There's a lot of guilt involved, too. A lot of people and companies didn't put their ideals ahead of their wallets (they just said they did) and now they're trying to play catch up. We've gotten by here in Canada with empty words for a long time on many issues and it's catching up to us.
Toronto 'til I die - but I think they're trying to kill me.
I'm really glad these complete douche-bags are getting banned, losing jobs, and whatever else woes they may be facing.
There is one constant measure of a man, and that is how they treat women. These douchebags are thee farthest thing in the world from being men. Anyone who defends them is an equal douchebag in my book. Be a fucking man. Be respectful to woman. Throw away your tinkle testicles, and become a real man.
This is not about enjoying off-colour humour, it's not about yelling some vulgarity at an opposing player, it's not about joking with girls around you know are ok with certain humour, this is a professional woman doing her job as a reporter, and sticking your douche face in the camera and yelling extreme sexual obscenities. I would love to see these idiots get booked and I would love for the message to get out to douchebags everywhere.
I also never intend to censor myself at games. Anyone sitting in 221 or probably in the sections to either side will be familiar with my regular and loud shouts of "CUNT!" and "STUPID MOTHERFUCKER!" and just plain old "FUCK!". But there's a very obvious line between me voicing my frustrations and taunting the opposing team and being outwardly sexist to a reporter while still on stadium grounds. If you were to abuse a female staffer inside the stadium in the same manner, you couldn't blame it on it being a bit of game day verbal release and you'd likely face a similar punishment from MLSE. There's no reason to think this will affect anything in the stands.
The funny thing is these guys were all macho about "fucking her in the pussy" and sticking a vibrator in the reporter's ear yet in the end they're the ones who are getting fucked hard in the ass.
To play devil's advocate though… is there a line when it comes to harassment at games?
The Hydro One guy looks to be fired for violating their harassment policy which includes zero tolerance for harassment of any kind. If this is a "workplace" harassment issue, the words you are yelling at the referee… while he is working… could be considered harassment under a "zero tolerance" policy. You might think they are different but if you were caught on video and whatever you said made it an issue for your employer… you might not find much of a difference at all.
As for the incident, reporter should be commended for standing up for herself. To me, that's where the story should begin and end unless she chooses to press it further… in which case, I… and my daughters… would support her fully.
Sunglasses guy employer issued this
"While the individual was attending the event on his own time and was not at a Cognex activity, the views expressed are totally inconsistent with Cognex’s values, and we find such comments reprehensible. We cannot comment on employee matters publicly, but we take this issue seriously and will be addressing it."
I don't really want to get into him being fired, because that's a much more complicated can of worms, but I'll briefly play along. If I'm yelling insults at a ref that amount to him being say blind and incompetent in much more impolite words, that's me loudly and aggressively stating my opinion that can't really deemed as arguable. Now, if I were to throw race, sex, religion etc into the mix of my insults, then that's actual discrimination and harassment as deemed by the law. I doubt any employer would be anything more than embarassed if I was caught on tape calling a ref fucking blind or whatever, but if I add something more to it than that like the things I mentioned above, than that gets into much more obviously hateful territory and is much less tolerable in our society.
Simple fact is MLSE said you can't be a sexist dick on their grounds. That he got fired by Hydro is something completely different and unrelated to our club.
The yellow guy deserves to be fired. He wasn't caught of guard and he had time to think about his actions and he circled around to talk to her. So stupid wow. The sunglass guy IMO should NOT be fired. He didn't say it, admitted he would do it but never actually did. He seemed caught of guard film was actually going. "Are you actually filming this"
I don't see any mass crackdowns coming at BMO. This blew up into a massive PR issue for MLSE and the individuals employers and the acted accordingly.
Well if you want an explanation of my apology:
As somebody linked, there are people who are using the phrases "witch hunt" and "guardians of the internet" to decry women standing up for themselves cause they do not like being called cunts by people who also threaten them with actual violence, up to and including naming where people live and when they arrive at their place. You used that same language here (those particualr phrases plus "social justice") and I erroneously jumped to the conclusion you knew what you were discussing within that context of gamergate. In particular, the phrase "social justice warrior" has been used by some pretty sick puppies.
i.e. I saw that you were using the language of some really dangerous loopy stalking shit and linked you to it. You have claimed ignorance of this link and thus I apologised for linking you to it.
Moving on.
Last edited by OgtheDim; 05-12-2015 at 05:07 PM.
The douches aside, I'm seeing a lot of hypocrisy all over the place in my twitter feed, and even on here (although not as much, so that's good to see). Honestly, who here hasn't at ONE time yelled something inappropriate during a game, or maybe even before or after? We just lucked out that it wasn't on camera, and there was no one to object to it (mainly because the guys next to me took part). I think what they did was wrong, and probably should be penalized with a season ban. That makes sense and feels deserving. But the fact that they ALSO lost their jobs just makes me feel for them a bit... And I hate the fact that I have to feel ANY sympathy for them, because when I first saw the clip I was pretty disgusted.
Are we bringing vibrators to throw in the air after Oh Canada tomorrow night?
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The point is the action - not the amount of press behind it. That's why the debate. Again principally - and not as a matter of public attention - why should someone who did this without media attention be subject to a different standard?
As others have pointed out within this thread - public opinion is incoherent and twists in the wind without much thought. It doesn't serve as a valid reason to do anything.
Something your mother wouldn't appreciate you saying/yelling. Or maybe even your employer on TV. I'm sure you've done that one time in your entire life. Probably not as bad as what those douches did, but we're just talking about degrees here. Lots of inappropriate yelling going on in the south end every game. TONS!
Like I've been saying on this thread, that language is a little vague. And like i said, I'm one to regularly act more ignorant and loud inside the stadium than I am outside. My mother and employer probably wouldn't be happy with me calling Giles Barnes a "cunting sack of shit" which I did at every opportunity.
But my employer can't discipline me for using colorful language that I wouldn't use in the presence of people I need to respect. Now, if I were to insert something about his race into that insult, that's fair game because that's genuine discrimination, not because he plays for the other team but because he is of a race that many TFC fans( and canadians, and people everywhere yada yada) are. The same can be said If I were to direct the word "Cunt" to a woman at the stadium, where that word holds more aggressive and discriminatory connotations.
When you say that lots of inappropriate yelling goes on at games I very much assume you are talking about my first example of inappropriateness, not the second. The first, while ignorant and unpleasant to some, is fair game at a sporting event and the southend especially because it's generally agreed that it's part of the price of admission, and you're not being offensive to anyone except the opposing team. The latter example of language isn't in any way shape or form appropriate at games (or in life generally) here due to it being undoubtedly more mean, vitriolic and discriminatory. The douches outside the stadium crossed that line on sunday (and it seems like from a few comments that they often did so before sunday too) and they paid the due price. The line is pretty clearly drawn in the sand.
Last edited by molenshtain; 05-12-2015 at 06:23 PM.
It's not the same though. How often did you yell something inappropriate, get called out on it directly from the target, and rather than back down or apologize, continue to dig your hole deeper and deeper.
If those dudes would have owned up when called out and acted with some responsibility, this never would have happened.