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I find it sad that several of the women who were long time writers and commentators on HD have not been heard from recently.
I miss their commentary and challenging points of view. Just because you don’t agree or don’t like questions is no reason to leave us. I hope.
We need to be taken to task sometimes. To be challenged.
So, if you are still reading HD, come back to us and comment. If you read HD, but have never commented, please give it a try. Post your own ideas too.
I do not understand why there are so many “deleted” comments, and mostly those by the ladies.
Agree. Seems that some “moderation” is going on.
Hi everyone. I’m one of the “ladies” who stopped participating after my last post in early January. I only recently started looking at HD again and saw this post and even my name mentioned in a couple of comments, so I thought I’d add my own thoughts.
I agree with Dick that the purpose of a “Forum” includes, among other things, being “challenged,” “questioned,” or even “taken to task.” If you write posts or comment on a site such as this one, you should expect that. I enjoy and welcome the exchange of ideas.
That is not why I stopped participating. I did so for one specific reason: the anonymous downvotes. Those are not “questions” or “feedback.” It’s bullying and trolling. It’s disrespectful. There is no other way to characterize it. If you have something to say, make a comment and put your name (or at least your board name) behind it. From scrolling through the comments on this post, I see nothing has changed.
I want to be clear that when I was writing articles, posting on the Forum, and commenting on other people’s articles and posts, the vast majority of people who interacted with me in the comments were kind, welcoming, and respectful. There are a lot of smart and kind people on this site, and I’m grateful to have gotten to “know” you in a virtual sense. I’ve learned a lot from you.
In fact, something I learned here is relevant to my comment: One of the pleasures of retirement is more freedom to pick and choose how you will spend your time and energy. I volunteered* my time writing articles and posts over a period of several years, but I don’t see why I should keep doing so if I am not going to be treated respectfully.
Some might say that this is too “thin-skinned” or “sensitive” or “emotional” of a stance, but I see it as a position of agency and self-respect. I’m sure some will disagree. That is fine.
I wish all of you well, and if the anonymous voting feature ever is removed, I’d consider re-engaging. Blessings for now–Dana
*Jonathan offered payment when I first started publishing articles, and I declined, so I really was a volunteer.
In my first career (I went back to school in my 40’s and got a PhD in business and moved on to college teaching) I took juvenile delinquents canoeing across the state of Florida (and also worked with other populations in outdoor adventure and on tall ships where I got various USGS coast guard licenses – getting those licenses was not common for a woman to do at that point in time). That job taught me a life long skill (that I had to learn the hard way) that I am very grateful to have learned – how not to let others trigger me.
That has helped me raise a very troubled kid adopted at 10. She screamed at me once, “I hate it when you use your calm voice when I am trying to make you mad” (I had to work very hard not to laugh). It was helpful when students would try to push buttons when they hated grading decisions or me enforcing late work decisions (that were in writing in the syllabus) as they wanted to be able to then complain about me and my reaction to them in those discussions to the department chair and hopefully get him to overturn my decision, get me in trouble, etc.
While learning how not to be triggered doesn’t change the reality of others behaving like jerks or worse (and the behavior of others often says more about them than about me) it has saved me a lot of emotional distress, increased my ability to ignore that crap without getting upset or taking it personally, and I am a lot happier because of that (and yes I sometimes still can have buttons pushed but not very often),
While in a voting system if there are a majority of downvotes that may make me reconsider if I am the problem here/am wrong/whatever, I look at the preponderance of evidence and shrug and the minority view. If there are comments where a downvoter (the forum I am on where I post a lot you can see who up or downvoted) says something that causes me to rethink what I am thinking then I am (usually) grateful even if how they did it is problematic (although I may sigh at their childish behavior).
It’s not right for people to behave in ways to try to hurt the feelings of others, but then again there are a fair number of people in this world who behave in childish ways, are troubled… and that is not my problem (unless they have power over me or I have to interact with them frequently) that is their problem. And fortunately somehow I have learned how to shrug off most of that kind of behavior. For that I am very grateful and that lesson I learned in a very painful, hard way has been very useful. I was very lucky to have learned it.