Everybody is so stuck on telling one another how we’re supposed to treat each other, that we’re inadvertently treating each other badly in the process. What started out as a way to combat overt prejudice has dissolved into finger pointing and rudeness in the interest in keeping the peace.
It’s sad that it’s come to this, but we actually can’t even be nice to someone without the concern that they might take it the wrong way now. This seems to be what happened to actress Ashley Judd. Her efforts to punish a security agent who repeatedly addressed her in a way she found offense apparently “made her skin burn” and caused her to report him.
Via Breitbart News:
Actress Ashley Judd described being the victim of “everyday sexism” during a recent encounter with airport security in a Facebook Live video she posted to her account this week.
In the short video, the 49-year-old Double Jeopardy star said she was walking through airport security when a security agent called her “sweetheart,” and remarked on her dress, telling her, “Hey, nice dress.”
“I’m traveling today, and this is the kind of thing to me that happens which I categorize as everyday sexism,” Judd said. “And it’s so easy to let it go, and not to speak up, particularly when it’s so easy for someone to push back and say, ‘Oh, I was just being polite,’ or something like that.”
https://youtu.be/PcV2GppfbQA
In a follow-up video posted shortly afterward, Judd said the manager had apologized profusely for the encounter and promised to speak with the offending employee.
Judd has spoken out previously of her experience with sexual assault and harassment. In 2015, the actress claimed she had been sexually assaulted by a powerful Hollywood executive, though declined to name the individual, and earlier that year penned an essay on the subject for the website Mic.
We assume she was referring to interactions with TSA agents, due to the talk of shoes and “do-hickeys” that move your stuff. Look, we all get a little ticked off in airports, nobody likes going through security. Personally, all I can think is “please don’t let me get foot fungus” every time they make me take my shoes off. That’s not a good enough reason to take your rage for the system out on the messenger.
On a large scale, we as a nation have to come to terms with the fact that a person’s actions can’t be governed by how it’s received by someone else. We just can’t predict how things will strike someone, and living every minute trying to make sure we don’t accidentally offend anyone is a miserable way to live.
What she’s calling sexism, many of us would call just a normal interaction. While we’re on the subject, let’s just assume that this person saw Judd and thought that she was an attractive individual. I have no idea what actual harm it does a person to be talked to as if someone appreciates whatever effort they made to look nice. Obviously, there’s a line where someone can cross over into sleazy and aggressive, but that’s not really the case here.
She says she was the victim of everyday sexism. Maybe she was just the victim of everyday airport security or the victim of running into a southerner. You.Don’t.Know.
(Source: Breitbart News)