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Haters Gonna Hate. What’s a Woman to Do About It? – The Cut.

Please read this. It’s not just for and about female empowerment. It’s for those of us who take social justice work dearly and seriously.

Crossing paths with snarky, ignorance-laden, bigoted commentary, online and off, this late in the 2000s, still bothers me a great deal. Don’t get me wrong. I like a good, irreverent laugh as much as anyone. And I struggle daily with my own internal biases, blind spots, and prejudices. I think we all should take stock and do personal inventory at least once a week. But I still hear things that makes me want to say, “do you understand the words that are coming out of your mouth?” When that happens, the world becomes a smidge bleaker and colder.

I sometimes feel overcome by the hate. It saps me of my strength and will. Like, what’s the point? And the point is, I do what I do because it brings me to life. I keep doing what I do because I want to get better at what I do. Haters will hate no matter what. So let them. Take heart. You are not alone.

“That doesn’t mean I consider all of my critics to be haters. If I get negative feedback from people who are close to me, strangers who actually care about my work, or experts in the field, I listen. Those people push me to work harder, too. But nothing motivates me like haters. The hierarchy just helps me to compartmentalize them. It’s not that I stop caring altogether, it’s that I care much less about the least consequential among them.”

Friedman’s Hierarchy of Haters