Contrary to the belief that women have it easy , I had to prove myself twice as hard working with these ENTJ corporate drones male and female who just ' managed ' much smarter people than them . I believe you . And this is why so few women make it into leadership positions . The ones who do have to be either really tough minded or had some privileges or both . But this is exactly what I ' m saying that ' s why if you look to successful people on that level you will find that it ' s mostly men and other groups who have not had to face too much difficulty or oppression . And the thing is that by almost the same measure when a womanunderprivileged person does finally make it into leadership and they are talking about how difficult it was for them , people will turn around and say , Well it can ' t be that bad you made it didn ' t you ? There ' s no way to win , if people want to say bad things about women or have a hierarchy over you or a group you are part of they will find a way no matter what . They need so much external validation that they can not even appreciate other people ' s situations without feeling threatened . Ironically , they think people who empathize and try to give anyone else the spotlight feels unworthy and insecure themselves . It ' s true , they think you are an idiot for caring about anyone other than yourself . people have some amount of vested interest that is against yoursYour comment made me very sad . I know it sounds bad , and admittedly not everyone is like that but it ' s the unfortunate reality that some people definitely are . And you definitely sense it whether people want to acknowledge it or not . This type of thing can also make a person sick even if it is just there in the background . Not to mention the perpetually discounting your strength and bravery which is what it took for you to make it to where you are , because to acknowledge you as fully just as brave and hard working as them would also diminish their accomplishment . Being seen as less bravehardworking is a seriously mentally unhealthy environment for me to be in , I ' m not sure to what degree it is conscious or unconscious on people ' s parts or both but at some point it is there and whether it is intentional or not doesn ' t matter it still takes a toll on your mental health right ? Do many successful people truly want you to get back what you lost and have the exact same as them ? Often even the ones that want you to do goodbetter than you are now often don ' t want to you do as well as them . That said I wouldn ' t say INTPs are like this , INTPs are just too self absorbed to be bothered . Nothing has ever come easy for me . Same here . It ' s hard enough people doubting you as a woman , personally I had to crawl over glass just to finish high school teaching it to myself and get into university due to a highly abusive family member actually more than one . Then in university more hell broke loose .