Margie Clayman

We’ve often talked here about what it takes to reach that pinnacle of success in the online world that so many strive for. Over the last few months, and after a lot of observation, it seems like ultimately, to “take it to the next level,” you have to be willing to run some people over.

There are a couple of reasons for this, probably. First, running someone over, say, in a blog post, is almost assured to get you a lot of traffic. If I sat here and stirred a rumplebutt against any well-known person, I would be sure to get a lot of traffic and a lot of comments. My name would pop up everywhere. I could write a post naming all of the things I’ve seen in the online world that have driven me bonkers and have made me want to gnaw my arm off. I could use names to write that post to really make sure I was getting attention. I could link to posts that I thought were stupid and I could say that that author was clearly off their nut. I could do all of that.

And you know what – it would probably make this blog site skyrocket.

Isn’t that sad?

The red team and the blue team

The longer I stay online, the more various teams and alliances become apparent to me. In my particular case we’ll call them the red team and the blue team. I met the red team first. These folks talked to me and supported me well before most folks on the blue team did. I didn’t even know there were teams when the red team started talking to me, in fact. I was just feeling darn skippy that this online thing was in fact resulting in me being able to communicate with people (there was some question about that for awhile). As I started to meet new people and learn about new blogs, I started feeling like the online world was Sir Thomas More’s Utopia come true. Then one day, I signed into Twitter and saw a red team member and a newly defined blue team member having an epic brawl right there in the public stream.

Oh. That was an eye opener, my friends.

Undeterred, I continued to meet people, and still do. But as I do, I notice that they tend to be affiliated, loosely or tightly, with one team or the other. And it’s becoming easier and easier to see where those lines are.

The hazing

A lot of teams and organizations have a sort of hazing process you have to go through to gain acceptance. Back when I was in college a new frat member was stupidly invited to walk through a glass door to get in, which he proceeded to do. It seems like the best way to really solidify your place on one online team or the other is to write a post totally deboweling a person from the opposite team. This can be done with a call-out, calling BS, or other such. You’ve seen these posts, no doubt. Now you can also write a super nice post about someone on the team you want to be affiliated with, but that doesn’t always get you as far. If you’re willing to “be brave” and call someone out on your blog site, you get a lot more notice and positive feedback.

As I have said before here, I remain unaffiliated.

The really tragic part

The sad part of all of this is not that I will probably never achieve the same kind of Twelebrity that team members do. I mean, that’s pretty sad. Being mean to step up in the world is crap. At least in my opinion. But the really sad thing is that most of these folks on these juvenile teams are utterly brilliant. They all have great ideas. And you know what else? They all have great hearts. They are all kind. The support and friendship I have gotten from both sides of this ridiculous divide has been stunning. And yet there is such vitriol that I feel I am betraying some folks merely by talking to other folks.

The last time I witnessed something like this to this extent – fifth grade. FIFTH GRADE, people. And many of you are in your 30/40/50s. Many of you are respected business owners. Many of you have kids for whom you are setting an example (because if you think they don’t see how you act online, you are CRAZY).

So I’m calling you all out. There are better ways to communicate. There are better ways to set the bar high than to invite controversy, name-calling, bashing, and other things that this current online environment propagates. All individuals who participate in this kind of garbage are to blame. Both teams are guilty of making the online world a little bit more stupid and immature. Both. It is not “brave” to call someone out on a blog site that you know your supporters read. To me, that is more chicken than just keeping your mouth shut.

Don’t get sucked in

Maybe you don’t see these team divisions where you are in the online world. Maybe your red and blue teams are different from the ones in my experience. In any case, if you see teams developing or if you get an invite that says that if you write a super nasty post about someone you’ll be in like flynn, avoid the temptation. What no one seems to understand is that online badgering just makes you the badgerer look bad. It might get you to a more successful place from some perspectives, but you’ll be selling your soul to do it.

My soul is a little more valuable to me than some Twelebrity.

How about you?

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/duncanh1/4549360274/ via Creative Commons

You’ve probably heard in the news lately that a few people around the US are calling for a boycott of Girl Scout cookies. These folks are upset because they feel that money from sold Girl Scout cookies is being used to fund horrible things like allowing transgender children to participate in Scout groups. They do not feel their money should be spent on such a disturbing facet of the Girl Scout experience.

Normally I do not touch issues like this on this blog but I can’t sit silently by and watch this one unfold, and there is a very simple reason for that. Lives are at stake. Lives have already been lost, in fact. What am I talking about? I’m talking about the lives of our young people who are transgender, gay, or in any other way “abnormal” by certain peoples’ societal standards.

So why is this Girl Scout cookie boycott good? Because it gives us some momentum to talk about this silent epidemic that is sweeping away far, far too many young people. It gives us a chance to dissect how these societal biases work. It gives us a chance to put the recent suicide of teenager Eric James Borges into a context that will create, hopefully, finally, a sense of urgency.

Who is was Eric James Borges

You might remember the “It gets better” movement that spread like wildfire across the internet. It was a brief window of time when the nation and the online world was focusing, with both eyes, on the increasing number of youths who are taking their own lives. Eric James Bourges created a video as part of this movement (you can watch it here). In it, he explains how his mother tried to perform an exorcism on him to eradicate him of his gay tendencies. He talks about being spit on, being beaten up, and being threatened. Despite all that had happened to him, he put out this message trying to help other people. But now we have lost him.

The devastating truth

Eric is not the first person we have lost because of this lack of humanity within our society. Check out these horrifying statistics about suicides amongst the LGBT community from a site called Laura’s Playground. Maybe you remember the story of Tyler Clementi, whose roommate videotaped Tyler in a gay encounter and then posted the video online. Or maybe you remember countless other stories that have surfaced over the last few years.

So now, against this backdrop, we have people who are asking us to boycott Girl Scout cookies because a few transgender kids, despite all of their pressure to not be true to themselves, despite all of society’s penchant for treating them like low-life scumbags, despite all of that, they want to try to participate in an organization that promotes being the best you can be and including everyone.

Don’t these kids have enough to deal with? Can’t we let them try to find friendship? Can’t we let them experience the things I experienced as a Girl Scout, like camping, hiking, learning how to read a compass, and learning how charity can come in millions of different shapes and forms? Can’t we let them have a little breather away from the bullying and misunderstanding they have to face? It seems some would answer those questions in the negative. No. We have to once again shine the spotlight on those who do not live the way we think they should live. The fact that they are children is irrelevant. Let’s boycott Girl Scout cookies because a few kids tried to have something fun happen in lives that are likely complex in more ways than we can grasp.

How much blood do we want on our hands?

The kind of ignorance, cruelty, malice, and ostracizing that we are seeing in this scenario is running rampant in our country behind a million closed doors, within a million classrooms, and with millions of witnesses who stand by and say nothing. How many jewels are we losing, jewels like Eric Borges who even in the pit of despair tried to reach out and help others avoid suicide? What kinds of strong people are we losing? What kinds of amazing people are we losing? And when do we finally say, “Huh…I think this might be a problem”?

To me, this issue is really not about Girl Scout cookies. It’s not even about Girl Scouts as an organization. It’s about a cancer in our society that we are allowing to eat away at not us, but at our children. Whether our children are victims or aggressors, the damage is being done.

Let’s use this opportunity to talk about this. Let’s use this opportunity to show our support to a group of young people who sadly often receives the exact opposite. Let’s use this opportunity to make a really positive change in how our society operates.

I don’t want to lose another precious Eric Borges.

Do you?

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hinnosaar/4373634220/ via Creative Commons

There is a neat documentary out that studies the phenomenon of girl-on-girl bullying. A movement developed around the documentary called The Kind Campaign, furthering the shocking concept that maybe girls (and women) could be kind rather than horrible to each other. Unfortunately, when you hear about girls fighting each other or girls bullying each other, society often takes it to the gutter and well…I need not say more. Suffice to say, it’s not taken very seriously sometimes.

All of this goes through my mind as I read posts and articles detailing how there aren’t as many female CEOs or female “social media mavens” because women just plain aren’t mean enough to win the game (whatever that game might be). I’ve read posts that explain, in a seemingly knowledgeable way, that women aren’t as good at self-promoting because they aren’t as self-centered as men are (once again insulting men and women at the same time, it seems to me). Women aren’t shallow enough to care about something as trivial as success. Women are too nice and loving to worry about those cold worky type things.

Are you getting a little throw-up into your mouth there? Regardless of your gender? Yeah. I sympathize.

Let’s take these point-by-point, shall we? Oh, get some Tums first if you need it. OK, good.

Women aren’t mean enough to win the game

First of all, what does it say about our society that we accept, without argument, that the meanest people are the ones who come out on top? Is that really REALLY true? Is it only possible to land on the top of the pecking order if you stomp everyone else down? Surely there have to be at least a few powerful people out there who won their success by, say, earning it. Maybe there are even people out there who became successful because they *helped* people.

Also, I’m not really sure that it’s fair to men or women to say that women aren’t mean enough. I’m all for equality, but let’s be honest hear. There are PLENTY of cut-throat women out there. Like woah. There are women who will cut down anyone in their way just to get more power or publicity. There are women who are more than happy to sell their soul to the devil to get to the top. And there are plenty of men who aren’t mean who I’m sure would like to enjoy a modicum of success. In short, this argument appears to be pretty stupid to me.

Women aren’t as self-centered as men and thus don’t like to promote themselves

I know plenty of men who are actually so much the opposite of self-centered that I wish, truly, that they would think more about themselves, for their own sakes. I also know plenty of women who start the majority of their sentences with I, me, or my. On chats like Blogchat in Twitter world, just as many women as men use the hashtag to promote their own (sometimes completely unrelated) blog posts. On Facebook, I’ve seen status updates from both men and women that begin with something like, “Look how awesome I am!” And they aren’t even joking when they say it.

I would also posit that promoting oneself is not the same thing as being self-centered. One can promote him or herself while maintaining a good grasp on the fact that the earth, not the individual, is the center of the universe (some light historical humor for those who have gotten this far). Women can promote themselves, as men can, and can also refrain from becoming obnoxious. I’ve witnessed it. It’s possible.

So, again, I find this argument about why there aren’t more female leaders to be radically dumb.

Women aren’t shallow enough to care about success

This argument always confuses me. Since when was finding success in life and work shallow? Since when was hoping to benefit from hard work trivial? I don’t think men or women who strive for success should be categorized as shallow. Now, there’s a caveat here. If “success” is all you care about, you might have some problems. If success to you is just the collection of fancy material goods that you don’t really need, you might run into some problems. However, these afflictions I think are experienced equally by both men and women.

Dumb argument.

Women are too loving to care about cold worky-type things

The image of the soft, warm, loving wife and mother who is only interested in making the home as comfortable as possible is 100% fine. I think a lot of women (like me) have lost a lot of the art that goes into those skills, and I think that’s sad. That being said, “worky-type things” are not beyond the reach of most women. Women, by nature, are not little cubes of sugar that will melt in the heat of a professional environment.

Also, I know plenty of women who use the feminine qualities (as defined by society) of being kind and affection to further their work. I think of women like Lisa Petrilli and Molly Cantrell-Kraig who use their big hearts to infuse their businesses and their work with a great energy. I know men who do the same thing, by the way.

Crap argument.

So what’s the problem, then?

We’re still left with one last question. If none of these commonly cited arguments for why there aren’t more women leaders have been consigned to the abyss, why AREN’T there more women in CEO roles? Why aren’t there more women classified on the social media a-list?

Well that’s the rub, isn’t it?

However, ending the issue with a simple, “They just aren’t mean enough” doesn’t fit the bill for me. Does it work for you?

Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/worldbank/6080628851 via Creative Commons