toronto experienced a terrorist attack this week.
i call it terrorism because that is 100% what it was. an attack - a targeted attack - on women. 10 people are dead and 14 more are seriously injured. a raging dude decided to run over everything in his path because of rejection. women wouldn't sleep with him - maybe. but perhaps that's for good reason.
this is a kind reminder that women do not owe anyone anything. and they are not required to have sex with anyone they don't want to have sex with. it's 2018 and people somehow don't seem to understand this concept. the fact that later on this week, bill cosby was found guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault speaks more words than i ever could.
my heart has been hurting a lot this week. my biggest fear as a toronto pedestrian is someone hitting me with their vehicle, on purpose or accidentally. pedestrian deaths and injuries climb every year and no matter how much i follow the rules of the road, i'm nearly hit daily.
i'm not a stranger to the worst dudes who refuse to take no for an answer. a few of which wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if they went on a killing spree. i'd hope that they would keep their composure or reach out for help before it came to that. but once i had heard the suspect was in custody, i held my breath. it wasn't any of them, thankfully. at least - not yet.
so much of what i've experienced is the brutal online harassment and violence, similar to what nora loreto is currently going through for a tweet regarding the humboldt broncos crash. hiding behind a screen, these dudes consistently harass her about things unrelated to her tweet in a horrible manner. it's sickening. most of these people utter death threats. nobody deserves that kind of treatment. continuing to hide behind their screens, i'm betting these were the same people jumping to conclusions about the ethnicity and motives of the suspect for the toronto attack.
the most heartbreaking part of it all is when my coworkers brushed off the attack like it was nothing. "it is what it is" was something muttered way too much this week. my coworkers explained to our international offices that it was "some crazy guy who hates women" and not a terrorist attack. but they are wrong.
nobody's life should ever be cut short because some dude didn't get what he wanted.
#torontostrong
