I know this is shocking, given all the dudes offended by that Gillette ad, but there might be something to this “toxic masculinity” idea. At least that’s how it seems when nearly every day a woman stands up to some jerkoff only to see her words, her experience, is going viral.
Quick recap: last week at about the same time the Jiffy Lube dude was creepily texting a customer before getting an epic smackdown, vlogger Kristina Kuzmic outed a guy on Instagram who habitually makes vile, perverted comments on her posts, only to be confronted with backlash from women making excuses and otherwise apologizing for the crude behavior.
Kristina Kuzmic’s response was to make a video encouraging anyone who has been on the receiving end of this type of bullshit not to be silent and tolerate these schmucks, but to #OutThem. Check out her glorious response to the woman who told her she wasn’t being “kind” to these men:
Being kind doesn’t mean being weak. So I’m guessing what she really meant is that I wasn’t being nice, which is very different from kind. See, nice is about being agreeable, behaving in a way that makes sure everybody else is comfortable, except for ourselves. And we’ve been groomed to do this ladies, haven’t we? Make everybody comfortable. Don’t make too much noise, or you might sound like a drama queen. Being kind, on the other hand, that comes from a different place of wanting to do the right thing. To add good to the world. And exposing evil instead of hiding it, that’s being kind.
Which brings us to this week’s entry: a brief tale from a new mom named Katie Kiacz.
Following her flight on Tuesday, Ms. Kiacz posted two photos and described how she decided to handle her seatmate when he referred to her as a “two-ton woman.” Not that she needed to explain her size; still, she told him that she was not remotely two tons, and in fact, had just had a baby.
Unremarkably, after being confronted with his heartless comment, he sighed rather than offer an apology. And tried to have his seat reassigned. Sadly, the airline wasn’t able to move him, and Ms. Kiacz only regrets that she couldn’t take up more space to make the dude more uncomfortable during the flight.
Her story, which has been shared 80,000 times in less than 24 hours, concludes with her explanation as to why she felt the need to publicly shame this guy, which is unfortunately all too relatable:
As a woman, I am sick of this shit. Would he have said that had I been a man? Or had my daughter and husband with me? I don’t know. But women deal with these attitudes and behavior more than men, that I do know. And I. Am. Over. It.
Katie Kiacz, we all get it. And we are all over it.
#CallHimOut #OutThem #BeKind