Dear dudes who don't think harassment is a problem

[shadowspar]

(CW: mention of transmisogyny/harassment)


When my friend left work last Tuesday, she was greeted by transmisogynistic graffiti scrawled all over her truck.

But please, go on with your stirring indictment of the "thought police" and your impassioned defense of "free speech".

Do not let the inherent threat of violence in that action dissuade you from ranting about your God-given freedom to utter whatever the hell you like without consequence.

By all means, let's "hear both sides" on whether or not all people are worthy of basic human dignity, or should be protected from harassment & assault.

Perish the thought that you could put people's real lives ahead of your libertarian ideological purity.

(Partial context: here and here.)

Comments

[pauamma]

*sigh* "on her truck" makes it vandalism, not free speech, IMO, FWIW.

[synecdochic]

I believe shadowspar was not saying that people would defend the graffiti as free speech, but that the dudebros who are saying that any small amount of restraint on their freeze peach at conferences is too much restraint are the ones who encourage an atmosphere in which people think scrawling graffiti on some poor woman's car while she's at work is acceptable.

Also, holy shit was that comment a demonstration of your privilege. When your first impulse in reading an entry like this is to come up with a reason why *this* case is not like what's being criticized and of *course* Reasonable People would agree that Existing Rules Already Cover This? That's privilege. You have the privilege to ignore all the things that contribute to an atmosphere in which people think that scrawling graffiti on some poor woman's car while she's at work is acceptable. Other people don't.

[tim]

Likewise, writing something unwelcome on someone else's online space is also vandalism.

[libskrat]

Ugh. I'm sorry. How is she doing?

[shadowspar]

Well now, thanks! It was a rough day, but she's back to her wisecracking self. =)