I’ve had an insane experience. Having raged about threads, this might be hypocritical, feel free to mute/unfollow/whatever, I just need to get this off my chest.
.@wethefifth has been asking me to join as a guest for months and we finally made it work. Here’s the link, it’s LONG but the segment at issue starts around 42min. It’s about the Bernie/Warren fight: open.spotify.com/episode/7lTasS…
We had a discussion, me and some dudes. I laid out the facts, which include: you don’t have to *intend* to be sexist in order to do or say something sexist. I also said most people and all men are sexist lol. Sorry/not sorry!
Their listeners, who to the credit of @mcmoynihan + @MattWelch, appear very dedicated to the show, for the most part did not love anything I said. Also to their credit, I didn’t get insanely trolled, some people were even nice about the criticism.
Listeners saved the bulk of their criticism not for me, a woman, but for the hosts, two men — for not pushing back harder. Some were like, oh they didn’t push back because she is “soft-spoken” and “breathy” (???)
So what did @wethefifth do? Did they invite me on to hash out the criticism, talk further about sexism and feminism? They did not!
They recorded their own podcast. Without me. It’s behind a paywall but I have a copy for anyone who wants to listen to another hour+ of men talking.
In this podcast, they called me “silly” and said “she didn't actually want to talk about this too much” and that I had no “expertise” on the issue. (PS I have the receipts where this was a planned subject on the show.)
They laughed at the idea of “internalized patriarchy or whatever” and at a listener email that apparently was “super funny” talking about my “stupidity.”
They said they were angry and ashamed for not pushing back harder and gave a host of excuses — that they wanted to keep the discussion rolling, that they kind of know me, that they didn’t, basically, want to make me feel uncomfortable.
Oh lol another excuse: "If we go off on this, it's just gonna be a bloodbath." Sure, guys.
This is all bullshit. They were incapable of pushing back to my face and then had a separate private discussion — between two men — to calm their male listeners down. This is cowardly and pathetic.
If you want to fight about sexism or feminism, I am always ready, but for fuck’s sake say this all to my face. END RANT.
