Story 167
To Story 166: This is less irony and more a deliberate counter-narrative strategy. Placing that individual visibly at the helm of the Women’s Network creates a documented record that can be deployed against existing discrimination claims — optics engineered to contradict an inconvenient paper trail.
The mechanism operates at every level of the organization. In my own experience, a manager with no demonstrable people-building skills, executive presence, or community leadership ability was formally credited for team gatherings I organized and executed. The effect is twofold: it constructs a performance record for him that doesn’t reflect reality, while ensuring the actual contributor generates no documented history that could later serve as evidence.
This is not misattribution through oversight. It is evidence manufacturing — the same labor that is extracted from women is repurposed to protect the individuals and institutions responsible for their erasure.