Crime & Federalism

The American Bar Association each year chooses what it views as the top 100 legal blogs for the ABA 100. Blogs are nominated and categorized. When Mirriam Seddiq's blog won top Criminal Defense Blog, did women line up to congratulate her? 

When that stupid ABA 100 thing came out, there were articles written about how it was so unfair to women, how women were under-represented and it was all a bunch of phony baloney.  When this dumb little blog won, not a single one of those women (yes, they were women writing these things) commented, despite the fact that I was the only female to be nominated in the criminal justice category and the only one to win.   

For those who want to blame the patriarchy for everything, that's a painful observation. Why do women have such difficulty congratulating other women? I broke a guy's nose once, and he hugged me afterwards. I've lost fights and matches, and I never resented the guy for beating me. It's dishonorable to hate on the winners. Yet no woman wrote to congratulate Mirriam. Why?

Probably because, as I noted in my People magazine post, far too many women are focused triffling shit:

Here's the truth. I am sick of articles about what jewelry I should wear in court, what color my nail polish should be, or if I should wear peep toes (how MUCH toe cleavage exactly?) It's completely and utterly fucked up that we, women, can spend such an inordinate amount of time discussing such trivial and irrelevant matters. We size each other up in ways that men never do.

Women do tend to spend a lot of time tearing each other down. Yet instead of women telling other women to knock it off, women blame men for bad female behavior.

I once read a lengthy article blaming the patriarchy for women footwear. What?! Do you really think straight men give a fuck what shoes you wear? No man is forcing you into uncomfortable shoes, and chances are, the man in your life hates your shoe obsession. He views it as a waste of money, and he views your request that he accompany you shoe shopping with disdain.

Men don't spend much time looking at your feet, and unless you're really showing a lot of cleavage - not of the toe kind - or leg, no man notices what you wear. We really don't care.  

If women want to care about that stuff, great. It's your life, and it's up to each woman to decide how to spend her time. But if you don't like how other women treat you, or how other women behave, then stop blaming men. Treat women like adults - which means holding other women accountable for not having anything more interesting to discuss than toe cleavage.