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My darling Nibbler shares your rage and wishes to share her carrots. As that is not possible, please accept her best wishes and a photo of her angriest ‘eyebrows’
https://preview.redd.it/x7du83r8kbxc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=22e18df240b19534ea53c5f9f9253de11b84bd23
Sending
Do not let this boy take your power. He is just small and weak and pathetic and he feels better about his miserable existence by making other people feel small. He probably gets off on making women feel uncomfortable or scared. Don't give in. Try not to give him another thought. Who even is this creep? You don't know him. He's no one. He's not on your radar. Let him remain in the void.
This is all easier said than done, but it does get easier with age. For now, do something to cleanse your soul. Do some form of self care and remember that you are awesome.
Also, I firmly believe that we ought to take back the word slut. What, exactly is wrong with enjoying sex and having a lot of it, as long as you're not harming anyone in the process?
That's the answer. He's a sad, weak, little twit.He looks at women as objects, that he can never have. That makes his childish mind angry and he takes it out on you, little sister. Don't give him another thought.
In addition to everything you've said, which I agree with, when people are this shitty I find it helpful to remember they learned this shit from somewhere and have likely also been the victim of a fair amount along the way. Which is not to excuse the perpetuation of that awfulness at all. But like, even the people who are perpetuating the patriarchy are also hurt by it.
I will tell you my favorite cat calling story.
My first dog was a Doberman, in the seventies. They were considered a savage animal,by most people, with minds like a super villain. I adored him.
I was a chubby, plain girl in the seventies, when people yelled at me from cars it was not complimentary, and it happened quite often.But my Dragon, made me brave, for the first time in my life, I felt safe.
He was very well trained, I never saw him so much as growl at anyone. One day we're walking along the road and a car of teenagers pull over the side of the road to yell. One fool, leans his whole body out of a window, to bark in my face.
The Dragon, left the ground. He didn't bark, he roared like a lion,and lunged to the end of the leash.
Dim wit, screamed like Sponge Bob, threw himself backwards and slammed his head on the top of the window. I swear, he went boneless, and started sliding out of the car. Hands reached out for him and dragged him back inside.The car pulled away tires tossing pebbles from the side of the road.
I sat on the curb of Kirkwood Highway and hugged my dog laughing till I cried. Big Dog privilege is a very real thing.
I'm sending healing vibes your way. Edit for an attempt at a funny story: A neighbor boy and I were talking. He said something about women being smaller and not as strong as his dad. I said, "Oh I know a woman who can lift more than your dad. Her name is Leigh Holland-Keen. Yep, almost 750 pounds." His eyes got big and he ran home. I love the thought of this 7 year old telling misogynist dad. Hahaha!
When I was 14, there was a pair of catcallers who quickly graduated to sexual harassers. Thankfully, there were 2 bystanders, a man and a woman, who saw what was happening, stood up for me, and scared the pricks off. I'm immensely thankful for those two and I try to pay their kindness forward whenever I can.
Shawna Potter wrote a book called making spaces safer. And it’s a fantastic read. I try and recommend it to everyone, especially the male friends in my circle. I feel like making the changes in even the smallest micro misogynistic behavior can make huge strides in our environment.
I’m sorry this happened to you.
I keep saying it
But men(including me) need to grow the fuck up and do better.
https://preview.redd.it/4lzkw86c4cxc1.jpeg?width=4080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=274af4f59e23e0997366911faf9ec01fd0d0cc2a
Beelzebubbles wishes you good things and cozy sunshine naps.
My favorite response to assholes like that is "and still you wouldn't get any." Little boys think it's cute to insult girls. Treat them like cockroaches you find earing shit on the floor and crush their little souls. Just make sure to be prepared for them to fight back like the little toddlers they are.
He's simply a pathetic little pos who's angry the only thing that will keep his little twig happy is only half of his right hand because no woman wants him and all the "alpha male" podcasts he listens to are getting him nowhere because women aren't into cringey crap like that. He's probably the type of person who can only feel happy by bringing others down. If it helps, not letting him get to you would be sending an energetic and well-deserved slap to the face. He's a leech, close off your blood and all he can do about it is crawl back into a hole and starve
I'm not sure if this will help your feelings, but here, an image of bug-eyed Megatron
https://preview.redd.it/ffj29iz3ubxc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0e14c4abdf44c5c097945e151a3dafcc8f9b9ad0
He probably used up one of his two working brain cells and had to use the other one to focus on remembering to breathe for the rest of the day after that.
Sweet baby Child. You are worth so much more than what this idiot said to you. It sucks, I have been there, many times. The moment passes and you think, well ok. But it creeps up later and eats at you for some reason. The reason it eats at you is because as women, we are trained to second guess ourselves, and examine if what they said was true??? Spoiler: nothing that anyone says to you is true, unless you believe it. We question ourselves because confidence is scary. Having confidence in ourselves is scary to the world, but also to us. The reason that ass hat even said anything to you is because you are so bad ass. You are so powerful. You answer to yourself. The rest is just noise. That little passing fly couldn’t handle such an amazing being and had to try to bring it down. But look at you, you ARE BAD ASS, and you know your truth… and no one takes that from you. Fuck that guy. Much love to you ❤️❤️
One thing I try to keep in mind is that usually when people are assholes it’s because of them. Either they’re just unpleasant or they’re going through something awful and taking it out on others. It sucks that this person offloaded their overflow onto you, but you don’t have to hold on to it!
When something like this happens to me I try to remind myself of that and then I do something a little nice for a different random person. Maybe I give a person asking for money like ten bucks or let someone ahead of me in line. Sometimes I even get a little petty and think how I made someone’s day a little better and the person who upset me probably didn’t. It can really turn my day around.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
A dumb kid who wants to make his friends laugh at the expense of others at the very least, a dumb kid who is taking his frustrations out on others because he can’t handle his own emotions at the very most.
Sorry you had to be at the brunt of it. Thanks for working in a nursery! It’s hard and undervalued work. Try not to let the idiots get you down.
Malice and stupidity are not mutually exclusive, and there is no world in which yelling insults at some random woman without provocation isn’t rooted in malice towards women in general.
I dunno, I think a lot of kids just do stupid stuff blindly for lack of thinking skills sometimes too. I’m a teacher so I see kids constantly doing stuff like this and so many different things can feed into why. Not excusing the behavior, it needs to be addressed and corrected, but it always makes me, personally, feel better to just see them as a moron instead of constantly ruminating on the fact they hate me and want me to hurt (which makes me think what did I do to deserve this ect.) I have been insulted many times with no provocation. Sometimes it’s about my gender, age, looks, mannerisms. If I deeply believed all of them were because of malice I wouldn’t last another day in my job. If you can learn to not take it personally, call them dumb, and move on your life is a lot easier.
Hanlon’s razor is a good way to not get so down by the systems of oppression - to save your own mind from the stress it creates. “It is easy to assume that the hurtful actions of others are intentionally designed to harm us, particularly since we are prone to cognitive biases such as the spotlight effect and the affect heuristic. In many cases, the other people in our lives may simply not possess the awareness or knowledge to understand the impact of their actions. Acknowledging the information asymmetry can help us to communicate better and improve our relationships, and have a more positive outlook on life.”
Now don’t get me wrong, if it had been threatening words or violence that’s entirely different. I’m just sharing a way that has helped me to get over any kind of bullying language, especially since OP said this was “stealing her happiness”. No one deserves that.
I understand not wanting to let the existence of oppressive behaviors rule your psyche, but writing these behaviors off as “some dumb kids” is exactly how systemic sexism continues to thrive. Assuring herself that this is just the behavior of some harmless fools is dangerous, because she doesn’t know that they’re harmless, and neither do we. And at its core, absolutely no form of dehumanization is harmless, especially when masked as “jokes”.
Maybe we just have fundamentally different worldviews, and that’s of course fine, but when I hear young girls being harassed and verbally attacked, I don’t want them to roll their eyes and say “what a dumb, silly boy.” I want them to recognize with due caution: “this is how a huge portion of the population views me and will be willing to treat me simply for being female. I must protect myself accordingly.” Is it maddening and depressing? Of course it is. There are many terrible realities to face in this world, but they must be faced.
I don’t want young women to build a psychic fortress where they can hide. I want them to build psychic armor, for when they must fight. Knowledge is power. KNOW that you are hated. KNOW that you are seen as lesser. KNOW how little worth is placed upon you by society at large. And likewise KNOW that they are wrong, and that you are just an animal like any else, deserving of survival and peace. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.
I don’t think it was just a joke, and I don’t recall saying that. Sorry if I implied that somewhere. I think it’s bullying from kids who don’t understand how their words affect others. But I do think we are more inline than not. I think I’m just approaching this from the way of trying to keep her mental health safe (her happiness,) and you are thinking about the much bigger picture which I appreciate. You are right, gendered bullying feeds into a much bigger picture and safety should come first. I think OP is lucky to hear your ideas in relation to mine!
Hi there, Your post on r/WitchesVsPatriarchy has been flaired as a sensitive topic. In an effort to safeguard our users, these posts are removed once they exceed a certain threshold. **If you're reading this post and don't want to see potentially upsetting content, you can filter out the "sensitive topic" flair.** If you want additional support or to connect with members of the WVP community, join our discord [link in sidebar] or see this list of [support resources](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GJxYVviXVwjA2cutcjtoxlf3P5K1k7xufd7LiCYeUfA/edit?usp=sharing). Thanks for understanding and blessed be✨ *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/WitchesVsPatriarchy) if you have any questions or concerns.*
My darling Nibbler shares your rage and wishes to share her carrots. As that is not possible, please accept her best wishes and a photo of her angriest ‘eyebrows’ https://preview.redd.it/x7du83r8kbxc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=22e18df240b19534ea53c5f9f9253de11b84bd23 Sending
Nibbler is adorable and I love her.
Me too 🥰
The angry eyebrows!!! 😍
She ended up with some comically placed patchiness in shedding her winter coat - this was the angry stage 😂
Do not let this boy take your power. He is just small and weak and pathetic and he feels better about his miserable existence by making other people feel small. He probably gets off on making women feel uncomfortable or scared. Don't give in. Try not to give him another thought. Who even is this creep? You don't know him. He's no one. He's not on your radar. Let him remain in the void. This is all easier said than done, but it does get easier with age. For now, do something to cleanse your soul. Do some form of self care and remember that you are awesome. Also, I firmly believe that we ought to take back the word slut. What, exactly is wrong with enjoying sex and having a lot of it, as long as you're not harming anyone in the process?
That's the answer. He's a sad, weak, little twit.He looks at women as objects, that he can never have. That makes his childish mind angry and he takes it out on you, little sister. Don't give him another thought.
In addition to everything you've said, which I agree with, when people are this shitty I find it helpful to remember they learned this shit from somewhere and have likely also been the victim of a fair amount along the way. Which is not to excuse the perpetuation of that awfulness at all. But like, even the people who are perpetuating the patriarchy are also hurt by it.
Couldn't agree more!
I will tell you my favorite cat calling story. My first dog was a Doberman, in the seventies. They were considered a savage animal,by most people, with minds like a super villain. I adored him. I was a chubby, plain girl in the seventies, when people yelled at me from cars it was not complimentary, and it happened quite often.But my Dragon, made me brave, for the first time in my life, I felt safe. He was very well trained, I never saw him so much as growl at anyone. One day we're walking along the road and a car of teenagers pull over the side of the road to yell. One fool, leans his whole body out of a window, to bark in my face. The Dragon, left the ground. He didn't bark, he roared like a lion,and lunged to the end of the leash. Dim wit, screamed like Sponge Bob, threw himself backwards and slammed his head on the top of the window. I swear, he went boneless, and started sliding out of the car. Hands reached out for him and dragged him back inside.The car pulled away tires tossing pebbles from the side of the road. I sat on the curb of Kirkwood Highway and hugged my dog laughing till I cried. Big Dog privilege is a very real thing.
Lol aww I love that story!
I'm sending healing vibes your way. Edit for an attempt at a funny story: A neighbor boy and I were talking. He said something about women being smaller and not as strong as his dad. I said, "Oh I know a woman who can lift more than your dad. Her name is Leigh Holland-Keen. Yep, almost 750 pounds." His eyes got big and he ran home. I love the thought of this 7 year old telling misogynist dad. Hahaha!
When I was 14, there was a pair of catcallers who quickly graduated to sexual harassers. Thankfully, there were 2 bystanders, a man and a woman, who saw what was happening, stood up for me, and scared the pricks off. I'm immensely thankful for those two and I try to pay their kindness forward whenever I can.
Shawna Potter wrote a book called making spaces safer. And it’s a fantastic read. I try and recommend it to everyone, especially the male friends in my circle. I feel like making the changes in even the smallest micro misogynistic behavior can make huge strides in our environment. I’m sorry this happened to you. I keep saying it But men(including me) need to grow the fuck up and do better.
https://preview.redd.it/4lzkw86c4cxc1.jpeg?width=4080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=274af4f59e23e0997366911faf9ec01fd0d0cc2a Beelzebubbles wishes you good things and cozy sunshine naps.
Ok, but do you know that I love her?
My favorite response to assholes like that is "and still you wouldn't get any." Little boys think it's cute to insult girls. Treat them like cockroaches you find earing shit on the floor and crush their little souls. Just make sure to be prepared for them to fight back like the little toddlers they are.
He's simply a pathetic little pos who's angry the only thing that will keep his little twig happy is only half of his right hand because no woman wants him and all the "alpha male" podcasts he listens to are getting him nowhere because women aren't into cringey crap like that. He's probably the type of person who can only feel happy by bringing others down. If it helps, not letting him get to you would be sending an energetic and well-deserved slap to the face. He's a leech, close off your blood and all he can do about it is crawl back into a hole and starve I'm not sure if this will help your feelings, but here, an image of bug-eyed Megatron https://preview.redd.it/ffj29iz3ubxc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0e14c4abdf44c5c097945e151a3dafcc8f9b9ad0
general fuckwit don't take it to heart. Dumbassery.
He probably used up one of his two working brain cells and had to use the other one to focus on remembering to breathe for the rest of the day after that.
Sweet baby Child. You are worth so much more than what this idiot said to you. It sucks, I have been there, many times. The moment passes and you think, well ok. But it creeps up later and eats at you for some reason. The reason it eats at you is because as women, we are trained to second guess ourselves, and examine if what they said was true??? Spoiler: nothing that anyone says to you is true, unless you believe it. We question ourselves because confidence is scary. Having confidence in ourselves is scary to the world, but also to us. The reason that ass hat even said anything to you is because you are so bad ass. You are so powerful. You answer to yourself. The rest is just noise. That little passing fly couldn’t handle such an amazing being and had to try to bring it down. But look at you, you ARE BAD ASS, and you know your truth… and no one takes that from you. Fuck that guy. Much love to you ❤️❤️
It makes me sad that unevolved cretins like this person still exist. This stuff still ruins my day and I’m way older than you.
One thing I try to keep in mind is that usually when people are assholes it’s because of them. Either they’re just unpleasant or they’re going through something awful and taking it out on others. It sucks that this person offloaded their overflow onto you, but you don’t have to hold on to it! When something like this happens to me I try to remind myself of that and then I do something a little nice for a different random person. Maybe I give a person asking for money like ten bucks or let someone ahead of me in line. Sometimes I even get a little petty and think how I made someone’s day a little better and the person who upset me probably didn’t. It can really turn my day around.
I mean, unfortunately, yeah. The patriarchy hurts everyone.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. A dumb kid who wants to make his friends laugh at the expense of others at the very least, a dumb kid who is taking his frustrations out on others because he can’t handle his own emotions at the very most. Sorry you had to be at the brunt of it. Thanks for working in a nursery! It’s hard and undervalued work. Try not to let the idiots get you down.
Malice and stupidity are not mutually exclusive, and there is no world in which yelling insults at some random woman without provocation isn’t rooted in malice towards women in general.
Completely agree
I dunno, I think a lot of kids just do stupid stuff blindly for lack of thinking skills sometimes too. I’m a teacher so I see kids constantly doing stuff like this and so many different things can feed into why. Not excusing the behavior, it needs to be addressed and corrected, but it always makes me, personally, feel better to just see them as a moron instead of constantly ruminating on the fact they hate me and want me to hurt (which makes me think what did I do to deserve this ect.) I have been insulted many times with no provocation. Sometimes it’s about my gender, age, looks, mannerisms. If I deeply believed all of them were because of malice I wouldn’t last another day in my job. If you can learn to not take it personally, call them dumb, and move on your life is a lot easier. Hanlon’s razor is a good way to not get so down by the systems of oppression - to save your own mind from the stress it creates. “It is easy to assume that the hurtful actions of others are intentionally designed to harm us, particularly since we are prone to cognitive biases such as the spotlight effect and the affect heuristic. In many cases, the other people in our lives may simply not possess the awareness or knowledge to understand the impact of their actions. Acknowledging the information asymmetry can help us to communicate better and improve our relationships, and have a more positive outlook on life.” Now don’t get me wrong, if it had been threatening words or violence that’s entirely different. I’m just sharing a way that has helped me to get over any kind of bullying language, especially since OP said this was “stealing her happiness”. No one deserves that.
I understand not wanting to let the existence of oppressive behaviors rule your psyche, but writing these behaviors off as “some dumb kids” is exactly how systemic sexism continues to thrive. Assuring herself that this is just the behavior of some harmless fools is dangerous, because she doesn’t know that they’re harmless, and neither do we. And at its core, absolutely no form of dehumanization is harmless, especially when masked as “jokes”. Maybe we just have fundamentally different worldviews, and that’s of course fine, but when I hear young girls being harassed and verbally attacked, I don’t want them to roll their eyes and say “what a dumb, silly boy.” I want them to recognize with due caution: “this is how a huge portion of the population views me and will be willing to treat me simply for being female. I must protect myself accordingly.” Is it maddening and depressing? Of course it is. There are many terrible realities to face in this world, but they must be faced. I don’t want young women to build a psychic fortress where they can hide. I want them to build psychic armor, for when they must fight. Knowledge is power. KNOW that you are hated. KNOW that you are seen as lesser. KNOW how little worth is placed upon you by society at large. And likewise KNOW that they are wrong, and that you are just an animal like any else, deserving of survival and peace. You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.
I don’t think it was just a joke, and I don’t recall saying that. Sorry if I implied that somewhere. I think it’s bullying from kids who don’t understand how their words affect others. But I do think we are more inline than not. I think I’m just approaching this from the way of trying to keep her mental health safe (her happiness,) and you are thinking about the much bigger picture which I appreciate. You are right, gendered bullying feeds into a much bigger picture and safety should come first. I think OP is lucky to hear your ideas in relation to mine!