Here’s you:

Your entire tone comes across pretentious, presumptuous and hostile. I’m glad most of the country doesn’t think or act like you.

Also you:

At what fucking point did a comment about her husband diminish one iota of her success? Is that a risk in your world, and all it says about your respect for women?

Holy fuck.

You might want to re-evaluate just who’s being hostile here. I’ll own the pretentious label though. I’m not trying to come off that way, but I’ve been told that my writing can sometimes read like that.

I have been to funerals for women, funerals where they highlight at the funeral the accomplishments of the woman’s dead husband. This sort of sexism is far more common than you appear to believe. The fact that you jumped to the accomplishments of Chow’s long-dead husband in the face of her monumental current achievements is, whether you want to acknowledge it or not, sexism. Had you diminished her achievements and compared them to Layton’s that’d be sexist too — worse really — but that doesn’t make your initial comment any better.

I get it, nobody likes it when people point out something you’ve done as shitty. It’s especially bad when you don’t think the label fits because you don’t recognise what you’ve said as terrible, and the intent wasn’t there. But that’s how this stuff works, it’s why sexism is systemic rather than explicit. It’s the water we’re swimming in and it’s often not easy to recognise.

I get that you weren’t trying to be shitty here, but you said a shitty thing. Maybe you don’t see it yet, but I’m hoping that this will at least start you on the path to getting you there some day.