Wednesday, September 24, 2014

A NYC Bartender's Powerful Open Letter To The Hedge Funder Who Allegedly Grabbed Her Ass

From the Gothamist:

A SoHo bartender is fed up with misogynistic bros treating her like a piece of meat, and she's written a powerful open letter to the hedge funder who she says grabbed her ass at work. Laura Ramadei, an actor who tends bar at Lucky Strike on Grand Street, says that when she asked customer Brian Lederman what he'd like, he immediately groped her. And after she made it clear she wasn't enamored by his charms, he left her with a shabby tip. Ramadei's outraged Facebook message to Lederman is going viral, but we'd like to see it printed out on leaflets to be dropped over most of Manhattan and Williamsburg.

Click here to read the letter.

Part of the privilege coming from the fact that I am a man in a patriarchal society is that I don't have to put up with this crap as a restaurant server. If I were a woman, it is highly probable that I would find such work intolerable.

But it's not all about rich assholes in restaurants and bars, of course. We see this kind of behavior in men throughout all socioeconomic groups, for all ages, in all places. Personally, I think we should teach good behavior in sex ed classes, which wouldn't be a difficult thing to do. On the other hand, weirdo Puritanical attitudes are all over sex ed, especially here in Texas, and Puritanism and misogyny tend to walk hand in hand. So I don't know. Seems a bit hopeless.

I think that things had been improving for years as far as sexual harassment goes, but now we're going backwards.

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