Reading the news sucks in general right now but reading the news as a woman… holy shit.
About a month ago, the biggest headline I saw was the Cornell rape case. As a woman, as a college student, as a person, this story evoked so much emotion. I was disappointed in our justice system and in Cornell’s response. I was enraged by the actions from these despicable men. I was sad that this is a reality that almost every woman faces to some extent.
I know one of my fellow bloggers did an entire post on the Cornell case so I won’t go into much detail on that, but then another headline grabbed my attention just this week.
Shane Gillis’ monologue on Saturday Night Live on October 10th.
Shane Gillis is a comedian and actor, best known for idk being an asshole? I genuinely had to google this guy when the SNL lineup was announced and I didn’t recognize a single thing in his IMDB except for SNL.
According to a quick Google search he’s apparently a very successful comedian and to be fair, comedy isn’t my usual entertainment but still I’ve never really heard of this guy.
I only watch SNL when there’s a person I like hosting. I think the singular full episode I’ve watched was hosted by Connor Storrie. I usually just watch clips when they pop up on TikTok in the days after the broadcast.
So imagine my outrage when I’m scrolling through TikTok Sunday morning and I see a clip of a man calling women “whores” for how they dress at the gym.
The exact quote from Gillis’ monologue says:
“Also, I haven’t been to the gym in so long. I didn’t know women just dressed like whores now.”
He then goes on to describe how the shorts these women are wearing are all neon and wrinkle to “combine at the butthole”. Ummm excuse me???
The real kicker for me, even after all of the objectification, was him saying,
“And don’t look. You’re not allowed to look.”
How is allowing a public figure to sexualize women on live television helping women speak up?
And honestly, how is Shane Gillis still being given a platform to share his disgusting opinions in the first place?
I found an NBC article about him literally titled “Shane Gillis was fired from ‘SNL’ for racist and homophobic jokes. Now he’s going to host.”
He was fired from SNL before his episodic debut? For being racist and homophobic??
And now he’s given another opportunity to share his misogynistic opinions too, how great.
According to an article on Late Nighter the SNL episode the week previous, on October 3rd, had an “average of 4.4 million total viewers and 1 million viewers aged 18–49.”
Over 4 MILLION people were watching LIVE as a man, who already proved he doesn’t deserve attention or fame, makes women doing everyday tasks the butt of a horrible joke.
The entirety of the internet was outraged for a month about women’s rights and feminism and the second it dies down from a roar to a speaking voice, another incident occurs where women have to scream over the degradation for an ounce of respect. The never ending cycle of shitty headlines is exhausting.
So what does this mean for feminism?
Personally, I’m not going to let the conversation fade from a roar. I’m going to have the tough conversations with my family, my roommates, my coworkers, the employee taking my Jersey Mike’s order, whoever.
It has barely been 100 years since women got the right to vote and as we watch other rights get taken away on a global and local scale, I’m not going to roll over and allow a truly horrible human being, get away with being horrible for the world to see.
Both of these cases have been extremely public but so often things go unreported or aren’t making headlines and yet even the national spotlight isn’t leading to much of a consequence for these men’s actions.
I implore you to continue to speak up. These conversations are important and even if you’re not directly affected, you could be in the future or someone close to you could be.