Dudes, are you finding that your attempts at humor are falling flat? Are your clever quips getting you written up regularly by HR? Are they causing your friends to get fired when they drunkenly defend your “jokes” on live television?
It’s possible that what you think is humor is not actually humor. Consider the following list of things that are not humor:
- Embezzling
- Punching a random dude in the face for no reason
- Pushing elderly people off of train platforms
- Lighting an orphanage on fire
- Sexually harassing a woman on live television by yelling “F her right in the P,” except instead of “F” you say a certain word that starts with “f” and instead of “P” you say a word that starts with “p” and ends with “y.”
Seriously, dudes. Stop it with this whole “F her right in the P” shit. You’re making life crappy for women and giving all aspiring funny men a bad name.
If you, dear reader, don’t know what the “F her right in the P” thing is, it’s this: dudes yell “F her right in the P” at female TV reporters doing live shots on the street. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
As someone who doesn’t watch a lot of local news, I only became aware of this whole “F her right in the P” thing yesterday, when a helpful reader alerted me to the story of Shauna Hunt, a Toronto CityNews reporter who’s gotten so sick of the whole thing that she confronted a group of men on live television after one of their friends shouted the phrase at her while she was interviewing soccer fans. The men defended their friend’s actions as “hilarious.” One, obviously a bit drunk, told her she was “lucky” they didn’t have a vibrator. You can watch the whole thing above.
This “meme” originated more than a year ago in a fake news blooper reel that went viral online. Since then, female news reporters — covering everything from sports events to anti-austerity protests — have been dealing with dudes yelling the phrase at them on a daily basis, sometimes several times in a day. The dudes think what they’re doing is hilarious. They feel no shame. And they don’t expect there to be any consequences from sexually harassing a woman on live television.
Maybe that will change: several of the men defending the harassment in Hunt’s video — which itself has gone viral — have been identified. They’ve all been banned for a year from sports events featuring teams owned by Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment, and one (the guy who made the vibrator joke) has been fired from his job. Good.
To any dudes who feel their sacred man-right to generate “humor” by making people deeply uncomfortable is being abridged, might I suggest you follow the lead of the three gentlemen in the video below?
These three manage to make pain quite funny indeed. What makes them genuinely hilarious, so unlike the guys harassing Hunt in the video above? Their originality, for one thing; they demonstrate an ingenuity that would make Rube Goldberg proud. And, just as importantly: the only people they’re actually hurting are themselves.
ReturnOfKings
“See? Women have only contempt for us Nice Guys instead of settling down with us, like they should!”
“Why is natural, manly behaviour punished? Masculine men are being institutionally oppressed in Murica nowadays!”
“Notice her cold-blooded, calm reaction. It is way more masculine than mine, this is what is wrong with Murican women today, it makes me feel like I am a complete p***y.”
“Oh no, her mysandric reaction to their compliments triggered me!”
“Me too, this is clearly a case of microagression, women like her are too entitled and self-centered to care when they trigger us!”
Thanks to Rabid Rabbit for this:
“Further legal-splaining for those who are interested (I’m looking at you, @Alan Robertshaw): http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/05/13/does-hydro-one-have-the-right-to-fire-tfc-fan-shawn-simoes.html”
I’d forgotten the power of the unions in the US/Canada (I lived and worked in the US for 4 years but not in a unionized place) and that employment law is effectivally different if you are in a union (at least, that is my take-away from the first answer being “if he’s a union…”.
I like the fact that the union also has the opportunity to drop him like a hot potato if they decide its against their interests as well.
Thanks for that Rabid Rabbit
What was particularly interesting was the difference being in a union made. Over here it wouldn’t be as much of a factor (other than you might have someone pick up the tab for any employment tribunal case, but I doubt a union would touch something like this; they have their won policies on sexual harassment)
I’m a bit late to this, but re: the concept of not coming down too hard on this guy for “saying something stupid” while drunk…
If, while drunk, you get in a heated argument with another drunk person over, say, Kirk vs. Picard, and in your wrath you call them a gigantic poophead who isn’t a real Trekkie anyway, then that’s saying something stupid.
If you’re having a conversation with a friend in public while drunk, and you air your grievances about a coworker, boss, or client, saying that you never did like the good-for-nothing twerp, then that’s saying something stupid. (Note that you may, in fact, lose your job for it.)
If, while drunk, you stagger through the shot of a live news camera, are surprised, and loudly slur out, “OH MAN, ARE YOU LIVE? I’M SORRY, I DIDN’T MEAN TO. I’M SO EMBARRASSED. I’M LEAVING. I HOPE I DIDN’T RUIN YOUR SHOT OH BUT BY THE WAY YOU’RE DOING A WONDERFUL JOB WOOO CHANNEL 4” – That’s saying something stupid.
If, while drunk, you see a live news camera, and think, “Hey, I should go ruin that broadcast by shouting something that would be NSFW even if it weren’t misogynist, because it is fun to ruin other people’s day”, and then you follow up and go do it, you have gone way beyond saying something stupid.
Someone who accidentally made a fool out of themselves can be forgiven for it, even if they get caught on camera. Someone who thinks it is fun to ruin other people’s day, and who takes proactive steps to do so, despite knowingly being on camera, is not someone I want representing my company.
nellodee1010 ,
My mom used to work in a hospital for mentally ill children, many of whom were actually ill from being traumatized by severe abuse. The little black kids would call my pale, blonde mother the “N” word whenever they got angry with her*. Guess what is still a racial slur even when used on white folks?
When a man calls another man a sexist slur, it is still sexism.
*Sadly, that was probably because of all the times they heard it used to degrade them. They knew it referred to their skin color. They still used the word as an insult to a white lady because it was the worst thing they could think of to call her when they weren’t calling her a bitch. Internalized racism is a sad reality, just like internalized misogyny.
Luke ,
They were grown ass men. They were grown ass misogynist men. If I get drunk and smash a window, I get to pay for it. I might even spend some time in jail. If my place of employment were to find out, I can be fired. When Mel Gibson got drunk and got all anti semitic toward an cop, he was still responsible for his actions. It is not as if these drunk men were being acted upon. They were acting out themselves. Stop telling women it is wrong to treat sexual harassment as if it isn’t a serious problem and misogyny. Those men were harassing a woman while she did her job. Stop acting like they were kids TPing a neighbors house. They sexually harassed a woman. Get over you privilege and think for one second about what you’ve been saying here. It’s horrible. You are being horrible.
Yes, they’ve come a ways since the days when they would circle the wagons around a sexist douchebag and protect him because “he’s got a wife and kids to take care of”, or “he’s a loyal member of Local XYZ”, or some such. They’ve grown to realize that it’s not a good look for the union movement as a whole to defend sexists (and often, sex offenders) against the consequences of their sexism. A growing female union membership is to credit for a large part of that.
#NotAllUnions, of course. But it’s heartening to know that things ARE changing for the better on this front.
If that had been pointed out to me before in so many words, I would have corrected that person. The originator was in at least five BUT less than ten out of almost sixty examples. If you condense all his appearances into one he’d still be one/~50. And since he only did it to women, collapsing his instances to one would improve the statistic, such that men would actually be the majority of victims in my video.
And I have clearly not made my point since people are still trying to explain stuff like this to me:
NO
FUCKING
SHIT!
JESUS
FUCKING
CHRIST!
You’re kidding! You just have to be! I so cannot even! My God! Is it that big of a challenge to the WHTM worldview that someone might point out a perceived inaccuracy without having a goddamn POINT they were making about how misogyny isn’t that bad and doesn’t exist that much anyway? THIS ISN’T COMPLICATED, PEOPLE. Please stop assuming I’m a goddamn moron and give me the slightest shred of credit for, like, one second and it will become crystal clear what the fuck I was trying to say. Which was not fucking much.
Misunderstanding me at first is excusable, misreadings happen. But at this point you simply HAVE to be fucking with me or replying to me without reading my posts, as there is no way you can read my posts and still seriously say shit like that to me like you’re explaining something I don’t know.
@nellodee1010:
Alright, let’s start over then. You wanted to point out that in a particular youtube compilation video, the instances of FHITP were chosen such that there was a roughly even distribution of male and female reporters.
Why is this worth mentioning?
If you say it’s because people here (and the OP) were saying it only happens to female reporters, then you are wrong. Neither the OP or the commenters were saying that; both have simply just been talking about the effect on female reporters because that’s where the misogyny is and this is a blog about misogyny.
Is there any other point you had in bringing it up? Because when we here “stop assuming [you’re] a goddamn moron and give [you] the slightest shred of credit for, like, one second,” that means we’re assuming you’re doing something more than a random, pointless non sequitur.
*looks at the rage froth*
Hmm. If he’s not Mr Al, maybe Pell? =P
nellodee1010 sez:
Bullshit. Pure, undiluted bovine feces. Nobody just throws opinions out into the ether with the expectation that nobody care. They further don’t spend many hundreds of words defending themselves against an alleged misreading of their allegedly throwaway words. You are transparent.
People will stop assuming you’re a moron when you stop expecting them to believe you have no dog in this hunt.
Because I felt like it, and this is a comments section on the internet rather than a state dinner or some other situation where you keep your mouth shut unless you have something super fucking important to say. I like making little observations as well as ensuring everyone is fully informed (if there is a question about that) and I’m in a position to inform them. GOD I’m awful. I should just go crawl under a rock and die as punishment for my horrible crimes of thinking people would ignore something that didn’t really matter very much like they normally do when I post on WHTM.
That’s weird, I thought we established the opposite was the case. It certainly is true that David said it was a female thing in the op, as I said, and I still think you can’t deny that without being disingenuous.
Fuck you too, asshole. Maybe if you take some psychedelic drugs or go meet someone in the outside part of the world your mind will open to the possibility of not everyone being exactly the fucking same as you, or the possibility of a multiplicity of potential motivations for any fucking action. My dog in this hunt is I love/hate arguing with assholes on the internet and you’ve all given me a fuckton of material, and for once it wasn’t material where I had to explain some feminism 101 concept to someone knowing full well they won’t get it. It was refreshing for a while but now I need to destroy something because what kind of hope can I have in humanity when people ostensibly on my side act like this big of fucking fools?
Here’s a fucking question, if I was actually taking the positions that are being attributed to me, wouldn’t I try to argue in their favor instead of immediately, completely, and repeatedly repudiating them?
http://i.imgur.com/5yIz5Lu.gif
I have been neglecting you a bit sfhc. My bad. Here. A token of my appreciation for all your hard work in this thread.
nellodee1010 sez:
I’m perfectly willing to consider a multiplicity of motivations for any fucking action. I just don’t accept “I expect nobody to care what I think” as a possible motivation for telling people what you think. Diddums.
@nellodee1010:
Take a look at my response waaayyy back over here. In that, I explained that that particular OP quote was the closest to what you were talking about, but that complaining about it was being needlessly nit-picky. David also said the meme involved men “yelling” at female reporters, but not all instances were of yelling.
When speaking casually, “that’s all it is” can be used as a phrase of frustration, as in “there’s nothing more complex or interesting” rather than “this is literally the only thing that is happening.” That’s why I claimed that the wording was ambiguous. Knowing that men were targeted too changes nothing about the conclusions of the OP, nor anything about the discussion.
Meanwhile, arguments trying to say things like “men are affected too” or “women aren’t being targeted because they are women” do detract from the discussion, which is why folks here took offense.
Sevenofnine, Well I don’t know what to tell you. Of course I assume you’re lying, since that’s only fair, but I don’t know why. Probably because you’re a Klan member or something, since people who’s motivations I don’t understand are most likely racist liars. I’d give you the benefit of the doubt but
HA
HA
HAAHHHHHH.
They’re so much more fun to fuck with when they melt down like nuclear power plants of mangriness. ^_^
(Everybody else is arguing his so-called “Points” and I’m just sitting here poking the landmine with a stick and giggling.)
I’m sorry, I didn’t realize your opinions were rules to be followed by all the commenters at WHTM.
It wouldn’t have detracted from the discussion if you guys could handle fact checking, which according to your statement here is somehow bad. This discussion would have continued in the happy-rainbow-puppy-land-where-there-are-no-disagreements manner if no one had jumped down my throat. No one would even remember that I said anything. And if you think it’s somehow my responsibility to keep the comments section pristine, and to that end I must ignore all insults, fuck you.
Yo, scented fucking bumwad, be as big an ass as you want but you can stop intentionally misgendering me. You’ve been the most disrespectful person here and that’s saying something.
Hey folks?
Not that I condone Nellodee’s recent spat of rawr, but I think they’re here in relatively good faith. Well, kind of good faith… If good faith includes “I’m going to pick this thing and sit on it and get uber frustrated when people argue with me about it instead of either ignoring it or telling me it’s a fine thing”
I remember seeing them around last fall a couple times, without anything really strange or trollish happening.
Could we all just chill for a second?
Also, nellodee, um… I didn’t see you ever say what pronouns you prefer or what gender you are in this thread, and I can kind of see where the mistake would come from.
As always, I could be wrong.
Sorry I’ve been off for a while. The first cruise boats came in and my job suddenly got busy because the towns population tripled with the boats… and there’s only the one extra seasonal ambulance to pick up the slack. Yeah.
(Okay, tripling is a bit of an overexaggeration, but when you drive downtown it seems like it isn’t. Good grief, so many pedestrians.)
If you don’t want to be thought dim, stop acting like it. Otherwise I’m going to treat you as if you didn’t know shit about shit. Because guess what? Your comments made it clear you don’t. If you’ve made an error in communication, that’s your problem to sort out. Take responsibility for yourself.
If you understand that sexist slurs said to men are still sexist hopw can you not understand that “It happens to men too” is not an argument against sexual harassment or indeed even needs to be said. We have addressed the content of your comments. You are having a shit fit rather than acknowledge that if you aren’t doubling down, you are at least miscommunication. No one here cares enough about you to lie about what you’ve written. We don’t win awards here for scoring points. We also don’t owe you any charity.
You can start over with a clean slate, keep raging or you can roll on down the road and away. The choice is yours.