This reminds me of a party I went to last year. I was standing with some friends, chatting, and someone said something that indirectly implied that sexism exists. Some trivial recounting of the basic facts of daily life for most women. Something so mild, so uncontroversial, so mundane that I don’t even remember what it was.
Suddenly, this man standing on the outskirts of our conversational circle piped up with “actually, I think men are more discriminated against than women these days.”
All conversation died.
I turned to look at him and he had this smug, insufferable grin on his face, relishing this moment, expecting us to waste our time and energy refuting this ridiculous thing he had just said.
The Devil’s Advocate was among us.
And, in my mind, I saw the next 15+ minutes playing out. The parade of facts and statistics in a vain attempt to defend ourselves, our gender, and to prove that misogyny is real. The glib, snide denials from some shithead who is getting off on our pain and frustration. The Gish Gallop of bullshit that would take a whole evening to properly dismantle. It was depressing and overwhelming. I hated it. I had to kill it before it began.
So I looked him dead in the eye and I said “OK,“ shrugged, and just walked away.
Nothing I have ever said to another human being has ever been so crushing. As I walked away, I watched the smug grin vanish and confusion and anxiety set in. The rest of the group turned their backs to him and carried on as if he had never spoken – as if he was invisible. He was still staring at me when I walked over to another friend and told her what he had said. I pointed him out for her and made direct eye contact with him while we both laughed.
tl;dr: Don’t feed the troll. Let it perish, cold and hungry, in the wasteland of your indifference. It is weak and you are strong. Live your best life.
The point is that even within a good relationship there are continual sources of hurt and disappointment which have to be overcome if love is to survive; their overcoming is actually the growth and development of love. It is, therefore, extremely important that we work with a vision of love which sees problems not as the end of love, not as a sign that love is over, but as the ground upon which love operates.
BREAKING NEWS, MY SOUL IS CLEAR, MY SKIN IS HYDRATED, THE YELLOW DRESS FROM BEAUTY AND THE BEAST IS ACTUALLY GOOD NOW
The U.K. media….and liberal politics…is so unapologetically transphobic…in a coordinated, targeted manner…and HERMIONE FUCKING GRANGER…despite getting her big break from transmisogynist J.K. Rowling…woke up this morning like “hmmm how am I gonna use my status as an international British icon today? OH, I KNOW, I’m gonna post a pic of me wearing a shirt that says “trans rights are human rights” and promote A BUNCH OF UK BASED TRANS CHARITIES to my 28.9 MILLION followers.“
“In May, McDonald’s workers in ten cities filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), arguing that sexual harassment and unwanted touching were everyday occurrences at numerous McDonald’s restaurants and that when workers attempted to file complaints with store managers, they suffered retaliation in the form of verbal abuse, cuts in hours, and intentionally inconvenient schedules. (They also filed complaints in 2016.)
Folsom, California McDonald’s worker Kristi Maisenbach told the EEOC that her supervisor had touched her breasts several times and rubbed his genitals against her butt. He later sent her a text message offering $1,000 for oral sex. When she complained to the general manager, her hours were cut so severely that she had to quit.
Flint, Michigan McDonald’s worker Cortez Clerk says that her supervisor verbally and physically harassed her every day at work. Explaining her decision to file a complaint with the EEOC, she said: “McDonald’s monitors everything we do — from how fast the drive-thru is moving, to how we fold our customers’ bags. Yet when I filed a complaint against my shift manager for regularly sexually harassing me — which included him showing me a photo of his genitals — McDonald’s had no response.” Clerk also quit, unable to bear the harassment any longer. “I really needed that job and the money, and I considered remaining silent. But I believed McDonald’s had my back and would be horrified by the way I was treated. I was wrong.”
Tuesday’s one-day strike was workers’ way of ratcheting up the pressure on McDonald’s to finally take action — not only in its corporate-owned restaurants but also in its franchises. Strikers demanded that the company strengthen and enforce its stated zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment, hold mandatory trainings for managers and employees, create a simple system for receiving and responding to complaints, and protect workers from retaliation. Finally, they insisted that McDonald’s convene a committee of workers, corporate executives, franchise representatives, and leaders from national women’s groups to formulate new policies to keep workers safe from sexual harassment.”
Tsarina Jissa's Tumblr 