Riff: What We Mock

This one?

This one, I am going to leave you with without comment.

Black woman sets Naval Aviation milestone. The internet’s knee jerk conditioning is sexism and racism.

Do notice, too, what happens when RatAndRavenPhoto makes a good and true point. The sexist assumption women are worse drivers than men is a myth. As matter of fact, men do get more DUIs and in more accidents; and in a New York City study, 80% of all car accidents that kill or injure pedestrians involve male drivers.

Notice this response:

It’s just a joke. Don’t take it so hard. Like the dick you take hard— let’s make sure to get either a threatening or “you’re a whore” statement in there. It wouldn’t be disagreeing with a woman if we didn’t, right? (We have no way of knowing the commentator’s gender. Those who respond assume female, so if you’re sympathetic to anti-sexism, you must be a woman, suggesting it’s not manly to stand up to stupid sexist jokes.)

Those who can endure T****’s word salad soliloquies recognize this joke, disavow, repeat is actually a rhetorical tool. You can say anything “as long as it’s just a joke” because then you can dismiss it as such… then repeat it.

Let’s add the super courageous terror of menstruation.

It’s easy to dismiss online bullying as undeserving of attention.

Just another space where it’s okay to say women and especially women of color aren’t welcome, and possibly aren’t even safe. You know, like the space of being a female military member, where women are exponentially more likely to be sexually assaulted from a fellow service member than she is to be injured by enemy action.

I won’t riff on this one. I’ll let you form your own conclusions.

For me, I know I see this Black woman and think, you rock.

Her name is Lt Madeline G Swegle, and she’s an American badass. How will you talk about her?