On This Int'l XX Day I Do Solemnly Swear

It's such a beautiful day here in Ottawa, and yet I'm wound up like a jack-in-the-box because I've been arguing about politics on the internet.

And not even with people who hold terrible no good disgusting opinions, but with people whose opinions vary only marginally from my own.

So I made a resolution on the dog walk, a resolution witnessed by both Bernie and My Blond Companion, that I will no longer argue about politics on the internet.

I finally realized what the people on Pinterest have always known, that when we argue politics on the internet, we become just one more of a billion braying know nothings arguing politics on the internet. And if I don't like being called a lesser Feminist than a man when I don't agree with him about how Jody Wilson-Raybould reacted to the Bros Club bugging the shit out of her to change her mind on prosecuting that stinking pile of garbage, SNC Lavalin - (her reaction being the attempted take down of the only liberal Feminist government we've ever had) - then I shouldn't engage with him in the first place.

It's not like it's the first time. It's every time. And we're friends. I'm going to his place for dinner tomorrow, ffs.

So yes, I'll take the rocks out of the salad after I'm done this entry.

A different man, yet still an older white male, one I'd never encountered before on Facebook, called me racist the other day. A woman called me sexist. She charged in under the #MeToo banner because "they didn't take no from a woman as an answer". When I pointed out that equating this situation to sexual assault was a bridge too far in my opinion, a man I don't know but agree with pretty regularly, posted an angry face emoticon on my comment.

So I snoozed him for 30 days.

Growing up, my mother was very confrontational when it came to politics. A fierce Liberal who supported Sheila Copps for the leadership. But she was never on the internet. And even if she had been she'd just forget about it when she shut down her computer.

It was fun for her. It's fight or flight for me.

I live with a ball of anxiety burning away in various parts of my body 24/7. Going outside is a challenge, a challenge I meet over and over and over because, in that way, I am my mother's daughter. And this, just blogging, putting myself out there for reading, is pushing the envelope enough. I know, I know, I don't have to do it. Except I do. It's a blogger thing.

So there you have it. I've made my vow public, which is how I like to make my vows, and as Gord is my witness, I shall never argue politics on the internet again.

Oh, one more thing. People of all politics need to stop telling other people who identify as Feminists that they aren't. It's hard enough getting people who are Feminists to identify as such publicly, the last thing we need are purity tests from self-appointed deciders as to who is and who isn't a Feminist.

Feminism has changed our part of the world to the benefit of us all. We need to do everything we can to spread it to the benefit of people everywhere else.