A Pakistani man of my acquaintance has covered himself in inglory by passing a #MeToo protest on his way into a premiere and shouting out ‘I support harassment of women!’
It’s an example of where everyone knows he didn’t really mean it being an educated upper-class urban Pakistani man, educated at public school and abroad and from an extremely cultured family full of strong women (except that he, to some extent, probably did, or at least, finds all this womanly upheaval amusing and unnecessary). Men and cool girls will respond with the usual ‘haha’, ‘hehe’, ‘lol’, ‘cheetah’ etc, while those who object are humourless feminists, can’t take a joke, can’t you see he was joking, etc, leaving us in a familiar mute fury at being dismissed yet again. To have to laugh along, or else be laughed at. To be unable to point out that yes, it is a joke and yes, it is funny when people take themselves seriously (this is one of the core elements of the Pakistani sense of humour after all), but it gets wearing when it is nothing but dismissal, day after day, hour after hour. Angry and humourless, yes I am; and a feminist too, and never ever in my life ashamed of it.
It is also a particularly Aitchisonian humour, one that is directed at those who are weaker.
In cosmically related news, I had to apply a plunger to a blocked kitched sink this evening. I was engulfed by a fountain of sewage, but grinned and bore it as the owner of the sink would have been mortified.