The Woman Who Bested the Men at Math

Philippa Fawcett. When she placed first in the Cambridge mathematical tripos in 1890, she forced a reassessment of nineteenth-century belief in the inferiority of the "weaker sex." 

To be a woman in the Victorian age was to be weak: the connection was that definite. To be female was also to be fragile, dependent, prone to nerves and—not least—possessed of a mind that was several degrees inferior to a man’s. For much of the 19th century, women were not expected to shine either academically or athletically, and those who attempted to do so were cautioned that they were taking an appalling risk. Mainstream medicine was clear on this point: to dream of studying at the university level was to chance madness or sterility, if not both.

It took generations to transform this received opinion; that, a long series of scientific studies, and the determination and hard work of many thousands of women. For all that, though, it is still possible to point to one single achievement, and one single day, and say: this is when everything began to change. That day was June 7, 1890, when—for the first and only time—a woman ranked first in the mathematical examinations held at the University of Cambridge. It was the day that Philippa Fawcett placed “above the Senior Wrangler.”

To understand why one woman’s achievement so shook the prejudices of the Victorian age—and why newspapers from the New York Times to the Times of India thought it worthwhile to devote thousands of words to an exam that today means little to anybody but the students themselves—it is necessary to understand why Cambridge mathematics mattered in the 19th century. To begin with, the university was arguably the finest seat of learning in what was then the greatest empire in the world. More than that, though, the Cambridge math course was generally regarded as the toughest academic challenge available to that empire’s finest minds. To be Cambridge’s champion mathematician—its “Senior Wrangler,” in the university’s ancient slang—was to attain the greatest intellectual distinction available to a quarter of the population of the globe. It practically guaranteed a stellar academic career; no fewer than nine Senior Wranglers became Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, a position held by both Sir Isaac Newton and Stephen Hawking.

The Senate House at the University of Cambridge, where examination results were historically read aloud each June. Today results are posted on the noticeboards shown; their peculiar green tinge is known as "Cambridge blue." Photo: Peter Church for Geograph, used under CCL.

Thus Fawcett’s triumph was astonishing—all the more so when it is realized that Cambridge, like most of the other great universities of the day, including Oxford, Harvard and Yale, did not admit women or permit them to take degrees. Separate colleges had been established for women only in the 1870s, and they gradually became loosely affiliated with universities. By the 1890s things had advanced to the point where the women at those colleges—Cambridge had two, Newnham and Girton—were allowed to take the same exams as males. But they were marked and ranked separately, with the women’s results read after the men’s at an annual ceremony held at the university Senate House. Math students, uniquely, were ranked in numerical order, from first to last, rather than in broad bands of ability, so it was possible to compare one student directly with another. Men taking “first class” degrees in math—equivalent to the American summa cum laude–became Wranglers; those placed below them in the second class–magna cum laude–were Optimes. If a woman scored a mark, say, higher than the 21st Optime but lower than the 20th, she would be announced as “between the 20th and 21st Optimes.”

"Honour to Agnata Frances Ramsay." From Punch, July 2, 1887. The figure on the right is "Mr. Punch," and the dog is Toby—both originally features of that great British institution, the "Punch and Judy Show."

The idea that a female candidate could score highly enough to be ranked among the Wranglers was still fairly startling in 1890. To considerable surprise, the earliest tests, dating to the 1860s, had suggested that men and women scored roughly equally in every other subject. But math remained inviolate; male mathematicians still did incontestably better. So when a Girton student named Agnata Ramsay topped the rankings in the Classics exams in 1887—she was the only candidate, male or female, awarded a first-class degree in the subject that year—the 21-year-old’s reward amounted to nothing more than an admiring cartoon in Punch (a humorous British weekly scarcely known for its support for women’s rights) and a proposal of marriage from H.M. Butler, the brilliant but 55-year-old Master of Trinity, Cambridge’s largest and wealthiest college (which Ramsay accepted).

Ramsay’s triumph, remarkable though it was, only reinforced the status of math as the last bastion of male academic supremacy. There, at least, female bodies and female brains still fell short of men’s. Indeed, most Victorian scholars believed a woman was simply incapable of demonstrating the unwavering logic required to master math, since women were at base creatures of emotion.

Newnham College, Cambridge, Philippa Fawcett's alma mater. Founded in 1871, it became a full part of the University of Cambridge only in 1948. Photo: Wikicommons.

Today, the science that underpinned those views seems crackpot. To the Victorians, it was breakthrough stuff. Central to the 19th-century concept of human development was the idea that the adolescent body was a closed system; there was only so much energy available, and so a body in which resources were diverted to mental development was one in which physical development necessarily suffered. This was thought to be a particular problem for women, because their reproductive system was far more complicated than men’s and so consumed a greater proportion of the body’s resources. A young woman who studied hard during puberty was believed to be taking special risks since “the brain and ovary could not develop at the same time,” as historian Judith Walzer Leavitt points out. Equally popular was the belief, based on crude measurements of skull volume, that women were doomed to remain childlike in important ways—”weak-willed, impulsive [and] markedly imitative rather than original, timid and dependent,” as Cynthia Eagle Russett puts it—because their brains were smaller than mens’.

Philippa Fawcett seems almost to have been born to achieve. She was the only child of two remarkable parents; her mother, Millicent, as chair of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, did more even than the famous Emmeline Pankhurst to secure for British women the right to vote, while her father, Henry Fawcett, though blinded in a shooting accident when 25, rose to be a minister in the British government. One of the few memories that survives of Philippa’s childhood has her skating along the river from Cambridge to Ely, a distance of more than 15 miles, guiding her father all the way by whistling to him.

Philippa showed early academic promise—there is some reason to suppose that her parents had her coached in math specifically in the hope that she could help them demonstrate the equality of women—and before earning a place at Newnham College she took courses in pure math and applied math at University College London (a much newer university, where even in the 1890s women and men could study side by side). Even this, though, was no real preparation for the rigors or the eccentricity of the Cambridge math “tripos”—the year-ending exams, so named after the three-legged stools on which students had sat in the 15th century.

Though blinded at age 25, Philippa's father, Henry Fawcett, served as postmaster-general in the Liberal government of William Gladstone, climbed in the Alps, and skated up to 60 miles a day.

Candidates typically sat for five and a half hours of exams every day for eight days—12 papers and 192 progressively more difficult questions in all. Those in contention for the title of Wrangler then sat for a further three days of examinations consisting of 63 still more testing problems. The most serious candidates invariably hired tutors and worked more or less round the clock for months. The historian Alex Craik notes that C.T. Simpson, who ranked as Second Wrangler in 1841, topped off his efforts by studying for 20 hours a day in the week before the exams and “almost broke down from over-exertion… [he] found himself actually obliged to carry a supply of ether and other stimulants into the examinations in case of accidents.” James Wilson, who topped the rankings in 1859, had a nervous breakdown immediately after his exams; on his recovery he discovered he had forgotten all the math he ever knew except elementary algebra. And James Savage worked himself so hard that he was found dead of apoplexy in a ditch three months after being named Senior Wrangler of 1855.

Philippa Fawcett was coached—her tutor, E.W. Hobson of Christ’s College, was regarded as the second-best man teaching at Cambridge in her time—but she adopted an altogether more reasonable approach to her studies. Stephen Siklos, a present-day Cambridge mathematician, notes that Fawcett led “a disciplined and orderly life,” rising at 8 a.m. and rarely going to bed later than 11 p.m. She studied six hours a day, but refused to yield to the then-popular practice among aspirant Wranglers of working through the night with a wet towel wrapped around her head.

One reason Fawcett did so is that she knew that she was being watched; she went out of her way to deny ammunition to those who tried (in the words of a contemporary newspaperman) “to make out that the women’s colleges are peopled by eccentrics.” Her determination not to stand out was only reinforced by a scandalous report in London’s Pall Mall Gazette that she dared to wear “her thick brown hair down to her shoulders, and has even been known (so I have heard) to ride on top of a bus.”
The challenge facing Fawcett and her fellow students was certainly daunting: the mathematics tripos questions were so complex that even the best candidates could scarcely hope to fully solve two, and make a stab at two more, of the 16 devised for each paper. Each paper ranged incredibly widely, and the questions were frequently arcane; the German mathematician Max Born satirized a typical example as: “On an elastic bridge stands an elephant of negligible mass; on his trunk stands a mosquito of mass m. Calculate the vibrations on the bridge when the elephant moves the mosquito by rotating his trunk.” And Siklos summarizes the challenge this way:

By 1890, the Mathematical Tripos had developed into a severe test not so much of mathematical ingenuity as of stamina and solid ability… The topics ranged from compound interest to number theory, hydrodynamics and astronomy. Candidates were expected to be familiar with the work of Newton and Euclid, to be able to predict eclipses, to manipulate obscure trigonometrical identities and to be on intimate terms with all possible two and three dimensional conics.

Millicent Fawcett, Philippa's mother, was not only a leading suffragist, but also cousin to Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, the first woman to qualify as a doctor in the U.K.; to do so, Anderson had to study in Scotland, as no English medical school would accept her as a student.

Fawcett’s ingrained fortitude appears to have stood her in excellent stead during the examination period. She declined the chance to get away from her college for the last few days before the papers began, on the ground that it might disturb her routine. When asked if she wished the ordeal were over, she answered that in no circumstances would she want to wish away three weeks of her life. Although depressed by her first encounter with a tripos paper, on which she could answer only three problems and “try at 6 or 7″ more, she recovered her spirits when she discovered than none of the other candidates she knew had completed a single answer. By the end of May 1890, expectations were high at Newnham that Fawcett had done better than any other candidate the college had ever entered in the math exams. It remained far from certain, though, how Newnham’s women would rank against the men.

G.F. Browne, the secretary of the Cambridge exam board, was also concerned—because he feared that the women entered in the 1890 exams might be so far below par that they would disgrace themselves. He feared that one might even place last, a position known at Cambridge as “the Wooden Spoon.” Late on the evening of June 6, the day before the results were to be announced, Browne received a visit from the senior examiner, W. Rouse Ball, who confided that he had come to discuss “an unforeseen situation” concerning the women’s rankings. Notes Siklos, citing Browne’s own account:

After a moment’s thought, I said: ‘Do you mean one of them is the Wooden Spoon?’
‘No, it’s the other end!’
‘Then you will have to say, when you read out the women’s list, “Above the Senior Wrangler”; and you won’t get beyond the word ‘above.’ “

By morning, word that something extraordinary was about to occur had electrified Cambridge. Newnham students made their way to the Senate House en masse, and Fawcett’s elderly grandfather drove a horse-drawn buggy 60 miles from the Suffolk coast with her cousins Marion and Christina. Marion reported what happened next in a letter:

It was a most exciting scene in the Senate… Christina and I got seats in the gallery and grandpapa remained below. The gallery was crowded with girls and a few men, and the floor of the building was thronged with undergraduates as tightly packed as they could be. The lists were read out from the gallery and we heard splendidly. All the men’s names were read first, the Senior Wrangler [G.T. Bennett of St John's College] was much cheered.
At last the man who had been reading shouted “Women.”… A fearfully agitating moment for Philippa it must have been…. He signalled with his hand for the men to keep quiet, but had to wait some time. At last he read Philippa’s name, and announced that she was “above the Senior Wrangler.”

The male undergraduates responded to the announcement with loud cheers. Back at the college, “all the bells and gongs which could be found were rung,” there was an impromptu feast, bonfires were lit on the field hockey pitch, and Philippa was carried shoulder-high into the main hall—”with characteristic calmness,” Siklos notes, “marking herself  ‘in’ on the board” as she swayed past. The men’s reaction was generous, particularly considering that when Cambridge voted against allowing women to become members of the university in 1921, the undergraduates of the day celebrated by battering down Newnham’s college gates.

The triumph was international news for days afterwards, the New York Times running a full column, headlined “Miss Fawcett’s honor: the kind of girl this lady Senior Wrangler is.” It soon emerged that Fawcett had scored 13 percent more points than had Bennett, the leading male, and a friendly examiner confided that “she was ahead on all the papers but two … her place had no element of accident in it.”

Philippa Fawcett was not only the first woman to place above the Senior Wrangler; she was also the last. Cambridge dropped the ancient distinction in 1909 because, as mathematics became more specialized, it had become increasingly difficult to rank candidates with skills in different branches of the subject in purely numerical order.

David Hilbert: "Gentlemen, we are not running a bathing establishment." Photo: Wikicommons.

It took much longer for academics to abandon their prejudice against allowing women to take their degrees alongside men. Although the University of London had led the way in granting women equal status in 1882, it was not until 1919 that the great German university at Göttingen followed suit (and then only after a debate during which, asked “Whatever would our young men returning from the war think of being taught by a woman?” the chair of the math department, David Hilbert, famously responded: “Gentlemen, we are running a university, not a bathing establishment”). In Britain, Oxford yielded in 1920; in the United States, Yale did not desegregate until 1969, and Harvard not until 1977.
As for Cambridge, women were finally allowed to take degrees alongside men in 1948. Happily, Philippa Fawcett lived to see this confirmation of all she had stood for in the 1890s. Having spent her career as an educator–lecturing at Newnham for some years, but of course being denied the academic career a male Wrangler would have thought his right–she died, aged 80, one month after her alma mater approved the principal of equal education for women and 58 years after she had been placed “above the Senior Wrangler.”



Sources
Anon. “Miss Fawcett’s Honor; The sort of girl this lady Senior Wrangler is.” New York Times, June 24, 1890; Alex Craik. Mr Hopkins’s Men: Cambridge Reform and British Mathematics in the Nineteenth Century. London: Springer Verlag, 2008; D.O. Forfar. “What became of the Senior Wranglers?” In Mathematical Spectrum 29 (1996); Judy Green; “How Many Women Mathematicians Can You Name?” Colloquium address at Miami University [OH], June 29, 2000; Judith Walzer Leavitt. Woman and Health in America: Historical Readings. Madison [WI]: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999; Jeremy Gray. “Mathematics in Cambridge and beyond.” In Richard Mason (ed.), Cambridge Minds. Cambridge: CUP, 1994; Susan Sleeth Mosedale. “Science corrupted: Victorian biologists consider the women question.” In Journal of the History of Biology 11 (1979); Newnham College Roll Letter, February 1949, 46-54. Newnham College Archives, Cambridge; Katharina Rowold. The Educated Woman: Minds, Bodies and Women’s Higher Education in Britain, Germany and Spain, 1865-1914. New York: Routledge, 2010; Cynthia Eagle Russett. Sexual Science: the Victorian Construction of Womanhood. Cambridge [MA]: Harvard University Press, 1991; Stephen Siklos. Philippa Fawcett and the Mathematical Tripos. Cambridge: Newnham College, 1990; W.W. Rouse. A History of Mathematics at Cambridge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1903; Jonathan Smith & Christopher Stray (eds). Teaching and Learning in Nineteenth Century Cambridge. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2001; Patricia Vertinsky. The Eternally Wounded Woman: Women, Doctors and Exercise in the Late Nineteenth Century. Manchester: MUP, 1989.

A collection of books and papers on women and mathematics in the nineteenth century, named in Philippa Fawcett’s honor, is held by the London Mathematical Society.

Paranormal

What is a Paranormal Body?

A paranormal body or ghost or spirit or apparition is the energy, soul or personality of a person who has died and has somehow gotten stuck between this plane of existence and the next. Some knows and some does not know that they are dead. Mostly they have died under traumatic, unusual or highly emotional circumstances. Ghosts can be perceived by the living in a number of ways: through sight (apparitions), sound (voices), smell (fragrances and odors), touch and sometimes they can just be sensed.

An earthbound spirit or paranormal body can be a human spirit that has not properly passed over. They have not gone onto the next level, the light, heaven, whatever we can call it. They remain behind, here on earth, and the place they live we call haunted.
Sometimes there reason to stay behind is to take care of unfinished business, there love for their children. Often these earthbound spirits do not remain here for long, once they can complete their desire, they normally pass over.

 

How do ghosts (paranormal body) possess a person?

The act of possession can happen in a few seconds or over a period of few months. It primarily depends how vulnerable is the person. Here vulnerability means at a physical or mental level. Ghost or paranormal body weakened the possible victim by creating a vulnerable atmosphere, like they cause sleeplessness. Some times if they have the power to create voices, they make sounds to create a fearful atmosphere. They take advantage of the resultant vulnerability to create an entry point. They take advantage of personality disorders such as anger, fear, over-emotional nature etc. They aggravate these personality defects adding more vulnerability. Addition to that they put negative thoughts, creating self doubts, instigating depression, causing fights between couples. The incorrect thoughts planted in a person by the ghost make the person misbehave. There normal behavior changes to a larger extent. Ghosts destabilize a person’s mental balance and thereby create vulnerability. And then they take over.

Ghosts can possess easily when the sheath of the physical body is separated from the mental sheath, e.g. in dream state, state of despair etc. In some cases this can happen even in a meditative state. Only a higher level ghost can take advantage of the subtle body being separated from the physical body during meditation.

 

What times the paranormal bodies are most active?

Paranormal bodies are most active during the transitory times like the twilight zone between day and night, the new moon day (dark moon) and full moon day between the waxing and waning phases of moon, eclipses, etc. These are periods with highest likelihood of people being possessed. They are also most active between 12.00 to 3.00 a.m.

 

How a person get possessed?

A ghost takes possession or control of a person through black energy. Black energy is a spiritual negative and harmful type of energy. The ghost infuses black energy into the vulnerable person and make a centre. And then onwards the ghost goes on to progressively transmit black energy, and make the body his home.

The possessing ghost (demon, devil, negative energy, etc.) covers the sheath of the physical body of the possessed person with its own mental and causal (intellect) body sheaths. By this process the mental and causal body sheaths of the possessed person become non-functional. The person then begins to talk, walk, think and behave according to the new mental body sheaths of the ghost. In a way the possessed person’s subconscious mind is now in the control of that particular paranormal body. Most people suffer in silence, there are people who have no idea that they are possessed and lead a normal life.

 

What are the signs of possession?

A change in character, taste, life-style, few changes that appear suddenly like a person may begin to express cravings he never had before like for specific food, alcohol, drugs, sex or anything else, a person’s behavior may change drastically , a complete change in interest, change of voice and behavior. The person may also have wild mood swings.

Sometimes the possessed person has an idea that something is wrong or different is happening, sometime other’s point out about the changes. The most common environments where possessions occur are hospitals, graveyards, funeral homes, wells, battle-fields etc.

 

Why they trouble?

They want to enter in a person’s body or cause trouble due to unfulfilled desires and due to the inability to move on in the after life and attain a higher positive region or sub-region.
The manifestations of distress due to ghosts or negative energies are varied, and can be from a person displaying uncharacteristic behavior to erratic violent behavior, addictions, various physical and psychological illnesses, family problems, business problems etc. Also in case of possession by powerful spirits, the voice and mannerism of person entirely change.

 

Do ghosts have a gender i.e. are they male or female?

They do not have a physical body. Hence in this perspective there is no gender. But on the basis of the appearance of their subtle form and psychological characteristics, and what they were in the past, they have genders. When ghosts materialize the apparent form is most influenced by the appearance and sex of their immediate prior birth. That is, if the ghost were a female in the human form, it would materialize as a female. Higher order ghosts like sorcerers have the ability to assume a form as per their liking. Sorcerers (Maantriks) are ghosts with very high spiritual power comparable to the spiritual powers of Saints. In order to acquire such levels of spiritual powers, a sorcerer needs to perform intense spiritual practice.

 

What is the lifespan of a ghost (paranormal body, demon, devil, negative energy, etc.)?

In case of humans, the term ‘lifespan’ means the period between their birth and death. In the case of ghosts, this would signify the period between the subtle bodies becoming ghosts to their eventual rebirth on Earth or going back to the light or heaven. Thus the lifespan of ghosts is varied. In the case of inferior order ghosts, it could be anywhere around 40-400 years. Ghosts that have been relegated to the deeper rungs of Hell and who have lot of powers are instrumental in doing wide-scale harm to humanity can remain as ghosts for thousands of years.

 

Can paranormal bodies exist or survive in the earth, water or fire?

Yes, all such paranormal bodies can exist or survive in all these areas. This is because ghosts being subtle bodies, i.e. without physical bodies, are unaffected by earth, water or fire. However ghosts of a lower order like the common ghost or those who have just entered the ghost order fear water or fire, based on the lingering impressions from their human life. This soon passes away as other ghosts educate them about their new status.

 

What can a paranormal body cause in my life?

Ghosts can be responsible for many type of illnesses, mostly mental and sometimes physical illnesses. They mostly are responsible for strong negative emotions, poor interpersonal relationships, life breakdowns on different levels: mental, financial, sexual, health etc. It can manifest itself in many ways which depends on the personality of the person possessed, one’s conscious and subconscious mind, needs, emotions, lifestyle etc.

 

Can ghosts persuade one to commit a suicide?

Yes, this is their first desire and motive, they do this very often. Ghost is an entity who passed thorough the death for various reasons. Very often they are resigned and have only little energy. As they are dead they wish the possessed person also join their world.

 

Is it possible that a ghost who has been removed off enters someone else’s body?

Yes, it is possible. after removed by force or leaving by choice they look for an other person to possess. Like we have a free will , same they also have.

 

Are there good ghosts around?

There are both kinds of ghost, but mostly they are evil, and in principle dangerous for the living human beings, because they need to steal our energy in order to survive. Very often they also want to steal our body to find a vehicle to fulfill their own desires like sex, power etc.

 

Is it possible to talk to a paranormal body? Can they hear us?

It is very much possible to talk to ghosts, but it is very dangerous, Talking to ghosts is equal to summoning them, which is very dangerous even if the ghost is someone very close to you. When you call them you are invoking their desire to live in this world, they here what you say. In a way you are disturbing their peace. This is not a good practice and one should avoid it. There are many other adventure sports to try.

 

What are the symptoms of a possessed (haunted) house ?

If the house is possessed or we say haunted, there are noises in your home, waking in the middle of the night, banging, knocking, objects moving or falling, being touched, being raped, the sensation of cold, the sensation of invisible attacks, being manipulated, humiliated and oppressed, if bruises of unknown provenance appear on your body, scratches, wounds, then it’s very likely that you are not alone in the house.

In such houses the dreams become intense nightmares. Sleep is constantly disturbed. Constant headaches. Negative emotions-Fear, Hate are intensified. Person might talk aloud to the spirits. Person hears spirit voices that confuse thinking patterns and hinder concentration needed for school, work and normal life. Fear that the person cant control or stop the spirit. Thoughts of suicide are frequent and uncontrolled.

 

Who is more prone, male or female?

Females are are more prone to becoming a victim of the spirit world compared to men. They are more vulnerable during their monthly cycles, if during that time period she goes near the graveyard or a river or lake or under trees, uses perfumes, drinks alcohol or take drugs, keeps herself dirty, open hairs with perfumed oil she is inviting trouble as spirits are everywhere and can take charge of the female body anytime the circumstances are right.

On the other hand in men the possibility arise when they take alcohol in open area, urinate in open areas or under tree, involve with women who are possessed or are unhygienic. In both men and women when the aura weakens the possibility increases.

Mail bag!

I’m sick of repeating myself but  you seem to have low comprehension and thick skulls. But I love you so this one’s for you  - an entire post, only for your reading pleasure, answering all those deep, existential questions that keep you awake at night. You ask why I delete your insightful questions? Do you not have a right to ask? Do you not bleed when they cut you? Of course you do . I just delete them because they seem to have nothing to do with the matter on hand and we don’t want the issue derailed, now do we? Also, I must tell you that your language stinks. Clean up and we’ll publish you once in a while. Do you feel loved and special yet?

1. Your posts so holier than thou.

Because I am deeply insecure about my parenting skills and often need the internetz to validate what I am doing. Please, please say I have your stamp of approval before I break my heart.  I am not half as confident about my parenting as you all must be. No doubt that is why you find my posts difficult to appreciate.
OR
I am holy – please kneel down and take my blessings. More holey than righteous in fact. Look, there’s a  big hole in the knee of my pajamas.

2. Mommy bloggers are back scratchers.

Mommy bloggers have their hands full – kids, husband, jobs, homes, social lives, charity/causes, blogs  (do you want me to go on?)  At times like this it is helpful to have a friend scratch that awkward spot we can’t reach.
OR
I am guessing you’re too thick to understand the real reason which is that mostly like minded people read a particular blog which is why we get a lot of agreement on our issues. Why do you read us, again? No life of your own? Even a busy mother’s hectic life is entertaining? Too much time on your hands and an unwillingness to scratch a friend’s back and help out, huh?

3. Mommy bloggers are cliquish.

It’s called being friends. All you need to do is stick out a hand and say Hello, how do you do? Go on, you can do it. Even my four year old can. On the other hand, if you have attention problems like a spoilt three year old and imagine that kicking, biting, screaming, frothing at the mouth and cussing will get you in, you’re wrong. Ask nicely.
OR
Most of us started blogging at the same time and have a lot in common. More than kids that is, be it food, fashion, politics, films.. so much. Why not aim that accusation at film bloggers, tech bloggers or anyone else? Is it hard to imagine finding common ground with others, camaraderie? I’d suggest you look around. I am sure you will find a group for abusive, nasty little misfits and warty toads – they will welcome you with open arms.

4. You’re a hypocrite. 

And you know that how? By the spy camera you fitted in my bed room? Or because you know someone who knows someone who is married to someone who went to school with someone who lives next door to my third cousin’s wife’s step brother and they said so? Right. Of course. That makes sense.
OR
Because I agree with something that you believe I shouldn’t because of something I said somewhere else? Well, tell you what, I’ll burn up that certificate that says I am a Saint and that should do. At times I agree, at times I don’t. Yes, I am full of contradictions. What I will find acceptable in A, I will find unacceptable in B. I’m not a machine where you will get the same output each time you click on a button. I change my mind and I often write posts to admit that I have changed the way I feel. It’s called being human. Again, not something I’d imagine you understanding. The swamp under the bridge probably functions differently.

5. Your family/brother/husband/kids suck. You should all die. 

We all will. Eventually. You might go faster with all that anger you’re bottling up and taking out on the unsuspecting www.
OR
You should get counselling for allowing a glimpse into someone’s family life get you worked up to the extent where you get so nasty. Fie!

6. You never allow disagreement.

Yeah. So? My blog, my rules. What sense of entitlement makes you think you have a RIGHT to voice an opinion here? The only right you have is to read. The rest is my call. I do plan to start reservation for rude morons and then you will have your very own quota to apply under. Until then…
OR
I do. Keep it clean, don’t cuss (wash your mouth with Dettol before you address something directly to me), be less venomous and we’ll get along fine. The oldest commenters like M, n!, (damn, I need an O, P and Q!) Choxbox, Poppy, Rohini – all disagreed with me vehemently and continue to do so. They just do it in a way that shows they were brought up well, not dragged up from a well. Some are here to win popularity contests, I am not. If I don’t like the way you address me, I’ll slam the door in your face so mind your toes.

7. You spend a lot of time on the blog for someone who has kids and a job.

And this is affecting your life in what way? Did I not deliver your pizza on time? Did my kids complain about my absence? Has my boss sent you a letter complaining about my performance? Has my husband complained about my err.. performance? So then how, how, how is this either relevant or your business? Is it deep concern and love for me? In which case I can send you my bank account number – send me some money and I’ll get myself something pretty as a token of your love.
OR
Clearly efficiency and time management are not your forte. Else you’d not find mine so shocking. Would you like me to take classes in management of time? Start with skipping the blogs that obviously tick you off and leave you frothing like the coffee you’re drinking when you should be getting work done.

8. I hate you and I hate your writing. 

I’m deeply concerned. I could suggest a counsellor who will help you deal with these conflicting emotions. You hate me, but you read me… the fascination of the abomination, huh?! I understand. Even I am drawn to watching blood and gore on Dexter. On the other hand I do rein my emotions in well enough to not cuss out the person who entertains me so.
OR
Your comments are in poor taste. Refer to point # 6. Do try not to behave as though you were born in a barn and are interacting with another human for the first time in your life. If you don’t like something or someone, don’t interact with them. Didn’t momma teach you that? Also, didn’t she tell you, IF YOU DON’T HAVE ANYTHING NICE TO SAY, DON’T SAY ANYTHING AT ALL. Send me your address and I’ll send you the Barney CD that says so.

9.  Your posts are always about how great a parent you are, how fantastic your kids are and how good looking your husband is, how happy your life is. 

Eh? Did you miss the part about the husband being grey, pockmarked and decorated with ugly toes and fingers? Clearly. Or the bit about the Brat being stubborn beyond measure? The Bean being a very plain looking child? Clearly you don’t pay attention in class. As to how great a person I am, that of course is indisputable. *takes a bow*
OR
Where in the memo does it say I must write about every part of my life, good, bad, ugly for you? Who died and made you moderator of my posts? Is it hard to imagine a person loving their life and their family? How sad are you?!
Also, perhaps you’ve missed the point of blogging. We mediocre writers whom no one will otherwise publish choose this platform to showcase how awe-effing-some we are. The blog could be about anything but the point is the same. That we’re simply terrific and no one recognises our formidable talent – Laud my photoblog and admire my great camera technique, appreciate my astute political opinion, what do you think of my hilarious Bollywood posts? Applaud my arts/craft/recipes. Critique my absolutely brilliant poetry. Marvel at my rather witty, random thoughts. Adore  my fantastic babies (that would be us “mommy bloggers”) and of course the anti-mommy bloggers who consider it infra dig to actually admit that their kids matter and say – I’m not a mommy blogger, I’m just a blogger who writes about her kids among other earth shaking matters. Whatever. We’re all navel gazers. Read, don’t read, yawn, move on. Click on the X. Get out of our faces. Get your own blog if you want to rant. Get out of our spaces. (wow! poetry, did you see that?!)

10. You say you’re tired of responding, but that is because everyone is disagreeing with you. 

Absolutely. I’m so effing brilliant that I don’t see how anyone on earth could disagree with me. I should be making government policies.
OR
I think it’s rather dense of them. They come up with the exact same thing someone 4 comments above has said and still think it’s the tactical response of the century. You might not agree, but unless you say something new, I am fast losing interest in the issue AND I also have a life that I must get back to living so that I have something to blog about tomorrow! What can I say, I have a low threshold for idiots who cannot just read the argument in the comments above them. Yawn.
Next round coming up in another post. Until the next time you get your knickers in a twist, fare thee well.

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