Written by Jessy Goyette
Offensive comments about homosexual people/people who are attracted to anything other than the opposite sex, transgender/non-binary people, women, people of color and even rape should always be taken seriously.
Women, homosexual people/people who are attracted to anything other than the opposite sex, and transgender/non-binary people,without forgetting people of color,are oppressed,and some get murdered for being a certain race. Additionally, rape happens very often and it’s a real problem. Did you know 1 in 3 American women will get sexually abused during their lifetime? (That’s only AMERICAN women. Imagine in other countries.) Mocking abuse will never be acceptable. Just saying, I’m not saying there are no male victims. There are way less, but you are not forgotten, male victims. Now, nobody cares if a person means or doesn’t mean their words/acts. Their words/acts are still out there, and if someone doesn’t know what their intentions are, they can get hurt.
I don’t think many people know what opinions are. When you make fun of oppressed groups of people, that’s not an opinion. That’s being ignorant. You stop society from being more accepting when you do that. I see that some of you even say that it’s freedom of speech? What if someone decided to say ‘I want to kill every person of [this] race’. That’s freedom of speech? That’s their opinion? So you’re telling me that we should be able to do and say whatever we want and be able to break the law and be able to murder people and beat them up and insult them because of who they are because it’s our OPINION? No. It doesn’t work that way. Activists speak out on social issues because there’s a CHANGE that needs to be made. When you say “people are being too sensitive these days” and “people can do whatever they want”, you STOP that change from happening. If we let everyone talk down on oppressed people, the world would turn to shit.
When you say that people are being too sensitive about that kind of stuff, it’s probably because you haven’t experienced oppression. Women who get abused don’t find your rape and abuse jokes funny because they have to wake up and think about it every morning feeling VULNERABLE. Homosexual people/people who are attracted to anything other than the opposite sex who hear you say “faggot” and who hear you say “queer” get offended by those words and by derogatory terms because they might have been insulted, beaten up in the streets or maybe have gone to school frightened by the fact they’re going to get bullied during the day. Women don’t find you calling them weak and don’t find you telling them to “make you a sandwich” funny because they’ve been put down their entire life for being a woman.
They’ve been taught that a girl is inferior to a man, they’ve been told they should make their man happy and that he comes first, that they should aspire to marriage, that they’re weak and not good at sports, that they need to dress “appropriately” because they might arouse men, that their virginity is sacred and that they’re a slut for losing it, that being slim is the only way for them to be able to wear a crop top or a bikini (did you know someone could be “fat” and healthy? WOW!), that they need to protect themselves at night because they might get ASSAULTED, that it’s their fault if they get raped, etc. Also, do I have to mention catcalling? Men, stop catcalling women. It is not a compliment. It’s sexual harassment and it SCARES them. Now, don’t tell me that all of this stuff “doesn’t happen anymore”. Women are sexually objectified, hypersexualized (by the way, boobs/nipples are not sexual organs, they do not reproduce), oppressed, etc. Just because it’s not happening to you or to your entourage doesn’t mean it’s not happening somewhere else or in another country.
Women don’t even get paid the same amount of money as men for the same job. Women in the music industry/Famous women have to deal with discrimination and they keep getting compared to each other while men almost never get compared to each other. And then people have the audacity to tell me women aren’t oppressed. Try again. And before you tell me “But what about MEN?”, Sexism against men (or reverse sexism) doesn’t exist. Men can be prejudiced against, but since sexism is a combination of both POWER and PREJUDICE and that men are PRIVILEGED (therefore, they do not have any issues with social power), they only can be prejudiced against. Since women are oppressed (do not have as much social power as men, therefore have issues with social power) and also can be prejudiced against, THEY can be victims of sexism. Sexism is a form of oppression. If men are not oppressed (therefore, can only be prejudiced against), HOW can they be victims of a form of OPPRESSION? It doesn’t make sense. I am not saying prejudice against men isn’t serious. Hypermasculinity is an important men’s issue, for example. But that’s because people associate feminine with weak. Which is totally sexism against women.
Body-shaming also happens to men (as well as women). Really though, prejudice against men is just as serious as prejudice against women. It’s just that people need to use the right terms. And sexism isn’t the right term to use when it comes to prejudice against men. Same thing goes for racism against white people (or reverse racism). It DOES NOT exist. White people are PRIVILEGED! They will NEVER get bad consequences for being white. Getting called “Cracker”, “Mayonnaise”, etc. is NOT racism. People of color literally have difficulty getting treated like humans. They get killed for their skin color, refused jobs, get paid less than white people (especially WOMEN of color), etc. They face a lot of oppression. The worst things that could happen to white people because of their race (can’t even think of something) is nothing compared to what people of color face DAILY. Don’t tell me white people lack social power. To be victim of a form of oppression like sexism or racism, you need to lack social power.
People of color, women, transgender/non-binary people and homosexual people/people who feel attracted to anything other than the opposite sex lack social power. Men, straight people, cis people and white people do NOT. Also, People of color probably don’t find you appropriating their culture or you being white and saying “nigger/nigga” funny because they might have been refused a job because of their race/culture, or maybe even because a friend of theirs got murdered by a cop because they were of a race other than white. If you’re a white person, you’re instantly privileged. You’re never gonna get killed because of your skin color. You’re never going to get refused stuff because of your skin color. Trust me, that will never happen. and if it DOES happen, it’s extremely rare. Don’t tell people of color, who are oppressed, not to get offended when you do something. They have the right to find something offensive because they are OPPRESSED. When they tell you to stop doing something because it’s offensive, you STOP doing it. And that goes for every other oppressed group. If they find something you say or do offensive, stop doing/saying it. If you’re not oppressed, don’t talk over oppressed groups when they tell you something is offensive/shouldn’t be done. Also, transgender/non-binary people probably don’t find you using the wrong pronouns to describe them or asking what their genitals are “funny” because they might have been beaten up for
being who they are, or because they may have been kicked out of their home for lack of acceptance, or because they’ve been bullied for not wanting/not being able to transition. (Gender is not the same thing as sex. Sex = genitals, Gender = what you identify as.
You could identify as anything you want. Not only as male or female. Gender is a spectrum. A woman with a penis is STILL a woman, and a transgender person who decides not to transition or get surgery is not any less transgender.)
It’s not hard to understand, people. When a certain OPPRESSED someone tells you that it’s OFFENSIVE for you to do something, you don’t do it. Don’t make people feel bad for being who they are. Because they can’t help it. It’s who they are. And you need to accept them the way they are. If you choose to do the opposite, you’re just close-minded and uneducated. Social issues are IMPORTANT and need to be TAKEN CARE OF. They shouldn’t exist. And if you say or do things oppressed groups of people find offensive, you’re part of the problem and you’re one of the reasons why there’s a change that needs to be made. You’re one of the reasons why INTERSECTIONAL feminism exists (Yes, People of Color MATTER. Feminism shouldn’t only be about white people. White Feminism is BULLSHIT), want it or not. Feminism is called feminism, because although men have some issues as well, women are the ones who have the most. We need to put more importance on women’s issues to reach equality.
Feminism is NOT “only for women”, and it’s not a form of misandry.
Also, even though it has nothing to do with what I just said above, (this is just something that pisses me off), PLEASE don’t use mental disorders as personality traits or as insults. Psychotic, Depressed, Retarded, etc. are NOT adjectives
