A gingerbread house creation by pastry students of the San Ysidro Adult School Culinary Arts program in San Ysidro, Calif., December 9, 2014. (Mike Blake/REUTERS)

Cookies are not to blame for sexual harassment.

Scotland’s Parliament has made the decision to ban “gingerbread men” from a coffee shop at its capitol over concerns that the name of the cookie perpetuates sexism.

Each of these cookies will now instead be called a “gingerbread person,” according to an article in Express.

According to the news source, the change was made after it was discovered that more than 30 percent of female ministers in Holyrood said that they had suffered some sort of sexual harassment.


Not everyone is on board with the name change. Express reports that Scottish Conservatives have stated that the move “trivialises” institutionalized sexism — and they’re absolutely right.

Make no mistake: Sexual harassment is a very serious issue. No woman should have to worry about dealing with something so horrible when she goes to work, and it’s absolutely disgusting that so many do. Here’s the thing, though: I would estimate that approximately zero fewer women are going to have to deal with it because the name of a damn cookie was changed.


That’s right: I actually don’t think that the name of a seasonal cookie is responsible for workplace sexual harassment. I actually don’t think that there are men out there who are perfectly good, well-behaved dudes, and who then see these cookies and as a result suddenly cannot stop themselves from sexually harassing women. I also doubt that any workplace predators are going to see that the names of the cookies were changed and then go, “Oh wow! Gingerbread persons. I guess I shouldn’t be telling Susan her a** looks nice when she comes in to work the morning!”

Making the name of a cookie in a coffee shop any kind of issue in Parliament is a complete waste of the government’s time at best. I mean, these are people who are paid with tax dollars, and if I were paying tax dollars in Scotland, I’d be furious that this is the sort of thing that my money was paying for people to handle. That’s the description of this at best — at worst, this kind of thing is something that can actually hurt women rather than helping them. See, making some kind of completely useless, completely symbolic gesture in the name of combating sexual harassment can actually be worse than doing nothing at all. Why? Because it allows all those folks in Parliament to feel like they’ve done something, to convince themselves they’re somehow helping, and to pat themselves on the back when really the problem is still there.


Personally, I consider this move to be a huge slap in the face to any victims of sexual harassment — in Scotland or anywhere else. If I were dealing with some kind of workplace sexual-harassment nightmare, and I heard that this was my government’s idea for how to help me, I wouldn’t have anything to say except “F*** your cookie! I’m being sexually harassed!” It wouldn’t make me feel any better. In fact, I highly doubt that this made anyone feel any better — except, of course, for those people in Parliament who can sit back and congratulate themselves about how woke they are . . . which is usually what this kind of virtue-signaling is really about, anyway.