Your "Jokes" About Sexist Harassment

[Content note: sexual & online harassment]

This was originally a Facebook post I made last night. A lot of people asked me to make it public and shareable because they’ve been looking for the words to express the same thing. I decided to repost it here without editing it, since people liked it this way. So apologies in advance for the rawness and lack of polish; it was pretty spontaneous.

Pull up a chair, this is going to be lengthy.

I’ve been having a lot of problems lately with men being really unintentionally insensitive in discussions of harassment against women. Yes, I always have problems with this, but lately especially. I’m not talking about Asshole Sexist Men; I’m talking about good, well-meaning male friends and acquaintances. So I guess this is sort of a vaguebook, and I’m sorry for that, but I don’t feel like having an individual private conversation with every single guy who does this. Moreover, this is not an individual problem. This is a systemic problem. I refuse to accept the burden for it in private.

First of all, a lot of you have been trying to make jokes on my posts about harassment. Before you comment on my status about sexual harassment about how I should create this or that elaborate weapon or do this silly thing to distract the harasser or “just do this!” or whatever, pause and remind yourself that this is not your fun swashbuckling fantasy tale, this is someone’s actual real motherfucking life. A lot of us feel like we’re hunted like animals whenever we’re out in public or at a conference or basically anywhere. Ask yourself, “If I felt like a walking target every day of my life, if I had been a victim of violence and threats of violence multiple times, if I knew that I would be blamed entirely by my family and by the authorities for any violence that I experience, would this silly joke actually cheer me up?” The answer is *generally* no.

Do I find jokes about sexual harassment and other sexist issues funny? Sometimes. You know when they’re at their most funny, though? When they’re made by people who have actually lived this reality. I joke about my own harassment sometimes, and other women joke about their own harassment sometimes, and all of us tell stories to each other to try to support each other and keep our heads high.

Remember: you don’t need to “lighten the mood” or “cheer me up” when I post about experiencing harassment. I don’t want that. First of all, my mood’s *fine*. Second, you probably don’t know me well enough to know how to cheer me up.

If you don’t know what to say, don’t say anything. Or say something like this:

– “I’m sorry you’re dealing with this. *hugs*”
– “Let me know if you’d like some help getting your mind off of it.”
– “It’s ridiculous that you still have to deal with this in 2014; I’m going to go donate to [anti-sexist organization] now.”
– “Thank you for posting about this. It’s important for me to know that this happens.”

Most importantly, your role as a man who cares about women is not necessarily to talk at us. TALK TO OTHER MEN. Call them the fuck out when they catcall women. Call them the fuck out when they make sexist jokes. Call them the fuck out when they talk about fucking their last hook-up and ask them if she’d be okay with having all that info shared with a big group of dudes. Call them the fuck out when they say they’d never date that girl because she fucked them and therefore she’s too easy. Call them the fuck out when they objectify women, not just in sexist ways, but in racist, homophobic, and otherwise oppressive ways. THIS is your job. Your job is not to tell me how to handle being harassed, or to somehow *make* me stop feeling bad about being harassed. That is a job for me, and for close friends and partners that I have trusted to help me with such things.

And here’s another similar thing you should probably stop doing. When I’ve written something great and you like it, and rather than just telling me it’s great and leaving it at that, you decide to go ahead and be like “Too bad the Slymepit’s totally going to accuse you of _______” or “Oh you’ll get the MRAs furious over this.” WHY DO YOU GUYS SAY THIS. WHY. The only way I survive as a writer is by refusing to think about the fact that there are people who actually want me DEAD because I support gender equality. (If you still fucking think this is hyperbolic, I don’t even know what to say.) The only way I survive is by refusing to think about the fact that they make lists about how to rape me and my friends, they make crude sexual photoshops of us, they go on and on and on and on until we all gradually drop out of public online life.

If you want me to keep writing, STOP doing this weird half-gloating half-bemoaning thing about how I’m going to get soooooo much harassment for what I just wrote, fuck those sexist assholes, amirite? If you want me to keep writing, don’t talk to me about the harassment. Talk to the harassers about the harassment. Talk to Twitter and Facebook about the harassment. Talk to journalists about the harassment. Stop talking to me about it. Unless I bring it up myself because I want support.

Guys, the bullying and harassment women writers experience is HORRIFYING. Do you understand that? Do you *actually* understand it, like on the visceral level where your own gut just twists at the thought of it? Do you understand that this isn’t something to throw around all like “Hey great post, shame they’re going to threaten to rape you because of it!”

Maybe you can’t understand it on that level. Maybe it’s impossible to understand something you haven’t experienced on that level. So if you don’t, you’d best be reminding yourself of that every single time you’re about to engage with someone on the topic. Remind yourself that as a man your words carry extra weight. You didn’t ask for them to, but they do. Learn to tread more carefully.

One last thing: if you recognize yourself in what I’ve written, please do not message me with “Now I feel bad” or “Now I’m worried I might have done this.” I’m not here to make you feel better about having (accidentally, well-meaningly) overstepped my boundaries. I am here to set those boundaries. I’m not asking for apologies. I don’t want to discuss this with you in private, or else I would’ve contacted you about it in private. When you make jokes or comments that I find particularly hurtful or unhelpful, I’ll usually tell you right then or there, so there’s no need to worry that I’m keeping anything to myself.

If you’ve read this far, I’m impressed and grateful, so thank you.

~~~

Addendum:

Actually, I think I just answered one of my own questions: namely, why people do the whole “oh maaaaaan you’re gonna get so much harassment over this”

I think some of y’all buy in a little too strongly to the whole “if they hate you then you’re doing something right” thing. For the record, I disagree with this principle. I disagree with it partially because Tea Partiers tell themselves the same thing all the time, but also because it’s not how I measure my success.

Do you think I’m proud of the fact that people have made forum threads just to talk shit about me? I’m not. I don’t view it as a sign that I’m doing something wrong, either, but I definitely don’t take it as proof that I’m doing something right. Those forum threads don’t happen “because I’m right”; they happen because sexism.

So, if you’re hoping to encourage me by being like “OH MAN YOU’VE GOT SO MANY PEOPLE PISSED OFF,” it won’t work. That’s not encouraging. The way I know I’m doing something right is when people send me long private messages about how my writing changed their life (this happens fairly often), or when someone says that they used my article to try to explain something to their boyfriend and he finally got it! Or when people say “I thought I was the only one.” Or when people say, “You know, I was kinda on the fence about this, but you helped me make up my mind.” Or when people say, “That article was so beautiful I cried.”

I’m not trying to brag; people say that stuff to me often enough to really, really mean a lot. So if you WANT to encourage me, say something like that, if it’s true for you. Don’t expect me to LOL with you over how angry people are about what I wrote.

~~~

DISCLAIMER: The Author in no sense intends to imply that All Men are responsible for the aforementioned Conflict(s) or Issue(s) as described in this Text. The Author reiterates that Not All Men commit the Offense(s) detailed in the Text, and that the Text is not intended to apply to or be addressed to All Men. The Author hereby disclaims any binding responsibility for the emotional well-being of such Men who erroneously apply the Entreaty(ies) contained within this Text to their own selves. The Reader hereby agrees to accept all responsibility for any emotional turbulence that arises as a result of the perusal of this Text.

Your "Jokes" About Sexist Harassment
{advertisement}

I Admit It: I Was Wrong About My Sexual Orientation

On this day when so many straight people are finally realizing that they are actually queer and reaping the resulting “wow dude seriously”‘s and “LMAO”‘s and “ewww”‘s on their Facebook statuses, I have had the opposite realization: I’m straight.

Yes, straight dudes who scoffed whenever I came out to you and asked how I could possibly be bisexual if I am currently dating a man or have never had a serious relationship with a woman or “just don’t seem like that type” or don’t want to have a threesome with you and your girlfriend: you were right.

First of all, I’m straight because many scientists are still apparently unsure that bisexual people exist, and everyone knows that research evidence matters more than some random girl’s opinion about her own experiences. Until researchers using deterministic and rigid categories of sexual orientation prove that bisexuality exists with the same level of certainty that mathematicians have proven that the circumference of a circle equals its diameter multiplied by pi, it would be anti-skeptical for me to claim to be one, don’t you think?

I’m straight because, let’s face it, men just have more value than women. Sure, I’ve had crushes on girls or whatever, but everyone knows that what I really want is to marry a man and have children. You know, the “natural” way. So even if I’m attracted to women, it doesn’t really matter.

In fact, if you’re attracted to men, that is the essential aspect of your sexuality no matter what. That’s why “bisexual” men are all actually gay, while “bisexual women” are all actually straight. If you’re into dudes, that’s what counts.

I was only pretending to be bisexual for the attention. You know, girls like doing stuff like that so guys will notice them. Sure, bisexual people experience both biphobia and good ol’ homophobia, and on some mental health measures fare worse than gay men, lesbians, or straight people. But I am so desperate for a guy’s attention that I will pretend to be bisexual to get it. That’s literally how desperate I am. After all, the only other thing I’ve got going for me as a person is this crappy little blog. It’s not like I have a personality or anything.

I’m straight because I started seeing guys long before I started seeing women. How could I have really known I was bisexual if I didn’t have “experience”? Unlike straight people, bisexual people do not have the luxury of being born with an innate and immutable knowledge of their own sexual orientation. Nothing–not their turn-ons, not their crushes, not their romantic daydreams–nothing besides Real Sex with someone of the same gender is sufficient to prove for certain that they are really bisexual as they say they are. And if you’re not proven to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual, then you’re automatically straight. So at any rate, I was simply lying all those closeted years.

I am straight because of the sheer power of your opinion. Since you are so utterly convinced that I am actually secretly straight, I have basically become straight. It’s like The Secret, but with other people’s sexual orientation! You are so clearly uncomfortable with the idea that I might want something other than dudes all day erryday that you have changed my mind with your iron will. Wow!

I’m straight because, as I mentioned, I don’t want to have a threesome with you and your girlfriend. There is only like a 3% chance that I want to do that, and that is just too far below the threshold to be considered properly bisexual. If I really were bisexual, I would want to have a threesome with you and your girlfriend immediately. I would also want to have a polyamorous relationship with you and your girlfriend in which you are both allowed to sleep with other people but I’m not, and I take care of your kids while you go on dates with each other or other people. Come on, what’s my problem? Anyone would jump at this opportunity. I must be straight.

I am straight because I don’t “look gay.” It’s pretty impressive that you picked up on this, but queer women actually have a slightly different bone structure than straight women, and it is said that the two groups are so genetically different so as to practically constitute two different subspecies. The winter plumage of straight women is slightly duller in color than the winter plumage of gay women, although during the summer months it can be nearly impossible to tell the two apart on sight alone. Experienced observers rely on other identifiers, such as nests, migration patterns, or calls. I guess I didn’t realize that your knowledge of these differences would be so extensive that you would immediately see through this ridiculous act I was trying to perform. Haha, you got me. I’m straight! Lol.

So, it’s time for me to come out. As straight. I will no longer argue with that dude that there is at every party I ever go to who starts spouting off about my sexual orientation as if he’s been checking my browser history. He knows better. If he says I’m straight, I’m straight. Thanks for clearing that up for me, dude.

I Admit It: I Was Wrong About My Sexual Orientation

I Don't Demand Respect Because I'm Upset; I Demand Respect Because I Deserve It

At some point in my life, probably in college, I decided that I was going to (mostly; when I’m not too scared to speak up; when I can think of the words to say, etc.) stop taking shit from people. So, online, I often say things like, “Actually, I wasn’t asking for advice, thanks!” and “Please don’t use that word in my comments section” and “This is a serious post where I’m asking friends for advice about apartment-hunting; please don’t derail it with inside jokes I don’t get.” You know, standard Captain Awkward-type stuff.

I won’t mince words about it: this is really, really hard to do.

I’m sure I make it seem easy; people often tell me how confident and extroverted I apparently am (I am neither of these things). Every time I make these calm, polite, rather friendly comments, I want to shrivel up in a hole. But you know, it’s absolutely worth it. Because now it’s been a few years in which I’ve been creating a social environment that I find comforting, supportive, and fun, whereas before I had to deal with even my closest friends constantly doing things that I found disrespectful or that conflicted with what I was trying to accomplish by interacting with them in the first place.

And a lot of the time, my worst fears do not come true. People do not belittle and insult me for having the gall to ask them to treat me a little differently. They often politely apologize or acknowledge what I said, and the conversation continues productively and enjoyably

But not always. Sometimes people resist and start defending what they did, as though their interpretation of the events must automatically supersede mine in my own virtual space. And what often happens at this point is that the person completely ignores what I’m telling them and starts to produce drivel like this: “I can see that you’re upset.” “You’re angry at me. I get it.” “You’re very upset about this.” “Wow, you seem to have a thin skin.” “You need to grow a thicker skin.”

First of all, unless you know me very, very well, you know nothing of my emotional state unless I explain it to you. Strong opinions do not necessarily stem from strong emotions. Or, the strong emotions that originally prompted them may have died down a long time ago. Most of the time when I’m writing or having a serious conversation, my mood is very calm and focused; that’s how I work best and that’s the mood that writing usually puts me in. Whatever you did that I considered disrespectful and called you out for was a blip on the radar, and the blip was one of annoyance, not hurt or anger.

It is incredibly patronizing when someone I don’t even know presumes to know how I feel and then conveys this assumption to me, not even as a question or a check-in, but as a statement of fact. “You’re very upset about this.” “You need to calm down, this isn’t such a big deal.”

Nobody gets to label my emotions for me. Only I get to do that.

If you’re honestly concerned that you’ve upset someone and want to find out if your suspicions are accurate, you can say, “I’m sorry, did I upset you?” But chances are, they’ve already given you all the information you need to know. If they’ve said, “Please don’t do this thing, I find it disrespectful,” then you need to either agree to stop doing the thing or leave the interaction.

When you think you’ve upset someone, it’s understandable to immediately want to smooth things over and make them stop being upset at you. But the best you can do is apologize and stop doing the thing, not turn a conversation that was originally about something else into a conversation about You’re Upset With Me What Do I Have To Do To Make You Stop Being Upset.

I understand that my emotional states are of immense fascination to everyone I interact with, so it’s only natural that people will try to derail otherwise-productive conversations to discuss them. However, what would make a lot more sense would be if people would either apologize for doing something I felt was disrespectful and continue with the conversation, or decline to apologize and leave the conversation.

And I understand that makes complete sense that some things I consider disrespectful are not things that other people consider disrespectful. They may feel so confused about why I find those things disrespectful that they don’t think they should have to avoid doing those things to me. That’s fine. But in that case, we’re not going to interact. Nobody has a right to interact with me. Your free speech does not extend to being granted an audience by any particular person. If we cannot agree on how we are going to treat each other, then we are not obligated to interact in any casual setting, like my personal Facebook page or my Gmail inbox.

Second, notice how the comments about emotional state are almost always inherently dismissive. “You’re upset, therefore your opinion about what I said or did and your request that I behave differently is invalid.” Insert your favorite synonym for poop here to describe how I feel about this tactic.

Even if I had the thinnest skin in the world, so thin that it is literally an atom in thickness, which is biologically impossible because cells are bigger than that, that doesn’t matter. You can decide that I am too easily upset for you to be able to comfortably interact with me, and you can stop interacting with me. Or you can decide that interacting with me is worth the added consideration required to not upset me, and you can make those considerations. Those are your two options. Telling me that my emotions are wrong and I need to stop having them is not one of the options.

(For the record, I have known people to have taken that first option with me, although, again, the issue isn’t so much that I’m easily upset as that I have very high standards for what I am willing to accept from people. Of course, it’s always a little sad to lose someone as a friend or acquaintance. But that’s what’s best for both of us. I don’t have to deal with them doing the thing that I don’t like, and they don’t have to deal with getting called out for doing things I don’t like. Perfect.)

It’s notable that none of these grow-a-thicker-skin evangelists are ever any good at telling their would-be converts how this can be accomplished. “Grow a thicker skin!” “You’re too sensitive!” Okay, that’s nice. Now what? Are there special creams for this? A medical procedure? Daily toning exercises? Anything?

No. Because they don’t really care about anyone’s mental health and wellbeing. They’re uncomfortable at being called out for their words and actions, which is understandable because being called out sucks. But rather than sitting with that discomfort and seeing where it’s really coming from, they assume that the problem is necessarily with the other person and their particular skin thickness or lack thereof.

Remember, too, that “thin skin” and “thick skin” are relative terms. There is no skin thickness measuring device. If you think my skin is thin, it may be because it really is, or it may be because you’ve been raised not to consider how your words and actions affect others.

Finally, here’s the crux of the issue. Some people think that anyone who asks them to stop doing something because they find that thing inappropriate/disrespectful is obviously upset.  Why are people like me and my friends so forthright with you when you disrespect us, if not because we can’t mentally handle it? Why would we demand respect, if not because not receiving respect makes us have emotional breakdowns?

Here’s why: because we deserve it.

I deserve not to have people treat me like a pathetic little child who desperately needs their help by offering me unsolicited, patronizing advice. I deserve not to have people demean my gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity with slurs that promote the norm that it’s okay to demean those identities. I deserve not to have people make jokes out of my pain when I’m feeling honest and open enough to share it with them. I deserve not to have every profile photo I put on Facebook plastered with comments from random men I am not even friends with about my appearance. Interacting with me is not a right granted to you simply because you exist and possess a computer. It’s something you get to do only if I decide that interacting with you is worthwhile for me, and feeling respected is a major component of that. I deserve not to exist for the entertainment of others.

And because I deserve respect in these ways and more, I will tell people–first cheerfully and with smiley emoticons, and then more insistently but still presuming good faith when they ignore me, and finally bluntly and coldly–when they are doing something that I consider disrespectful. My emotions have nothing to do with it.

Whatever twitch of annoyance I feel at the actual thing fades quickly, and I know what it means for an emotion to fade quickly because I have ones that don’t. I have misery that sinks in my gut for hours, days, weeks, years. I have anger–the productive kind, not the destructive kind–that burns for months as I work on projects and fight my battles. I have joy, too, though it’s usually a bit shorter-lived. But not as short-lived as the annoyance I feel at an asshole online. That joy can go on for a few hours or days, and few people see it. Since joy is often a rare resource in my life, I conserve it as much as possible.

But none of that is any of your business until I choose to tell you about it.

I Don't Demand Respect Because I'm Upset; I Demand Respect Because I Deserve It

Stop Telling Harassment and Assault Survivors To Go To the Police

Note: Yes, this is prompted by something that happened to me this weekend. But I’ve been thinking about it for a while and it applies to many events and situations, so I’d rather the comments section didn’t dissolve into a discussion of me and my specific (frankly rather mild) situation. I’m doing fine. However, the snark is on high for this post, so please do take what I just went through into account before complaining about my “tone.” 

So, let’s talk about when someone gets harassed or assaulted and they make it public (whether to friends and family or, like, public-public) and everybody always comes out with the same line: “Oh my god! You need to go to the police right now!”

Stop, rewind. Please stop saying this. I know it’s well-intentioned. I know you want us to be safe. Please stop saying it anyway. It does more harm than good. Let’s talk about why.

First of all, it’s unsolicited advice. Unsolicited advice is frequently annoying, especially when it’s coming from internet randos I don’t even know and who shouldn’t presume to know me. As is often the case with unsolicited advice, it completely ignores my situation as a young woman who’s just started grad school and is terribly busy and has few social supports in the huge new city into which she’s only recently moved. Do I look like someone who has the time and resources to pursue a court case right now? If we’re being honest, I haven’t even had time to call my doctor and ask her to rewrite a prescription I need, let alone spend hours having a lovely tête-à-tête with a cop who tells me I was probably asking for it by being a woman and existing.

So I don’t need your advice. Sometimes people respond to this with “Yeah well if you didn’t want advice why’d you post it online?” Oh, you know, many reasons. In my specific case, it was to highlight a ridiculous flaw in Facebook’s moderation system, to bring attention to the abuse faced by virtually any woman who writes online about feminism (or does anything online, let’s be honest), and to get some emotional support.

Emotional support, by the way, is not (necessarily) advice. Emotional support is, “I’m really sorry you’re going through this.” “You don’t deserve to be treated that way.” “How are you doing?” “Do you need some distractions?” “Whoever did this is a really shitty person.” “This wasn’t your fault.”

As I said, I’m personally totally fine and I didn’t need to vent to anyone or anything. But I appreciated it when people said things like this to me. Many victims do. You do not need to pile advice on us to show us you care! There are better ways.

Second, any person over the age of 5 is aware of the fact that the police are a thing that exists. We don’t need to be told to go to the police any more than a hungry person needs to be told that maybe they should consider eating some food. I mean, really, do these people think we’re not aware that we have the option of calling the police? (I’ll grant that maybe sometimes people may not know that certain acts, such as blackmail or death threats, are a crime. But sexual assault? And still.)

So if you tell me to go to the police, you’re sort of (unintentionally) treating me like an idiot. Yes, I know that the police exist. And guess what? A dozen other people already had the same idea you did, so if I didn’t know about the police before, I sure do now.

Third, going to the police is not effective. It’s just not. So you’re giving me advice that is not helpful. The stories of what happens to women who report harassment or assault to the police are plentiful and really sad. Yes, sometimes it works out well. But generally, either nothing happens, or the women get revictimized by the police. (Sometimes, the police also do this.)

I have been sexually assaulted and sexually harassed and threatened with rape and death. At no point have I seriously considered reporting any of these things to the police. I am not an irresponsible or uninformed person, so please trust me when I say that I have good reasons for not even considering the police as an option.

Fourth, telling a victim over and over to go to the police sends a message. And, unfortunately, that message is generally not “I care about you.” That message is, “It is your duty as a victim to go to the police, or else you’re being irresponsible and immature and making me worry about you and failing to prevent your attacker from hurting others. You are not responding to your harassment/assault in the right way.”

Did you mean to say that? Probably not. But I’m telling you right now that this is how many victims are going to perceive it. When someone becomes the victim of a gendered crime (or any crime, but we’re talking about specific crimes here), that is a time to consider this person’s needs first and foremost. You may indeed be very worried for them. You may wonder what this means for you or others you care about. It is tempting to treat the survivor as though they and they alone hold the power to stop these crimes once and for all in their hands, and all they have to do is pick up the phone and call the cops.

It’s telling that many of the people who told me to go to the police this weekend and who received a curt response from me (curt, not nasty or abusive) immediately took it personally and lashed out, whining about how rude I was and how I didn’t appreciate that they were worried about me. (Keep in mind that these were total strangers on the Internet, not friends or family or anyone else entitled to my emotional energy.) Of course. Because it was about them, and not me, all along. It was about their understandable need to contribute to the conversation and feel useful and tell a young woman what they, as older and wiser adults, thought she needed to do.

At no point was there any acknowledgement from these people that I was dealing with fucking death threats and maybe wasn’t in the best emotional state to be sweet and cheerful about rejecting their unasked-for, completely unhelpful advice.

That’s how I knew it was never about me.

Fifth, law enforcement is a deeply problematic institution that some people choose not to willingly engage with. I won’t say too much about this here because it’s just too immense a topic to cover in a paragraph or two. But yes, I have some ethical qualms about working with a police force that, in my city, fines women for carrying condoms (must be prostitutes amirite?) and profiles people of color with its stop and frisk policy. Sometimes contact with the police is unavoidable, and I would obviously call them if I were facing an immediate risk of injury or death as opposed to some dumb random Facebook death threat.

Stop telling harassment and assault survivors to go to the police. Stop treating us like we don’t know what’s good for us. Stop acting like the police are a panacea to all the world’s evils. Stop making it about you. Stop. It’s our turn to speak.

Stop Telling Harassment and Assault Survivors To Go To the Police

A Rant About People Who Smugly Inform Me That My Career Will Not Make Me Very Much Money

Warning: this will be a rant. So it’s not very nice.

When you’re about to graduate from college, people tend to ask you what you’re planning on doing with yourself afterwards. So I often tell people that I’m going to grad school to study social work.

Most people respond to this positively or at least neutrally, but there is a substantial minority of people do not. Every so often I’ll run into a dude (it’s usually a dude)–he might have an MBA or plans to get one, and he sneers at me, flashing his Rolex, and says, “Social work, huh? Not gonna make a lot of money with that, are you?”

For starters, I just want to point out that this is a really quick way to reveal yourself to be a douchebag. You might not care that you’re revealing yourself as a douchebag, but then again, you might, especially since the way that this usually goes is that you’re flirting with me and perhaps hoping I’ll be impressed with your business acumen and earning potential. Nope!

In any case, though, I don’t understand why people think this is appropriate. How much money someone makes is a private matter, and you’d never think to make a comment like this to someone who’s already well into their career. But young people, apparently, do not deserve that sort of courtesy, so you should definitely feel free to pry into our financial situation at any time.

(To be clear: unless you are my parents, or other people from whom I might ever conceivably ask to borrow money, how much I make currently or in the future is none of your business.)

And I know everyone who makes these comments probably thinks they’re being incredibly original and edgy, but actually, people who go into fields like mine meet these douchebags all the time, so we’re quite aware of what people think about our earning potential. Even if we didn’t, though, it might shock you to know that people research these things when they make decisions about their career! Yup, college students planning for the future. Imagine that. When I was deciding about grad school, I checked starting and median salaries for people with the degree and license I hoped to get, including specifically in New York City. I also figured out how much my education will cost and now know how much and for how long I can expect to pay back my grad school loans.

Is this information pleasant? No, not really. But I already know it, and you don’t need to remind me. I’ll do just fine without your (random stranger’s) advice.

What’s funny is that some people seem completely incapable of realizing that not everyone cares all that much about how much money they make. I mean, yes, people should probably plan to be able to live on what they’ll be making. But that’s about all I care about that. Will I be able to live reasonably on it? Will I be able to occasionally buy myself nice things or take trips? Yup. It’d be nice to have more money, but I’m sure there are plenty of high-powered doctors and lawyers who would say that it’d be nice to work a few less hours. Just like they chose to make that tradeoff, I’m choosing to make this one.

It’s also important to note that I get very different responses when I say that I’m getting a degree in social work than when I say I’m going to be a therapist. In fact, I’m doing both; I’m getting that degree in order to be a more effective and more intersectional therapist. But when I tell people that I’m studying to become a therapist, that conjures up images of helping middle-class white ladies deal with their divorces. When I tell people I’m studying social work, that conjures up very different images. And generally they involve not making very much money.

There are, in fact, many things you can say when someone tells you they’re going to study social work that are not “Pfft, not gonna make a lot of money with that, are you?”. Here are a few:

  • “Wow, that must be a difficult job. What made you decide to go into that field?”
  • “Which populations would you want to work with?”
  • “Do you want to open a private practice someday?”
  • “Would you ever want to do social work research?”
  • “So what is social work, exactly?”

Yes, you can have a conversation that’s not just about money! So if the first thing you can think of to say about my career plans is that, surprise surprise, they won’t make me much money, I feel sorry for you. Because not only are you a douchebag, but you’re a pretty unimaginative one at that, since it’s apparently impossible for you to even entertain the notion that there’s more to choosing a career than choosing how much money you’d like to make.

A Rant About People Who Smugly Inform Me That My Career Will Not Make Me Very Much Money

My Oppression Is Not Your Thought Experiment

[Content note: sexual assault]

There seems to be no shortage of people just itching for the opportunity to turn real, tragic human suffering into intriguing little thought experiments for their own amusement or political gain.

This time we’ve got a college professor attempting to make some sort of bizarre claim about drilling for oil using Steubenville and sexual assault:

Let’s suppose that you, or I, or someone we love, or someone we care about from afar, is raped while unconscious in a way that causes no direct physical harm—no injury, no pregnancy, no disease transmission. (Note: The Steubenville rape victim, according to all the accounts I’ve read, was not even aware that she’d been sexually assaulted until she learned about it from the Internet some days later.) Despite the lack of physical damage, we are shocked, appalled and horrified at the thought of being treated in this way, and suffer deep trauma as a result. Ought the law discourage such acts of rape? Should they be illegal?

[…]As long as I’m safely unconsious and therefore shielded from the costs of an assault, why shouldn’t the rest of the world (or more specifically my attackers) be allowed to reap the benefits?

Unfortunately for Steven Landsburg, the author of this rationalization, analogies only work when you know what the fuck you’re talking about.

Sexual assault isn’t wrong (just) because people don’t like it. It’s wrong because we have decided, as a society, that people’s bodies belong to them and only them. You cannot use someone else’s body for your own needs without their consent. You can’t harvest their organs. You can’t force them to get a piercing or a tattoo or a haircut. You (theoretically) can’t force them to have a child or an abortion, although we now seem to be getting closer and closer to forcing people to have children. You can’t compel them to undergo a medical procedure or experiment. You cannot go up to a stranger and touch their body. You cannot punch someone except in self-defense or, again, in a consensual setting. (Of course, all of this completely falls apart when it comes to children, which I think is ridiculous and wrong.) And you cannot use someone else’s body for sex without their consent. Your body belongs to you.

This, at least, is the ethical framework under which we normally seem to operate. It falls apart all the time, of course–with children, as I mentioned, and with pregnant women. It falls apart when we insist on the right to touch a Black stranger’s hair, and it falls apart when the police have been given the authority to use deadly force on innocent civilians. But in general, most of us have come to the conclusion that a just society is one that grants individuals the autonomy to decide what happens to their bodies, and that this power can only be taken away when there’s a compelling reason (i.e. the person is a child who is refusing medical care, the person has entered a coma from which they are extremely unlikely to return and their families now have the final say regarding their treatment, the person has committed a crime and is refusing to cooperate with the police, etc.)

That you feel like having sex with them and they’re unconscious so it won’t hurt them anyway is not a compelling reason. I refuse to debate this point. This is elementary.

Of course, Landsburg’s analogy fails on the other side, too, because people who criticize oil drilling generally don’t criticize it on the grounds of BUT IT MAKES TEH LANDSCAPES LESS PRETTY. But whatever.

This tendency to philosophize over real, painful, tragic issues that some of us are actually trying to do something about shows up all the time. It shows up during pro-choice activism. It shows up during suicide prevention efforts; I can’t count how often someone would appear on some post where I was discussing suicide prevention and attempt to engage me in some vague pseudo-philosophical ramble about whether or not it is truly ethical to prevent people who want to kill themselves from killing themselves, completely ignoring the fact that I am only here writing this by virtue of the fact that there were so many people who really didn’t want me to kill myself, once upon a time.

And it especially shows up when we talk about sexual assault and the proper way to respond to and prevent it.

I have spent a lot of time arguing about sexual assault with people who want to use all sorts of creative analogies about the violation of someone’s body when that person wasn’t (supposedly) doing everything in their power to prevent that violation. It’s like leaving your bike unchained! It’s like leaving your front door unlocked! It’s like leaving your keys in the ignition! In fact, it’s just like taxing someone, because money is just like bodily autonomy, so at best taxation is just as bad as violating someone’s actual, physical body. (Yes, that argument has been put forth in one of my comment sections. No, I won’t go dig it up.)

My body is not a bike. It’s not a house. It’s not a car. It is not money. Using my body without asking me first is not like robbery. It is not like taxation. You know what’s it’s like? It’s like sexual assault, because that’s exactly what it is.

To be clear, I don’t hate philosophy or discussions thereof. I think they can be really fascinating and useful. However, there’s a time and a place, and, in my opinion, an obligation to be sensitive when you’re trying to abstractly discuss things that actually hurt, traumatize, and potentially kill people.

First of all, do not attempt to insert yourself and your philosophical theorizing into spaces where people are trying to do activism. Philosophy can and should inform activism, of course, but when someone’s discussing rape prevention, that’s not the time to start pontificating at them about what rape really means and isn’t it just like a theft of property and whatnot.

Second, this is tangential to the main idea of this post, but very relevant anyway. Take special care when playing devil’s advocate. Tell people what you’re doing. Tell them you’d like to work through some possible counter-arguments and allow them to refuse. Why is this important? Because it’s so incredibly draining and hurtful for activists to be asked to listen to the same offensive and basic arguments over and over and spent their time and energy arguing against them, only for you to conclude with, “Oh, whatever, I was just playing devil’s advocate.” Cut that shit out.

Third, know what you’re talking about! Landsburg clearly didn’t. Or, if he did, he still managed to completely minimize that in favor of his convoluted view of rape-as-bad because people just don’t liiiiike it, in which case, should it really be illegal if it doesn’t cause them “Real Harm”? After all, it’s not illegal to call someone a poopyhead! So there. (I may be editorializing slightly.)

Fourth, take care that your philosophizing is not unintentionally contributing to the problem that you’re discussing. There is a long history of rationalizing away sexual assault, and Amanda Marcotte notes in her post:

Colleges in this country are suffering from a  rape problem that is all too real and not some kind of cutesy thought experiment. Rapists and their enablers are known to seize on claims like the one Landsburg is kicking around here, that it doesn’t count if you didn’t have to beat the victim to subdue her. In fact, one of the witnesses who saw the Steubenville rape but didn’t try to stop it used exactly that excuse: “It wasn’t violent. I didn’t know exactly what rape was. I thought it was forcing yourself on someone.” Having a popular professor casually endorse this rationalization through wanky and ultimately irrelevant thought “experiments” isn’t just offensive, but could be dangerous as well.

In other words, your fun little thought experiment might actually make things worse. It’s not just a fun little thought experiment, really, because ideas and attitudes have consequences out in the real world, into which Landsburg might consider venturing sometime.

My Oppression Is Not Your Thought Experiment

The Circular Logic of Internet Misogynists

Yesterday–the same day, incidentally, that I discovered that I’ve inspired my first pathetic little hate club–a blogger I respect announced that she’s taking a hiatus from blogging after enduring constant abuse and harassment for daring to be a woman with opinions on the internet.

Jen McCreight wrote:

I wake up every morning to abusive comments, tweets, and emails about how I’m a slut, prude, ugly, fat, feminazi, retard, bitch, and cunt (just to name a few). If I block people who are twisting my words or sending verbal abuse, I receive an even larger wave of nonsensical hate about how I’m a slut, prude, feminazi, retard, bitch, cunt who hates freedom of speech (because the Constitution forces me to listen to people on Twitter). This morning I had to delete dozens of comments of people imitating my identity making graphic, lewd, degrading sexual comments about my personal life. In the past, multiple people have threatened to contact my employer with “evidence” that I’m a bad scientist (because I’m a feminist) to try to destroy my job.

[…]I don’t want to let them win, but I’m human. The stress is getting to me. I’ve dealt with chronic depression since elementary school, and receiving a daily flood of hatred triggers it. I’ve been miserable….I spend most of my precious free time angry, on the verge of tears, or sobbing as I have to moderate comments or read what new terrible things people have said about me. And the only solution I see is to unplug.

 

In case you don’t follow Jen’s blog and aren’t familiar with what’s been going on, here’s an example, and here’s a post she wrote about it once. I don’t really have the words for how awful and unconscionable this is, so I’ll just quote JT Eberhard: “the people who have harassed her into quitting are inhuman shitbags.  As the atheism movement gets bigger, the tiny percentage of just rotten folks will continue to be comprised of more and more people who would sooner destroy a person than an idea. Those people don’t deserve this community.”

But what I really wanted to talk about was these misogynists’ reactions to Jen’s decision to quit blogging (for the time being). Sure, some of them made the typical “good riddance” comments, but others actually blamed her for being “unable to take the heat” and claimed that the only reason she quit was to get sympathy.

The interesting thing is, these people purposefully harassed Jen–you know, to make her feel like shit–and then blamed her for being too “weak” to take the harassment without quitting.

This sort of circular logic completely baffles me.

(It’s not the first time I’ve seen this convoluted reasoning in a community that prides itself on its supposed ability reason clearly. An idiot once saw fit to inform Greta Christina that he had lost all respect for her after she released a naked photo of herself for a good causea photo that he masturbates to. Somebody explain this.)

What many of these misogynists seem to be saying is that the fact that Jen quit retroactively justifies their treatment of her. Because she wasn’t able to “deal” with their harassment, the harassment was justified. Ridiculous.

Also, it disgusts me how clueless these people seem to be about mental illness. People who stop doing something because that thing is giving them a mental illness are not being “weak.” They aren’t “letting the trolls win.” They aren’t “flouncing.” They aren’t “looking for sympathy.” They’re taking care of their own health.

And that comes first, even if their mental illness was caused by something that seems like no big deal to healthy folks. For instance, if dating makes you depressed, you’re completely justified in staying away from dating for a while. If your job is making you depressed, you’re completely justified in finding a new job. But what happened to Jen, by the way, is not something that should seem like “no big deal” to any halfway-decent person.

I likewise take issue with people who refer to what Jen went through as “trolling.” There’s a difference between trolling and harassment. When I make a blog post and someone comments “lol your an idiot, go fuck yourself and stop writing,” that’s trolling. When someone continually harasses someone on various internet channels (email, Twitter, the target’s blog), recruits more people to help with that, writes their own blog posts trashing the target, impersonates them in a derogatory way, that’s not trolling anymore. That is harassment.

Trolling is usually mindless and casual, something done by an immature, inconsequential person who’s bored and wants to mess with someone. Harassment is calculated, targeted, and done with a purpose. Trolling is annoying and stupid; harassment is harmful and can be scarring.

Trolling is something we all run the risk of when we put our work out there on the internet. Serious political posts get trolled; silly YouTube videos get trolled. Delete the comments and move on.

Harassment is not something we all run the risk of. Harassment is targeted at people who are being “uppity,” who don’t “know their place.” A feminist on the internet–and especially a feminist in the atheist blogosphere–is one such person.

I don’t care how strongly you disagree with someone’s ideas–harassment is unacceptable no matter what. There is no justification. The fact that your target developed a serious mental illness and had to quit is certainly not a justification. The fact that you disagree with their vision for atheism is not a justification, either. If you think harassment is an appropriate response to ideas you disagree with, then guess what–you’re a terrible excuse for a human being.

I rarely make statements as categorical as that one, so you know I really mean it when I do.

The Circular Logic of Internet Misogynists

Choosing Our Battles: A Chick-Fil-A Rant

This is an expanded version of a rant that I spontaneously posted on this blog’s Facebook page yesterday.

[Also, snark warning. Haven’t used one of those in a while!]

I’m going to talk about Chick-Fil-A again because I just can’t stop.

I keep hearing arguments that go something like this: “Yes, they donate money to icky crap. Yes, LGBT people and allies are entitled to boycott them. But then why aren’t they boycotting every other company that does unethical crap? Like Apple? Like Nike? Like McDonalds? Like Walmart? HUH?! Hypocrites!”

First of all. I’m sorry, but I can’t boycott every company in the world. Not even the best activist can do that. I can boycott some, though, and that’s exactly what I do. One reason I boycott CFA is because it is easier for CFA to just stop sending millions of dollars to bullshit organizations than it is for Apple and Nike to restructure their entire labor practices. Do they need to do this? Yes, absolutely. But it would take years or decades of public campaigns and government regulations.

Now, I’m not a labor activist or a corporate watchdog by profession. I’m a 21-year-old student who works part-time, writes a little blog part-time, and hopes to become a therapist someday. I need to choose my fucking battles.

And yes, I’m only speaking for myself here. But I think many of us who are speaking out against CFA are in a similar position. I wish we could all be full-time activists. But we can’t. So we choose our battles.

Second, let me be clear. If Apple came out and said, “Guilty as charged!” when asked about their use of child labor, I can guarantee you that the amount of protest would skyrocket. Because the problem with Dan Cathy and CFA isn’t just what they do–it’s how disgustingly, unapologetically shameless they are about it.

Sure, you could argue that opposing gay rights isn’t “as bad” as using child labor (however you managed to determine which units to measure badness in). My response would be that, while time and money are finite resources, care and concern are not. We writers and activists are perfectly capable of caring both about gay rights and child labor, trust me.

Third, there is something fundamentally different between what CFA does and what Apple, Nike, and Walmart do. The difference is this: corporations cut costs. If possible, they cut costs using unethical, shady, and borderline-illegal methods. Sure, there are a few that don’t, but many do.

The fact that this is something we can naturally expect doesn’t make it acceptable, of course. This is why we need that dreaded government regulation everyone keeps waving their hands about. So until governments crack down on the crap that Apple, Nike, and Walmart do, we can reasonably expect it to continue, because that’s the economic system that we’ve designed for ourselves.

But CFA isn’t trying to cut costs. In fact, it’s giving away huge sums of its own money. This is not a business move. This is not an attempt to keep the shareholders happy, because CFA (unlike Apple, Nike, and Walmart) is a privately-owned company with no shareholders.

No. CFA’s donations are motivated solely by its owners’ desire to impose their religious views upon this country. Full stop. That is why we protest.

One last detour to cover another related argument: “But we’ve known about CFA’s stance on gay rights for years! Why now? HMM?” First of all, people who make this argument: I applaud you for your attention to current events, politics, and charitable donations of companies whose products you consume. I, too, have known about CFA’s stance on gay rights for years, which is why I haven’t set foot in there for years. But not everyone can be so well-informed. I read the goddamn news as a hobby.

Second, better late than never. If you’re seriously trying to suggest that people shouldn’t protest against CFA because they should’ve done it earlier, your argument is the biggest failure I have ever seen. People are protesting now because of Dan Cathy’s public statements. People are protesting now because the story went viral and blew up in every media outlet imaginable. People are protesting now because it’s election season. People are protesting now because gay marriage has been in the news these days like never before.

People are protesting now as opposed to years ago for all sorts of social and cultural reasons, and those reasons do not necessarily include that the protesters are Big Hypocrites.

Both of these arguments–“But what about the other companies” and “But why now”–are intellectually dishonest, and they’re attempts to derail the conversation. If you’re trying to argue that we’re not doing enough for our cause, you might want to ask yourself what you are doing for it.

So I’m not going to mince words here. If the best argument you can muster against boycotting/denouncing CFA is YEAH WELL WHAT ABOUT ALL THE OTHER TERRIBAD COMPANIES, then guess what, your argument fails. Because I don’t see you doing anything about any of them at all.

And it really doesn’t surprise me that nobody I have seen making this argument–online or in person–has been someone who particularly cares about gay rights. Don’t care? Fine. I can’t make you. But please, get out of my way.

Oh, and trust me. Someday when I have the time and money, I am absolutely going after as many of those companies as I can. Are you going to help me?

I guess we’ll find out.

P.S. inb4 BUT FREE SPEEEEECH

Choosing Our Battles: A Chick-Fil-A Rant

[Guest Post] Rebuild America! Become a Narc!

Sometimes it’s very helpful to have friends who know things you don’t. That’s why I gladly accepted my friend Brian’s offer to write a rant about drug policy–namely, about no knock raids.

Just over a year ago was the 40 year anniversary of America’s great unsung job program. Like that great majestic albatross known as Medicare, it has led to the provision of medical care to tens of thousands that might not have otherwise bought, or even afforded health insurance. And well before any 90’s Heritage Foundation wonks even mouthed the words “individual mandate.”

It’s produced new jobs both in the private sector through privatized prisons and drug screening; it’s strengthened government employee unions in ways that it would take 20 Scott Walkers to undo, and it has spurred huge innovations that econometricians have trouble measuring even today, in the era of Big Data.

But you don’t realize it, because you don’t give Richard Nixon enough credit. It’s okay though. I’m here to show you the enduring impact of that oft pilloried Chief Executive. After all, it was Tricky Dick himself who uttered that famous phrase, “We’re all Keynesians now.” The relevant concept here is the multiplier effect, which you could probably read all about from Paul Krugman or some other reasonable economist. (Feel free to open up some tabs of his NYT columns now).

I can almost hear some of you out in the intarweb groaning, “But Brian, what about the broken window fallacy?!” To which I say, can it really still be a fallacy if it’s way, way more complex than broken windows?

So, what’s this wondrous dynamo of employment, healthcare, and innovation?

THE WAR ON DRUGS!

Let us look at an everyday occurrence in this venerable effort to a Drug Free World: the no knock raid.

So what did you see there? If all you saw was dead dogs, traumatized families, and perforated persons, you really to think about it in a wider context. First, there were all those tough, dutiful SWAT teams. All that elite training cost money. And have you ever seen a team tumble out of an ordinary police cruiser? Nope. Special trucks for them too. Are they hydrids? Probably not, yet. And don’t forget about all that distinctive armor. Have you seen the prices for that gear? Now do you see the job creation? Maybe not, as we haven’t even seen all this hardware in action yet!

As much as some of you dear readers on this blog may be skeptical of gun rights, you cannot deny that gun manufacturing is a proud (and exporting) American industry when it is working towards arming the folks in blue. And if that video was any indicator, no raid would be complete without discharging those guns a few times in the quest to wipe heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy, LSD, and sundry other illicit substances from the nose, eyes, mouth, and elbows and other administrable points of our great nation.

But to the real action: those tense seconds and minutes that make for gripping COPS footage. First there’s the entry. Damaging those doors and locks in the course of making a dramatic appearance means more money to hardware stores to furnish repairs.

And who comes running to the door? If the Humane Society of the United States is to be believed, 39% of American households have a dog. And if we presume that “raided by SWAT teams” and “owns a dog” are independent events, then up to about 2 in 5 raids could involve a dog reaching the police first. So there’s cremation and doggy life insurance in play.

Since there’s always the possibility of someone transitioning from living to deceased in the course of the SWAT team’s kinetic action, human life insurance and final medical expenses also crop up, as well as funeral services. And what goes on at a funeral? Somber dress clothes, so dry cleaning. Bouquets to be laid on casks and gravestones, thus payments to florists are rendered. The family and friends of the deceased would also have to pay for the burial. And what goes on at funerals? Crying. Which means lots of tissues. And how does one get to a funeral? If going to a college across the street from a Catholic cemetery has taught me anything, you get to a funeral in a procession. So there’s more gasoline purchased right there.

But what if the family and friends of the recently living, partial witness of the raid are upset about what transpired in the servicing of a drug warrant? They might file a lawsuit against the police, which means more money to America’s legion law firms, stimulating the economy one 6 minute interval at a time.

Now I’m sure some of you are saying “What if I don’t have a dog?” “What if the police don’t discharge their firearms in the direction of me or my family?” “What if it all goes peaceably and according to the plans of those Top. Men. and Women?” “What if no arrests are even made?”

Stay tuned, for next week is part 2, when we’ll stretch our scope both before and long after the raid is completed.

Brian Kuczynski is a developing economics junkie who tries to teach too much through the medium of chess. When he isn’t devouring comics and Stephenson, he’s intravenously dependent on Reason.com.

[Guest Post] Rebuild America! Become a Narc!

"There are no hot girls at Northwestern."

The other day at a certain user-submitted news website, a new Northwestern student was asking for advice about “the party scene” at our school. He also inquires about the attractiveness of the “females” at our school (I think he means “women”), and several dudebros inform him not to get his hopes up. One writes, “No offense to the girls, but Northwestern is just not an attractive campus overall; guys and girls complain about it all the time.”

Lest you think this is just Reddit stupidity, it’s not. The alleged unattractiveness of Northwestern students is something that I’ve heard referenced many times. There’s even a related term: “Northwestern Goggles.” Urban Dictionary says that “Northwestern Goggles” is “when a female student from Northwestern University is considered “hot” only because most of her fellow students are ugly.” Dictionary db has a lengthy explanation of it too, except it references men rather than women. (Northwestern Goggles is, apparently, an equal-opportunity phenomenon.)

A student review of Northwestern at Vault.com states, “And if you’re looking for attractive male students, look elsewhere. Students develop “Northwestern Goggles” where people who, outside of NU, wouldn’t be considered dating material quickly become eligible and desirable bachelors or bachelorettes.” Campus media references the term, too. A few years back one of Daily’s sex columnists pondered this issue. And, of course, there’s a GIF.

I don’t believe the Myth of the Ugly NU Student. First of all, it just doesn’t jive with my experience at Northwestern and that of the friends that I’ve talked to. I know that’s circumstantial, but I think it’s still worthwhile to point out that some of us disagree. Some of us think that there are plenty of people at NU who look like they could be models. I can think of a number of qualities that are lacking on this campus–for instance, compassion–but attractiveness is not one of them.

Second, I’m somewhat disinclined to even consider the validity of this myth until someone designs a reliable, scientific measure of human attractiveness, applies it to representative populations of a number of universities, and shows me that Northwestern’s Attractiveness Quotient is lower than average.

And “I visited my friend at a state school once and the girls/guys there were so much hotter” does not count. That’s circumstantial evidence, and it’s also confirmation bias: we’ve all heard the Myth of the Ugly NU Student since we got here, so as soon as we get off campus we’re probably eager to try to find attractive specimens to validate our expectations.

Third, I’m not exactly sure what people hope to accomplish by constantly restating the Myth of the Ugly NU Student. While I’m not a huge believer in karma, I’m still pretty sure that it doesn’t exactly do wonders for your love life if you go around moaning about how ugly everyone at Northwestern is. And since most people do realize that beauty is subjective, “There are no hot girls/guys here” is really more a statement of “Look how Cool and Picky I am” than of any actual lack of beautiful people at Northwestern. Congratulations, you’re really Cool and Picky.

Ultimately, whether or not you find attractive members of your preferred gender(s) at Northwestern is entirely up to you. I think it’s pretty judgmental and shallow to dismiss our school with terms like “Northwestern Goggles.” If anything on this campus is ugly, it’s that.

"There are no hot girls at Northwestern."