Never underestimate the ability of Men’s Rights Activists to get worked up over the most ridiculous nonsense.
I found the meme above on the Men’s Rights Australia Facebook page, accompanied by this explanation:
Women are allowed to wear whatever they like to work, including sleeveless tops, short skirts, and even thongs. Yet if a man were to wear sleeveless tops, shorts, or thongs you can be sure he’d be sent home from work or even fired. In summer men have to suffer in the heat wearing trousers, long sleeve shirts, and tie. Feminists claim they also care about inequalities facing men so why aren’t they fighting against this? -ms
YEAH FEMINISTS WHY AREN’T YOU FIGHTING AGAINST THIS TERRIBLE INJUSTICE, WOMEN NEVER HAVE TO WEAR ANYTHING UNCOMFORTABLE OR AWKWARD AT WORK 0h wait
Note: I should point out that the “thongs” being referenced aren’t the ones that ride up your butt, but rather are the ones you wear on your feet and that are also called flip flops, at least here in the US.
BONUS MEME: This isn’t a Men’s Rights meme, obviously, but it literally made me laugh out loud.
Apparently the best way to fight communism is to do nothing while the oceans rise. I guess the Communists have their secret bases on the Marshall Islands?
I’m reminded of this legendary toilet paper ad.
A spectre is haunting the bathroom — the spectre of really really scratchy toilet paper.
Silly dlouwe! Don’t you know that it’s a fool’s errand to try to solve women’s problems? If we just solve men’s problems, women won’t have any more problems either, because men’s problems are the only real problems.
@eli
Yes, that’s the one. And yes, it had a very similar impact on me. Incredibly eye opening. When I first came across it I had intended to just skip and skim a bit, but after reading a page I knew I had to start over and read it top to bottom, even if it did take like three days.
oh for fucks sake. Rupret, put the cork on the fork.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eF8QAeQm3ZM
does anyone here think cussing him out would be out of line? Because thats all that I can think to do.
I just posted some really fucked up shit that happened to me and other (assigned/perceived) women I love, and that isnt even the half or the worst of it. & you breezed on by this to be the second incarnation of privileged men making excuses for not giving a fuck about women and GIRL’s suffering. & saying that harassers must be poor by virtue of that they harass people is pretty gross classism to boot.
& “men get harassed” is NOT AN EXCUSE FOR HARASSMENT, its an additional reason to STOP HARASSMENT. ffs…
Like, could you just stop? What are you even trying to prove? Why do you have to do this to us, right here? If you wanna talk to men who think harassment is cool, go LITERALLY PRETTY MUCH ANYWHERE ELSE. Go to the Red Pill, a lockerroom, a board room, the damn senate floor. Men who are cool with harassing women and will agree with you and make you feel special are everywhere. This here? THESE ARE NOT THE DROIDS YOU ARE LOOKING FOR.
On the topic at hand, a teen walked into my work today wearing this incredibly gross, triggering, extreme violence against women t-shit. I wrote t-shit on accident but not correcting it bc the shirt is shit. the women at my work were horrified and NO ONE COULD TELL HIM OFF because we were at work. but I guess we should wait until women have full equality to talk about it?
Im even more pissed bc this is a band I liked as a kid. Below the link Ill describe it, so skip that if you dont want to hear it.
http://www.gender-focus.com/2014/08/23/violence-against-women-on-a-concert-t-shirt/
trigger warning…. so its a picture of a naked woman tied upside down with a saw splitting her in half from her genitals to her stomach.
yea.
but casual sexism is not a problem in the US anymore guys. Nothing to see here.
This thread was… wow, this thread was a thing. I have no idea what to say to any of that beyond “You guys are amazing.”
On a sort-of on topic notice, good lord workplace uniforms terrify me. I absolutely hate skirts and dresses on their own (I’d never really wear them willingly unless I could wear pants under them), but you couldn’t pay me enough to wear heels. I have bad enough balance on my own!
Ruprect sez:
The lines along which we want to structure society are approximately:
Women are full humans who are as capable and valuable as men and should, therefore, be treated accordingly.
Yes, you will just have to take this on trust, bro. Sorry.
And I mean listen to precious little Ruprect here. Diddums actually thinks women’s basic humanity is his to dispense. Someone must eventually gain his support or he’ll withhold it.
@Ruprect
Yeah, yeah, you know how to solve this problem. Women don’t.
Guess what! Labor unions work at piecemeal solutions all the time. It’s not a revolution. And it helps. Yes, we still live in a capitalist society here in the United States. But it’s really a lot better to make a reasonable amount of money in a crappy job than a crappy amount of money in a crappy job.
Similarly, it would be really nice if men didn’t harass us at work. Women would feel better and safer at work. That would be a plus for workers’ rights.
Guess what again! A true revolutionary asks the people affected by the problem how they would like the problem to be addressed. He (gendered pronoun intentional) doesn’t say, You don’t understand. Allow me to explain what it is you want and need.
Trigger warning for sexualized violence
@Kale
I’m so sorry you saw that. So sorry.
It’s good that you had co-workers to talk to. That can be healing.
Stay strong.
Trigger warning for sexualized violence
Shorter Ruprect: “Well, I know you all told me about the harassment and such you as women face, but I’m just not going to believe you until you give me proof!”
What must it be like to be so privileged that you never have to go through harassment or believe it even exists, even as women are telling him directly about their experiences?
People cussing Ruprect out isn’t the problem. The problem is only if the people cussing him out have authority over him.
Everyone knows only men’s experiences are real. That’s why dudes have to dress up as women and make fake Tinder profiles to see that men on dating apps are vile. Of course, being vile is only bad when they’re being vile to super awesome feminist-hero dudes. And feminist dudes are just white knights trying to get laid anyway so they probably just fabricated all the “abuse” to impress the feminazi shrews.
Since apparently certain people need to be told: Women on the street get objectified by total strangers. Female teachers get objectified by their male students. Actresses get objectified by their fans. Female CEOs, politicians, and other women in prominent and powerful positions get objectified by their employees and anyone else who notices them existing in public.
Who has the power doesn’t matter.
thank you Kat. & thanks to everyone being supportive here. Im OK. Im just pissed off at the parriarchy & shining up my smash- hammer.
also Katz – literally laughing aloud
patriarchy*
“Women are full humans who are as capable and valuable as men and should, therefore, be treated accordingly.”
Fair enough, I obviously don’t disagree with this.
I guess I’ll just say that once you’ve reached the same level as men, there will still be plenty to complain about. I don’t think the normal working male’s situation is anything that anybody should be *aspiring* to – but if women are being treated as pure sex objects, I can see why you might feel that way.
Anyway, the danger with having blanket bans of certain types of conversation, is that what makes people uncomfortable is really contextual. When I’m doing a crappy job for low pay, I really do find it painful when people praise me for doing it (not that they often do). The way to solve this, ultimately, isn’t to ban bosses from praising workers, it’s to make sure that people find their work fulfilling.
“People cussing Ruprect out isn’t the problem. The problem is only if the people cussing him out have authority over him.”
Isn’t this true to some extent? I mean, it wouldn’t be a good thing for you to swear at me – but I have to say if that was all it was, I’m pretty sure I could take it with reasonable equanimity.
By the way, thanks for the responses, definitely food for thought.
So Ruprect’s solution is that we should all sit tight and wait for the revolution rather than try and fix any problems faced right now? Why is that so common among cis white male leftists? It’s complacency, and even if you assume the revolution will ever happen and you put your time and energy into it…well, my girlfriend is a queer disabled WoC and whenever she comes up in this in her political work she reminds me that a revolution run by white dudes who think that minority problems are less significant is only going to end up harming people whose issues are ignored across the political spectrum. White male lefties of this stripe have already proved that they consider women, people of colour and minority groups acceptable collateral damage.
Additionally, how do you not see the difference between being complimented on something you didn’t want to do and being complimented for what you are? If someone compliments me for doing well on a job I hate, at least my effort is being acknowledged. For that matter, when people compliment me on having put together a good outfit, or doing a good job on makeup, that’s an acknowledgement of effort I’ve put , even if it’s effort I have to and don’t want to put in. When people compliment me on having big tits or looking pretty, what am I meant to take from that other than that I’ve worked hard and still all anyone can notice is their boner.
Ruprect is definitely eloli. Look at that “but hey whatever makes you happy” line.
“saying that harassers must be poor by virtue of that they harass people is pretty gross classism to boot.”
I wasn’t the one who brought that up – I was just saying that I have been physically weak and I have experienced street harassment in the same way that the person who posted about it did. I haven’t ever experienced living in a society that treats me as a sex object, so that’s perhaps something I don’t have a full grasp of, but I do think I understand how horrible it is to be harassed (and attacked) in the street. Yeah – lets stop that. General standards of politeness and consideration combined with enforcement of those rules. I don’t think that’s really related to the workplace issue though.
You heard it from the horse’s mouth: An open invitation to cuss Ruprect out. Take it away, everyone.
@Ruprect
You haven’t responded to my points.
@Ruprect
So sexual harassment at work or sexual assault at work are not a workplace issue?
@Paradoxical Intention
There’s privileged.
And then there’s, La, la, la, I can’t hear you!
Sometimes the two overlap.
But they don’t need to! Even privileged people are capable of learning. Some choose not to.
@Kat
I think it depends on the type of society you have – in a world where all work could be effectively unionized, where jobs had a certain degree of protection, unions might be part of the solution. In a system where most people have insecure jobs and union activity can’t really gain traction, probably not much use for anything but a subset of highly privileged workers.
I would definitely like to live in a world where workers weren’t harassed and by this I mean that people felt comfortable saying “Don’t do/say that, I don’t like it” and people actually took that into consideration. And ultimately if somebody found the situation unbearable they would have the power to leave it without it causing them incredible negative consequences.
But saying “don’t complement women’s appearance, while it’s probably a good rule of thumb, I don’t think it can really go beyond a general rule of politeness – because it’s all contextual and the important thing is consideration not the particular words that are used.
Sexual harassment/assault in the workplace is a workplace issue, sexual harassment assualt in the street less so.
“Additionally, how do you not see the difference between being complimented on something you didn’t want to do and being complimented for what you are?”
Again, I think it depends on the kind of work you are doing – I don’t know, perhaps you haven’t experienced really stultifying drudge labour – it’s not really anything you do as an individual, it’s just the fact that you happen to be there, pushing the button, saying the phrase etc. etc.
I don’t know – personally I’ve always found it slightly embarrassing when people have complemented my appearance – but it doesn’t bother me to the same extent as complements for being a good drone. I guess that’s because I’m not in a society that treats me as a sex object, so I’m not sensitive to that. It takes all sorts, and the best way to solve it is to make sure that each individual has the power not to be in a situation that bothers them.