Got sick of bigots, and pedants, and trying to figure out if something is “meme enough” to count, and of feeling like I’m spamming other spaces, and very quickly of the lemmy UI too (still love you blahaj.zone!) so am opening my own space where I can make my own rules and post my collection in peace. ❗BE WARNED: SOME OF THE IMAGES YOU SEE HERE MAY NOT TECHNICALLY BE MEMES❗ Now that we got that out of the way, let the infodump commence! Expect a mix of slightly outdated: mostly leftist (but never tankie) content, many cats, and some general old memes I’ve collected over the years. There are many, so will try to mix it up! Update: looks like 🐝Beehaw🐝 have banned this magazine. If you want real leftism rather than "nice" (more like "unchallenging to the status quo and the comfort of libs") leftism, I guess you'll have to follow from elsewhere!
tweet by Zara Larsson @zaralarsson:
Isn't it strange how every woman knows someone who's been sexually harassed but no man seem to know any harasser?
Statistically, I probably know multiple harassers, but none of them have admitted it to me.
What's the statistic on harassers? It could be way lower than the number of harassed women. It's not like it's a 1-1 relationship.
Why, OP, are you being so toxic in all your answers? Sure there are men who harassed or are still harassing women and every one is one enough. But pointing out that some of us don't know anyone personally who is guilty of doing such isn't downplaying. Even IF I would say "NOT ALL MEN!1!!" doesn't mean shit. It doesn't mean "yeah, you are exxagerating" or "this problem isn't that big as you try making it" It's just a "I don't really want to be associated with that kind of male scum." Nothing more, nothing less.
But IF you wanted to say "Distancing in a post is not enough to stop this." you could have said it, instead of trying to drive a wedge.
Do it and try to have a constructive dialog instead, maybe?
You know, when MeToo came out, I thought I'd been lucky because I'd never been harassed.
And then I thought about it, and I remembered:
Walking through the mall and a guy making the "big jugs" gesture at the male friend I was walking with, congratulating my friend on his date (it wasn't a date).
The older guy who tried to pick up noticably-underage me at the town fair, then followed me around, and how I literally had to run into the woods to get away from him.
The kid I went to school with who tried to finger me in the football stands.
The senior manager at a large programming firm who thought it was appropriate (very visibly in his company office) to hang a shadow box with a bunch of little medallions in it. Except when you looked closely at the medallions, you found out that they were actually hooker tags from quite a number of brothels.
The greying mechanic my mom had come over to work on her car while she was at work, who wanted 15-year-old me to kiss him.
The multiple coworkers who deliberately kept making crude sexual jokes, and if you ignore them or join in, they take it as permission to keep going, and if you're uncomfortable or say something they take it as a challenge and escalate, and if you report it you end up getting fired for something else in the next month or so.
Slapping hands away, so many times.
And even in the context of MeToo, I thought I hadn't been harrassed, when in reality I'd just normalized the harassment and ignored it. Because it wasn't that bad, it wasn't 'abuse', it wasn't constant.
But while it may not have been constant, it was persistent. There wasn't a single place that I was ever safe. The carefree town fair, the local shops, school, work, my own home when the mechanic came in to use the bathroom. There's literally no place in my life where intrusive men haven't tried to insert themselves, without invitation, without even asking.
And I look at this meme and it's "every woman knows someone who's been harassed", and I think over my own experience, and that of all my female relatives, and friends, and schoolmates, and coworkers, and I think that meme is wrong.
I think pretty much every woman has been harassed. It's just that, like me, they learned to ignore and then forget these things, because they weren't as bad as the really bad things that have happened to some of the women we know. But - and not discounting the really bad experiences some people I know have had - these experiences were all bad enough.
MeToo.
Wtf is a hooker tag?? Do they give you a little momento to remember the encounter??
Hi! French feminist dude here for context.
First of all, I am sorry for what you had to endure. It’s a lot.
Now regarding the post, I encountered very few harassers in my life (my own brother sadly is one of them, and a Texan expat that used to be my friend until, well you know)
I don’t think harassers will spontaneously come out about their « habit ». From what I’ve seen, men know very well what abusive behavior is, but will never admit that they are abusive themselves because it would reveal their own weakness. Men are terrified of looking weak.
About my own mistakes, I’ve never been an harasser (I won’t take a no for a yes) but I have abused a woman once because she never told me « no » nor pushed me back. It was years before #MeToo
I didn’t know she was raised as a Mormon, forbidden to say no to a man.
We spend the night and most of the next day together, mostly talking about books and movies but didn’t « make it ». We mostly kissed and I only went down on her during the night. I had absolutely no clue, and learned about my mistake about 2 years later.
I was devastated.
My point is that there’s a lot of work to do. Men and women still have no clue about what’s the right thing to do.
Keep going. And thank you.
Fuck, I'm cis-het guy and I hadn't really thought about it until #MeToo, but MeToo.
Hanging out with my girlfriend, her friends & my wife and one of the guy friends grabbed my junk and said that "you have a nice package". I moved away from him, but otherwise, the night just continued as it had been and I went on with my life.
There have been a few other instances, sometimes with men, sometimes with women, but, fuck if that isn't a shitty realization to have come to.
Once, to show her daily experience, my gf at the time (now wife) had me walk far enough in front of her that we didn't appear together, but not so far I wouldn't be able to hear. The amount of catcalls when walking down a city street while dressed non-provactively was fucking ridiculous (it would still be ridiculous if she were 'dressed to impress' to be fair, but I'm trying to illustrate that she wasn't dressed in any way that could 'generously' be interpreted as 'asking for the attention'). I hadn't not believed her before, but seeing it myself was eye opening and made me realize I need to not be in a bubble when I'm out and about.
Anyone who identifies as a guy and says "I've never seen someone getting harassed" ... open your eyes and ears as you walk through the world and see if that's actually true or if you just didn't pay enough attention to notice it.
Ask basically any woman you know if they've ever gotten catcalled or had their ass grabbed in public or at what age men in their 40s started sexualizing them; if you have a close enough relationship, I can almost guarantee that they'll say 'yes' to the first couple and 12-14ish for the last one -- and those are direct questions rather than "have you been harassed" which might be more open to self-deception.
Everyone knows it's not ALL men, but I have to imagine that it feels close-a-fucking-nough when you're getting harassed on what feels like a constant basis.
This is well put, shame those who need to hear it most will refuse to listen (to advice like yours, but definitely not to any women they might have in their lives)
Well it’s not like they go around advertising that they are harassers and rapists.
The statement also assumes the numbers are equal, but predominant amount of assaults are perpetrated by a minority of people. So you have a small number of abusers who victimize a large amount of people.
Weird, it's like harassers don't want to be known about and try to keep their activities secret.
I know a lot of men who are constantly sexually harassed by women.
When a woman does it, she’s a cougar and gets her own PornHub channel.
I don't know any cause I refuse to associate with creeps who sexually assault or harass others, regardless of who they are
TBF I've known a hand full of men who openly talk about harassing or having harassed women. They just don't see it as harassment, because they think it's "no big deal" or that they "have" to treat women like that.
TW sexual assault: I was once waiting for a friend when a very drunk man came up to me and started talking. He was babbling about how he likes to fight, and his ex and so on, when he suddenly shouted (direct quote): "I didn't rape her! I just punched her in the gob a few times and she spread her legs all on her own!"
I think that's an extreme case, but not as extreme as one might think.
This right here is the quiet part of the tweet out loud, thank you! 👏👏👏
It's all around all of them (us!) constantly, it just isn't a problem to them, so they "don't see" it (to varying degrees of awareness).
Also jfc what that guy said to you, but as you say not that extreme or even unusual.. 😕
As a cis male, I learned a lot from the book "Everyday Sexism" by Laura Bates. It really opened my eyes to the reality that women deal with on a regular basis, and I hope it's ok to recommend it here.