I Get Letters

The following email arrived in my inbox under the subject heading "I am a boy. I come in peace.‏" I knew I was in for a doozy.

Hi Melissa,

First, as a boy raised in a strict Catholic household with two working parents, I can say I respect your blog. However, I cannot say I wholly appreciate your content.

I used to work for [redacted]. In my first day (as with any job) we were given sensitivity training. However, ALL the scenarios given in the presentation were male-to-female sexual harassment, something that I, as a man, found extremely offended by.

I only worked at the U for six months. What forced me to leave? My boss, a fairly attractive woman in her 40's, was coming onto me. [details redacted]

This actually happened, and I'm not making it up. Don't say I blew her off because she was older or because she wasn't my type. I have very strict values that I don't date or get involved with ANYONE from work.

I do not appreciate your ignorance to these double standards. That it is only "sexual harassment" if it's male-to-female and if it's the other way around that I must be "a lucky guy."

I went on to work at [redacted]. There, I found that, as a man, earning the same as other women working on the production floor, was subject to more work. Many women refused to do any manual labor and took too many bathroom breaks, and subjected themselves to handpacking and paperwork. Whenever one of the machines jammed or stalled, rather than clearing the jam and resetting the machine, they call a mechanic which takes away from production output and creates downtime.

I'm not saying all women, there are some (mainly black, actually) that roll up their sleeves to get their hands dirty with the boys, and that I deeply admire and appreciate.

I have tried to address the issue of "we have the same job title yet because we're men we are subject to more work" and I got called "insensitive"...screw that. You have the same job title as me, you do the same things I do. No exceptions. This is the 21st century. Girls are not weak and fragile flowers. They're at the point in history where they can pick up a shovel and dig ditches alongside the men that love them and care for them.

What happened to the women who welded and riveted the machines that won the war? Where did they disappear to?

Thank you.

--[redacted]

I'll leave you to discuss the many comment-worthy details of this extraordinary missive in comments, and will make only this brief observation: It is neither "coming in peace" nor "respectful of my blog" to accuse me of content I have never written and attitudes I have never expressed.

Half (or more) of the letters I get from dipfucks like this are patently nothing more than disgruntled misogynists shouting impotently at the first feminist across whom they've stumbled, without the merest regard for the reality that the double standards of which they accuse me are the narratives of the Patriarchy, not of its critics.