ABC’s teen drama channel Freeform celebrated International Women’s Day by urging women to ditch their manners and eliminate the word ‘sorry’ from their vocabulary entirely.
For 24 hours, Freeform bleeped out every time a female said the word “sorry” on air.
“The epidemic of female apologizing ends now,” Freeform tweeted. “Today, we’re bleeping out every single ‘I’m sorry’ on our air and social platforms.”
The epidemic of female apologizing ends now. Today, we’re bleeping out every single “I’m sorry” on our air and social platforms. #NotSorry #InternationalWomensDay pic.twitter.com/r2kkuFjP5V
— Freeform (@FreeformTV) March 8, 2018
A few things here. First, I was entirely unaware that apologizing was considered an epidemic. I double checked just to be sure I wasn’t missing anything here but ‘sorry’ isn’t on the list of epidemics on the Centers For Disease Control website. Yellow Fever is there, Measles is there, Ebola’s there, so is Listeriosis. But there’s no mention of ‘sorry’ anywhere. I even checked the list of past epidemics. No dice.
Call me old fashioned but I was taught to believe that apologizing is polite and civilized. If you’re in the wrong, you apologize. If you say something offensive, you say you’re sorry. It doesn’t matter if it’s your opinion and you think you’re right. Decent people – not just women – apologize. Politeness isn’t a gendered thing. It’s a manners thing.
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