Old guy makes joke about women talking too much, gets fired

A few months ago, some old guy billionaire who sits on Uber's board had the temerity to make a joke about women during a board meeting.

Of course, he was forced to resign.

Because of course he was.

Earlier in the day at an Uber staff meeting to discuss the company’s culture, Arianna Huffington, another board member, talked about how one woman on a board often leads to more women joining a board.

“Actually, what it shows is that it’s much more likely to be more talking,” Mr. Bonderman responded.

LOL!

Ok, yes, it was a little offensive to those who like to take offense to every damn thing under the Sun.

But a) it was a joke, and b) jokes are rude sometimes, because c) that's what makes them funny, and d) people make jokes like this about men ALL the time, and e) men laugh at those jokes too, because f) men often make those same jokes at their expense.

Of course, lots of people are pissed now. Althouse has a typical reaction.


Hmmm. Every attempt at making fun of a woman, or women as a group, in any conceivable way, whether true or not, whether funny or not, is now a deadly serious matter. No laughing here! No sir! I mean, no ma'am!

It has been decreed:

Things That Were Funny Before

Are No Longer Funny

Some folks have decided that because they need to live in perpetual butt-hurt mode, that means we do, too. And we must never, ever question their judgment on these things.

Well. Some questions, then. Think carefully, and remember, we all have (or had) dads and grandfathers, brothers and uncles.

(1)
Are jokes about men, that make fun of "typical male traits", still funny? Why or why not?

(2)
In which settings are jokes about men are allowable? At board meetings? In airports? In taxis or Ubers? In movies, TV shows, commercials, and throughout pop culture? In my kitchen? Yours?

(3)
Are women allowed to make jokes about other women? This is the really interesting question here. Let's not pretend that women themselves do not make fun of women for being kinda chatty. We know they talk more, they know they talk more, science knows they talk more, and has demonstrated that many times over. Remember all those stories about how women are more verbal, and have advantages over men because of it? Hmmm.

(4)
What is the proper and proportional response to things we don't like? Forcing people out of their jobs? Verbal criticism, making the point that we respect their right to be wrong? Somewhere in between? More to the point: does it really benefit anybody to demand firing a person for making a single statement in a private or semi-private setting? How, and why? This is a very dangerous precedent that doesn't really fit into a culture where the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech (even though, yes, of course, the Constitution refers to government oppression and doesn't speak to this specific scenario, yes, we get it). 

Nobody is going to ask these questions, of course, because we live in a world where political posturing and virtue-signalling run the show, and Twitter mobs demand mob justice in the name of "progress".

Pass it on: the right way to push back against speech you don't like is more speech. Not mobs that demand people be silenced and ultimately fired.

Something has gone seriously wrong in America when it is necessary to point this out.