but I think your perception of relative ease for men has a filter of survivorship biasPlease don't put words in my mouth. My life is hard enough without that.
I never expected anything to be easy. Just possible.
My Patreon sits at around $150/month and I get the occasional tip while I get accused of being a beggar for expecting pay for my writing at all when all other doors are effectively closed to me for various reasons.
I recently quit my local volunteer work in meat space because that, also, wasn't leading to an adequate income. It's a long, sordid tale, but boils down to the same problem dynamics I have everywhere: People value my work but don't want to pay me for it.
They end up thinking I do it because I "care" and and they are actively affronted by the idea that I want to make money at it. I get read as very motherly and all this shit and people want me to do things for them out of "love." Meanwhile, no one "loves" me enough to give a damn about the fact that I have literally gone hungry at times and literally had no housing for years. No one is doing a fundraiser for me out of compassion. Etc ad nauseum.
I don't think it's easy for me. But I do know it is possible for men and I'm just as competent as any man here and can't get the right doors open that lead to an adequate income while I am given a zillion excuses, which boils down to people justifying the awful way in which this community has treated me for more than a decade.
I know of a MtF trans youth who had no trouble whatsoever opening doors and getting money out of people here. I can't do the same and I am treated with enormous suspicion and contempt for even trying to figure it out.