The envy to bully pipeline within women's social networks
The envy to bully pipeline within women's social networks
How to avoid collaborating with a Knowledge Vampire
This article is another instalment on the topic of woman on woman aggression and narcissistic behaviour, where you will learn about the earliest warning signs of aggression that can escalate to knowledge vampirism and bullying in online professional and social networks.
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I have been diving deeply into understanding woman on woman aggression and bullying in workplaces, professional networks, friend groups and social networks and how this links to narcissistic behaviour. The previous article in the series was on WHY bullying happens between women. This piece aims to explain HOW competitiveness breeds aggression that can escalate to bullying. I chose to focus on a phenomenon known as Knowledge Vampirism, a form of woman on woman aggression, that occurs in online contexts rather than in a physical workplace (though what I’m about to describe also occurs in physical settings).
A recap of narcissistic behaviours in competitive environments
Narcissistic behaviours are survival adaptations to earlier life adversity, relational trauma and emotional wounding. These can be seen as self-protective behaviours when a person is feeling unsafe or threatened and becomes emotionally dysregulated. They react as if they need to defend their honour, protect their constructed view of reality or their existence by controlling others and/or their environment.
Narcissistic behaviours are attempts to restore control and stability in relational contexts that threaten safety, security, status and power. They have specific characteristics described here. These behaviours also attempt to soothe feelings of powerlessness, inferiority, and shame that arise during instances that disrupt comfort to intolerable levels.
These feelings frequently show up in competitive environments like a workplace, sports team, business network, frenemy group or online social network. Since the nature of a competitive environment pressures people to win, only one can be the winner and everyone else loses. In a competitive environment, there’s no “when one wins, we all win”. Even when the group claims that they’re all in it together, just knowing there can only be one winner will ignite Tall Poppy Syndrome and Imposter Syndrome among members of that group.
Shame is a powerful emotion. It’s what you experience when you feel inadequate, insecure and inferior when comparing yourself to another person or group of people.
The feelings that arise when you compare yourself to another person can be magnets for other emotions, like jealousy, self-righteousness, resentment and envy. These emotions are strong on their own. Put them together and you have a powerful and intoxicating elixir that can drive decisions and behaviours that wouldn’t normally occur.
The slippery slope of comparing yourself to others
I’m about to invite you to try something different.
It’s very easy for us to put yourself in the shoes of someone who is on the receiving end of bad behaviour while reading informative or educational pieces about bullying, aggressive behaviour and anything to with narcissistic behaviour. You read the content and think “that’s happened to me!” or “that’s what’s happening to me right now!” and you can easily recall the times when you’ve been the victim of a perpetrator’s actions.
Given that we each possess narcissistic traits, because that’s what you and I draw on to protect and defend ourselves against perceived threats, including when the threat is our own feelings of insecurity, inferiority and shame in competitive and hierarchical relationships/situations, it’s highly likely that you and I have been perpetrators too.
But since being a perpetrator has some really negative beliefs and narratives about it, you and I are less willing or interested in putting ourselves in the shoes of the perpetrator. Being the hypothetical perpetrator can make you feel exposed and ashamed. You will want to deny that the problem I’m about to present exists, deflect, project, and distract from the content by bringing up unrelated issues. The problem with resisting this exercise is that you rob yourself of the opportunity to become aware of problematic behaviours that might be negatively impacting others. You deprive yourself of the opportunity to disrupt unhelpful behaviour patterns and apply different responses in the future. So with this in mind, I invite you to put your perpetrator hat on as we dive into this scenario and see what happens.
The scenario
You’re a woman with professional qualifications (ie. an Academic, therapist, lawyer, physician, organisational psychologist or entrepreneur) who produces content that you publish in a number of places, like social media, a newsletter, video channel and books. Or you might only use one social media platform consistently to share content, view others’ content, build a network/community and source clients. You have a following and you’re always looking to scale up and make your work more visible and accessible to your target audience.
One day you start to notice someone who publishes similar content that overlaps with what you talk about, you’re impressed with how she’s executed her message and really resonate with it. You wonder what else she’s saying and when you peek at a few more of her posts, you agree with what she’s saying, and admire the depth and clarity of her message. You also notice her post is getting a lot of engagement and enthusiasm. You begin to feel strong sensations in your body and thoughts swirling around in your mind. There are a number of emotions running wild but you’ll only notice that you feel inspired and excited about new opportunities.
You decide there’s an opportunity here to combine powers to produce something cool together, so you get in touch and invite her to consider working on something together.
This seems pretty standard for confident women who go after what they want, right? Taking initiative and asking for what she wants assertively are valued attributes in the world of doing business, and are required in a competitive landscape in order to achieve status, success and respect.
What we’re missing from this story is what’s happening under the surface motivating the decision to want to join forces with this person you don’t even know and to take action toward that goal.
What’s really happening under the surface
Let’s rewind the scenario to the point where you’re feeling strong sensations in your body and thoughts swirling around in your mind. I mentioned above that when you compare yourself to another person, it can invoke thoughts and feelings of inadequacy, insecurity and inferiority that are all associated with the emotional state of shame. Shame can also magnetise envy and resentment. These thoughts and feelings inform how you perceive yourself in competitive situations and environments that compel you to assess your attributes and competence against hers.
The Shame & Envy Checklist
Admiration: You appreciate and value what she produced. Her content really resonates and you acknowledge she knows her stuff.
Inspired: You want to connect with her or more of her content so you can learn from her. This is the feeling that anchors a desire for collaboration.
Affirmed: What she says is similar to what you think/believe and what you currently say to others, what you imagine you would say if you produced content on that topic or what you would want to have said to your audience.
Inadequate: You feel a lack of attention from others who matter compared to her. “I’m not good enough because my similar content never got that attention, or if it did, I can’t remember or I’m devaluing it right now.”
Inferior: You devalue your own expertise, knowledge and accomplishments to date. “She says it better than I ever did/could.” “I’m doing it all wrong.”
Insecure: You fear losing territory, audience, loyalty, attention, interest and followers to her “This woman is in my lane and threatens to take down what I have built up for myself.”
Self-doubt: You begin to doubt that you have the ability to stay in this game because there’s always someone shinier and better who will come along. “I’m lost. I’m not sure if I’m doing the right thing anymore.”
Envy: You want the attention, loyalty, interest, opportunity and possessions you perceive she has/is receiving from others.
Self-righteousness: You’re suspicious about her integrity and whether she’s truly qualified to produce that content that resonates and is in the same territory as yours. “Who is she anyway to produce this content? She doesn’t have the same qualifications or expertise I do or doing this as long as I have!”
Resentment: You’re feeling all the feelings above because of all the attention she’s getting from others and you want it to stop.
You’re in this situation feeling and thinking all of these things. It feels so uncomfortable that you want to take action to alleviate the discomfort and return to an emotional state where you feel more in control.
The 3 responses to shame
You’ll notice all of the feelings and thoughts above and instantly recognise that this is shame that was sparked by comparing yourself to another person, and wanting to be ‘the best’ (the winner!). You will sit in the discomfort and remind yourself of who you are, what you’ve accomplished and that you’re not in a competition with this woman who is virtually a stranger to you. You’ll employ some breathing and grounding techniques until you return to your centre. The discomfort passes.
You might or might not notice these uncomfortable feelings and react to suppress them by criticising, distracting or numbing yourself. You might call up a friend who could do with your help, grab a snack even though you’re not hungry or call yourself an idiot for being such an incompetent person, followed by a tirade about everything wrong about you.
You might or might not notice these uncomfortable feelings and react to try to shut down the person who made you feel this way so you no longer feel of the shame that you associate with them.
Option 1 requires self-awareness to be able to respond to the uncomfortable sensations and resist reacting to suppress them or project them onto her.
Options 2 & 3 are automatic reactions to the feelings that are not in your awareness.
Option 2 is self-punishment as a form of corrective action.
Option 3 is punishing the other as a form of self/turf protection and corrective action for getting in your way.
Pursuing option 3 is the act of aggression that can eventually escalate to bullying.
Back to the scenario
You have a motive buried deep in your psyche that impulses you to take her down. You’re likely unaware of this motive or if you are aware, you’re not admitting it to yourself. You prefer to see the ideal version of yourself as a collaborative and cooperative person who is taking initiative to create an opportunity that will be mutually beneficial. Even though you don’t know much about her work aside from some of the things you’ve seen and she’s virtually a stranger, you have a good feeling about this and you’re giving her your attention by taking a risk on her.
“…You decide there’s an opportunity here to combine powers to produce something cool together, so you get in touch and invite her to consider working on something together.”
Your enthusiastic invitation will be to join your podcast, Q&A session, interview, provide info for you training cohort, collaborate on a piece of writing, or a project. The ask is that you want her to share her knowledge on a topic you’re excited about or currently exploring, and you will offer up your platform and audience for her.
But since you’re unaware that your hidden motive is to combat the feeling of inferiority by creating a situation in which you can become superior and thus eliminate your competitor, you won’t be able to see that if she takes you up on your offer, you will become a Knowledge Vampire.
What is a Knowledge Vampire?
Knowledge Vampirism is the extraction of unique information, knowledge and practice wisdom that form the body of knowledge resulting from a Knowledge Supplier’s intellectual and scholarly pursuits by a Knowledge Vampire. They do this because their rise in success, social currency or professional status relies on preserving an illusion of intellectual prowess in that subject and other disciplines to maintain a competitive advantage.
A Knowledge Vampire has a natural ability to extract and absorb the embodied wisdom from the one doing the sharing as a survival mechanism to succeed in competitive contexts.
Knowledge Vampires are mostly unaware they are extracting knowledge from another person. Like Energy Vampires, who employ traits along the narcissism behaviour spectrum to recruit an unending supply of emotional energy, Knowledge Vampires are able to retain a supply of targeted information through grooming methods that build trust and guarantee attention on their knowledge acquisition needs.
From my How to spot and protect against Knowledge Vampires article.
Knowledge vampirism is a form of aggression that masquerades as collaborative and cooperative behaviours driven by envy, inferiority and insecurity. Your intention is not to hurt her or even remotely malevolent. You truly want to believe that your intention is to do something exciting together that will benefit a target group.
Unfortunately, you won’t be able to suppress your insecurity until you encounter a situation (or you make one happen) for you to feel superior, dominant, authoritative and in control. And that can only happen once you know all the things she does about the topic, subject or project of interest AND there’s a product of your combined efforts that you can use to your advantage. Once you have extracted everything you need from her, you will find reasons to discontinue the project and the relationship.
The knowledge extraction and co-production process might not always end with getting what you want. The project will get interrupted when she starts to suspect that your motives are not what you claimed, she notices that your attitude and tone have changed because you’ve become demanding or domineering, and she starts to ask some questions or give feedback about you that you didn’t expect. If you think she’s being ungrateful for the opportunity you’ve given her, you’re going to feel defensive, exposed, ashamed and pissed off.
At this point, something snaps and you switch from being a knowledge vampire into a bully, because you’re the one who feels wronged. You’re the victim! You will begin to plan her exit from the project and retaliate by inviting other worthy candidates to complete the work that you initiated, behind her back. You will find ways to undermine, criticise, and gaslight her while disrespecting and devaluing the knowledge she shared with you that you praised earlier on, because it was already stuff you knew.
You can see how this can escalate further into smear campaigns and other vengeful tactics if she pushes back against your bullying behaviours.
Let’s pause here for a moment.
I invite you now to notice any reactions or sensations you feel in your body. What are your thoughts about the content you’ve read? About the perpetrator?
What things are you now aware of about yourself as the perpetrator that you didn’t notice before?
Is there anything you need to do about this awareness or insights? Feel free to comment below or ask any questions.
I invite you to take the perpetrator hat off and imagine now that you are the person who is the target of the Knowledge Vampire.
How to spot a request to collaborate with a Knowledge Vampire
I want to preface here that Knowledge Vampires come in all flavours of gender. Men can be shameless perpetrators of knowledge vampirism and get away with it. For the purpose of this piece in the series exposing woman on woman aggression, I’m going to refer to women.
Here are some or all of the red flags in a request to collaborate with a someone who is likely a Knowledge Vampire.
The person sees your concepts/work/publication somewhere in print, in social or professional networks or anywhere online. She feels a sense of entitlement to your work because it’s her area of training, related to her identity/experiences but isn’t known as an expert in that specific subject matter, but would love to be. She might have said the things you’ve said in her own way and it’s as if you two have the same expertise that warrants a collaboration.
You have never interacted with her in a dialogue, you haven’t been introduced by a mutual connection or if you were introduced, the mutual connection doesn’t know her very well. She might have commented on your posts but you didn’t really notice.
She initiates contact via social media private messaging or wherever she can access your contact details.
She invites you to work together.
The invitation sounds casual and she addresses you casually, if she uses your name at all.
If the invitation is a private message, it might be a straight up request to do something together with nothing else about her. If it’s in an email, it’s a longer message that also includes a description of her accomplishments and mentions her audiences or communities. This is her social currency and wealth.
She mostly speaks about herself, her qualifications, work and activities. She’s letting you know that she’s got clout and influence.
The message seems to make a number of assumptions about you. It’s clear to you that she reached out without having done her research on you.
Assumptions the Knowledge Vampire makes about you:
you’re relatively unknown or really well known
you need her to expand your reach
you want to access her audience
her audience is your audience
you want what she wants (out of the collaboration, professionally or ideals about success)
The proposal involves collaborating on a project and exposing you to her audience. She might offer a small fee or promises of promoting you or your resources to her audience in exchange for your effort.
The more descriptive invitation has a tone of superiority and can come across as if she’s doing you a favour. Her tone, message content and what she isn’t saying exposes assumptions she has about herself.
Assumptions she makes about herself:
She’s all about The Sisterhood and that women want to lift each other up
She is really persuasive and influential
Her audience is easily influenced
Knowing about the topic and having studied it for qualifications is equal to embodying knowledge and having practical wisdom on its application
Agreeing with concepts she heard/read is the same as if she’s said it herself (because they have the qualifications) and therefore gives her ownership of the content/it’s ok to claim she came up with the concept
She will sign off with an expectation that you will want to connect and work with her.
There’s premium content for paid subscribers at the bottom of this article. There are templates to spot a request from a potential Knowledge Vampire and a template for declining her offer.
How you can prevent woman on woman aggression
There’s no magical quick fix but the ability to prevent aggression starts with your self-awareness and desire to interrupt thought patterns and actions that promote aggression.
Notice your TRIGGERS in competitive environments, including social media, and apply an approach to interrupting your reaction like this one.
Notice when a woman is showing aggression toward you online and resist getting pulled into a power play to prove that you are right or superior. You can forget there’s another person writing those words and might say things that you would never hear yourself saying in person.
Use the Shame & Envy Checklist to see if your reaction to another woman is the result of comparing yourself to her.
Do your due diligence on anyone who approaches you to work with them OR on anyone you want to invite to work with you. I recommend following the checklist to avoid working with a Knowledge Vampire.
Don’t assume that you’re entitled to anyone else’s expertise because you believe you are similarly qualified and therefore can relate as professional equals. I know this sounds strange but I wouldn’t need to say it if it wasn’t a problem!
Respect a woman’s knowledge and expertise. Even if you believe you have a similar educational background or expertise or do the same kind of work as her, it’s likely you each know and do things differently.
Show how you value a woman’s expertise by offering to pay her for her efforts appropriately (market value) rather than assume that she follows unspoken rules of Sisterhood which grants you the privilege of her labour.
Avoid speaking about another woman to other women/people in a shared network. That’s how gossip becomes rumours which can become a smear campaign that damages her reputation. This is what bullies do by recruiting flying monkeys. If you have an issue with her, talk to her about it. If you can’t resolve the issue together, then debrief with someone unrelated and outside the network.
If you see the red flags I’ve described above, don’t give her (anyone!) the benefit of the doubt. Politely decline their offer and avoid forming any attachments with that person, even if they’re charming and fabulous. Some opportunities are worth declining.
Beware of rules about women solidarity that might make you excuse, justify and protect bad behaviour. An example of a rule is that we need to honour the Sisterhood, even if members have shown aggression to other members. Another example is that women have worked hard to gain access to positions of power that men inherently have. It’s our duty and obligation to support each other’s efforts and lift each other up. It’s only truly if that’s what a group of women have agreed to do that for each other and negotiated how. It’s not something that’s safe to assume otherwise, I wouldn’t have needed to write this piece.
Overall, it’s wonderful to work toward achieving goals that are meaningful to you and everyone else. I hope we can each remember that part of the job of anyone’s work is to cultivate relationships that embody the qualities of reciprocity and mutual respect. Having these relationships to help navigate complex and competitive environments is crucial for bullying prevention and doing fulfilling work that can truly uplift each other.
Thank you for reading, sharing, commenting, subscribing and supporting my work,
Nathalie Martinek, PhD
The Narcissism Hacker
Hack narcissism and support my work
I believe that a common threat to our individual and collective thriving is an addiction to power and control. This addiction fuels and is fuelled by greed - the desire to accumulate and control resources in social, information (and attention), economic, ecological, geographical and political systems.
While activists focus on fighting macro issues, I believe that activism also needs to focus on the micro issues - the narcissistic traits that pollute relationships between you and I, and between each other, without contributing to existing injustice. It’s not as exciting as fighting the Big Baddies yet hacking, resisting and overriding our tendencies to control others that also manifest as our macro issues is my full-time job.
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