The Fear of my Words Being Used Against Me
When you aren’t there to defend your words, it becomes someone else’s twisted version
Welcome to the age of the internet. Where your greatest moments and accomplishments can live on forever. Where your mistakes can be deleted but never truly erased. Where nothing is ever dead and gone and buried, because it can always be dug up and then shoved back in your face.
They tell us that with great power comes great responsibility. I’m enough of a realist to know that I don’t have great power. I’m not writing a New York Times cover story. This is not Barak Obama or Crissy Teigen’s Medium account. I’m just a girl who writes and is lucky enough to have people listening on the other side.
That feeling when you unscramble the flying thoughts swirling around your head into something cohesive and concrete? Pretty damn satisfying. That moment when the words turn into a voice with an audience? It’s even better. But it’s also kind of terrifying.
When your voice is out there for others to find, is not just yours anymore. You lose some control over how it is interpreted — or even worse, twisted.
What they don’t tell us is that with little power still comes great responsibility.
This isn’t a preamble to a cautionary tale. Rather, it is a glass lens to my fears. Writing is my outlet to voice passion, inspiration, and anger — basically a canvas of personal, strong, and sometimes controversial opinions. I stand by my opinions. I am happy to defend, debate, and discuss. I don’t put myself on an all-knowing pedestal, so I welcome you to change my mind.
But the key here is “discuss” and “defend”.
My writing is a gallery of the thoughts that have consumed my mind. But single article? That is like describing a movie with a single random frame. There is a reason that we make trailers. And there is a reason movie critics have to actually watch a movie before they can give a review.
You never know what someone will think when they don’t have the whole picture (or in this case, movie).
I’ll admit it — I’m scared. I’m scared that someone will twist my works out to context. I am scared that a few years down the road, someone will find a piece I wrote and spin it into something horrible. I am scared that a future employer will look at the things I write and decide that I am too opinionated or controversial to hire in a professional workplace.
Let’s be honest here. The professional world doesn’t exactly welcome women with open arms. The door is even less open to women who speak their minds.
Now don’t get me wrong — I don’t want to work anywhere that will silence my opinions. And I sure as hell don’t want to be surrounded by a predominant culture of sexism, racism, and homophobia.
But sometimes the shallow end is a good thing. Sometimes a dive into the deep end can be a bit shocking.
If you don’t believe in Women’s Rights, I honestly could not care less about your opinion. But maybe your first professional impression of me should not be my belief that stripping and athletics should be equally acceptable.
I am a human, not a disposable resource — and I will not stand for being treated as the latter. But I don’t want you to interpret my beliefs on the importance of unproductivity as an abhorrence of hard work. I am happy and willing to dedicate time and effort to a job I love if I also have a life outside the office walls.
Maybe I’m a hypocrite or weak… or both. Maybe I still care too much about societal standards. I will happily call out our inability to throw away the patriarchy and let women own their bodies and lives. However, I am scared that aligning myself as such might negatively affect my future. I think hustle culture is toxic. However, I still want massive conglomerates with efficient minion employees to like me.
I guess I am still weak to the world of societal politics. But at least I’m willing to admit it: I get scared to write stories sometimes because I fear they will get used against me.
Maybe it’s time to grow a pair. Wish me luck.
