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When I was in sixth grade, the Pokémon pocket Pikachu came out. I, being the Pokémon fanatic that I was (and am coming to re-embrace), naturally had my own.
Then one day, I lost it. I fretted and I worried and I checked everywhere I could think of, but it didn't turn up. Eventually, I gave it up as gone. (This was a good while before the color version came out, FTR.)
Cut to later that year. I was being harassed in [music] class, which was nothing particularly new to me. However, thanks to an event a few weeks prior (IIRC), which I do plan to write about one day, I decided I wasn't fucking going to put up with it anymore. So I put my hand up, waited for the teacher to call on me, and confessed, through my panic-attack induced tears and in front of the entire class, that the classmate sitting next to me kept on bugging me and that I was sick and tired of it, and could the teacher please do something about it?
Something was done, of course, though I don't recall what it was, exactly. I think mostly the student was told off there and then, and I didn't get (much?) trouble from him in music class after that. I recall with much greater clarity, however, that particular classmate's response to my actions.
As we were walking back to our main classroom from the music room, he told me that he and his other [bullying] buddies knew where my electronic Pikachu was, had found it a while back. And while they had been considering giving it back to me, well, it sure as fuck wasn't happening now that I'd told the teacher he was making my life hell!
I'm pretty sure I cried again, a little, but the important things are as follows: 1) I'd already pretty much given up my Pikachu as gone, and had more-or-less come to terms with never getting it back. This simply cemented things. More importantly, 2) I came to realize that, if he/they hadn't given me my Pikachu before then, I had no evidence that they would have given it back to me even if I hadn't stood up for myself. Standing up for myself at least got me something more concrete.
I bring this up for the following reason: Ski-Jumping is the last sport in the Olympics where women are not allowed to compete. In fact, there are some seriously douchetastic fucknecks on the Olympics committee who have decided that women aren't suited to the task, in spite (or possibly because) of the fact that they may be inherently (generally, physically, and mostly in the case of cis-women) better suited for it than (most cis-)men. Specifically, the following quote:
"If in the meantime you're making all kinds of allegations about the IOC and how it's discriminating on the basis of gender," he warned, "the IOC may say, 'Oh yeah, I remember them. They're the ones that embarrassed us and caused us a lot of trouble of trouble in Vancouver, maybe they should wait another four years or eight years" (Source)
That argument was dumbass shit in sixth grade, and it's dumbass shit now. IOC member Dick Pound (and quite possibly much of the rest of the IOC, though I don't have enlightening quotes from them at the moment), kindly remove your head from your ass and allow women to participate on an Olympic level already.
Then one day, I lost it. I fretted and I worried and I checked everywhere I could think of, but it didn't turn up. Eventually, I gave it up as gone. (This was a good while before the color version came out, FTR.)
Cut to later that year. I was being harassed in [music] class, which was nothing particularly new to me. However, thanks to an event a few weeks prior (IIRC), which I do plan to write about one day, I decided I wasn't fucking going to put up with it anymore. So I put my hand up, waited for the teacher to call on me, and confessed, through my panic-attack induced tears and in front of the entire class, that the classmate sitting next to me kept on bugging me and that I was sick and tired of it, and could the teacher please do something about it?
Something was done, of course, though I don't recall what it was, exactly. I think mostly the student was told off there and then, and I didn't get (much?) trouble from him in music class after that. I recall with much greater clarity, however, that particular classmate's response to my actions.
As we were walking back to our main classroom from the music room, he told me that he and his other [bullying] buddies knew where my electronic Pikachu was, had found it a while back. And while they had been considering giving it back to me, well, it sure as fuck wasn't happening now that I'd told the teacher he was making my life hell!
I'm pretty sure I cried again, a little, but the important things are as follows: 1) I'd already pretty much given up my Pikachu as gone, and had more-or-less come to terms with never getting it back. This simply cemented things. More importantly, 2) I came to realize that, if he/they hadn't given me my Pikachu before then, I had no evidence that they would have given it back to me even if I hadn't stood up for myself. Standing up for myself at least got me something more concrete.
I bring this up for the following reason: Ski-Jumping is the last sport in the Olympics where women are not allowed to compete. In fact, there are some seriously douchetastic fucknecks on the Olympics committee who have decided that women aren't suited to the task, in spite (or possibly because) of the fact that they may be inherently (generally, physically, and mostly in the case of cis-women) better suited for it than (most cis-)men. Specifically, the following quote:
"If in the meantime you're making all kinds of allegations about the IOC and how it's discriminating on the basis of gender," he warned, "the IOC may say, 'Oh yeah, I remember them. They're the ones that embarrassed us and caused us a lot of trouble of trouble in Vancouver, maybe they should wait another four years or eight years" (Source)
That argument was dumbass shit in sixth grade, and it's dumbass shit now. IOC member Dick Pound (and quite possibly much of the rest of the IOC, though I don't have enlightening quotes from them at the moment), kindly remove your head from your ass and allow women to participate on an Olympic level already.
