I know it's been a very long time since I've blogged.

I can put this to a lot of things:  a rather marked increase in the workload at my day job, a pair of volunteer tasks that require a fair amount of focus and attention, a need to work at writing things that I hope to send out for publication in the near future.  There's more to it, though.

Unless you've been completely cut off from all human contact (pity the lonely Mars rover) you've probably noticed that in the past year or so, the internet has been an awful, awful place to be, particularly if you're a woman.  It is genuinely exhausting.  With the criminal hacking of female celebrities' nude photos, the now-omnipresent tumour of hate and nerd-rage known as GamerGate, and today, the bizarre condemnation of a woman having the nerve to show up to an event after having aged, it seems like we're in the throes of a resurgence of misogyny of such unprecedented proportions that it threatens to send us back to the days of pinching secretaries and drive-through backseat blurred lines (you know, the times of Mad Men).

Of course, the truth is that there's tragically little about today's misogyny that is unprecedented.  The creepy critters were always hiding under the rocks and it's only now that we're trekking out into the backwoods for a little constitutional refresher that we're finding them still slithering about.  As Emma Watson aptly observed in her address to the UN, no country in the world can truly be said to be completely equal.

There are people who take umbrage with this statement, or, failing that, with movements largely aimed at adding some counterweight to the inequity.  The argument, if I can collate it is as such, is that the counterweight will go/has already gone too far, and people on the other side (in this case, ye olde white men) are being harmed.

I'm going to do something, right now, for any of those people who feel attacked by feminism who chance upon this blog entry.  It might come off as crazy, or patronizing, or just a blatant lie, but I want you to know - and I want any feminists to bear with me until the end of this entry, because this is going to take a sharp left turn - that I am being completely, truthfully, sincere.

I am going to take you at face value.

Not you, crazy death-threat twitter-user.  Not you, dudebro with the ex-girlfriend who thinks all women are evil.  No, I'm talking to you, the self-proclaimed "moderate," the person who theoretically exists behind a thick veil of awful, calling out from the sidelines that they are being unfairly represented.  Feel unfair no more, you are the fairest here.

threephin via Compfight cc

I can accept that you may have issues you legitimately want to raise.  You may have honest concerns about how certain people are treated, on or offline.  You may even have real points to make about video games (triviality to the common man, but YES, I get it, RealGamers™ really, really care)!

I'm afraid there's a problem.  When you tack your Totally Legitimate Concerns on to someone who is asking to simply have the right to be treated the same as everyone else, you invariably come off as a douchebag.

I don't CARE if you have legitimate concerns.  I don't CARE if you think that somebody posting their nudie pics on iCloud is reckless.  When that person is saying to you, "I would love to be treated with respect and equality," your only answer should be FOUR.  WORDS.

"I support equal rights."

Full stop.  End thought.  Final statement.  Close the deal.  Drop the mike.  Glitter bomb it.

Now I can hear you out there.  I can feel your fingers poised above the keyboard, ready to tell me how wrong I am, that THEY cast the first stone, that YOU'RE being attacked, that EVERYONE is out to get you.  Most of all, I hear you saying "but this is REALLY about..."

Nope!  Don't do it!  Resist the temptation!

See, here's the thing.  Equal rights are equal rights.  I realize this may be a sticky wicket to navigate, but when people talk about equal rights, they don't tend to attach bizarre riders in the fine print.  You didn't listen to Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I have a Dream" speech only for him to turn around and add "but no jews."  Equal rights don't come with conditions.  They don't come with attacks.

There are many important things that you may want to talk about.  No, scratch that...I have no doubt that there are important things that DESERVE to be talked about.

Equal rights are not the forum to use.

Your first reaction to a woman's plea for respecting her right to privacy should not be "she should have secured herself better."

Your first reaction to a woman's suggestion for more equality in video games representation should not be "she's wrong/she's a liar/I can't even go further because these attacks are endless and increasingly vile."

All you have to do...all you ever should do...is remember four words:  "I support equal rights."

By all means, write about how everyone can protect themselves online.  Write about how you think video games are best represented.  Write about corruption in games journalism.  Just don't go attaching it as a reaction to those four words, because the moment you say "also" you're really saying "except."  Equal rights aren't an exception.  That's what makes them equal.  If you have a real point to make, it should be strong enough to stand on its own without relying on the crutch of being framed as a reaction, right?

And if you have trouble with that concept, if you find yourself struggling at the keyboard to resist hammering out your own personal vendetta whenever someone stands up and has the nerve to suggest they want to hear those four words bouncing about the four corners of the world until they're on the lips of every last human being with total and complete openness...

...well, then the bad news is that you probably didn't believe in the four words to begin with if you thought they couldn't stand on their own.

The choice is there, though.  Everyone can do it.  Think of this as an offer.  An invitation, even.

I support equal rights.  Will you?