One of the hardest - and certainly, at times, most personally annoying/irritating - lessons for me has been to break the habits of abusive and exclusionary language that I grew up with. At the primary and high schools I went to, responding to disagreements with terms such as ***head or ****wit was endemic, almost totally ubiquitous ... and those people who didn’t respond that way always came across well, to me.
Working in the construction industry has been, I found, pretty much the same - and also other groups I’ve been part of. In fact, there have been times that I’ve felt the Australian definition of a sentence should be any 30 second string of profanity that also includes two nouns and a verb.
However, growing spiritually, as a person, and as a human rights activist means an increased awareness of the hurt caused by such language - a knowledge that has been enhanced by being on the receiving end of such abuse, and through knowing people who have been on the receiving end of such abuse.
Greta Thunberg’s response to a notorious misogynist (never name them) who is now facing charges (and I remind all that, no matter how grotesque someone may be for other reasons/aspects of their character, they are entitled to the presumption of innocence - which is an important principle that has enabled innocent people to avoid the abuses of the powerful) disappointed me: I actually know someone - a dear friend - and have read of others who actually do have small p*****s (no adult only filter, so apologies but that’s what I have to do for now) and experience considerable distress because of our society’s unhealthy, obsessive and infantile attitude towards s*x (which is also why I'm using asterisks - I’m concerned about the unjustified associations an adult filter creates).
So I won’t like or forward Greta’s response, nor the other responses/memes - but, as someone who has experienced sexual assault (including rape) and the predations of those with toxic masculinity, and is aware of the devastating harms of human trafficking, I am glad these charges will result in a trial, which I hope will be fair and in compliance with all legal requirements.
PS - it can be difficult when someone is genuinely making intellectual errors, but I’m working at using non-emotive and more accurate phrases like the one I just did.
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Finally, remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing.
