Drunken Hecklings

“Mean girls all grow up to be nurses!”

“Mean girls all go into social work!”

“The mean girl to teacher pipeline!”

Y’all, these are just pink collar jobs. The reason you think there’s so many “mean girls” in these fields is because they’re all like 97% women. Of course some of them are gonna be assholes. There’s assholes everywhere.

We get it. Your job isn’t like other girls’ jobs. It’s a cool job.

it’s true that there are some incredibly cruel people in all of these professions.

it’s also true that they all suffer from chronic underpayment, overwork, lack of institutional support, and insane bureaucratic demands that would make them fail the people in their care all the time even if every single one was a saint.

That’s absolutely missing the point.

While those are all “helper” professions and they very much are pink collar (and are underpaid, that’s not an incompatible idea), they’re also ones that involve power over vulnerable people’s lives. (And I’ve only encountered it as a comparison to, say, male bullies becoming cops, it’s not like men aren’t being mentioned here.)

Secretaries/administrative assistants aren’t on that list for a reason. Flight attendants aren’t on that list. Housecleaners aren’t on that list. Receptionists. Customer service representatives. Dental hygienists. The people who style hair or do nails. That’s not a list of pink collar jobs. It’s specifically (pink collar) positions where if you want to abuse people you’re relatively likely to get away with it.

It can both be true that “nurses who care for disabled people need better pay” and “nurses who care for disabled people have a lot of opportunities to abuse their power and that’s something worth talking about.”

Women aren’t immune from treating people badly because they’re women, or because women are underpaid. They’re sure not immune from specifically seeking out jobs that will allow them to be cruel without any consequences to them, if they get personal satisfaction out of being cruel.

You are trying to shut down a conversation about abuse.

I’ve heard that many Russians believe that they don’t teach about the A-bombs in Japanese schools and that’s why Japan is an ally of the US after the war.

Well, Russians should know what Russia did to Japan AFTER the A-bombs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_prisoners_of_war_in_the_Soviet_Union

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuril_Islands_dispute

From Japan’s point of view, the US was an opponent that hit us hard while we were fighting face-to-face.

Russia was a coward that attacked us AFTER we got hit by the US.

Yes, dropping A-bombs can’t be justified, but we know that we were far from being innocent anyway. Yes, I HATE it when i see or hear Americans justifying the A-bombs, but at the same time, I HATE victim playing.

Forgiving people in silence and never speaking to them again is a form of self care.

Endre Penovác (Serbian,b.1956)

Zelda, 2022

Ink on paper