Researching what is essentially a self-analysis discussion - don’t go, it’s not like that - I came across a web site that suggests there is a method to Never choose the wrong paint color again.
There should be a web site for writers - Never write the wrong genre again. Writers are often cautioned not to write about something with which they have only a passing understanding. What I have done is the exact opposite, and apparently still made a mistake. I have written about a subject with which I am especially familiar, and I still messed up. Let me explain.
Apparently, there is a young woman at a college in England who got a PhD in… That part isn’t important, other than to say it was a softer science than, rocketry or oceanography, eg. She conducted research, consulted the current available understanding of her field, then wrote and successfully defended her dissertation. So far, so good? I’d say so.
Having watched someone near and dear work for years… Ha, work. Strain, toil, bleed profusely from the pores in her forehead (IYKYK). Getting a PhD is a damned difficult, emotionally defenestrating horror. Even my children of a lesser god doctorate (I have a JD) required a certain single-mindedness. So, this person in England, she probably worked her poor fingers to the bone.
What brought her into the million-watt (not IQ) spotlight of the social-media maelstrom of X is that she is 1) attractive and doesn’t look her age, and 2) her subject is woke. Someone, somewhere is saying…”So what?”
And I agree with you. Then, a normally coherent and thoughtful poster decided to go there. This person wondered if Dr. (whomever) wasn’t an example of a “head girl.” What’s that, you ask? To quote:
In the USA & much of the West - higher education, HR departments, large bureaucracies like hospital systems, they are run by Head Girls. We all instinctively know them when we see them now.
Really?
A cold chill ran down my spine. I have spent the last twenty years writing and marketing books about “Head girls.” I have sought the advice and counsel of women of great accomplishment, starting with the PhD with whom I am most familiar. They are cops, lawyers, scholars. Some have advanced degrees, some do not. Many are mothers. They share one trait - they are all remarkable leaders.
One had been a Marine Corps captain, another an officer in a large fire department. Several were, or remain, working police officers. Some have attained high ranking positions in their respective organizations. In our immediate family there is a lawyer, an HR professional and a regional manager for a major non-profit. Two of them are also small business owners.
I re-read this post on X. Did I misunderstand? The author describes head girls as wholly conventional thinkers, people-pleasers, box-checkers. The more I read, the more I understood the notion being conveyed.
The writer was describing my friends, my co-workers, my family and dismissing them out of hand because they were… What?
They are achievers. In each case, they have asked for no quarter, and given none. They operate in environments where “don’t do anything dumb, dangerous or different” can be life and death. When I write stories that rely on their experiences it is rare to describe some moment of peril they have not survived. Head girls?
No. They are professionals. Often, they are heroes. That is what I instinctively see.