Death by a Thousand Cuts: What happens when a woman says the quiet part out loud

Last week, I posted something on LinkedIn that I'd been sitting on for the best part of seventeen years. It wasn't a big statement. Nor was it a manifesto. It was merely a question, carefully worded, cautiously framed – prefaced with a "bear with me" and padded with reassurances that I adore men, that my three closest friends are men, that I wasn't trying to kick up a fuss.

I was asking whether other people had noticed a pattern I'd tried not to notice: that every cruel or unsolicited, patronising comment I'd received in nearly two decades of running Creative Boom had come from men. Not once from a woman.

The response was extraordinary. And illuminating. And, in ways I didn't expect, the response itself became the story.

What I was actually describing

Annoyingly, I don't think I was quite clear enough in my original post. So let me try and set the record straight now – I'm not talking about feedback or critique. I don't mind that. I value it enormously and often welcome it. No. What I'm describing is something entirely different. It's unsolicited comments that arrive out of nowhere with no invitation or constructive purpose. Things like: "Eh! Why would you say that?" or "That's odd!" or – my personal favourite – "What Katy doesn't realise yet is she isn't funny nor is she clever".

Insults, really, dressed up as observations. Nobody asked or needed to say it. And yet... Over seventeen years, every single one of these comments has come from a man.

I appreciate these comments alone are merely petty and easy to brush off. But when you lump them all together, over many years, it really does feel like death by a thousand cuts. It's made even worse when you realise it's not an isolated phenomenon that only I suffer from.

The post itself proved the point

Within hours of posting, a man commented that he was surprised by my post, saying I was "clearly intelligent" and that this suggested otherwise. I deleted it and restricted comments to connections only.

But here's the thing... I wasn't surprised. I was just tired. Because that comment, offered without irony or apparent self-awareness, was a perfect encapsulation of exactly what I'd described. The unsolicited assessment of my intelligence. He positioned himself as the arbiter of whether I'd earned the right to speak. The implication that noticing a pattern and naming it openly was somehow beneath me.

Several other responses in the thread reinforced the pattern as well. Men explaining my own experience back to me, men questioning whether I was suffering from "perceptual vigilance", men offering lengthy analyses of female communication styles that missed the point entirely while demonstrating it simultaneously. You couldn't make it up.

What the women said

Almost every woman who responded recognised the pattern immediately. Not as something they'd observed from a distance, but as something they'd lived.

"The biggest naysayers of my career thus far have all been men," wrote one. "Women almost always are supportive, collaborative, hopeful and celebratory while men tend to be critical, pointing out what they see as mistakes, potential to fail, or just generally telling me why my idea will never work."

"The only times I have ever received negative comments about my illustrations, it's only ever been from men – and older men at that," wrote another.

A third described posting about RGB vs CMYK – one of the least controversial topics imaginable – and receiving snarky, argumentative responses exclusively from men. "Once you see it, you can't unsee it," she said. Ain't that the truth!

One commenter put it most precisely of all: "Unsolicited corrections tend to surface where authority is still not fully perceived as established".

The self-censorship nobody talks about

Here's what stayed with me most, days after the post. I second-guessed myself before hitting publish. I softened my language. I added disclaimers. I reassured everyone that I love men. I worried about being seen as someone making a fuss.

One woman pointed something out that stopped me in my tracks: "The fact you felt the need to clarify that you adore men is really depressing. I'm sure none of the men who gave you unsolicited criticism clarified that they love women."

She's right. I didn't even clock it until she said it. That pre-emptive softening, that instinct to manage everyone else's comfort before describing my own experience... that's the thing. And it's what keeps these conversations mostly underground.

It's not just me, either. Thread after thread of women in that comment section admitted to the same pattern. The second-guessing. The pre-emptive apology. The fear of being "too much". One described it as the conditioning of the "good girl box society tries so damn hard to keep us all in."

Why does this happen?

The responses offered plenty of theories – hormones, social conditioning, algorithm bias (57% of LinkedIn users are apparently male; the Alan Turing Institute has published research on gender differences in online harm worth reading), the way some men are socialised to "keep each other honest" in ways that tip into entitlement when directed at us women.

One responder, who has led male-focused strategy workshops, put it most succinctly: "When knowledge gaps feel like exposure, some respond by trying to diminish others rather than elevate themselves."

Another offered: "Some men love to feel needed, even if they've had to force the interaction."

And one described a telling experiment – a civil servant who sent round a report under his own name received no feedback. The same report, sent under a female colleague's name, generated responses. She said it happened every time.

One could argue this is all cognitive bias... that we notice and remember negative comments from men more readily because they sting more, or because they confirm a pattern we're already primed to see. Maybe. But when almost every woman in a thread of hundreds says "Me too, and here's my version", that starts to look less like bias and more like data.

It's not just online, either. Think back to that viral TikTok video posted by professional golfer Georgia Ball, in which she was at a driving range when a man approached to inform her she was doing it all wrong. "I've been playing golf for 20 years," he told her, unprompted. She tried to explain – three times – that she was working through a swing change. He kept talking. And when her next swing landed well? He took the credit. She's a professional golfer. The comments were full of women saying "same".

What I've learned

I came into this not knowing whether there was a Creative Boom feature to be had. There is. But more than that... I've learned that naming a pattern out loud, even cautiously, even with seventeen layers of softening, is enough to make it real. The responses didn't just validate my experience; they mapped a landscape that so many women are navigating quietly, alone, wondering if they're imagining it.

We're not imagining it. And the fact that saying so still feels risky – that women still pre-emptively apologise before describing their own experience, still soften and qualify and reassure – is perhaps the most telling thing of all.

Seventeen years is quite a long time to wonder if you're imagining it. You're not. None of us is.

If this resonates, we'd love to hear from you. Share your experience by dropping us a line at [email protected]. You can remain anonymous, rant away, or – by all means – offer constructive feedback to this particular piece. Just don't pat me on the head and tell me I'm stupid, ok?