It's A Man's World

Some things really upset me: Racism, sexism, ageism, any kind of isms. People are people, whether you are straight, gay, Black, Aboriginal, Jewish, Christian, Wiccan, Muslim, female or male. And the thing that gets me every single time is how people will push your buttons, turn on you or demoralize you for one of the above.

It happened to me during last year's innocuous 'Do Women Write Horror Differently Then Men' post. My gawd, you would have thought I was asking if men should be demonized and held captive for days while ripping wings off of butterflies and devouring children. I was lambasted, roasted, stalked, had threatening emails, terrorizing private messages and lewd comments. Nothing to do with the article. Nothing to do with the challenge. Just all threats and cowardly comments from weak-minded individuals who feared a woman asking such a dangerous question. Interestingly enough, only a handful of men actually read the posts, but none ventured a guess. Only the women did that. And no one got it right.

Now, I find out someone I know is being victimized at her place of work.......for being pregnant. She has been demoted, deducted vacation time for medical appointments, and basically being told to FO.

It is 2014. Women get pregnant. They don't do it to screw with the work force. They don't do it to get a vacation. They do it because it is their given right in this day and age to do so what they will with their own bodies. And now it is still being used against them. Why?

Women are told they can't get pregnant if it interferes with their job, they can't get an abortion because that is morally wrong, they can't have multiple sexual partners because that is morally wrong, they can't earn as much as men because they do not head households etc.

In this enlightened age you would think that people for one minute, one tiny little minute, would look back and see things from another perspective.

In this same workplace, the men are paid exorbitant amounts of salaries, given trips to Europe, take three hour lunches and that is fine.

But a woman doing the exact same job, plus filling in two other positions gets paid less, way less, no trips to Europe, works during lunch breaks, takes work home and when she becomes pregnant, is told she is a lesser human being.

Isn't it time to make things equal? Why do we, as a society, have "rules" for gender, colour of skin, who you sleep with, and what religion you are? Why, as a society do we allow minorities to overrule public and country 'givens' because we are trying to be politically correct? Insert "remove bacon from the menu in a restaurant in North America because it offends me".

Why can we not state what is obviously someone's messed up notion of how something should work when it is blatantly obvious? And why do we roll over and pee on ourselves when we see something is wrong and do nothing about it?

It is 2014. It is time we grew up as a nation and stopped treating each other as chew toys.


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