Clarity Isn't Conflict

a story about our feminized society

Before diving into the thick of it, I ought to caution the gentlemen most likely to read this —

Josh Slocum

,

J. Daniel Sawyer

,

Dr RollerGator PhD

— to set their drinks aside.

This is one of those stories that might make them spew whatever they’re imbibing across their keyboards in a tragic combination of shock and laughter. Ready?

I recently switched pharmacies—not for overcharging me, nor for lacking my prescription in stock, but because someone there accused me of yelling.

Me.

Some of you may be thinking, “And?” I understand the perception. Online, my opinions ring out—loud by any fair standard—sharp, sometimes articulate, perhaps even, on occasion, faintly intimidating behind the keyboard.

There’s safety in the screen, in the parasocial distance of it all. And sure, I express myself well in writing.

In writing.

In writing, where I take eleventy-nine drafts to ensure every word lands perfectly, precisely, and with caveats aplenty before I dare hit publish. But in real life? In person? I’m the sweet girl from Mississippi who says “sir” and “ma’am” to anyone who looks even thirty seconds older than me. The kind of girl who will get terrible service in a restaurant and still leave 20%, smile, and say thank you on the way out.

The kind of person who will let a situation drag on for months rather than raise my voice or make a scene.

Ask any of my guy friends and they’ll tell you without blinking: I don’t yell enough. I don’t stand up for myself like I should. I am, by all accounts, overdue for a little righteous confrontation now and then.

On the rare occasions I muster a confrontation, it’s rehearsed, role-played, and vetted by every male friend I’ve got—each reassuring me, nigh on seventeen times, that it’s fine, I’m not unhinged, it’s warranted, and yes, they’re absolutely certain.

But maybe that’s the strange thing—how we think we’re coming across versus how we’re received. None of us truly grasp how the world sees us. We hope our intentions pierce through, that our gentleness registers as kindness rather than mere passivity. But when the same kind of misunderstanding happens again and again, you start to suspect that what you meant doesn’t matter nearly as much as what they heard.

Still, I’ll say this much: if I was going to be accused of yelling, I’m grateful it happened on the one day a month my cleaning lady comes and scrubs my bathtub. Because I desperately needed a witness—and her expression betrayed genuine shock, not the feigned sort conjured to appease the woman who pays her monthly to spare an aching shoulder.

“Holly,” she said, “that was insane. What is wrong with her?”

What, indeed.

What’s wrong with her—in this case, a pharmacist—is what’s wrong with the culture in general.

Behold Our Feminized Culture

My friend

Josh Slocum

speaks regularly on his podcast about how our society has gotten overly feminized — and he’s right, especially so online. Male-typical bad behavior simply doesn’t translate as well online as female-typical bad behavior.

Yes, it happens. I’ve gotten my share of dick pics and had to file police reports when the trans activists came after me a few years back. And I’ve had my share of other types of male bad behavior — some legit stalkers, some parasocial obsessions, some creeps who want to “be the one to show (me) that sex isn’t all rape and abuse,” as if I don’t know that.

So no, I’m not short-shrifting the reality of these things — but they’re a minor problem compared to the way that social media facilitates female-typical forms of bad behavior.

There is some data to suggest that females are more aggressive online than males, and this fits a pattern that Josh and I have discussed about sex-typical traits.

Men who misbehave online often veer into territory warranting police reports. Women who misbehave online more readily orchestrate mobbing, cancellations, and scenarios of shared, diluted responsibility.

This fits a larger pattern that I recently described to Josh — one of my dear friends, and with whom I don’t have to speak as carefully as I usually write, so please understand that I’m riffing, not making an airtight argument here.

To Josh, I said something like, “Men do more of the destroy-an-individual-life-with-profound-trauma stuff; women do more of the ruin-society-in-general-for-everyone stuff.” If you’ve had your life shattered — split into before-and-after — by an act of violence or wanton cruelty, it was probably a guy who did it. But if you’ve had your life wrecked in more mundane ways — eroded in ways that create an unsustainable level of misery that can’t be pointed at as a criminal act — it’s probably a woman or group of women behind it.

What happened at the pharmacy is an example of the latter.

Why I Changed Pharmacies

Last month, I paid — after the self-pay discounts and goodrx.com coupons and the rest — over $1,000 for a medication that normally costs me $10—thanks to an insurance nightmare. (Why I take this medication is a story in itself—one that sheds light on broader cultural issues, which paid subs can read here.)

My insurance decided, out of nowhere, that they would only cover the generic — but the generic doesn’t work for me; I’ve tried it several times.

My doctor, her staff, and even the physician who owns the practice spent a month pushing the prior authorization through.

This month, with the prior authorization finally done, I expected to pay $10. Instead, the pharmacy texted me a total of over $800. I called, and they told me the PA “wasn’t working.” I looped in my doctor’s office again and got this message:

So I called, and here’s how the conversation went. It was so insane, I wouldn’t blame anyone for not believing me. Honestly, I might have questioned myself—if not for the fortunate happenstance of having a witness. My apartment is small, and I had the call on speaker so I could hear the phone tree more clearly—so she heard every word.

Me: identifies myself, summarizes briefly to remind the pharmacist of the situation with this medication, then wraps up with, “So I’m not sure why I’m getting texts telling me it’s full price; the prior authorization definitely went through, on February 26. I have the email from my insurance and the PA number. My doctor’s office said that you show new insurance for me, but that’s wrong. My insurance hasn’t changed.”

Pharmacist: “It’s being denied by WASA.”

Me: “I have no idea who that is.”

Pharmacist: “WASA is your insurance.”

Me: “No ma’am, it isn’t. My insurance hasn’t changed since November 1.”

Pharmacist: “We would only have updated your insurance if you gave us new cards or if you just got flagged in the system as having new insurance.”

Me: “I’m sorry, but someone has made a mistake somewhere. My insurance hasn’t changed, my employer hasn’t changed. I don’t know who WASA is.”

Pharmacist: “It’s your responsibility to keep up with these things. Your insurance has probably farmed out their prescription decisions to WASA. You need to call them, not me.”

To be clear: I was frustrated and scared. I couldn’t afford to keep paying out of pocket. One month wasn’t catastrophic, but if this turned into a regular thing, I’d need to switch medications—and the one I’m on really works for me. That’s a daunting prospect.

I also know I don’t always hear myself clearly, so I’m very careful not to speak too loudly. I’ve embarrassed myself before—I’m hyper-aware of that now.

I wasn’t yelling—I was being assertive, and trying to be clear.

Me: “I’m looking at Google right now and there is absolutely nothing for WASA related to prescriptions. It’s a Swedish bread company and a few other things, but none of them are related to any kind of insurance. I would love to call them and get this straightened out, but as far as I can tell from Google they either don’t exist or they don’t have a website. Do you have a number of any kind for them so I can call them and try to figure out who they are and why they’re denying medication coverage for someone who isn’t their customer?”

Pharmacist: “Stop yelling at me!”

I almost dropped my phone.

I was stunned, and didn’t know what to say.

Pharmacist: “It is your responsibility to know what your insurance is, not mine, and I do not appreciate being yelled at because you don’t know what’s going on with your own insurance!”

I immediately spoke much more softly — just in case — but I was truly shocked by this accusation.

“Ma’am,” I said. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t your fault. I know it’s my responsibility to have my insurance details up to date. And they are. Nothing has changed. I have the same insurance I’ve had since November 1, 2024. I would LOVE to call WASA and figure this out, but I’m looking at Google and they either don’t exist or don’t have a website, so I’m REALLY confused here.”

Pharmacist: “Stop repeating the same thing over and over again! I don’t care what you see on Google. I am telling you, WASA is denying your prescription, and that is not my problem!”

Me: takes several deep breaths — authentically, trying not to start crying. “Can you at least tell me when my information was changed in your computer? Because I did not change it. Maybe I’m being identity-thefted. Can you give me that information so I can try to figure out what the hell is going on?”

Silence, for a good thirty seconds — long enough for me to start verifying that the call hasn’t dropped and my hearing aids haven’t disconnected from their bluetooth connection to my phone.

Pharmacist: “Oh, you’re still there? I set the phone aside—I’d had enough of your yelling at me.”

Me: draws a loud, deliberate, passive-aggressive breath, for effect this time — no longer trying not to cry; this time, trying not to actually get angry and yell. “Ma’am, I am really not trying to be difficult. I want to solve this. I just don’t know how to find this company that according to google does not exist so I can figure out how they suddenly became involved in my insurance.”

Pharmacist: hangs up on me.

God Bless The Cleaning Lady

I was standing at my desk with my jaw hanging open when the woman who cleans my bathtub stepped out of the bathroom.

“Holly,” she said, “that was insane. What is wrong with her?”

“It wasn’t me? I wasn’t yelling at her?”

“No! You were completely reasonable. You weren’t yelling at all, and I really don’t know how you weren’t. Because that was batshit.”

I contacted my doctor and had my prescriptions transferred to a different pharmacy. To facilitate this, I spent my lunch hour going in person to show them my ID and get set up in the computer.

I laughed as I told them the story—and they explained what WASA actually is.

It’s not an insurance provider at all. WASA is a piece of software that some prescription processors use. The error message she was seeing had to do with her system settings—something entirely outside my control.

The pharmacist was doing the equivalent of yelling at a customer because the cash register froze, then insisting the customer call Dell to get it fixed.

I didn’t break the system. I didn’t even touch the system. I was just trying to pay for the thing I’ve always paid for—with the same information I’ve always used.

In other words: not only was I not yelling, I was being incredibly patient with someone who was not only wrong, but rude and wrong in a professional setting where her job was to help people navigate something already confusing and stressful.

And for that, I got hung up on—and accused of being aggressive.

It’s important to note here that the pharmacist was a woman.

I’ve had my share of situations where speaking up for myself or my ideas got me called a bitch, or bossy — when a guy speaking with an equal or greater level of assertiveness was showing his “leadership qualities”.

Not as much as it used to be, thank God, but yes, that’s still a thing. And if the pharmacist was a guy, I’d be very quick to point that out.

So I need to be equally quick to point out that the pharmacist was a woman.

This absolutely absurd inability to handle even minor, well-controlled frustration from someone who had a right to be frustrated — someone trying to avoid getting financially screwed over two months in a row by the insurance coverage I pay for — was female-typical bad behavior.

It was classic relational aggression—indirect hostility, blame-shifting, emotional manipulation, and the weaponization of social norms about how women “should” express themselves. It was a textbook example of someone so allergic to conflict that even a calm, fact-based question felt like an attack… because it came from another woman who wasn’t performing deference quite enough.

It wasn’t about the volume of my voice. It was about the fact that I was using it.

This wasn’t a misunderstanding—it was a mischaracterization, a strategic recasting of clarity as aggression. And it was female-typical bad behavior: using guilt, shame, and social penalty to shut down another woman’s entirely reasonable attempt to advocate for herself.

I don’t know what that pharmacist thought she was protecting herself from—liability? embarrassment? the discomfort of being asked to fix something she didn’t understand?—but I do know what she was actually doing: punishing someone for speaking clearly, calmly, and persistently in a situation that called for exactly that.

And maybe that’s the deeper cost of this kind of behavior. Not just the wasted time, the stress, or the money—but the way it teaches all of us, especially women, that the price of asking for what we need is to be labeled difficult, emotional, or unhinged. That the safest thing is silence. Deference. A swallowed voice.

And in this case, it was a woman doing the silencing. That matters—not because it’s worse, but because I call out male bad behavior all the time. In essays, in conversations, in the way I move through the world.

If I didn’t name this, too, I’d be undermining the very thing I care most about: the possibility of being treated—and treating others—as full, accountable individuals.

The rugged individualism that forged America’s greatness is indispensable if we are to reclaim it — to make American great again. We cannot merely lapse into a right-wing strain of collectivism, tethered to identity-driven factions.

I want a society where sex is a biological fact, not a shield or a trap or an excuse. Where no one gets a pass for bad behavior just because they share my chromosomes — or because they don’t.

And the truth is, speaking up for myself has never come easy. I’m the sweet girl from Mississippi, remember? The one who says “sir” and “ma’am” to people who look thirty seconds older than me. The one who second-guesses, triple-checks, and rehearses even the most minor confrontation. So when I do speak—calmly, clearly, and with reason—I’ve already overcome a mountain of social conditioning and personal discomfort just to get the words out.

And I’m not going to let someone else’s inability to self-regulate become a reason for me to keep tiptoeing.

Not in the pharmacy, and not anywhere else.

The pharmacist’s behavior was a clear example of female-typical bad behavior: weaponizing tone-policing to deflect responsibility, reframing calm assertiveness as aggression, and punishing another woman for refusing to perform helplessness.

Such behavior erodes trust, undercuts professionalism, and entrenches the very patterns so many of us claim to wish undone. And it’s not just on men to do better. We, as women, have to call this out when we see it.

The same way we’d call out a man who slammed something or leaned in a little too close, using his physical strength to intimidate—we have to hold ourselves and other women accountable when the harm comes dressed in defensiveness, denial, and performative fragility.

Because if I had actually lost my temper? If I had raised my voice? She’d have felt justified in hanging up. But I didn’t—and she still did.

That’s the kind of thing we can’t keep excusing just because it’s more common in women than men. Silence protects no one.

Accountability, even when it’s uncomfortable, is the only way forward.

---