AN ARTICLE IN USA TODAY1 caught my attention not only because of its content, in which women of color, Hispanics, and low-wage workers contend that #MeToo has ignored them in favor of Hollywood and media favorites, but because of racial discrimination.
Maybe I’m just an overly sensitive white male senior citizen, or maybe it’s because I once was a newspaper editor, or may it is because I am a curmudgeon, but whatever the case, the discrimination by USA Today editors bothered me.
- Credit where it is due: I was directed to the article from Advisen FPN’s site.2
USA Today got some of its information from the National Women’s Law Center and apparently it picked up the Center’s graphic.
- Elsewhere in the article, both “black” and “white” were lower case.
It is sadly – but not surprisingly – interesting that most of the #MeToo attention goes to women in the entertainment industry. (Is “news” news anymore or is it really just “entertainment” for leftists?)
As the image above notes, the #MeToo hashtag was started by a black woman “more than a decade ago.”
Until movie and tv actors took it over, #MeToo was hardly a household word, so perhaps the women who really suffer the most will gain some attention.
The only problem I see with the elevation of #MeToo to national attention is that too many women will contend they have been sexually abused when in fact their claims are bogus. Such claims will, in the end, destroy any credibility #MeToo may have generated.
- Is #MeToo for men, too. Males also suffer sexual abuse.
Aside from the racial discrimination that prompted this screed, I’m curious to know what actually constitutes sexual abuse ?
Is it sexual abuse to tell a person he or she looks good?
- That USED to be a compliment; ditto a “wolf whistle.”
Is it sexual abuse to call a person “Honey”? If that’s the case, hundreds of servers and cashiers in Dixie are liable to be accused. “Honey,” “Sugar” and similar terms are “just words” – usually said kindly but not necessarily fondly – to both regular and first time customers across the south.
Is sexual abuse offering to hold a door for a female? No more than offering to hold the door for a person with a cane. Is this Handicap “Mobility impaired” abuse?
It IS sexual abuse to solicit a person for a sexual encounter, especially if the person repeats the offense.
It IS sexual abuse to touch another person who does not wish to be touched, no matter what part of the anatomy is touched. (It also can be sexual battery.)
But for some “customer facing” jobs, to call a customer an endearment is akin to saying “Ma'am” or “Sir.”
Perhaps it is not WHAT is said, but HOW it is said as well as who said it to whom.
- Wasn’t it Mae West who told Cary Grant3 to “come up and see me sometime”?
Mae West one-liners: https://youtu.be/FJS670okmZc
Sources
1. USA Today: http://tinyurl.com/ybnqjjz7
2. AdvisenFPN: http://tinyurl.com/yd8s4fup
3. Mae West: https://youtu.be/xY9QxFDwiL0
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
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