Every Damn Things Seems To Trigger Me And So What If I Love Bernie Sanders.
While most of us are spending the day opening gifts and hanging out with family and friends, some are determined to find everything wrong with Christmas.
According to some on the left, here are five problematic things about Christmas:
Mistletoe:
Some feminists decided that the tradition of kissing under the mistletoe promotes a “rape culture,” with one feminist Twitter account writing that under the mistletoe, “male misogynistic tendencies to manifest themselves in reality.”
It is likely that the anti-mistletoe campaign started as a prank on feminists, but many feminists actually joined in earnestly.
‘Sexist’ Christmas Songs:
Feminist website Bustle has previously assembled a list of “sexist” Christmas songs. In the article titled, “8 Christmas Songs That Are Totally, Terribly Sexist,” Kadeen Griffins lists classics like, “All I Want For Christmas Is You,” “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” and “Baby It’s Cold Outside.”
She writes that “(s)ome of your favorite Christmas songs are kind of really sexist,” and that these Christmas songs “reek of a bit of antifeminism.”
1. “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer” Has anyone ever actually listened to the lyrics of “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer”? That song is terrible! Thankfully, I don’t hear them playing it on the radio much, but the fact that it’s a novelty song that has been around since the ’70s doesn’t change the fact that it details a poor woman’s drunken death. To my knowledge, Santa doesn’t even get in trouble for it — unless you count in that TV film, wherein Grandma survives and Santa was framed.
Most Offensive Lyric: “It’s not Christmas without Grandma. All the family’s dressed in black. And we just can’t help but wonder, should we open up her gifts or send them back?” Priorities, much?
2. “All I Want For Christmas Is You”
To be fair, I’ve already written a separate article about how “All I Want For Christmas Is You” could stand to be more feminist. And by written a separate article, I mean I rewrote the song entirely. However, despite being one of my personal favorite Christmas songs, I don’t like the idea that the woman narrating the song doesn’t want anything for the holidays except a man — and that she’s relying on another man (Santa Claus) to get the aforementioned man for her.
Most Offensive Lyric: “Santa, won’t you bring me the one I really need? Won’t you please bring my baby to me?”
We are going to go eat and throw-up, then we will say I’m triggered.
3. “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus”
The fact that we have an entire song devoted to a woman’s infidelity — with Santa Claus, no less — but no such fun Christmas carol for a guy — despite Mrs. Claus being a thing — really says it all. (And giving this classic Christmas song another listen reveals that there might be something a little more insidious than simple infidelity at play. The child who snuck out of bed and witnessed this alleged instance of cheating apparently thinks it would be hilarious to report this back to Dad… for some reason.)
Most Offensive Lyric: “Oh, what a laugh it would have been if Daddy had only seen Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night!” Um.
4. “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas”
Listen, I understand that it’s a traditional fact that guys like to play with guns and girls like to play with dolls (or something), but we don’t need to reinforce gender stereotypes in our Christmas carols, okay? Update yourself to the modern century, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!” Let’s have the boys put aside the pistols and the girls put aside the dolls and roll out some gender neutral gifts, shall we?
Most Offensive Lyric: “A pair of hopalong boots and a pistol that shoots Is the wish of Barney and Ben. Dolls that will talk and will go for a walk is the hope of Janice and Jen.”
5. “Santa Baby”
I mean, the entire song is essentially someone trying to seduce Santa Claus in order to get a bunch of Christmas presents. Male or female — though the song is traditionally sung by females and directly references being a “good girl” — it’s still a bit awkward to be breathily requesting that Santa get you cars and rings because you called him baby. All the women who independent, throw your hands up at me!
Most Offensive Lyric: “Think of all the fun I’ve missed. Think of all the fellas that I haven’t kissed. Next year I could be just as good… if you’d check off my Christmas list.” Sigh.
6. “Twelve Days of Christmas”
o be fair, “Twelve Days of Christmas” and I have always had problems with one another, mainly because when I was a child I had no idea what they were talking about with some of the items my “true love” was giving to me for Christmas. However, now that I am an adult, I realize how weird and awful it is that my true love is sending me people for Christmas, let alone crowds of people. Take back your ten lords a’ leaping, sir! I’m not into slavery.
Most Offensive Lyric: “On the eighth day of Christmas my true love sent to me: eight maids a’ milking…” a.k.a. the exact moment my true love started sending me people.
7. “Santa Tell Me”
“Santa Tell Me” might have only just come out, but, yes, I’m going to call it out for sexism. Don’t get me wrong. I love Ariana Grande’s latest Christmas hit and I’ve listened to it several times since its debut. However, I have to be the one to reiterate something that many Christmas songs don’t seem to realize: you don’t need to be in love with someone, or in a romantic relationship, to feel happy or fulfilled this Christmas. Say it loud, say it proud. Can someone please write a song about that? (Taylor Swift, I’m looking at you.)
Most Offensive Lyric: “Now I need someone to hold, be my fire in the cold.”
8. “Baby It’s Cold Outside”
“Baby It’s Cold Outside” is a Christmas song so problematic that many covers just outright change the lyrics. You know why. You knowwhy. If you don’t know why, let me be the one to ruin this for you: there’s a line that subtly references the female singer being drugged by the male singer. That alone makes the entire song ten times creepier and ten times more sexist than it would be otherwise, hence why that line is frequently removed.
Most Offensive Lyric: “The neighbors might think… (Baby, it’s bad out there.) Say, what’s in this drink? (No cabs to be had out there.)” Cue shuddering.
‘Racist’ Jingle Bells Song:
Boston University professor Kyna Hamill recently wrote about “Jingle Bells” and its supposed racism, Fox News reports.
She writes that the song has “racist origins,” pointing to its performances in blackface from the 1800s.
She also writes, “Although ‘One Horse Open Sleigh,’ for most of its singers and listeners, may have eluded its racialized past and taken its place in the seemingly unproblematic romanticization of a normal ‘white’ Christmas, attention to the circumstances of its performance history enables reflection on its problematic role in the construction of blackness and whiteness in the United States.”
Wrapped Gifts:
According to a“Religious Diversity and Holidays” memo given to some University of Minnesota students and staff, “bows/wrapped gifts” are not “appropriate.”
I know I am a professional victim.
Also listed as not appropriate on that list is Santa Claus, bells, doves, and menorahs, The College Fix reports.
Hallmark Christmas movies:
Some have taken issue with Hallmark Christmas movies, as they are full of largely white and straight people.
An article published to Slate.com bleats that the movies, “brim with white heterosexuals who exclusively, emphatically, and endlessly bellow “Merry Christmas” to every lumberjack and labradoodle they pass. They’re centered on beauty-pageant heroines and strong-jawed heroes with white-nationalist haircuts.”
It continued, “There are occasional sightings of Christmas sweater–wearing black people, but they exist only to cheer on the dreams of the white leads, and everyone on Trump’s naughty list—Muslims, gay people, feminists—has never crossed the snowcapped green-screen mountains to taint these quaint Christmas villages. “Santa Just Is White” seems to be etched into every Hallmark movie’s town seal.”
Salon.com also wrote an article about the movies, saying the Hallmark channel gives a “homogeneous view of the holiday,” that’s “leaving minority actors out in the cold.”
In all seriousness, go hangout with your friends and family. Merry Christmas.
Women had accounts banned from Facebook for responding to male trolls with sentences like ‘men are trash,’ in part because the company classifies white men as a protected group.
When comic Marcia Belsky sarcastically replied “men are scum” to a friend’s Facebook post back in October, she never anticipated being banned from the platform for 30 days.
That was exactly what happened.
Belsky was shocked at the severity of the punishment considering her relatively innocuous comment, and immediately spoke to her fellow female friends about the ordeal. They could relate.
In the wake of the #MeToo movement, countless women have taken to Facebook to express their frustration and disappointment with men and have been promptly shut down or silenced, banned from the platform for periods ranging from one to seven days.
Women have posted things as bland as “men ain’t shit,” “all men are ugly,” and even “all men are allegedly ugly” and had their posts removed. They’ve been locked out of their accounts for suggesting that, since “all men are ugly,” country music star Blake Shelton “winning the sexiest man isn’t a triumph.”
“I personally posted men are scum in November and I received a seven-day ban. It’s still ongoing. Two days and 23 hours left,” said comedian Alison Klemp.
Kayla Avery, a comedian in Boston, said she’s been banned close to 10 times by Facebook and is serving out the end of her third 30-day ban.
One of the first times she got banned was when her page was flooded with male trolls calling her derogatory and sexist terms. Avery posted “men continue to be the worst” she said, because she said she “felt helpless to stop their hate.”
“There was one guy who was threatening to find my house and beat me up,” she said. “I got banned before I could even successfully report it.”
In late November, after the issue was raised in a private Facebook group of nearly 500 female comedians, women pledged to post some variation of “men are scum” to Facebook on Nov. 24 in order to stage a protest. Nearly every women who carried out the pledge was banned.
“It wasn’t the best protest because it clearly didn’t work,” said Klemp. Avery said she is still suffering the consequences after posting “men are trash” on that day.
On Nov. 28 a Twitter thread by comedian Rae Sanni documenting her experience of being banned by Facebook went viral and countless other women began to share their stories.
The problem has become so widespread that Avery even created a website to document these women’s tales. The site, FacebookJailed.com, shares women’s experiences of being punished by Facebook for making benign comments about men or standing up to trolls, sometimes juxtaposed with Facebook’s inaction against men who have hurled insults or racial slurs back.
“Comedian and writer Rae Sanni has been targeted by nazi trolls who hurled dozens of threatening and violent messages and comments at her for days,” a recent post reads. “Rae Sanni was banned by Facebook while her abusers are free to say sh*t like this without being in violation of community standards.”
The post features screenshots provided by Sanni where Facebook does not deem comments calling her the N-word hate speech.
When reached for comment a Facebook spokesperson said that the company is working hard to remedy any issues related to harassment on the platform and stipulated that all posts that violate community standards are removed.
When asked why a statement such as “men are scum” would violate community standards, a Facebook spokesperson said that the statement was an attack and hate speech toward a protected group and so it would rightfully be taken down.
As ProPublica revealed in an investigation in June, white men are listed as a protected group by the platform.
A Facebook spokesperson clarified that this is because all genders, races, and religions are all protected characteristics under Facebook’s current policy. However, it’s clear that even with 7,000 Facebook content moderators, things slip through the cracks.
Female comedians have speculated that it’s internalized misogyny on the behalf of Facebook’s content moderation team that leads to punishment such as banning to be doled out unequally. Several have tried posting “women are scum,” had their friends report the posts, and subsequently suffered zero consequences.
While this explanation is tidy, it’s almost certainly false. Facebook employees receive extensive training around specific issues and their work is regularly reviewed to account for any personal biases.
But the system is far from perfect.
One issue with the way Facebook moderators currently review posts is that many “problematic” posts are viewed individually, without context because of privacy concerns. Facebook moderators also aren’t able to view personal or demographic information about the original poster. This means that they sometimes don’t know whether a piece of content was posted by a black queer woman or a white straight male.
It also means the moderators don’t know whether the poster has a history of spreading messages related to white supremacy, or has participated in targeted harassment campaigns against specific groups before.
With hate speech in particular, the person writing the post is just as relevant as what is being said. The fact that Facebook’s moderators aren’t always given this information means that sometimes benign statements can be misinterpreted, and vice versa.
Context also matters. One reason female comics often seem to run afoul of Facebook’s guidelines is that the company’s content moderators fail to recognize the humor in their posts. Popular tropes such as “ban men” are interpreted literally under Facebook’s current set of community standards, and women suffer the consequences for attempting to express themselves.
In the past, ironic misandry has been a popular way for women to deal with living in a world where they’re exposed to frequent abuse at the hands of powerful men. Yet, if a woman takes to Facebook to vent about how she “wants to imprison men and milk them for their male tears,” she could quickly lose access to her account.
Trolls know this. “The ironic thing about Literal Nazis is that they have weaponized taking things literally,” BuzzFeed writer Katie Notopoulos wrote recently.
Feigning outrage at statements that were clearly not written to be interpreted that way has become a favored tactic of the alt-right, Gamergate, and movements known for their coordinated harassment efforts. When moderators can’t make this distinction they punish innocent parties and embolden trolls.
“There was one guy who was threatening to find my house and beat me up. I got banned before I could even successfully report it.”
— Kayla Avery
Meanwhile, outright false and defamatory information—like Pizzagate communities accusing private citizens of pedophilia because of their political beliefs—still thrive on the service.
Facebook’s spokesperson stressed that it was working on a fix to this and the company plans to look at ways to eventually apply its policies in a more granular way. In the future it hopes to take into account the history of oppression with different genders and ethnicities, etc. when reviewing posts, but stressed that Facebook is a global platform.
In the meantime, two women who are both not in the comedy world but have had their content flagged or removed said the bans have made them feel much less comfortable posting on Facebook about sensitive topics like the #MeToo movement.
Avery said that posting on Facebook, no matter what issue, can feel like walking across a minefield.
“I get cold feet to post stuff, especially if I try to share something that’s going on that I want to bring attention to. because I feel like I’m going to get in trouble somehow,” she said. “Sharing anything is nerve racking. It’s like, ‘What’s ok? What’s not ok? What’s going to cross the line this time?’ It makes me feel crazy, like Facebook is gaslighting us.”
Heather Fink, also a female comedian, said the problem has also begun to spread to Instagram. She has had several posts there removed where she said she was simply talking about her Facebook ban and now no longer trusts the platform to ensure her voice is heard.
The #MeToo movement has been perpetuated via social media thanks to the open nature of most platforms and the ability for women to speak out publicly in their own words. If Facebook’s community guidelines are being enforced irregularly, whether intentional or not, women say it stifles their ability to speak truth to power and share their stories.
“Facebook is absolutely silencing women.”
— Heather Fink
“Social media is how we communicate. Preventing women from expressing themselves like this is an intimidation tactic,” said Meredith, a social-media strategist who has had several of her friends banned.
“This feels like a deliberate and systematic act—and whether it was or it wasn’t, it needs to be addressed publicly by Facebook and Instagram, especially as we’ve seen plenty of examples of true, dangerous hate speech remaining on these platforms even after being reported.”
Avery said Facebook’s banning policy itself ties into the #MeToo movement.
“How else can we have a genuine reaction to what’s going on?” Avery said. “Facebook is absolutely silencing women.”
College Paper Fires Writer Who Called White DNA ‘An Abomination’
A college paper fired a writer who called the DNA of white people “an abomination,” according to a Monday report.
Texas State University student journalist Rudy Martinez said that “white death will mean liberation for all” in the November column and The University Star fired him after previously retracting and apologizing for the column, reported The College Fix.
“The author of this column has jeopardized the atmosphere of inclusivity at this university and will no longer be published in The University Star,” read a correction from the paper’s editorial board.
Along with constructive criticism, the editorial board said that the paper has received death threats and “hate mail,” as well as threats to defund The University Star.
Conservative students at Texas State have started a petition to defund the publication; it has over 1,500 signatures at the time of publication.
“Ontologically speaking, white death will mean liberation for all,” said Martinez in his now-retracted column. “Accept this death as the first step toward defining yourself as something other than the oppressor. Until then, remember this: I hate you because you shouldn’t exist. You are both the dominant apparatus on the planet and the void in which all other cultures, upon meeting you, die.”
“The column’s central theme was abhorrent and is contrary to the core values of inclusion and unity that our Bobcat students, faculty, and staff hold dear,” said Denise M. Trauth, president of Texas State.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to Martinez for comment, but received none in time for press.
