they shout and pound tables and beg people to stroke their tiny, whimpering little egos in public to make up for the football teams they didn’t make and the daddy issues they decided to bring to work.

I fucking hate it here.

We have to stop rewarding this toxic nonsense. But we won’t. Because the very people who can and need to do so are the ones who benefit from it: the men in positions of influence and power. The ones who can speak up and call this shit out without repercussions or retribution. Who can change the very systems that perpetuate it. Who can drag the women up the ladder with them instead of acting as though they’re performing fucking acts of generosity and charity and checking DEI boxes by giving women their fucking due.

I don’t have a solution to this because frankly, I’m fucking tired. I’m tired of watching this shit happen. I’m tired of nursing the scars on my heart and in my head and wading through my own fucking oceans of imposter syndrome because of toxic men like this who are drowning in Dunning-Kruger juice but whose EQ and self-awareness are as weak as their egos. I’m tired of watching my friends endure this shit when our only fucking recourse is to share screenshots back and forth and scream HERE WE FUCKING GO AGAIN and know that no one, anywhere, will do a fucking thing about it.

So, at least for today, fuck this fucking simpering, peevish fuckstick and all the fuckers just like him who people still fucking follow and amplify and kowtow to so they get the skids greased on every fucking thing they want to do just by being their miserable, mediocre, petty fucking selves. I’m over it. Yes, you probably follow them too. Are you paying attention? Are you really?

And one day, somewhere, somehow when I’m fuck-you wealthy and have zero consequences or risks or repercussions for doing so, I’m naming names. Loudly and pointedly and with righteous anger.

Literally some people have motivation to be independently wealthy to fuck off to the Maldives or whatever and I want financial independence so I can pull the pin and lob the grenades and do some small part of shining a bright spotlight on the ways we have fucked this up and the people who have perpetuated it. The list is long but the years are short, so I’m going to make some money.

Because the clock is ticking. And these fuckers have a reckoning coming.

With love and lots of extra angst,

Amber