A Rant About My Sexist Week

There has been too much sexism is surrounding me this week and it's really getting me down.

To start, a boy I know who I considered one of my friends and who knew about my intolerance for sexism thought it'd be really hilarious to pull the: "Do you want to hear a joke? Women's rights" joke on me. The first couple of times he said this I ignored him. But then after a few more times, I told him to fuck off. He has continued to repeat it to me all of this week. The worst thing is, he's not even just being a jerk because he thinks it's funny, he even said "It's hard for a man not to be sexist," which I find utterly appalling. It's pretty damn easy for a man to not be sexist. I know some men struggle due to their lack of decency/brain cells, but I found that statement really offensive.

Secondly, we watched a play that was supposedly to be about 'road safety' in school. The play was pretty rubbish and irrelevant to the topic, but what annoyed me the most was the frequency of sexist jokes, especially towards the end of the play which involved a mock 'chat show' that involved our participation as an audience. One of the characters, a male, was portrayed as a bit of an arsehole. Now, granted, it was in his character to act like an arsehole but one of the jokes during the audience participation was: "The only thing a woman should be driving is a washing machine." How is this kind of joke acceptable? Especially in a SCHOOL, in front of an easily influenced group of teenagers. This joke wouldn't have been so bad if it were in context, like if it were in a play that was supposed to show how sexism still exists in society, if it were used to represent and teach against misogyny, but it wasn't. It was pretty irrelevant and unnecessary to the play. This joke received a disheartening, disgusting amount of jeering and agreeable laughter from an awful lot of the boys in my year. If it had have been a racist or homophobic joke made, there is no way the staff would have let the theater company get away with this, and it wouldn't have even been told in the first place. So why is sexism still okay?

Lastly, I came across the Twitter account The Funny Sexist. Reading through this page makes me feel physically sick and even more furious by the amount of followers it has received. It is completely and totally disrespectful to women. I can't understand how anybody finds this page funny, appropriate or acceptable. The photos that the page have posted feature a photo of a woman holding a sign saying "30% of women killed are murdered by their boyfriends or husbands" and then a slogan underneath saying "30% of women should have just shut the fuck up." The page encourages domestic abuse, and even murder of women: full blown misogyny at its best. Why the fuck has this page not been taken down? With the amount of followers it has received, I can't imagine it's slipped under the radar of the professionals at Twitter HQ. I urge you all to report these pages to Twitter, as well as reporting the Facebook equivalent of The Funny Sexist.

Here's to hoping that next week's better.