By now you have probably heard of a scandal that recently erupted last week which involved a well known freelance writer who built her business by pretending to be a man. James, of Men with Pens, posted a confession over at Copyblogger explaining the circumstances which led her to perpetrate the deception.

To grind the gritty details down to a point, through her experiences James came to feel she earned more money and respect pretending to be a man than she did when people knew she was a woman. She felt there was a gender bias being perpetuated in the online community that played a hand in how she was treated by her customers.

Taking a man’s name opened up a new world. It helped me earn double and triple the income of my true name, with the same work and service.

No hassles. Higher acceptance. And gratifying respect for my talents and round-the-clock work ethic.

Business opportunities fell into my lap. People asked for my advice, and they thanked me for it, too.

Did I quit promoting my own name? Hell yeah.

Eventually, I had earned enough income and credibility to get a mortgage, and I bought a tiny, modest house for me and my kids in a quiet town near my mum. It was the first home of my life I could truly call my own, paid for by long hours and hard work. Paid for by my own sweat and tears, at the tender age of 37.

Originally I wasn’t going to write about the situation. I didn’t feel I had anything of value to add to the subject of gender bias or why this single mother felt the need to pretend to be a man in order to win work. I agreed with her, and others who have commented on the subject, that there was a bias against women that affect us in tangible ways. In fact, I believe that prejudice in all its forms exist on the internet just like they do in real life. People take their baggage everywhere they go including the virtual world.

But then I experienced a transforming event in my own life. While clicking around the website Spirit Library, I came across a series of Abraham-Hicks videos. Abraham-Hicks is the combined name of a self-described group of non-physical beings called Abraham and the medium named Esther Hicks who channels them. The duo speak at length about the Law of Attraction.

One of the videos I watched called Fine-Tuning Manifestation really hit me in the common sense department. In the video, a woman is talking about how she can feel that her goals are about to be achieved and Abraham picks up on the fact that she seems more focused on what is missing than on what she has. It is this focus on the missing pieces that is kicking her out of alignment with what she wants and causing the manifestation of her desires to be delayed.

For those of you not familiar with Law of Attraction, the short explanation of this theory is we are all energy beings and we attract those things that are in harmony with the vibrational frequency we are emitting. If you are putting out positive vibes then you will attract positive things. If you are vibing at a negative frequency then you will attract negative things. In order to attract the things you want you must tune into the frequency they broadcast on. It’s just like using a radio. To get the station you want, the dial must be in the right place otherwise you’ll end up with static or a station you don’t want to listen to.

This basic explanation does not do the theory a whole lot of justice and I encourage anyone interested in learning more about it to watch the videos. The biggest takeaway from this particular video is Abraham-Hicks explains to the woman that she cannot allow the knowledge that her goals are yet to be realized to influence the vibe she is putting out. By focusing on the missing pieces she may inadvertently change her positive frequency into a negative one and repel the very thing she is trying to attract.

I had to watch the video 2-3 times before it sunk in what Abraham-Hicks was really saying. Too often we allow outside forces to dictate how we feel, what we do, what we say and especially how we live our lives. When it comes to things that are wrong or unfair, many people latch onto the wrongness or unfairness of the situation and use that as an excuse not to pursue what they want. They say things like, “No one wants to pay me what I’m worth because I’m a woman so I’ll just take whatever comes my way even though it pays slave wages,” or “Those people in that industry are so racist that I’ll never get anywhere there so I’m going to stick to this career even though I’m not happy.”

While those things may be true, you cannot allow circumstances to stop you from pursuing your goals. First off, nothing is 100%. There will never be a time when no one in the world is willing to pay you the wages you want and not every single person is going to be a racist and therefore plotting your downfall with step you take in their direction. The only exception to the rule is that there are always exceptions to the rule.

Secondly, the things that exist in the world have nothing to do with you as a person. The fact that men seem to have an advantage in the world has nothing to do with their gender and everything to do with the perceptions they’ve been able to create for themselves over the centuries. They’ve been able to create the image that they are somehow more reliable, more logical and more trustworthy than their female counterparts.

Is it true? Of course it’s not true but that is how they are perceived and it is unfortunate that as women we have to fight against the stereotype that we are just hormonal, illogical, image obsessed gold diggers with a fetish for chocolate and shoes. But just because that seems to be the prevailing image of women in the world, or the western world at least, does not mean you can’t go out and prove them all wrong.

Watching that Abraham-Hicks video has taught me that the issue of gender bias on the internet is really a non-issue. If you want to be paid what you are worth then you need to go out there and find clients who know your value and gladly pay it. And if people are paying men these high wages that you covet then you know they are out there. There are close to 7 billion people in the world. According to Internet World Stats about 1.7 billion use the internet. Even if 1% of 1% of those people were willing to pay you the wages you wanted that is still 170,000 potential customers.

If a man is able to command premium rates there is no valid reason why a woman cannot. And if you are getting less than what you want, as harsh as it may sound, it is because you are settling for less. It’s true that you may have to work little harder, your sales copy may have to be a little more compelling or your brand has to shine a little brighter in order to get what you want but it is there for the taking.

Is it fair that you may have to sift through 10 customers to find a good one while someone else only has to sift through 4? Of course it isn’t fair. I’m not denying that one bit. What I’m saying is brooding over the wrongness or unfairness of the situation will only attract more evidence of how wrong and how unfair it is. If you focus your energy on getting paid what you deserve then you will attract people who will pay you what you are worth.

I’m not saying that what James did was right or wrong, up or down, left or right. To me, it’s just one way a woman chose to deal with the issue of gender bias on the internet. What I’m proposing is simply another way to approach the issue and that’s by turning our attention away from the unfairness of it all and instead focusing on creating individual realities where we are each paid what we are worth. It is only through a combination of these individual stories of success that we will eventually change the world at large.

Other Links of Interest:

Do Male Bloggers Receive More Respect?

Call Me Maven – Why Women Writers/Blogger are Still Fighting Gender Bias

Who Defines You? More Thoughts on the James Chartrand Story

Where Do You Want to Be?

(photo credit: phunkstarr @ Flickr)

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