You all know the old joke:
How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?
THAT"S NOT FUNNY?
I get a good joke. I really do.
But right here, right now, I am not in the mood.
Let me put this in as simple terms as I can: women, virtually all women, who work in offices, are judged based on their appearance. Short, tall, skinny, fat, goofy, svelte, clumsy, graceful. Almost every one of us has encountered a situation where someone has viewed us in terms of our sex appeal or lack thereof.
So when I see a story about a woman who may have been fired because of her appearance, even if that appearance is particularly pleasant, arousing or whatever, what I don't expect to read in the comment threads are the words "whore" used as part of the discussion and I didn't expect to see photos of her referenced as "slutty."
So let's see if we can make this as simple as possible:
It's easy to make jokes about this. It's easy to blame women for workplace misogyny. It's easy to focus on a woman's appearance, her whorish nature, her slut-like nature or anything else that is not the real issue.
You know what's not easy, apparently? Taking women in the workplace seriously.
I don't often blog angry. I don't usually rant.
Right now, I'm kind of pissed and I'm not really in the mood to just let all this slide, not this time.
And sometimes if a feminist says THAT'S NOT FUNNY it's not because we're humorless bitches.
It's just because it's not funny.
Update: there's a comment in this thread which pretty much summarizes it all for me quite well:
Socially, this dynamic plays out so that the following is true:
Men fear being laughed at and rejected by women.
Women fear being harassed, harangued, stalked, fired, assaulted, raped, and murdered by men.
Do you see the problem yet, guys? We are not angry because this is a case of someone being "too pretty." We're angry because this is yet another case of men treating a woman like her body is public property, and we are fucking sick of it.
And quite frankly, we expected better from a lot of you here.
Thanks, Keori.