Feeling "threatened" or "violated" by not being able to apply to a job seems just as reasonable.
context is important
Funny you say that while clearly knowing nothing about the context of his comments!
I've seen people fired for similar "unsafe" bullshit. Literally anything can trigger these deranged individuals. They're just out to play victim and get attention.
And no, I don't think all toxic workplace behaviour is like this, many places have narcissists and similar types roaming the halls making things extremely traumatic for many people. That stuff is real and I feel for the people that get out through the ringer by these environments.
But a book? 6 years ago? In the context of a zombie apocalypse hypothetical? Get the fuck outa here.
so this is ok because he’s saying they’re only useless in an apocalyptic scenario? he’s literally saying that the core of women is useless in the “real world”.
i understand that it can feel like there’s a group of anonymous “woke thugs” wondering the internet trying to get people. if you feel that way it might be useful for you to try and empathize with why someone would feel that way.
Ultimately, if we let this continue, it becomes a war on flavor and humor, where no rhetorical fun is allowed lest someone take it the wrong way.
at the same time, i feel like i’d have known better than to generalize like this and publish it. i understand there’s context about how/why it was said.
i’d really love to be able to express my thoughts that border on “anti-woke” but i don’t. i feel like the only way for us to be honest about our feelings is to be anonymous.
i guess at some level i would hope this person would’ve been smart enough to know that. there’s a social game we all have to play, and just because it sucks we can’t not deal with it.
And I don't even blame the companies. They're just looking out for their own interests and individual current or potential future employees have pretty much zero weight as balanced against any public PR hit.
either way, for others who want more context to what you are referring to - you're speaking about the rapid hiring then firing of Antonio García Martínez by Apple due to several excerpts from his book "Chaos Monkeys" that many employees took as racist and sexist. The most notable of which being:
"Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit. They have their self-regarding entitlement feminism, and ceaselessly vaunt their independence, but the reality is, come the epidemic plague or foreign invasion, they’d become precisely the sort of useless baggage you’d trade for a box of shotgun shells or a jerry can of diesel…British Trader, on the other hand, was the sort of woman who would end up a useful ally in that postapocalypse, doing whatever work—be it carpentry, animal husbandry, or a shotgun blast to someone’s back—required doing."
“PMMess, as we’ll call her, was composed of alternating Bézier curves from top to bottom: convex, then concave, and then convex again, in a vertical undulation you couldn’t take your eyes off of. Unlike most women at Facebook (or in the Bay Area, really) she knew how to dress; forties-style, form-fitting dresses from neck to knee were her mainstay.”
“In his ill-fitting polyester polo shirts with color palettes stolen from the late seventies, he reminded me of the bored auto-rickshaw drivers in front of Connaught Place, Delhi, who’d overcharge you a hundred rupees to go down the street to Paharganj. “So is there anything we can do compensation-wise, Antonio?” asked Chander in his thick Indian accent.”
Feel free to interpret this how you may.
[1] https://jezebel.com/apple-hires-gets-rid-of-man-who-called-w...
Look at it another way. What if someone said "I am not a supporter of gay marriage", would it be OK to call that person homophobic and cancel that person? What about people who were supporters of that person at one time? Should they be canceled too?
A more applicable comparision would be someone who publicized that they thought that gays were weak minded. I wouldn't say you should 'cancel' that person (what does that mean?), but I would say that person should be disqualified from the opportunity to lead a team that includes gay people. And any business should always assume that their team could include gay people.
which has implications for things like biased hiring, promotions, workplace relationships, etc.
and this is not the sort of thing that can be "disproven" by past actions, because it still implies the potential for workplace discrimination
as someone who is LGBT+, I would never be able to work with a manager or coworker who expressed views like this for this reason
If your belief is that failing to support gay marriage is in itself an act of discrimination, than I could see how you would reach a different conclusion.
[1] https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Emily-Wilder-Associa...