Training Day

I'm so grateful to be the part owner of a small business, with no other boss than myself...

...because if I had to go through what this guy describes, I think I'd blow a gasket.

...today, for the first time, I had to attend a mandatory sexual harassment training course.

Can you say "coporate re-education camp for the indoctrination of feminist dogma?"

I find it deeply offensive to my personal sense of honor and integrity to be punished or otherwise lectured on something I did not do. Period. And to be subjected to two hours of second-grade style, “who can tell me what Johnny did wrong by telling Sarah she has a hot body” lecturing infuriates me on many levels.

To begin with, I do not need to be told this is inappropriate behavior. I already know that is inappropriate behavior. I learned that was inappropriate behavior not from the State of California or a battalion of corporate lawyers, but from my parents, who raised me to be polite, well-mannered, and who spent much of their own youth trying to form me into a civilized gentleman.

I hear ya buddy...but don't ya know? There are now millions of kids who are raised by minimum wage day care workers, and single mothers getting welfare checks to subsidize their 'freedom from Patriarchal oppression.' You can't expect THOSE kids to understand things like the behavior of a civilized gentleman!

I was treated to a video that had precisely the same emotional pitch and condescension as the old ABC After-School Specials, which is appropriate when aimed at 10-year-olds but in a room full of adults was unimaginably cloying and infantile. In this helpful lecture on the evils of hateful stereotypes, a clueless, insensitive white male managed to offend everyone without the dimmest awareness of his own boorishness until confronted and re-educated (with a rising string section!) by emotionally advanced, sensitive (yet strong!) women and his solemn, understanding (but firm!), black male superior.

While I appreciate your scorn for the insult to your intelligence that represents blatantly over-dramatized propaganda targeted towards a 10 year old's intellectual level, I must disagree...at least you are old enough to see through the politically correct lies of this garbage. It is much more INappropriate to indoctrinate actual 10 years olds with this feminist drivel!

But what really set me off was learning that there are “protected categories” of people who apparently have special claims on being harassed, and that these groups include, but are not limited to:

“Race, color…” [in case you happen to be green or of some color not associated with your race] ”…religious creed, sex, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, pregnancy, childbirth…” [this being different from pregnancy presumably only if you are actually giving birth right there in your cubicle] “…physical disability, mental disability, age, military status or status as a Vietnam-era or special disabled veteran, marital status, registered domestic partner or civil union status, gender (including sex stereotyping and gender identity or expression), medical condition (including, but not limited to, cancer-related or HIV-related), or sexual orientation.”

These – including but not limited to -- “protected categories” are areas in which “harassment” is especially hurtful, as far as I can understand it… which is not very far at all. Can you – offhand – think of any kind of harassment that does not fit into these categories? I suppose saying hateful things about the Florida State football team is okay as long as I don’t use the word “Seminoles” (which would then become offensive on the grounds of race, color, religious creed, national origin, ancestry and military status; to which, I will add as a Gator fan regarding FSU grads, mental disability and – what the hell – sexual orientation.)

Don't ya know? In today's Matriarchal society, all Animals are equal...only some Animals are more equal!

All of this is mere sophistry and cover of course, for the essence of the 22 page workbook I received (and for which I was not given a crayon with which to write nor a gold star when it was completed) was boiled down to a single sentence, in bold italics at the bottom of page 15:

It is not the intent of the alleged harasser, but the impact on the recipient.

It doesn’t matter if you meant to hurt someone. As long as someone was hurt, then harassment took place.

Welcome to the Matriarchy! It's not what you meant or didn't mean to do or say...it's how SHE FEELS that determines the level of your ThoughtCrime and Double-plus Ungood Speech!

Now at the end of all this, the facilitator – who is clearly a lovely person, for this is not aimed at her – smilingly told us not to be paranoid but just to be careful not to offend anyone. And the other 23 people nodded happily and made jokes and goofed around to show how lighthearted and un-paranoid we suddenly all were. And yet, this harassment and sensitivity training did not succeed fully, because there was one person who was offended, and who in point of fact felt extremely harassed. And that person was me.

Sorry. You're a privileged, White Male. You CAN'T be offended or harrassed, because you're a member of the Patriarchal Hegemony that needs to be overthrown!

My parents – remember them? – taught me at an early age that what people said or thought or wrote about me did not have the power to hurt me – only I can allow them to do that. My self-worth, self-respect and self-esteem are earned, and not given, and are therefore mine – impervious to anything in the outside world, which is why I am willing to sit at this desk, as the only one of 24 happy, smart, creative people, and look like some reactionary nut case for being enraged about the fact that we willingly submit ourselves to insults to our personal honor and integrity that our forefathers would never, ever have countenanced. And I am ashamed on behalf of them. But just me. No one else thinks anything of it at all.

You can't blame your 23 other colleagues...they are simply just another example of how We The Sheeple have been effectively and deliberately dumbed-down to become nothing more than HUMAN RESOURCES for our corporate overlords, happy in our debt-slavery!

And so, with smiles and good will all around, behind a plate of donuts and cartons of morning orange juice, we again fall another step from the adult world of action and consequence, to the warm, friendly, everlasting childhood of kindergarten, where no one’s feelings can ever be hurt and teacher is always there to make sure – in her gentle but firm way – that there will never be harmful consequences to your actions because your actions will be so curtailed in advance that offending someone – like feeding and housing yourself – are things that we simply no longer have to worry about any more.

While this blogger never explicitly makes the connection between feminism and the indoctrination he was forcibly subjected to, he certainly describes the new paradigm of our permanently infantilized society promulgated by the Feminist Police State.