I keep meaning (and wanting) to get back to more usual subjects – violence against women, persecution of “blasphemers,” bishops telling everyone what to do – but more shrapnel keeps coming in, so I keep reporting on it.
I could do the other thing. I could ignore it. I could skirt around it, leaving names out.
But I don’t think that’s the way to deal with bullying. There’s been a lot of discussion of this lately, with regard to the bullying of gays, atheists, women – lots of Others – and there’s a pretty strong consensus that advice to “ignore it” just lets it go on. It’s not Buddhist or Tolstoyan or pacifist, it’s lazy and callous and status quo-protecting.
So fuck that. I’m being subjected to systematic bullying, as are other women who are talking about this, and no I’m not going to smile politely and ignore it.
So I’m sorry about the interruption and the monotony, but there it is. There’s a grotesque awkward situation here and it’s not my job to try to smoothe away the awkwardness by pretending it isn’t happening.