charismaticmicrofauna

“The Austrians are brilliant people. They made the world believe that Hitler was a German and Beethoven an Austrian.”

–Billy Wilder

I am not sure why people get so defensive simply because I am describing my observations of them and repeating things that have been openly expressed to me, but this is my blog. I pay for this domain. I’m going to say whatever I want and if you don’t like it that’s fine with me. Open discussions in support of or against my perspective are great, but if you’re going to get upset and complain at me in a one sided way then you can jog on. I grew up being put down and constantly being told what a disappointment I am to my adopted parents because I’m not the conservative China Doll they thought they could mold me into, and I am not going to make myself small again for anybody. I am who I am. So, take all this in, hunty!

I am a radical-intersectional feminist and I am not sorry for it.

Let’s take the reactions of these two hypocrites, for example.

“I am shocked to read what you wrote about the role of women in Austria. Sexism like any kind of discrimination needs to be battled at all fronts, and I do hope that you speak up to your boss or colleagues when something happens at the University (there is also an “equal opportunities office” that deals with such cases)…….Austria needs to improve (but to my knowledge USA is slightly worse ;))”

Let’s unpack this a little. First, I actually did speak up to this exact same person when someone else in my department called me “darling”. It was inappropriate to me and when I said so to this woman, her reply was “you’ll get used to it.” So much for your speaking up to you, you white liberal feminist. Also, if you think that I am not just as critical about the rest of the world and the US, then you’re not paying attention. You obviously haven’t read any of my other blogs, and no amount of cutesy little winky faces is going to hide your passive aggressive bullshit.

Here is another complete stranger’s response to my blog who worked in my department at the University of Vienna:

To be honest, I don’t know how this person even came across my blog, but I think maybe the previous snowflake shared it with him out of disgust or outrage.

Having just moved to Austria I sent an email to my department asking for vacation recommendations in Austria and this fine upstanding gentleman CC’d all with this reply:

“Dear Juliana,

This only make sense when you can leave your reservations expressed in the enormous number of prejudices about Austria in your blog behind. Else, I would recommend to stay in Vienna, you will only be disappointed further.”

This was really shocking to me because when I started at the University, the pandemic numbers in Austria started to rise and I heard this individual telling a casually racist story in the breakroom about Asians in public in Austria taking masks off and laughing about how everybody should panic about it. I asked, “are there a significant number of cases of Asians with COVID in Austria?” There were not. But yes, I am the prejudice one, obviously.

A friend had this to say about it and I don’t disagree: “I went back and read the blog post as well and didn’t see anything offensive or prejudiced about your perceptions, but I could see a sensitive, misogynistic man-child taking umbrage with them. That kind of bullying behavior he exhibited should not be tolerated in the workplace under any circumstances.”

So here is a little checklist of questions to think about if you have criticism for someone you barely know, like these two or for someone that you know very well and want to raise an objection to:

1. Am I trying to win a debate or engage in a dialogue?
2. Is it more important to me that I am right or that I grow?
3. Am I more interested in changing the other person or changing myself?

Something good came from these one-sided criticisms. It made me take some time to reflect on what I want to represent and what I am about. I thought really hard about whether or not I might be prejudice and unfair, and yes I absolutely am, but I am willing to recognize my biases, prejudices, and hypocrisies so that I can continue to grow as a person. That’s what life is about.

“Life is pain, and anybody who tries to tell you otherwise is trying to sell you something” – The Dread Pirate Roberts