Misogyny? Absolutely NOT!
Oh for the love of Christ, to compare what I did by gently nudging this rude, completely self-absorbed fellow shopper's legs to "violence" is absolutely absurd.
Gender had absolutely no role in my action. For God's sake, I am a male feminist (I hate some of the ways people refer to women on this board as bitches, sluts, whores, gashes, cunts, etc.), completely appalled by misogyny, and the VAST majority of my friends are women, to boot. That this rude shopper was female had absolutely no bearing or influence on my action. Had it been a man, large or small, I would have done the same thing.
Rudeness is rudeness, and willful rudeness and intentional disregard for others was what this particular person was exercising. It was as if her feet were glued to the floor and she had gum in her ears - but in this situation, it was by her own choice. She had no learning or mental defect of any apparent sort - she was just completely self-absorbed and inconsiderate as hell. She was not deaf.
I wasn't bragging about my actions, either. I was relating a situation (comical IMO to a degree because we can mostly all identify with it) to which nearly ALL of us are going to be faced many times in our lives, particularly at this time of year.
I'm absolutely stunned (and people accuse me of political correctness/hyper-sensitivity!) that anyone would see my gentle nudge to this woman's leg to actually get her attention, since she was blissfully self-absorbed, as an act of "violence."
I was polite for literally two minutes, which is a very long time of standing there saying "excuse me, pardon me, ma'am, hello, excuse me," so I finally gently bumped her legs. She was off in her own willful, snotty, self-absorbed "I'm not moving for anyone or anything" world, and it was disrespectful and rude of her. I nudged her to wake her out of her rudeness, she came back to reality, called me rude, and I said "excuse me, for the last time" and flipped her off.
That's not misogyny. That's not "violence against women." That's called self-assertion, encouraging politeness, a bit of humiliation to show her the sun doesn't revolve around her, and my way of doing so without raising my voice and yelling at her (causing a scene) to get her to snap out of her egotism/rudeness.
I cannot believe I've had to explain myself like this. This is fucking pathetic. It was a post I made to which most people can relate, and we probably all have wanted to do the same thing (and many people probably a lot worse - like screaming "Hey bitch, get out of the fucking way!"), and instead of allowing this person to continually do this, I felt she needed a bit of a nudge.
Humility is important, for it is part of common courtesy and politeness. Well-established societies thrive on manners, mutual respect of others, and the obeyance of laws. She certainly was not breaking any laws with her behavior, but she broke The Golden Rule...
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
If I ever behaved like that, I'd expect the same treatment, turn beet red, and be embarrassed as anything for my rudeness, apologizing profusely for my social blunder and inconsiderate manner. THAT was the intended effect of my action - not some ridiculously absurd ASSUMPTION that it was a misogynistic "act of violence." It's a bit like when you're in your car at a stop light/traffic signal and the car ahead of you hasn't noticed the light has turned green...you wait a few moments, get a bit frustrated as you see the person blissfully ignorant, not paying attention to anything but the mobile phone call they're on in the car, and then you finally lay into the car horn or tap it once or twice to bring them back into the real world so you and the other cars behind you can get through the intersection before the light turns red again.
People here certainly know it is completely out of my character to be violent and/or rude, and I cannot believe my action was construed as such. I'm shocked and very disappointed.
Life goes on, though...
Fin.