oh my god if i have to see this post on my dashboard one more time

all right, okay. let’s talk.

last year on a slow day in law/society class, my teacher showed us a movie where charlize theron was one of the only female workers in a mine in minnesota. she experienced a fuckload of sexual harassment, ofc; it was when she started daring to complain about the sexual harassment that shit got really bad.

i remember watching charlize theron go through all these awful things, and i remember getting vaguely invested in her as a heroine; yeah, you go charlize theron, you continue to work despite these harassment and assaults, you stand up for yourself when people shun you in the community, etc

and there was this climactic scene where the miners’ union was having a meeting, and charlize theron was going up to complain about something or tell people she was suing the company or smth, i can’t remember, and she stood there in front of this huge crowd of angry men who were booing her and catcalling her and shouting the worst things at her and she’s getting really miserable

and then her father, who also works at the mine, goes up and says “hey, you’re all jerks, think of your mothers & daughters, would you treat them this way,” and the miners are like “oh wow charlize theron totally does deserve our support etc” and then the movie continues

but all i could think was— what, so they’ll listen to a man but not to the woman who’s actually affected? why doesn’t charlize theron get to save the day and be the hero? in a conversation about sexism, why is his voice more important than hers?

we’re not mad at macklemore. or— well, we are mad at macklemore, but we’re more mad at the system that prioritizes macklemore over actual queer rappers, over actual rappers of color, who have been saying exactly the same shit for decades and been ignored.

we’re mad at the system that gives more attention to straight allies than queer activists.

we’re mad at the system that only supports queer rights when they are quiet and polite and have cute graphics.

we’re mad at the system that makes macklemore a hero of of the queer struggle but doesn’t know marsha p. johnson’s name.

we’re mad at the system that will listen to macklemore when he comes to defend us— but won’t listen to us.

we’re mad at the system that has constructed itself to make damn certain that only straight cis white boys can be heroes.

it’s fuckin’ great that macklemore thought he was gay in third grade. but the system would rather give his third grade gay freakout the spotlight than our actual whole-life queer experiences— and that’s not okay.