Liberals seem to once again be confusing rudeness with some nefarious slight.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojicki insisted Wednesday that interrupting a woman is a sexist microaggression.
“There are sometimes microaggressions, right? Like, people who will just cut you off, and you’ll be talking and someone will interrupt you, uh, and so that’s become a big pet peeve of mine. So, whenever, like, somebody interrupts me, I’ll be like, ‘Wait! I was talking, do not interrupt me.’ Um, but I enjoy it even more, actually, when I see them interrupting someone else, and then I’ll be like, ‘Wait! She was talking, don’t interrupt her.’ Um, and I think, like, every time I’ve done that, like, people have been like, ‘Oh thank you, like, I didn’t realize I was doing that.'”
Much like how a man playing music isn’t sexual assault, interrupting someone isn’t a microaggression. They’re both just a person being rude. A lack of manners, inability to listen well and impatience are only a few reasons why people interrupt one another. Interruption isn’t gender-specific. Men interrupt men, women interrupt men, women interrupt women and men interrupt women.
This is not a gender issue. This is not whatever a “microaggression” is. This is simply a person being impolite.
CNNMoney’s Poppy Harlow had originally asked Wojicki, “Is there a sexism problem in Silicon Valley today?”
Wojicki wasn’t going to say “no.” It almost seemed like she was trying to tip-toe around the question, though, because she never definitely said yes. Instead, she gave vague non-answers, and then brought up make-believe interruption microaggressions.
“Well, I think Silicon Valley is a diverse place, and there are many different opinions within Silicon Valley,” Wojicki said. “But, I think whenever you have a culture that is, whenever you have a majority and a minority, it’s going to be harder for that minority. You know, even in a culture where people are really well-meaning.”
First, there has never existed a culture or society where there weren’t majorities and minorities. America, for example, is majority women. Certain industries, by the nature of the work, are majority men or women. The “minority,” in whatever capacity you apply the term, will always have a more difficult time than the majority. That is a fact of life that touches every living entity on Earth, and it will never change. So, aside from stating something obvious that offered no answer to Harlow’s question, she tacked on the trendy new idea that no matter how nice people are, they’re still inadvertently microaggressing.
“I think that there are many, many well-meaning, working hard trying to provide …”
The multi-millionaire YouTube CEO trailed off into an indecipherable mumble at this point, neither finishing the sentence nor clarifying what the first 14 words meant.
Turning basic negative social interactions (like playing loud music or interrupting someone) into something stemming from sexism, patriarchy, white privilege or bigotry hurts feminism more than it helps. It’s petty, low-hanging fruit that lessens the intelligence and depth of the movement. Looking for sexism when there isn’t any makes it hard for anyone to take feminism seriously, and that’s going to do more damage than any perceived male slight.
Wojicki doesn’t ever specify that it’s men interrupting women, so she could mean anyone interrupting a woman. Perhaps Wojicki forgot to mention that she corrects men and women interrupting men, too. Let’s hope she does point it out when women do it, because you shouldn’t interrupt people. But that’s unlikely based on both Harlow’s first question being aimed at sexism, and Wojicki’s answer to Harlow’s second question, below.
“So would you say overall, yes there is a problem in the Valley, and one you’re hopeful is being fixed?” Harlow asked.
Dodging the question a second time, Wojicki said: “I think there is a problem just in the numbers and being underrepresented. Like, we need more women across the board, and until those numbers get fixed it’s gonna be a harder place for women to work.”
Why is rudeness being turned into some deeper, sinister male impulse to oppress? Why are women placing themselves in this delicate emotional box that makes everyone feel like women have to be treated with kid gloves? If people have to worry that breathing the wrong way will oppress women, they’re not going to hire them.
Feminists act like it’s a good thing to be difficult to work with, because that difficulty is them slowly destroying sexism in the workplace. In reality, it makes employers gun-shy. Demanding that people bend to feminism’s easily-offended will does not “open minds,” it closes them.