Mediaite also wrote about Shauna Hunt’s encounter with the pussy-fanciers, with some new (to me) information.
Last fall, female journalists at the CBC penned an op-ed calling for the end of “FHRITP” pranks, calling them “violent and offensive” and saying those who engage in them suggest “that a woman who is doing what can be a pretty serious and intellectually rigorous job can be reduced to simply a sexual object which can be taken at will.”
Of course, less than four months later, a man pretending to be a Delta passenger did just that to none other than MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell.
How did I miss this for so long?!
So, back to November last year.
Even though the first one was a hoax, the phrase “fuck her right in the pussy” has turned into a meme in and of itself, with people shouting it during news broadcasts, in the middle of sports broadcasts, even placing it on signs.
However, they’ve also screamed the phrase at female journalists, two of whom spoke out today against the prank, calling it unoriginal and threatening towards women.
Reporter Morgan Dunlop wrote an op-ed for the CBC, which tastefully edited the phrase to “FHRITP”, arguing that it intimidated women and would hurt their careers:
You are not advancing an organic movement. You are copying what one guy set up as a spoof. We can see your face and hear your voice and so can your girlfriend, your sister, your mother, your daughter.
It’s not funny. It makes women feel uncomfortable. You make women feel uncomfortable.
But that of course is the goal. That’s what makes it “funny.”
The op-ed for the CBC seems to be the video I posted yesterday, of several reporters including one man saying what a crappy idea the whole thing is.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/fhritp-calgary-police-charge-man-with-stunting-for-shouting-vulgar-phrase-1.3074905?cmp=rss
A guy in Calgary just got ticketed for “stunting” because he yelled it from a vehicle. A small fine, but maybe it will make him think.
What THE FUCK kind of thing is that to make a hoax video about?
A hoax video is just as vicious and filthy as the real ones, if you ask me.
Here’s Tori Gillis of CBC Saskatchewan on the subject. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/fhritp-is-invasive-disgusting-and-happening-in-saskatchewan-1.3071546
The earlier several were hoaxes, but it has been ‘live’ for a couple of years now.
It’s both interesting and really disheartening to me that people don’t think women are worthy of a harassment-free existence simply because they are fellow human beings, we have to remind people that they know women who they like. We don’t expect them to feel any pressure from men in their life, to treat women well, we simply remind them that not all women are objects with which to entertain yourself.
I’ve been assaulted by men, harassed, belittled, patronized and intimidated, but I still treat men with basic human dignity both in my casual and professional interactions with them. I don’t do this because I know men that I care about but because I see them as fellow humans. I feel like this need to justify a woman’s right to her basic humanity based on the fact that there are nice women out there, only serves to paint women as “other” and men as “default.”