Hello, I’m Daisy Cousens.
Welcome to This Week in Social Justice.
This week’s biggest and baddest social justice fails include the
gaming company that is stoically resisting going woke, the Zurich
airport ladies toilet drama that has too many people talking, and
depending on how long I feel like talking about the first two topics
we may even have time for a bonus topic.
So!
Let’s get started.
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Here we go.
In a refreshing and somewhat surprising change of pace, the Brazilian
branch of gaming peripheral maker Razer has dropped one of the
gamers it sponsors because she said, among other things, that “men
are trash”.
Gaming streamer and social media influencer Gabriela
Cattuzzo will not have her contract with the company renewed when
it expires, because of a thread of tweets she posted on June 21 st .
After tweeting this photo of herself riding a mechanical bull with the
caption, in English, “I am riding the chat”, one man tweeted in reply,
“You can ride me if you want”.
Gabriela did not take kindly to this, and responded in a tweet that
has since been deleted with, “There’s always going to be fucked in
the head macho man to talk shit and sexualize women until the
woman starts making jokes, right?
And this is why men are trash.”
Later on, she tweeted that while not all men are crappy, the non-
crappy ones are the exception to the rule.
Needless to say, this caused a bit of a kerfuffle.
Her followers were not happy with her response; since gaming
is a somewhat male heavy community, you can imagine a lot of
people did not take kindly to what she said.
In response to this, Razer announced they would no
longer be sponsoring Gabriela, stating,
“Razer Brazil reinforces that the opinion of its influencers does not
reflect, necessarily, the opinion of the business, which is totally
against any type of discrimination be it of sex, religion, political party
or whatever type of intolerance and extremism.
We have been since the beginning, as gamers, confronted with
all types of preconceptions and stereotypes, and we will
continue to fight so that this type of situation won't repeat itself."
Gabriela responded to the to-do, of course, asserting that she was
sorry for her reaction to the Tweet, but not sorry for defending
herself.
She stated that most of the comments she receives when
she posts photos are from men scrutinizing so aspect of her female,
so by non-crappy men being the exception, she was referring to the
minority of men in her comments who do not comment
disparagingly or sexually on aspects of her female-ness.
She also announced she is taking a break from social
media because of the death threats she and her family have received
as a result of this situation.
Okay, a few things on this.
First, and most obvious, there is no reason in any universe that this woman should be
getting death threats or doxed for lashing out on the internet.
That’s ridiculous, and that’s just internet trolls sitting in online caves
and taking advantage of someone being the subject of a dogpile so
they can exercise their lust to behave badly.
On that I think we can all agree, so just wanted
to get that on the table.
Secondly, how interesting is this situation, in that it is a complete
departure from the woke narrative we see in Western countries.
I loved how Razer explicitly stated Gabriela’s
comments were extremist, and intolerant, because they are!
But you would never get that from a company somewhere like Australia
or America or the UK!
Women are, at least in the cultural mainstream of progressive
corporations and commie media, celebrated as empowered for
making comments like that about men, provoked or unprovoked.
Like, I think if she had been American, she would not have lost her
sponsorship, and she would have been lauded in the online media
for sticking up for herself and how she’s inspirational in the fight
against online misogyny blah blah blah.
Third, Gabriela was provoked into making this comment, she was
responding to someone who had offended her.
And given the fact
she mentioned she gets a lot of these kinds of comments, perhaps
she just snapped.
However, welcome to the internet.
Everyone gets picked on for things they can’t control
like gender or race or sexuality.
I’m a female online and I get relentlessly picked on for aspects of me
being a woman.
Ironically, the vast majority of those comments relating to my female-ness come from other
women, which anyone who watched my last video of me reading mean
tweets will have picked up on, but whatever.
It is an occupational hazard of existing on the digital plane.
And aside from anything else, men actually get picked on for being
men on the internet, especially nowadays, and especially if they are
white and straight.
The pendulum has moved somewhat when it comes to gender being weaponised; a few years
ago I would have said it was more of a female thing to get
abused for your gender online, but the dynamic has really really
changed with the rise of the regressive left.
As for the comment itself…come on.
I get comments like that reasonably regularly on my YouTube channel
and on Instagram, I do not find them offensive at all because they
are jokes.
A little bit undergraduate, but jokes nonetheless.
I mean, if you look at how BuzzFeed reported it; they said Gabriela was
dropped for responding to “sexual harassment”; what absolute
rubbish.
That wasn’t sexual harassment.
The commenter wasn’t threatening her, or disparaging her, he was
making a joke, which is particularly evident in the context of
Gabriela’s original tweet, which was also a joke that she was “riding
the chat”.
I can understand her frustration, but it was a totally
disproportionate and unprofessional response.
As to whether Razer should have dropped her; look, I personally am
never a fan of people being fired or losing sponsorships for things
they’ve said, unless they’re inciting violence or advocating stripping
people of their rights or something else genuinely heinous.
However, if she were a man and had said all women are trash, she
would most definitely have been dropped by any company and
accused of misogyny, so it is good I guess to see that Razer is not
operating under the same double standard that a lot of companies in
Western countries would indulge.
I don’t know whether to call this a social justice fail, so I’ll just call it
a social justice “thing”, shall I?
Zurich Airport has drawn the ire of feminists for the length of its
bathroom lines.
Twitter user and apparent feminist Laura Rolden posted two photos of herself waiting in a
bathroom queue, with the caption, “Dear @zrh_airport , when are you
going to solve the problem with the ladies toilets?
#InvisibleWomen @CCriadoPerez A Gates”
Incredibly, Zurich Airport gave her a reasonably prompt response,
replying with, “Hi Laura, we are very sorry to hear you had to wait.
There are many toilets all over the gate.
we hope at your next visit at Zurich Airport everything will work smoothly!
Best regards from ZRH”
Reasonable enough, I would have thought.
After all, there was literally nothing Zurich Airport could do
at that exact moment in time to solve the problem, like nothing.
Nevertheless, this wasn’t enough for Laura Rolden, who tweeted back,
“Thank you for your answer.
Yes!
Those images are from two different toilets.
All were the same :(“
To which the airport, evidently wanting to nip this in the bud,
replied,
“Unfortunately, we can't influence how long it takes a woman to go
to the toilet.
Certainly the architects who built the airport didn't do
this on purpose and included enough space for the women.”
This comment, needless to say, ruffled more than a few feminist
feathers.
So used to being capitulated to, these women were up in
arms about the airport’s dismissive response, flocking to the thread
and giving all the reasons why women need longer to go to the toilet
than men, and how they should prepare for that, and how non-
progressive and ignorant Zurich Airport are, etc etc.
My favourite tweet in this thread, ironically, came from a man, “Of
course you can influence it.
By providing correct number of toilets based on the needs of each sex.
Had never thought about male privilege extending to almost never queuing
for a piss but here we are in 21c with men's time & comfort more
valued than women's.”
Well, you know what they say about male feminists.
Eventually, and rather disappointingly, the airport caved, stating,
“This is a problem which exists in all public areas and which urgently
requires action.
We have informed the department responsible for
building planning.
We would like to sincerely apologize to all women
who had to wait in front of one of our toilets.
We hear your problem.”
Interestingly enough, the #InvisibleWomen in Laura’s original tweet
wasn’t just feminist slang.
It is the title of a book, Invisible Women, written by noted British feminist author Caroline
Criado Perez.
This lovely book is a dissertation of sorts about
all the ways society is allegedly designed for men, despite all the
equality we think we have achieved.
Examples found in her book of this terrible oppression facing women
in Western societies include the fact offices are on average five
degrees too cold for women because the formula to determine their
temperature was developed “based on the metabolic resting rate of
a 40-year-old” man.
Smartphones, at an average size of 5.5 inches, are “too big for most women’s hands”
and don’t fit in their pockets, and virtual reality headsets are more likely
to make women feel sick than men.
Okay, here’s the thing.
I actually don’t disagree that venues may take
into consideration the fact women’s bathroom lines are longer than
men and adjust accordingly with a few extra cubicles, because the
main reason that women wait for the bathroom longer is because,
quite simply, they pee more.
This is because their bladders are smaller than the bladder of your
average man, because their internal organs have had to make room
for the uterus and ovaries.
Men’s sexual organs are on the outside of their bodies, therefore, they have bigger
bladders, so can hold on for longer.
I worked in a venue once that had a small extra toilet for
women, and it worked a treat.
The lines were still longer than for the men’s, but at least women had somewhere
extra to go which helped a bit.
However, the fact this kind of stuff is presented as a pressing
feminist issue, and anyone who raises an eyebrow at it is somehow
unenlightened or promoting so-called male privilege is why people
hate modern feminism.
I mean, come on, you’re really going to die
on the feminist hill of the women’s bathroom lines are too long??
At least you live in a country that has indoor
plumbing, for goodness sake!
This petty, picking at scraps victim ideology is why feminism
nowadays attracts so many vocal critics.
Oh, and just by the way, I’d say the reason your average office temperature
is designed for the resting metabolic rate of a 40 year old man
is because in most offices, it’s likely that men around the
age of 40 make up the majority of the workers there, and are required
to wear heavy suits
and jackets, as opposed to women, who can wear a light dress and
put on a cardigan if they are chilly.
Huge social justice fail right here.
Bonus topic!
We have a bonus topic this week.
Eric Trump got a bit more than he bargained for on Tuesday night,
when he was spat at by a waitress at high end Chicago cocktail
bar The Aviary.
According to sources familiar with the incident, the
young woman in question came right up to Eric, spat in his face, and
murmured something that sounded anti-Trump.
She was immediately taken into custody by the
Secret Service Agents who were present, and Eric Trump eventually
decided not to press charges.
Since then, the The Alinea Group, who owns The Aviary, has made a
statement, and revealed the waitress has been put on leave until
they can speak to her.
They asserted, among other things, that no customer should be spit on, and that the online
discussion of it was disturbing and wrong, from those calling for
their business to go bust, to those praising the waitress’ actions
as an act of civil disobedience.
They finished by stating, “We hope this incident can,
at least, serve to illuminate the current absurdity of the discourse of
our politics.
Okay, I have to say here, kudos to The Alinea Group for the way they
handled this.
That was probably the best kind of response they could
have put out, although I think the waitress should have been sacked
on the spot.
I mean come on, surely spitting in the face of a
customer, any customer, is an objectively sackable offense?
What makes me raise my eyebrows, however, is the fact this incident
has been given such a small amount of coverage in the mainstream
media!
There have been a few little articles here and there, but, and I
hate to bring out this cliché but it’s true, can you IMAGINE the media
and social media to-do if it had been Chelsea Clinton who had been
spat on??
We would never hear the end of it, and the bar would
probably have been torched by now!
This is, on a number of levels a very big and very bad social justice fail.