Sunday, January 12, 2014

#lol #humor #womanonaleash?

Image source here
For a while the image above of this airbrushed truck was circulating on the net as being a sexist, mysogynistic interpretation - a woman gagged and bound (in airbrush) on the back of the truck. But we, as Lebanese have the dubious honor of topping everything.
Introducing this image which comes via Blog Baladi.
I shall not go into the twitter spat that happened with Najib because he thought it was #lol #humor when we are talking about demeaning women - at large and in general (sadly, Najib's wife does not have a public stance on things to know if she too thinks #lol #humor).
I believe it is our duty, to call out the idiots to make it very clear that we condone stupid stickers like this one, that everyone who uses derogatory terms or images against any marginalized community (be it race, gender, sexual orientation, migrant workers....) should be called out for their idiocy in very clear unequivocal terms.
There is nothing funny about degrading women from where I come from. There's no humor in putting women on a leash (unless it is a consensual sexual practice between two consenting adults), and I think it is very sad that the blog of the year takes such matters lightly. True he later added a disclaimer after our exchange on twitter that he does not support the meaning... But then again, I still fail to see the joke #lol or the #humor.
We cannot disregard the duties of having a public voice while focusing on the privileges of being bloggers, or persons of public interest (no matter how small or confined our audience is and whether or not we talk into echo chambers and live in the remnants of middle classes). Above and foremost it is our duty to call out all those who degrade other people, if we don't - we're just as idiotic as El Khoury himself and it would be us, not just him, who "walk her".

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