If you've spent time around men who try to exercise their power and control to do harm, you know all about "just kidding." It's a test. It's an opportunity to say the thing you really want to say & gauge the reaction.

If you don't get a reaction, it's permission! You can keep behaving the way you want to! If the reaction is bad, you know you went too far, too fast. Then you say: "just kidding!" And you turn down the heat.

Maybe you'll try to push the boundary a little bit more. And maybe everyone will think, "Well, you know what? It's not as bad as the other thing," so no one will say anything. Or maybe folks will continue to say things, and you'll continue to say, "Just kidding!"

And if people KEEP saying things, and you keep saying, "It's just a joke!" then the problem isn't the stuff you're saying, anymore. It's the humorless people who can't take a joke! So eventually they'll be quiet, or people will stop listening to them.

And you can say what you want, and do what you want. And the thing that started out as a joke is something everyone is used to and just has to accept. And also–– it's not a joke anymore. It was never really a joke.

This is how sexual harassment starts. It's how abusive relationships start. It's apparently also how the takeover of a democratic government starts.

Hi I guess it needs clarifying that I'm not a humorless banshee, though as a woman online, I have been called that before. This thread isn't intended to say you can't make jokes. Just that some people––including our current secretary of state––use this specific tactic to do harm.