Sherry Potter And The Female Echo Chamber Of Victimized Negativity

Sherry Potter lived in a magical land called America. She grew up in the enchanted forest of California and attended the storied school of Smogwarts. Her mother and father were Millennials, but they both died at a very young age, leaving Sherry to grow up and form her own opinions of the world based on school, her friends, and the things she read off the internet — mostly notably, about those evil wizards called Men.

Starting in her teenage years, Sherry became fascinated by Men. She saw them as peculiar creatures that she did not understand, but found herself attracted to them and even develop feelings for them once or twice. It was always the bigger and more bold wizards she found appealing, the smaller and more reserved ones she found unsettling to her female “intuition.” She loved Men because of their quiet strength. She marveled at Man’s ability to take a hit on the football quadrant, then get right back and keep playing — they didn’t complain, they just repeatedly took their hits and then continued to play the game.

She thought this odd because she knew Women to be the more vocal of the genders (her pocket recordometer showed that Women used 7x as many words a day than men) and also, that Women were more likely to complain. She knew that the other girls were also attracted to men as they manufactured drama and constantly complained about them on social media. Women in Smogwarts had 10x as many internet blogs as men, and she noticed they always discussed the same themes, which painted men as villains. She noticed that on her favorite websites, that they would frequently champion “Women of the week,” in an attempt to rally the female troops. She realized that paradoxically, this ultimately made Women seem inferior, because amazing doesn’t need to yell from the rooftops, it just shows you it’s amazing.

As Sherry grew older and met more of these supposedly evil Men, her mind and opinions started to transform. She started to believe these things she constantly heard from the female echo chamber and it started to warp her views. She applied these cynical spectacles to all Men, and started to see believe all men were “creepsters” that were just “out to get one thing.” This jaded view started to create a “confirmation bias” where every move Man a made was passed through this negative filter that she alone created. She started to see Women as victims, never noticing how Men would open doors for her, be too nervous to talk to her, or would stand whenever she left the dining table at the Great Hall.

Sherry Potter decided that Men were actually holding her back in her life. She never noticed that as she advanced in Smogwarts, that Women received more encouragement, and were starting to get degrees at a higher rate than Men. When Sherry got her first job, she bristled at the fact that she made less wage than her male counterparts, never realizing the fact that it was her own fault for not negotiating a higher salary (the assertive nature of Men muddied this perpetuated statistic).

She decided to take a break from dating Men and focus on her career. Months, then years, fell off the calendar as Sherry immersed herself at work and to satisfy her biological urges, spent weekends meeting Men for buttertinis at the tavern in Diagonal Alley. When she woke up with them the next morning, she frequently felt terrible and judged herself. She misdirected these icky feelings to Men being evil, instead of something she should taken accountability for, as these men she chose were completely her decision.

As time passed on, her looks and beauty began to wither away as she advanced in life. She started to not take care of herself and gained weight and wore more hoodies than normal. She cut her hair short and started to dress more like a boy, never paying attention the fact that if the roles were switched, she would never date a Man who kept his hair long and wore dresses. Before she knew it, Men paid less and less attention to her at the tavern. The female echo chamber always told her that “it’s wrong that Men judge her for weight, because she’s beautiful on the inside and that’s all that matters.” She never realized the far worse double standard she was placing on men where she would judge them on their height (i.e. genetics), but Men couldn’t judge her on her weight (i.e. a choice). The echo chamber never let Women believe that they were just as judgmental, because in addition to choosing Men based on appearance, they also desired Men based on the size of their cottage, the swiftness of their horse, and how many gold pieces they had stashed away in Grinblotts Bank.

As she grew older, Sherry Potter became more and more jaded and when eventually her hormones kicked in, she acquiesced and adopted her own child, a girl she named Meeghan (which she falsely assumed by changing the spelling would make her more magical). She desperately wanted a relationship, but she also felt a traitor to her own gender, because the echo chamber told her she should be a “strong and independent women.” She hated Men for focusing on her looks, so she lashed out and tried to change them by shaming them in blogs and Facebook updates, never realizing that this would never change a Man’s instincts because this is what Men are, whether either gender likes it or not. She began to despise younger Women and she poisoned the thoughts of her own daughter by constantly telling her bedtime stories of He Who Must Not Be Named (i.e. Tom the trucker she met at a hotel bar in Riverside).

She worked her life away, never realizing that there was never an oppressor, and that most of the pain she had experienced were from wounds that were self-inflicted. She never opened her eyes to the true lesson that men actually love and adore Women, and often defer to them. One day, in the cold of winter, her cloak of negativity became too heavy, and she passed on, becoming just another spirit whispering in the echo chamber.