The Woman in the Arena

Unless you're in there with her, she's not interested in your feedback

I happened upon an interesting comment in my social media recently. I found it stashed in one of the dark corners — a folder where Instagram hides content from faceless accounts, trolls or bots — protecting me from unsolicited and assorted nastiness or hate or just plain, good old-fashioned sexual harassment.

One of the best things about this folder is that I usually forget all about it. It fills up rather quickly and when I remember to check and empty its contents, I typically scan to make sure a legitimate message from a friend, acquaintance or some other kind soul hasn’t gotten lumped in with the other scum on the skimmer.

Sometimes the messages are rather funny —  one opening with a stilted “Hello, Dear” followed by an invitation to be a sugar baby, accounts with several Xs in the name encouraging me to click on a malicious link to “see more,” a series of several messages from a complete stranger with no profile photo that say nothing more than, “hey” followed by a final, disgusted comment calling me stuck up, and full of myself for not responding.

This is how it goes, the messages accumulating like leaves in a gutter. 

I set a policy for myself many years ago that I was not going to just allow the tsunami of negativity on the Internet to sweep me and my mental health into oblivion. I decided to run my social media accounts the way I wanted — encouraging anyone who didn’t like it to go elsewhere.

I’ve been accused of being thinned-skin more than once and I used to get mad about it, but as I’ve aged, I see less of a need to try to convince anyone that I’m tough. I don’t care. I don’t have the energy. I have other things to do. Life is hard enough. I don’t need or want someone with WiFi and an axe to grind to make it any harder. Muting, blocking, ignoring — as far as I’m concerned — it’s all self care. I’m not in the business of being a doormat.

Most importantly: I don’t owe strangers on the Internet anything, particularly those who go out of their way to insult, belittle, sexually harass or threaten. You, by the way, dear reader, don’t owe people like this anything either. 

Back in the days when I was a bit more charitable, I would sometimes engage with people like this — suggesting that perhaps my content is not for them and that’s it’s okay. I would explain, however, that I was not going to change for them — adding that I do not exist for their personal pleasure or comfort. 

If I really wanted to get into it, I’d suggest they spend the time they were currently using to troll a stranger to explore their own creativity.

You can probably just imagine how that went.

The most satisfying part of these exchanges? They would often end with an accusation of me harassing them and, if I was really lucky, they would block me. 

Incredible.

When it comes to finding the courage to show up in the world — online or otherwise — I go back to the words Theodore Roosevelt delivered in a 1910 speech in Paris, specifically the passage referred to as the “Man in the Arena,” which was revived and popularized in more recent years by author and researcher Brené Brown.

Here’s a sample:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming…”

Brown expands on Roosevelt’s words saying, “If you are not in the arena getting your a** kicked on occasion, I am not interested in or open to your feedback.”

I wholeheartedly agree. 

So, when I stumbled on that message I mentioned up top, when I saw it was from a man I don’t know, when I read his emphatic directive to stop posting “stupid” political and “bogus” feminist content in my Instagram stories and when he told me to, “just go back to making us laugh,” I didn’t hesitate for a second to send his unsolicited feedback from the sidelines straight to the trash.