This isn't meant as a personal reply to Straggler, I'm just using a quote from his post in order to say what I want to say below...
If a homosexual man propositions another man in a way that "completely disregards his individual desires and wishes" is he being sexist?
If a woman propositions a man in a way that "completely disregards his individual desires and wishes" is she being sexist?
If a homosexual woman propositions a another woman in a way that "completely disregards her individual desires and wishes" is she being sexist?
If a man propositions a woman in a way that "completely disregards her individual desires and wishes" is he being sexist?
I don't think that any of this is the problem.
This is the correct view for the situation:
Elevator guy asked RW to go for coffee? Maybe creepy, maybe fine... who cares?
RW didn't like the offer and made fun of the guy? Maybe justified, maybe overboard... who cares?
People responded to RW with death threats and rape threats over this? What!???? Who the hell are these people and why do they think this kind of response is okay??!!! (Hint: This is where the focus should be).
The problem is, even after 270+ messages, people are still talking about whether or not elevator guy was justified, or whether or not RW was justified.
The issue should be about the crapload of cowards that thought any part of this situation demanded a response included death threats and/or rape threats.
We can even assume for the sake of argument that elevator guy was completely wrong, sexist and being a mysoginistic scumbag (regardless of if he actually was)... he's still not the big problem in this ordeal.
We can even assume for the sake of argument that RW was completely wrong, blew it out of proportion and totally rode the coattails of this publicity for her own gain (regardless of if she actually did)... she's still not the big problem in this ordeal.
Even given either of those two assumption... the big, massive, not-even-close, far-and-away largest problem here is the responses from those who thought any of this ordeal justified death or rape threats to RW.
To even begin to entertain the idea that whether or not the death/rape threats were okay depends on if we can understand the situation between RW and elevator guy... is equally ludicrous and appalling as to suggest that the threats are not the overwhelmingly biggest problem.
Talking about RW and elevator guy "just to figure it out" for fun can too easily be taken as "entertaining the aforementioned heinous idea above" and shouldn't be done in itself unless it is
extremely clear that all parties involved in the discussion already agree that the "real problem" is the reaction from the peanut gallery. Cutting out the larger issue to discuss the smaller issues trivializes the larger issue and adds to the problem of allowing them to happen in the future.
The fact that we're talking about elevator guy and RW and all... and no one is continuing to express outrage at the actual, massive idiots who caused the problem... is the problem.
™ Version 4.2
