Sociological Sexism: Male Sexism Doesn’t Exist

Okay, I’ll preface this post by saying that I know many of you may have clicked on the link because you thought that the post sounded inflammatory and you wanted to know just how I get off saying that men are never discriminated against.

I’d like to take this opportunity to say that I am not saying that, nor will I ever. I’ll spell it out right now, even: men can be discriminated against on the basis of their maleness, and that is wrong. It’s a bit sad that I even have to say that, but people are always eager to demonize feminists on this point. Plus, this post is going to be about male privilege…which I know is a sore spot for a lot of people, especially male people, because they frequently either want to deny that it exists because it would be a huge source of guilt, or they acknowledge that it does and do end up feeling a lot of guilt over existing in that sphere of privilege (this doubles, triples and quadruples if they are white, heterosexual, cisgendered men).

Privilege guilt is another topic for another day, but let me summarize it: privilege guilt is counter-productive and makes the topic about the oppressors, rather than the oppressed.

Now, you might be wondering: how is she going to say that sexism against men doesn’t exist? It seems obvious that some people are prejudiced against men, because they are men. (Just look at feminists, amirite?!)

And the answer—if you are indeed wondering this—is that I don’t think that you, or indeed, most people who haven’t taken any sociology or gender studies courses, understand what we mean when we discuss “sexism.” And I’d like to say that sexism has two meanings and two uses, one of which is much more common than the other. The first definition of sexism is the colloquial definition that we all grew up hearing: sexism is the discrimination against a person, based solely upon that person’s sex and/or gender. And this definition is technically correct, in that that is what the word means in that dull, dictionary-sense. It is plainly defined as that. Were we to live in a world absent of privilege, it would be possible for sexism to be implemented against anyone, of any sex, of any gender.

But.

But we don’t live in a world absent of privilege. This is where the sociological definition of sexism becomes important, because although the two definitions definitely overlap, they talk about two distinct things. The colloquial definition strictly deals with what the word means in the abstract; the sociological definition deals with what the word means in practice. This is crucial, because in practice, sexism requires two main ingredients: prejudice and privilege. Without prejudice, privilege (read: power) is unattainable…but without privilege, prejudice cannot be implemented on a systemic level. Prejudice is useless without privilege, and privilege is unreachable without prejudice. Given that the two need each other so much to reinforce a hierarchy, one without the other is not powerful…that is, it is not oppressive.

So when we say that it isn’t possible to be sexist against men, what we are saying is essentially this: men have both societal prejudice and societal privilege, and this makes them capable of oppressing women. It is certainly possible that a woman may be prejudiced against men on the basis of their sex and/or gender. But because women are the underprivileged class—meaning that they do not have the privilege and societal power that men do—they are not capable of implementing this prejudice on a systemic level. And because sexism, from a sociological standpoint, is the implementation of gender-based prejudice on a large, society-wide scale, women being prejudiced against men is not sexism because on the whole, society values men over women. Not only that, but this act of prizing maleness above all is actually embedded into the fabric of our society, of our culture itself. Because the prizing of femaleness is decidedly not embedded into our culture, it is impossible to use privilege to oppress men, simply for the fact that female privilege doesn’t exist.

Women simply don’t have the power, from a sociological perspective, to be able to oppress as well as be prejudiced. It’s oppression on a systemic level that makes an “ism”, including sexism. By that same token, minorities cannot be racist against white people, LGBT people cannot be heterophobic, working class people can’t be classist, etc—and it’s all to do with how much power these people in society have. They don’t have much, or at least they don’t have enough to counteract the overall privilege that men, white people, heterosexual people, wealthy people, etc, have by default. In order to be an “ism”, sociologically, you need to be able to back your prejudice with oppressive force…which none of these groups actually have, because to have oppressive force, you need to either have pre-existing privilege, or you need to create a privileged class.

Could the sociological (read: systemic) sexism against men exist? Yes, of course it could—theoretically, anyway (it’s never happened before in Western society). However, in order for it to exist, the entire power gradient would need to be completely reversed, making women the privileged class and men the underprivileged. This would require a huge paradigm shift, one that isn’t very likely to occur—at least not at the present, or any time in the foreseeable future, because male has been the privileged gender for thousands of years. Most people don’t understand that it takes a LONG time to undo thousands of years of oppression. We’ve made a ton of progress in 100 years, but we’re still not there, and guess what? It’s understandable, even though it’s not okay, that we’re not there yet, because overall social change takes a lot of time and there have been and will be a ton of growing pains along the way.

So, can you use the word “sexism” to describe discrimination against men? Yes, of course—after all, the colloquial usage is by far the more popular and widely-used one. I use it myself, in everyday conversation. But understand that when feminists or sociologists use the word “sexism”, and they are speaking about sociological trends or patterns, they may not mean what you mean. And if they say to you, “sexism against men doesn’t exist”, try not to be offended. They aren’t trying to deny that men suffer from gender discrimination sometimes. They aren’t trying to deny, for example, that you were a man who didn’t get a job because you were a man, and maybe that employer has a total hate-on for guys. I’m sure that has happened before, and that’s wrong, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a feminist that was okay with that. But don’t make a conversation about women about you and why your feelings are hurt at the suggestion that you or your friends or your family aren’t discriminated against. This isn’t the Oppression Olympics, and more than that, it’s wrong to make a minority group’s problems about you and your problems, because most of the time, your problems come from a place of privilege, and that privilege is used to being able to dominate a conversation about oppression. Having privilege is not your fault, but using it to step on others is.

At the end of the day, we all need to understand one another a little better, listen a little better, and hear each other’s stories better than we do now. Men aren’t the only ones who need to be aware of the role that they play in reinforcing systemic sexism. Women also play a pretty crucial role in keeping the Misogyny Machine up and running, and without internalized misogyny, it would be much harder for sexism to exist. So do yourself a favour: ask if you don’t know. Feminazis have enough work to do already without you being willfully ignorant, what with riding around on our broomsticks cackling, TP’ing men’s houses, and actually speaking aloud to voice opinions about things….

Virtually Worthless: The Tragedy of Rape Apologism

I am disgusted.

You may have heard about the Stuebenville rape case. If you haven’t, the link sufficiently details it. Two high school footballers raped a 16-year-old girl at a series of parties. They drugged her and performed sexual acts on her while she was unconscious. They even documented their fun, by recording it on video and taking photographs. Nothing like a little rape to end the perfect night out!

Of course, I am disgusted by the story itself, but to my horror, CNN has documented the trial and expressed sympathy for these two young men, whose “lives were destroyed by the verdict.” Oh, boohoo, I feel so sorry for them, that their horrific, violent actions caused them to go to a (juvenile) prison, where they will spend 1 to 2 years. They will then be labeled as sex offenders for the rest of their lives (perish the thought that such a horrific crime should follow them forever and make them sorry for doing it!).

You know you’re living in a rape culture when a major news broadcaster shows sympathy at the “tragedy” of this whole case, while never once mentioning the young rape victim, who now must live with the overwhelming trauma of the incident for the rest of her life. Who may now be triggered into mental illness, who may now face terrible stigma and pain, who will certainly now need an intense amount of therapy and support to make it through this incredibly difficult time.

You know you’re living in a rape culture when the fact that these young men were “football stars” makes it somehow more okay that they’re also rapists. You know you’re living in a rape culture when the rape is considered a tragedy to the rapists, because now they can’t carry on with their lives as before. Because they were footballers with “their whole lives ahead of them”, they’re suddenly exempt from our judgment. 

You know you’re living in a rape culture when male privilege rules, and it rules in the form of the entitlement to women’s bodies. Because she didn’t verbally refuse, it’s not rape.

We as a society have spent so long saying “no means no”, and I think that that was originally a valuable message. But it’s become twisted and vague, it’s become disempowering and it’s become a loophole for rapists and potential rapists alike. Did these kids know they were raping someone? Quite possibly not. But they should have. We should have taught them better, because there are a million other young people out there just like them. 

Let me tell you a little story, a second-hand anecdote, if you will. (Before I get into it, I just want to note that I have permission from my friend to share this story, and here is her blog, where she shares it herself.) I have a dear friend who was raped when we were teenagers in high school, by her high school boyfriend, whom she had been with for several years. They had been hanging out together one night, had an argument as they often did, and she fell asleep. She woke up to her rape. It was, as you can imagine, an experience that was so terrifying and traumatizing that it completely changed her life.

I’m sad to say that this isn’t unusual. It’s a pretty typical rape scenario, really. Well, fast-forward to this year. This same boyfriend, after my friend broke up with him, after three plus years, writes her an e-mail. Says, hey, what’s up, how’re you doing. And my friend is rightfully shocked, appalled, that this man—this man who ruined her life for a good while—has the nerve, the gall, to send her a casual e-mail message. He doesn’t apologize. He doesn’t ask for forgiveness. He doesn’t mention the rape…at all. I think my friend imagined that he would be at least remorseful, but the message made it apparent that he was not. I think the question that haunted her (and me), was, of course, why not? How can you do such a thing to another human being, how can you ruin the life of someone you professed to care so much about—even professed to love—and feel no remorse?

There are probably many reasons, of course, including deeply-rooted psychological reasons that I am not qualified to speculate on. But I will say this: I think that this rapist, and these Steubenville rapists, have a lot in common. 

I genuinely don’t think that Paul (not his real name) realized that what he did was rape. I think he understood that what he did was wrong, that he took advantage of my friend when she was asleep, and therefore vulnerable. But she was his girlfriend. She had consented before, right? There had been some times when she said yes.

This is the legacy of “no means no.” Because boys like Paul understand that no means no, but they don’t understand that the absence of “no” does not constitute a “yes.” If you have sex with someone while they are asleep, you are raping them. If you have sex with someone while they are unconscious, you are raping them. If you have sex with someone without anything but their full, enthusiastic consent? Your status as a non-rapist may be in jeopardy.

I realize that this may sound radical to some people. So I have to ask, every time? What if they say yes and mean no? And this seems radical because of the toxic rape culture in which we live, that says that consent is just too hard, and not that important anyway, because the woman was a slut, or she was drunk, or she was asking for it…you know, all the things we’ve all heard over and over again.

Let me spell it out for others out there like the Steubenville rapists, for those like Paul, who don’t really “know” what rape is: if you don’t know if the person is consenting? Do not continue. Do not persist. Do not pursue this encounter, unless you want to risk being a rapist. If you’re drunk, if she’s drunk? Don’t continue. The worst thing that can happen by not continuing is not having sex, and the worst thing that can happen by continuing is that you’re a rapist.

The best way to stamp out rape is to a) identify rape and teach people about what rape is, how rape culture works, etc, b) promote an environment where enthusiastic consent is considered the cornerstone in sexual relationships of any kind, c) identify rapists as the human beings that they are, not as monsters but as people who also walk among us “regular” folks, and d) create a world in which it is impossible for rapists to hide or to conceal their behaviour, to pass off the blame on their victims—in other words, hold rapists responsible, and protect survivors from the scrutiny of the courts, of the media, and of the people in our society who would do them further grievous injury with their astonishing and inexcusable victim-blaming words and actions.

We as a society are not responsible for the crime of rape. Rape is the individual choice of the rapist. But we are responsible for educating potential rapists (which, by the way, is probably a shocking number of us) on being an “accidental” rapist. We are responsible for supporting the rape survivors of our society. We are responsible for the messages we send about rape, and we are responsible for how we deal with victim-blaming, how we respond to it. We are responsible for our own narrative regarding rape, and right now, our narrative is thoroughly screwed up. Our narrative is one in which rape is a kind of accident, a tragedy for the rapist, like getting in a really bad car accident or being suddenly disabled, oh how his life will never be the same again, how sad about the life that he has now lost.

Because you know why my friend never prosecuted Paul? Because she didn’t want to ruin his life. There’s your evidence. Exhibit A. Didn’t want to ruin his life, his reputation. Is it my friend’s fault for thinking that at the time? No, because apparently, a lot of us, including the folks at CNN, seem to think so, too, judging by their coverage of the story. He has worked so hard and look at that! He tripped and his penis miraculously fell into that poor girl, and he had to continue! There was no other way, Your Honour. “He had his whole life ahead of him. He had plans.” Well, you know what, when you have great plans, it’s probably a good idea not to rape people. It might interfere with those plans.

One final thought: imagine if these boys had not just raped this girl, but they had also murdered her. Would CNN have covered the story differently? I’m willing to bet, oh, probably most of what I own, that they would have. They would not have been crying over what a terrible loss it was to no longer have these boys as a part of society (for a few years). They would not have been saying what a tragedy it was that their futures were ruined. How messed up is that, society? How messed up is it that until you actually kill a woman, she’s collateral damage? Rape? No big deal, she lived, didn’t she? She’ll live.

I am not suggesting that rape is on par with murder, but that—finally—you know you’re living in a rape culture when up and until a woman’s life is already gone and cannot be saved, it’s considered virtually worthless. And how when a woman is raped and lives, the damage to her is considered a small price to pay to set free the rapists of the world who don’t look and act like what we expect—the ones that look and behave like actual human beings who do other things besides raping people, who are also someone’s children, parents, siblings, friends, partners, and relatives. When a woman is raped and lives—in other words, when there is a definite opportunity for recovery, where her life might be saved—we look the other way. Her worth is only apparent when she is already gone, when her life is unsalvageable—when her crying family and friends appear on our television sets, and then finally we see her personhood, we see her humanity. And by then, it’s already far too late.

There’s the real tragedy.

The Giant Game of Jenga: A Few Blocks to Oblivion

I know it’s been ages! Here’s me getting on my soapbox again, but not for the usual reasons (I expect that will come again soon enough).

There’s a film you simply must see. My professor showed it to our class in second-year sociology, and it’s brilliant. So, if you haven’t seen it, do go and watch Sut Jhully’s Advertising and the End of the World. It’s a truly eye-opening piece, and Jhully does a wonderful job of illustrating his point.

So. If you’ve reached this point and haven’t clicked the link yet, you’ll want to, because this post probably won’t make sense if you don’t watch it. Or it will, but it’ll be enriched by the context of the film. Go watch it, already!

Today, we’re going to discuss a new topic for this blog: The Environment. Gasp! The environment? I’m expecting the global warming deniers to crawl out of the woodwork at any moment now. The environment, especially in recent years, has been the subject of a lot of misinformation, and much debate. Debate about what, exactly, I’m not certain; it seems to me that the question of whether or not saving the environment is important, seems fairly straightforward to me. (Perhaps a better question to ask is this: “Do we [human race] still want to be alive in the next 100 years, or not?”)

It seems fairly straightforward that things like money, the economy, standards of living, etc—while all important issues—pale in comparison to environmental issues, because at least to me, it seems equally obvious that none of those things matter if there’s no planet for them to exist on. Moreover, the debates over environmental issues seem to, most often, involve science vs. denial…which is a real shame. For example, when I’ve brought up the fact that at some point in the not-so-distant future, we will be out of oil, people say, “Oh, they’ve been saying that for years. It will never really happen.”

What’s so interesting about this response is that, if scientists have been saying this for years, you’d think someone might be inclined to listen to them. After all, the fact that we are depleting the planet’s resources at a rapid rate—faster than the planet could possibly restore them naturally—is a scientific fact. It is the consensus reached by environmental scientists globally. They wouldn’t be giving us these warnings without a grain of truth to any of it. So, why the denial?

Simply put: selfishness, I think. We live in a capitalist society, a society which depends solely upon production and consumption (this is covered extensively in Jhully’s video presentation). In other words, that familiar concept of supply and demand. On the surface, maybe this seems like a good idea…and it was, even, when we had, oh, a third of Earth’s current population or less. But we now have over 7 billion people on a planet that is struggling to support us. For every person in the world to live as we do in the Western world, we would need three Earths. That’s an awful lot. And here’s where the environment becomes not just about survival, but also about social justice.

Have you ever played a game called Jenga? It was popular when I was a kid, and I played it quite a lot with my best friend. Simply put, Jenga is a game in which a bunch of small blocks are stacked, alternating, to form a tower of blocks. Players take turns carefully pulling the blocks out of the tower, trying not to knock it over. Eventually, of course, this becomes impossible as more blocks are removed, and whoever manages to topple the tower loses the game. The game was a great source of fun for my friend and I, and near the end of the game, when the tower teetered precariously at the edge of the coffee table, we would be afraid to breathe in its general direction, for fear of upsetting it.

Think of the environment as a giant Jenga game. When the tower is first built, it is sturdy and strong. The tower is a sum of its parts; each block serves a purpose in the overall structure. Let’s say that you then remove a block—and we’ll call that block “fresh water.” But it’s only one block. The tower is still standing, in fact it may even still be quite sturdy. It won’t fall if you just leave it. But this is Jenga, and your partner has to take a turn. They remove a second block—this time it’s “forests”—and you’re left with a similar result: a slightly less stable tower, but overall, it’s still in fairly good condition. But then you remove a third, a fourth, a fifth block…and suddenly, the tower starts to sway a little. Just a little, but enough to make you worry a bit. Your partner scoffs at you, and you keep playing, and playing, and playing, until you’re left with what my friend and I always ended up with—a skeleton tower that looks ready to fall at a moment’s notice. We used to hold our breath, afraid to breathe wrong, lest we send the tower crashing down and be deemed the loser.

The funny thing about Jenga is that it’s such an inevitable game; the end is so inevitable, so predictable…in fact, it’s the same end, each and every time. It makes sense, of course. Common sense that if you remove the supports of a structure, one by one, it will always fall eventually. We knew this. We knew it when we began the game. We knew it well before the end finally came. Yet despite that wretched inevitability, we were certainly always surprised when the tower finally did fall. How much could we get away with? How many blocks could we afford to pull? You can try to put the blocks back, of course. But you will find that the blocks are easier to pull than they are to replace…after all, when trying to put a block back, you may upset the rest, and the whole tower comes tumbling down around you. And the object of the game is to pull the blocks, not replace them, to get away with as much as you can. And then you can claim victory when you don’t topple the tower, when someone else does, even though you are as much to blame for its demise.

Think of every ecosystem as a Jenga game, and it becomes even more complex. What I’m trying to illustrate is this: we know not what we do. We cannot predict the outcome of our actions, destructive or restorative in nature. We lack the information, we lack the intelligence, we lack the education to understand what we’re doing. And the problem is that in our system—our capitalist, consumerist society—there’s only one set of rules, only one object to the game. And that object is to take as many blocks as you can, without toppling the tower, taking just enough to keep it standing…but breathe wrong, and you’ll be in trouble, my friend. We take and consume, and we consume to our absolute detriment, to our end, because our human propensity to destroy ourselves is stronger than our desire to save ourselves, to be altruistic, to love ourselves and others. We’ve built our lives around an illusion of love, by obsessing over objects, over things. Love makes us happy. What we, as humans, want more than anything, is to love and to be loved. Love is our greatest asset. It may be our only asset. Love is what’s worth living for. We believe that our possessions make us happy, and we show it through advertising, through consumption, through corporate greed, through marketing. We are fundamentally a society that believes materialism brings true joy. Overwhelmingly, as Jhully states, it does not. Love makes us happy. Connection makes us happy.

Human loneliness and longing are forever engraved into our nature and our history. But instead of assuaging that loneliness with contact, with love, we fill it with objects. And by doing so, drift further away from the very thing that would relieve us from our loneliness, satisfy our longing: others. Products have cheapened our relationships (engagement rings), they have invaded our lives, they have invaded our most private, intimate, deep moments of connection with others—be it a partner, family, friends, whoever you want. And with this, products have also invaded our concern for ourselves and others…they have made us cynical and jaded concerning the environment. Because who cares about environmental issues, if it means we can’t have our stuff anymore?

As we run out of resources to produce our stuff, we will look to other regions of the world for “help.” Sometimes, they will give it to us. Other times, they will not be so willing, and be prepared for the idea of war, because it will end that way if things continue the way that they are. The world’s top powers will seek to control any and all remaining resources. The poor will become more downtrodden. The very real human beings of the third world will have to forfeit their lives so that we can drive Toyota and eat McDonald’s. This is the cost. This is the price we will pay, and are paying, for our stuff. This is what it costs to produce our stuff. Human life. Blood. Sweat. Tears. Pain. Suffering. War. If this is too real for you, you’re not real enough for me. We will force others to pay for our selfishness. We’ve done it before. We’ll do it again. We have a choice, and so far, we have almost always made the wrong ones.

Do not misunderstand me. This is not an individual problem. This is a collective problem, and needs to be treated as such. It is not my personal responsibility to save the environment, nor is it yours. It is our collective responsibility as a society, as a people, to find solutions. Because a handful of the population driving hybrid cars, recycling, and eating organic is not going to even make a dent. Those things may be important, but as long as we continue to rely on non-renewable, pollution-ridden substances, we will never be free, and we will never be safe. The next century may determine how our lives, and everyone after us, lives (or doesn’t live at all). This message cannot be ignored, but it is. By governments everywhere. By citizens everywhere. We will die on the hill of our stuff before we change…this is what I fear. I cannot, in good conscience, bring children into a world that doesn’t see fit to save them. (Part of why I have resolved never to have any, among many other reasons.)

Be careful. The end of growth is coming, and soon. Better to accept it now, while we may still have some time. Even to that end, we are unsure. After all, it’s hard to tell when you’re only a few blocks away from oblivion.

And Still, the People Sleep

It’s difficult to write at this moment. What do you say in the wake of a terrible tragedy, an unspeakable act of violence?

I’m speaking, of course, about the elementary school shooting that occurred in Newtown, Connecticut, last Friday.

There isn’t much I can say about the act itself. It was brutal. It was senseless. Twenty innocent children killed for no reason that can be perceived or understood. This keeps happening—these school shootings, these brutal killings.

Already, the media is hard at work, doing what it does best: scapegoating a cause.

Rumours are apparently swirling that the perpetrator had a personality disorder. This is completely unconfirmed. We have heard nothing from any mental healthcare professional who worked with this person. We have heard nothing from anyone who may have evaluated him while he was alive. This is merely what the media is reporting, and their sources are shaky, to say the least.

Let’s just get right into this, right now: media, and people who buy into this idea that it’s okay to assume mental illness whenever something goes wrong, you are hurting us. You are hurting people like me, who deal with real psychological disorders on a daily basis. You are damaging us further, and here’s why.

Essentially, what the media and the public are doing is attempting to “other” the shooter. Because we cannot bear to believe that a killer walked among us, we search frantically for reasons why someone would commit such a horrific crime. We cannot imagine ourselves doing it, because we are the “normal people” of the world. Normal people don’t do things like this, so this person must be abnormal. Ergo, he must have some kind of mental disorder that made him such a freak. When you break it down, that’s really what it comes down to: we have to make the shooter out to be a freak, because it takes away all of that terrible responsibility we may feel. It takes away any of those horrible thoughts that, just maybe, there might be something wrong with the culture or the society he lived in, too. It takes away all the terrible responsibility that comes with recognizing this not as an isolated incident, but as a clear and obvious trend, with common denominators.

This hurts me. It hurts us, us who are neurodiverse (having mental illnesses, disabilities, or other neurological “abnormalities”), because we realize that we are not exempt from that judgment. We are not exempt from being freaks, from being potentially dangerous, from being people to be feared and avoided. You’re stigmatizing us in a whole new way, and you’re part of the problem. The reality is, most people with mental illness are not dangerous to other people. If they are dangerous to anyone, it is almost always exclusively to themselves.

I have no idea if the shooter had a personality disorder. I did not know him when he was alive, and I’m no psychiatrist, so even if I had known him, I would not be fit to diagnose him with anything. But that’s what I’m getting at: neither does the media.

I don’t necessarily have a problem with anyone saying, to someone they are concerned about, “Do you feel that you need to seek professional help?” Because honestly, in some situations, that might be helpful. In others, it may not—it’s very much about the person, your relationship to the person, and the situation you’re currently in. What I do have a problem with is people acting as armchair psychologists. You have to get a degree for that for a reason. And no, reading on the internet doesn’t count as a psychology degree, people.

Here’s the reality: this person is dead. He will never be able to answer any of our questions, no matter how urgent or pressing they are. He will also never be able to be evaluated by a professional. Unless his psychiatrist comes forward and reveals a diagnosis (unlikely, doctor-patient confidentiality and all that good stuff), we will realistically never know whether or not he suffered from a mental illness. We have no information, and the truth is that we will probably never receive any. Sure, psychiatrists can now predict what he may have been dealing with, but unless they worked with him personally, they are making nothing more than an educated guess—an untested (and unfalsifiable) hypothesis. Contrary to popular belief, doctors don’t know everything, and it is flat-out impossible to diagnose someone you have never even spoken to with precision and accuracy. That’s why you have to, you know, actually talk to the doctor when you go into their office. Because they don’t know you, and despite how many patients they’ve treated in the past, every case is unique in some way because each person is unique in some way. Nobody’s brain is the same, nobody’s mental illness is the same, and that’s why individual treatment is important.

Forgive me if I get a bit resentful of the “normies” who try to diagnose people, when they have never experienced any mental illness themselves. I touched on this a little bit in my last post, but it’s even more relevant here. You do not know what you’re talking about, so please, for the love of all that is good and worth doing, stop talking about it.

Here’s the bottom line: the media’s characterization of us as freaks is unhelpful at best, and incredibly toxic at worst. They’re othering us. They’re saying, you’re not like regular people. But of course, the truth is very much the opposite. Chances are, you already know somebody who suffers from a psychological disorder, or has at some point during their lives. Most of the time, the “normies” never even suspect us of being anything other than just like them, but then suddenly, when it’s revealed that we’re not, we were freaks all along and they just knew it and oh, how could we have allowed this to go unnoticed. Let’s face it: killers walk among us, they’re totally indistinguishable from regular folks, and they are generally inconspicuous. Let’s stop trying to make excuses for the fact that we aren’t dealing with the real issues here (gun control, gun violence, gun culture, lack of access and funding for mental healthcare, our own apathy, etc).

We also have to accept the idea that this person may not have been suffering from any psychological disorder. What if he was just a “normie”? What if he was just as neurotypical as they come? How probable that is, we can never be sure. But it is quite possible. Perhaps he was simply a person who was filled with hatred, with rage, with a total apathy toward others, with a grudge, who knows really. But the dark side of human nature is ever-present. Humanity has long been responsible for things we are not proud of. We have tendencies we aren’t proud of and don’t like to discuss.

Look, I can’t say for sure, but I expect that this shooter seemed like a completely “normal” person to almost everyone he came across. He probably did things that regular folks do: he probably read books, watched TV, played video games, hung out with people sometimes, went out and bought groceries, ate french fries, ordered pizza, etc. Hell, all of those are things that I do, and by definition, I’m not neurotypical. But you would never guess if I didn’t tell you. Most people I knew did not guess, and the people who currently don’t know still don’t know. The invisibility of a disorder can be both a blessing and a curse (mostly a curse, because if people accepted us, not having to tell them wouldn’t be a blessing in the first place).

All I’m asking is, please accept me as a real person with independent thoughts and feelings and opinions. I can’t speak for this person. I don’t know why he killed those children, teachers, and even his own mother. I will never pretend to know or understand that. Don’t lump me in with a dangerous person just because you think we might both fit under a label of “mentally ill” (a label that is ridiculously diverse, as well). We are not circus freaks, nor are we a science experiment. You don’t get to tell us how to deal, and you also don’t get to tell us that we are immoral, that we have a spiritual darkness.

The only darkness I see is the darkness of ignorance, bigotry, and marginalization. And it keeps happening. And still, the people sleep.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy

This is a post about anger and it’s a post about invalidation, but mostly, it’s about mental illness. Let’s just get that out of the way, folks. Let’s talk about the huge elephant that mysteriously walks in whenever this topic is broached in real-life conversation. Mental illness?! What does that mean?!

In short, it means a huge variety of ailments and symptoms and diseases that I could not adequately make a list (there is one, it’s called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, commonly referred to as the DSM, and is used by psychiatrists). There are a million and one different mental disorders a person might have. Having said that, the most common (often referred to as the “common colds” of mental illness) are anxiety disorders and mood disorders. And within those two, you’ll find hugely different things as well. Bipolar disorder and major depressive disorder are both mood disorders, but they are radically different illnesses. Panic disorder and social anxiety disorder are both anxiety disorders, but they are also radically different in many key ways.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because most people don’t know what mental illness actually means, what it is, how it functions, and most importantly, how to deal with it. They also don’t realize how common it is. Depression and anxiety are two ridiculously common categories of mental disorders. I have known many people, spoken to many people, who deal with these problems on a daily basis. Neurotypical people (people without mental illnesses, disabilities, etc) do not understand the experiences of those with mental illness, and yet, they still feel that they can tell us how to handle them. If you have a mental disorder like me, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Everybody who has ever been diagnosed with a disorder and has had to tell a family member, a friend, or more especially an employer, knows exactly what I’m talking about.

Not even psychologists and psychiatrists pretend to know how we should deal with our mental illness—and they know far more than the average person does about it. They know much more about the brain chemistry and the misfiring of neurons and the chemical imbalances that actually cause mental illnesses. They’ve known tons of people who deal with depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, and many other disorders on a daily basis. They have plenty of experience in helping people cope. And yet, not even professionals—on the whole, anyway–feel that there is one quick fix or one easy solution to dealing with a mental health problem. So why does the average neurotypical person feel the need to explain away our problems and tell us what’s good for us?

This happened the other day, thankfully not to me, but to someone I know. This person had to tell their boss that they were suffering from an anxiety disorder and needed some time off work. The time off was begrudgingly granted, I am told, and when this person arrived back at work, their boss noticed they were taking anti-anxiety medication because they had to bring the pills to the workplace. Their boss said, “You know what I told you before! You don’t need pills—just be happy.”

Something I have run into, overwhelmingly, is the desire to explain away mental illness as if it’s this problem that has an obvious solution you just haven’t thought of. This time it didn’t happen to me, but it has before—many, many times, and it’s been done to me by people close to me. By my parents, by my family members, by my partner, by friends,  even by counselors. I’ve even heard that phrase before: “just be happy.” A word to the wise: if I knew how to just get happy, I would have done it years ago. Nobody enjoys being ill. Nobody enjoys their disordered thought patterns. Nobody enjoys the feeling of spiraling uncontrollably.  Nobody enjoys relapsing. Nobody. I have a mood disorder. What would I give not to have it? Pretty much everything. It sucks. It’s a waste of time and energy and it is an incredible source of pain and grief and inconvenience. There is nothing I can do about that. That’s just how the illness works. I can do things that help curb my disorder, or help prevent episodes from occurring, but there is nothing I can do to change the nature of it. It is what it is, people, and it is exhausting.

What you don’t realize is that the moment you tell a person with a disorder that they should just get happy, that they should just forget how they feel, you are invalidating them and undermining their illness. You are turning away a person who is sick and who is suffering. And, let me be frank: if you are the sort person who, when approached by someone who asks you for help with their suffering, turns them away and dismisses them—you, my friend, are an asshole of the highest order and I have no time or patience for you. But if you are someone who wants to help but just doesn’t know how? That can be fixed, actually pretty easily. There are only three things you have to do, and they are incredibly simple and not at all labour intensive.

Number one: you have to stop thinking that you know everything. You have to stop trying to fix it and giving useless advice. Shut up and LISTEN to what the person is saying. Listen to how they feel and how they’re coping and just, whatever they feel like telling you. Don’t press them for more information if they do not want to give it, because you are not entitled to know. You are also not entitled to tell a person with a disorder how to deal with their disorder. You have no idea what living with that illness is like, and you don’t have to pretend to understand. You just have to shut up and listen, stop trying to interject your opinion or your advice, and have an ounce of compassion. And just because you don’t understand the disorder, doesn’t mean you cannot be sympathetic to what this person is going through. A little bit of compassion goes a long way towards validating that person and making them feel supported, which (coincidentally!) has a lot to do with how well they will recover. Support systems are extremely important for those dealing with mental disorders. Do not underestimate how far a few minutes of compassion can go.

Number two: ask them what they actually need or want. Don’t assume that you know. Don’t think that they should want this or that. They often will NOT want your advice, because generally—again, unless you have personal experience or you are a doctor—you have no valuable advice to give that they haven’t heard before. Don’t assume that your advice is helpful or useful in any way. If they ask you for your opinion, give it. If they ask you for your advice, that’s your opportunity. Otherwise, shut up. Again, shut up. If you don’t know what this person needs (and in most cases, you won’t), then ASK THEM. If they tell you they don’t need anything right now and just need some alone time, respect that. People with disorders do not need to be monitored and checked on like children. If they are a danger to themselves, and you have a strong reason to believe this, that’s another issue. But on a day-to-day basis, they are not dangerous to themselves or others. Treat them like you did before, because they are the SAME PERSON. It’s the same as if you found out they had cancer. You have no idea what it’s like to have cancer, or how it works, or what kind of emotional toll it will have on them. Ergo, you have zero valuable input in that situation. But cancer has not altered their personality in any way. Same with a mental disorder–they are fundamentally the same person you have known all along, and a diagnosis on a piece of paper or a bottle of pills does not change this. Treat them as normally as possible while being sensitive to their needs, because many people with mental illnesses are very used to being treated like freaks or oddities after they come out to people.

Number three: Stop judging. Nobody needs your bullshit judgments of how this disorder is just an excuse for “bad behaviour” and getting a “free ride.” No. Stop. Mental illness is real. It is documented, there is tons of evidence for its existence, and it is not this person’s job to educate you, explain themselves to you, or justify their needs to you. Nor is it their fault if you are too lazy or too judgmental to do the research. Mental illness is not a sign of personal weakness, and it can be very serious, even life-threatening in some cases. Your judgment worsens this and increases the potential for suicide. And your judgments of suicide and people who commit suicide are also extremely unwelcome. The fact that you think it matters so much speaks to your sense of entitlement and your high-horse sense of morality. We don’t need your moralizing and we don’t need your frankly stupid assessment of our situations.  What you think of this person’s disorder is supremely unimportant, I can’t emphasize to you just how much nobody gives a crap about what you think in this situation—especially if you don’t know the person all that well, especially if you’re someone who is very much on the sidelines, like an employer or a co-worker. If you don’t KNOW the person, your opinion is even less welcome and even less warranted. When someone tells you that your advice is bad, shut up. When someone tells you that what you’re saying is counter-productive, shut up. When someone tells you that you are invalidating them, shut up. Just. Shut. Up. Close your mouth and stop talking. Come back to the situation when you have cooled off and ASK THEM WHAT THEY NEED. Stop judging. Right now. Or you will get nowhere quickly and this person has every reason to never speak to you again. (Maybe I should break this list down to just “shut up.”)

Number three and a half: Stop giving your opinion on psychiatric medications, because chances are, you are clueless as to how they work and what they do. Common misconceptions are that they “turn you into a zombie,” or “make you numb” or “make you happy.” They don’t do any of those things, for your information, and your guilt-tripping over their medications is NOT helpful. This includes telling them that their medications won’t “solve everything” (do these people actually even exist? I’ve never heard of ANYONE who really thought this), as if that weren’t obvious enough, and it also includes your moral or religious or spiritual objections to medications. It is none of your business, and even if it was, who cares about you and what you think in this situation? This is not YOU. YOU are not dealing with anything. YOU don’t have to take them. And, let’s parse this for a moment: if you had some kind of illness that caused you extreme pain, and the doctor told you that this medicine could help you but there might be risks associated with it and it might not work, would you take it? PROBABLY. So stop. Stop it with this ridiculous sense of entitlement that people should care about what you think.

People often comment on my passion on a lot of things. Sometimes, they comment on my anger. Anger is something that persons of every marginalized group deal with. People with mental illnesses are no exception. We are a marginalized group, mostly because society just doesn’t care enough to “get” us and listen to us. People recycle their old judgments and assumptions, over and over. And so, yeah, I’m angry. I’m pissed off. I’m angry that people continually invalidate me and people like me, just because they can. I’m angry that people feel entitled to tell me what they think about my illness and how it relates to my life choices. I’m angry that people see me as an illness, and I’m angry that people think my illness is a sign of my own personal weakness. I’m angry because I can tell you the very opposite: my illness and the fact that I am still here is a huge testament to my strength. I have dealt with something that many people never do. I have dealt with a crippling mood disorder and I am still here, despite the fact that I have been suicidal on many, many occasions. Despite the fact that I have suffered so much. Despite the fact that medications failed me. Despite the fact that for most of my life, I have had long periods of intense pain and sadness and powerlessness.

My anger was invalidated for most of my life. I was often made to feel guilty because I was angry. And, as a child and as a teenager, I was angry about a lot of things. I was angry because I was ill, and people kept telling me that it was just a phase, or even worse, trying to punish me into being “normal.” I was angry because I didn’t know why I was suffering so much, seemingly for no reason. I was angry because of the various injustices in my life, but most of all, I was angry because I wasn’t allowed to be angry. People in my life were so quick to dismiss and explain away my anger, explain to my why I shouldn’t be angry.

As a result, I saw anger as a weakness. But anger—while it can be toxic—can also be an incredibly useful emotion. Anger is normal. Anger is healthy. Anger is a natural response to the unfairness and injustice that is dealt to us. Anger is a response to being hurt. And righteous anger, justified anger, is an incredibly useful tool. When you take away that person’s right to be angry, when you invalidate their anger, you are taking away their power and making them feel incredibly powerless and hopeless. That is what was done to me, and that is how I felt: extremely powerless. And when you have a mental illness and you feel distressed and lost and alone and hopeless, powerlessness adds another layer to your intense pain. I know it did for me. The pain that I felt because I felt that I could not be angry was immense, and that pain only intensified with the years that I had to keep it inside of me.

I’m telling you this because invalidation is quite possibly the worst thing you can do to someone dealing with a mental illness. One of the other terrible things you can do is invalidate their anger at the world and at the society they live in. We tend to characterize people who are angry with the world as bitter people. But this is not always the case. I am angry with the society that invalidates me and tells me to “just be happy.” I’m saying to you that my anger is 100% justified, and you will not take my power away from me. And the anger of all people with mental illness is 100% justified. Don’t invalidate that anger by saying things like, “well, not everybody thinks that,” “well, some people care,” or “well, you just have to ignore them.” This is a problem that cannot be ignored.

Put it this way: how would you feel if I told you that everything you’ve ever gone through was trivial and stupid, and you should just get over the fact that your mom died? You’d be angry, and rightfully so! I’d be a total jerk and you would be absolutely justified in telling me so. So why is it so hard to see the parallel there? Why is it so hard to extend this validation? When you deny people their anger, you deny them their power and with that, you deny them their personhood.

Finally, I’m going to direct this at you, neurotypical person who may be reading this. You have no idea of what my illness is like, and therefore you have absolutely no way of knowing how to deal with it or how to treat it. You have no knowledge of how to help me, and you certainly don’t have the expertise to comment on whether I should be taking medications for my disorder or not. You do not have the right to tell me I’m dealing with my illness–which again, you do NOT have–in the wrong way. There is no right way to deal with a mental illness. What will work for one person will not work for somebody else. Mental illness is unique in every single case, and every person deals with it in their own way. Back off.

To the persons with mental illness who may be reading this: there is zero shame in asking for help. Your anger at those who invalidate you is justified; own it and use it. Use whatever tools you have at your disposal. Not all coping mechanisms are healthy, but if it’s a matter of life and death, USE THEM. Get a doctor who understands you. Get a therapist who understands you and who you feel comfortable with. Be an advocate for your own health. This is your future, not theirs. This is your life, not theirs. Don’t listen those who would take your power away. You are powerful, and you are not crazy. The thing most against us is ignorance, both willful and unintentional.  Don’t waste your time on people who pretend you are some kind of alien species. Don’t waste your time on people who won’t help you. Take heart.

Take comfort in those who understand you, and even if no one does, take comfort that there are people like you—people like me—everywhere. We are here. We are you, and we are me, and we are others like us. The more desperate people are to silence us, the more evidence is that we are at the edge of an age where maybe, just maybe, there is hope for us.

Hope: something we haven’t had for a very, very long time.

No Cookies For You: Why We Still Don’t Live in a Post-Labels World

A moral panic occurs when people feel that society is declining in its values and morality, due to one or more current issues. Unsurprisingly, moral panic most commonly occurs when something or someone challenges the current status quo and proposes (gasp!) change to it, or at least suggests that something else could also (gasp!) be acceptable. This is particularly true of one of the most prominent social issues we are currently facing: marriage equality.

Change is complicated. Change is scary. Change is also necessary (new Dr. Seuss rhyme, right there). As we are imperfect individuals, we have an imperfect society. This is well-documented by the amount of injustice, inequality and discrimination that has existed throughout history, and continues to exist today. Only those part of the status quo can really ignore this. So let us begin at the beginning, shall we? When discussing the matter of sexual orientation, it is only prudent to discuss what a heteronormative society we live in. We are taught from childhood — through everything we are ever told, everything we are ever shown — that it is a man and a woman who belong together, that that is how it should be, that is how it must be, because how could it be anything else? How could it be anything else, especially when we are offered no alternatives?

Think about it. Every TV show, every film you ever saw as a child, if there was a romance involved, it was very strictly heterosexual in nature. Man/woman, girl/boy, even if the romance occurred between animals or inanimate objects (we’re thinking kids’ movies right now, remember). No exception. You had it drilled into you that what Mommy and Daddy had was normal, and not just normal, but the only normal. There couldn’t be more than one normal. That was it.

Now, in the last few decades — but more especially in the last one — LGBT awareness and rights have accelerated at a quicker pace than ever before. Suddenly, it has been brought to our attention that some people don’t have Mommy and Daddy. Some people have Mommy and Mommy, or Daddy and Daddy, or something else entirely. People always claim that media — that television, video games, books, films — that they influence us to do terrible things. On the contrary, media influences us in ways that ridiculous “watch dog” groups never imagined. They condition us to what’s normal, what’s expected, and what to expect from other people. Art is an imitation of life, not the other way around. And no matter how strange, how weird, how twisted our art becomes, eternally it finds its only source within us. For values to exist in art, we have to hold them first. If we had never valued heterosexuality, it would never have appeared so often, so ad-nauseam, in our work.

And so this brings me to the moral panic that occurs when marriage equality is discussed. There are a million variants of this, manifesting themselves as real and true arguments as to why marriage equality is at best a rather silly request, and at worst, an extremely dangerous one. It all started on this rather excellent blog post by Greta Christina, discussing the oh-so-charming Mitt Romney’s comments on the death of Sally Ride, the first American woman in space.

To quickly summarize Greta’s already succinct post, Romney commented on how great Sally Ride was and what a great life she lived. Wow, that’s so nice of him. Except that Ride was part of the queer community, having been with her female partner for 27 years. This is the same group of people that Romney is trying to defend America from! By…uh, denying them rights and stuff. Yeah.

Yes, Mitt Romney and his gang of Eww, Something Not-Straight, have long opposed equal marriage and want to actually embed material into the United States Constitution that expressly prevents same-sex couples from marrying or having any kind of, you know, actual rights or visibility. Generally I just ignore Republican clowns like Romney, but when they start to gain real ground like he has — being the running candidate against President Obama — I get very worried. I get worried because I really start to wonder if the day will never come that we can embrace each other and not only be okay with our differences, but truly take them on as normal, as acceptable. I long for the day that there is, truly, more than one normal in the world. People like Mitt Romney do not threaten that dream when they are people on the street; however, they do set it back several decades when they end up in office.

The really interesting thing about this is the comments on this blog post. One person in particular, calling him or herself Bookworm, thought it necessary to remark that it should be Sally Ride’s life we are appreciating, not her orientation — Romney, and by extension those who are like-minded, can still, y’know, appreciate Ride’s contributions, even if they also will prevent her partner from getting federal benefits after Ride’s death because they don’t legally consider her to be next-of-kin. Even if they never would have accepted Ride’s contributions had they known she was not straight prior to her being accepted into the NASA program. Even if they would have actively discouraged non-straight people from joining up, solely on the premise of them not being straight. Yeah. They’re totally supportive, you know? It’s just us, us left-wing people, we’re appreciating her solely because she was a lesbian (not something that she ever claimed to be, by the way), not because she was a great astronaut and scientist and made valuable contributions to science and society. We just like her because she’s gay, right? It shouldn’t matter that she wasn’t straight, it’s who she was and what she did with her life!

It’s always absolutely incredible to me how these people can automatically, hypocritically, self-servingly rush from, “we don’t want to give queer people rights because they are queer!” to “it shouldn’t matter if you are queer!” When they learn that someone well-respected or well-known was queer, suddenly they are so quick to say that labels don’t really matter, it’s our actions or our contributions, and why are we so focused on the fact that so-and-so is gay or bi or trans. It doesn’t really matter!

Hmm, yeah, except that if that were really true — if labels really didn’t matter — then same-sex couples would not be denied social benefits because they are not considered married or common-law, they would be able to be at their partner’s bedside at the hospital, they would be considered next-of-kin. But they are not. If we were really in a post-labels world, we would not still judge people based on the fact that they are queer. Do they not see the hypocrisy in this argument? If Sally Ride had not been Sally Ride, The Amazing Astronaut — if she had been perhaps a mechanic, a doctor, a teacher or a coal miner, and not the first American woman in space, not a well-known scientist — suddenly, the labels would matter. Oh, they would matter very much indeed.

A teacher of mine once said, “People always say to stop shoving in their faces that you are gay. Well, to them I say that I wish people would stop shoving the fact that they are straight in my face.” And it is true. Heterosexuals can hardly complain about homosexuality or other “queerness” in their faces when you look at the sheer amount of heteronormativity that exists. When you say that you wish LGBT individuals would stop “shoving it in your face,” you are essentially saying, “I don’t want to pay attention to the fact that LGBT exists because I am straight and this is unfamiliar and therefore abhorrent. So please, stop making me aware of this issue that makes me uncomfortable.”

Have you found yourself saying that and meaning it? Do you still mean it? If so, you are the sort of person I could never see eye to eye with. When you talk about “the gays”, “the lesbians”, “the bis”, “the transgenders” (SUPER offensive way to word it, FYI!), you’re talking about people. And that’s something you’ve lost sight of. Our identities are little more than the sum of our parts, which makes our parts important. Take away one part and we are no longer who we are. By the same measure, you have to see that the parts make up a whole, and that whole is a PERSON. I know people say “hate the idea, not the person!” but that’s crap, in cases like this. If you are homophobic, if you are transphobic, if you are opposed to giving people the rights they deserve by virtue of just being fellow human beings, we cannot be friends. Full stop.

Let’s be honest here. I know you love labels. You know you love labels. They’re so convenient! You want to be given a cookie for being so generous as to say, “I’m just going to appreciate your ACCOMPLISHMENTS, Sally Ride, not the fact that you were queer! I’m the bigger person here!” You want a big old pat on the back for pretending to live in a label-free (colourblind, gender-blind, blah blah blah) world, even though you should just do it because it’s right, you should just do it because you’re a decent person and it should just be the default “good person” position?

Sorry. No cookies for you. Not today and not ever.

Freedom of Speech Isn’t Good Enough

Freedom of speech. I can say whatever I want because it’s a free country and I have freedom of speech. I can say anything. We have differing opinions, but because I don’t know how to properly express myself and eloquently state my argument, I’m going to say that you’re ugly and that I hope you die and I hope that I’m the one who kills you. I hope you die. I know it’s not very nice, but I’m just saying what I think. Free speech and all.

This is one of the most common justifications for harassment these days. I have the right to say whatever I want. I’ll say whatever I want. FREE SPEECH, PEOPLE!

To all who use this as an out for their bad behaviour, let me ask you this: are you really that childish? Are you really so small and so immature that you think you don’t have to take responsibility for what you do — and not just some of what you do, but all of it?  Are you really so obtuse that you don’t understand the difference between stating a difference of opinion and harassment? Or, failing that, do you truly think that you are so utterly important that you feel that anything you can say should be said?

Well, you know what? Freedom of speech isn’t good enough.

I grow weary of this childish sense of entitlement. We are not entitled to say whatever we wish without consequences. That is not freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is not for the weak-minded. It is not for those who think that they are so important that they should be entitled to say anything without any repercussions. Freedom of speech is a right, but it is also — and pay close attention here — a responsibility. You cannot have power without responsibility. Free speech is power. The responsibility comes with being accountable for what you say.

If you cannot be accountable for what you say, you should not say it. Period. If you cannot handle being told that your words are deplorable and cause real damage to others, you cannot handle the responsibility of free speech. If you cannot handle being told that you are harassing someone with your words after you have flung insults, uttered threats, and psychologically beaten a person to a pulp — then words are not for you.

Oh, I am not debating that you have the right to say that you hate someone, or hate someone’s work. You have the right to say anything, and that also gives you (unfortunately) the freedom to harass someone. Yes, you have the freedom (that is, more accurately, the choice) to harass someone.

But don’t expect your excuses to be acceptable to decent people. Don’t expect them to understand your cry of, “free speech!” Don’t expect them to excuse you, just because you exercised your right. You also made a choice when exercising that right. Having the freedom to do something does not mean you ought to do it. That is something a child is learning. And if you think that because of free speech, you are entitled to harass someone — you are a child. And you deserve to be treated like one; you are a child who has misbehaved and does not really understand the responsibility you have when you open your mouth, and therefore, you cannot be trusted to use your words wisely. Do not expect people to take you seriously when your only argument and defence is that you have the right to say whatever you wish.

Expect people to call your actions cruel and insensitive. Expect people to tell you that what you have said is inexcusable. Expect there to be consequences for what you say — and in some cases of threats and harassment, that may mean legal consequences too, and so it should. Do not expect the world to feel sorry for you because you have been martyred in the name of free speech. The truth is, you are probably a privileged person living in a privileged part of the world, and you take every bit of your freedom for granted. The truth is, you have little idea of what it’s actually like to live in a place without free speech, and so you protest with your argument of free speech, not realizing or understanding that it is because of freedom of speech that you are even able to utter your ridiculous rationalization in the first place.

Freedom of speech isn’t good enough. You can say whatever you want, sure, but it’s not a guarantee that anything you say will be worth anything at all. If what you say is worthless, then your freedom of speech means little. There is no value in saying something completely worthless. There is no value in words which personally harm others on a deep level. There is no value in a total lack of compassion. There is only cruelty.

In your private thoughts, you are certainly entitled to any opinion of anything you wish. However, here in the outside world with other people, you are not entitled to your opinion. You must earn one. You must make a case for it. You must have a reason for any opinion. You cannot just say, “that’s just what I think!” and expect to get credit for your lazy, incompetent, sloppy thinking. Free speech isn’t good enough. You have to make your speech worth something. And if your speech is just vitriol, it’s worthless.

Freedom of speech isn’t good enough. It never has been.