It was a companywide Teams discussion, led by a colleague with slides to discuss misogyny.
It was littered with the usual sex is a spectrum bullshit.
It veered into sexism and toxic masculinity and toxic femininity and skirted around MISOGYNY and what it means for WOMEN, entirely.
Until, and by this point on mute, I had my hand raised as I was about to burst a vessel shouting “this isn’t misogyny! Misogyny is the hatred of women”, an amazing colleague (whom I have never met) got the chance to speak first and pointed out exactly what I had been off-camera seething about for the previous 20mins.
Why are we so afraid to speak about women? And the experiences women have without people saying “what about….unicorns” or whatever.
My amazing colleague even had to say something along the lines of, “please can we refer to these people as women, for that is what they are”.
I had my chance to speak and more women came out in agreement.
The wrap up came and it went back to talking about gender pay gap etc and how we must educate people around us to change their behaviours.
Which yes, that is one aspect but in the meantime, and ultimately in my mind, we need safe spaces for women.
No-one wants to go there. It’s like the elephant in the room.
I don’t know why I’m posting. I just feel like I need to vent my frustration at the above.
I also want to know if my colleague/any colleague shares my view on safe spaces for women or if I am an outlier who’s about to be picked up for sharing such a heinous view.