2021-02-12

The point wasn't to prove him wrong

Tokyo 2020 President Yoshiro Mori earlier this month: One of the problems with women is that they won't shut up.



Besides the obvious fact that supposedly "neutral" news stories continually refer to his comments as "sexist", it sure seemed based on their hysterical responses that he was onto something. We already have 1/5th of our meeting attendees overreacting like this, and you want to double it?

It reminds me of a small town garage in southeast Alberta I had to stop in when I had a blowout a few years ago. It was a nice grungy one-man operation, and as I was getting my new tyre I noticed the sign he had up on the wall behind him...It was a cartoon of a buxom babe and a car with overinflated tires, reading:
If it has tires or tits you're going to have trouble with it
This was a fairly old cartoon: it had that late 70s-early 80s aesthetic such as seen here (and here), and despite my efforts on Google I haven't been able to find it (there are lots of modern versions). It was a little faded and torn in the corners, had clearly been blown up on a photocopier from a 3"x5" to a 8.5"x11", and had been up there for more than a few years.

This being the late 90s when political correctness was first rearing its ugly head, I had to ask him if he'd ever encountered any negative comments about his little poster. He apparently had only had one incident a few months earlier, some "big city" girl had come in with an emergency same as me, she'd been a little picky about selection or the cost or something. And then she saw the poster and started tearing into him over it.

He finally got a word in edgewise, and here's some free advice for future Olympic Presidents or whoever else gets stuck in the same situation as this tyre repair guy or Yoshiro Mori. When this comes up again, don't resign or retreat. Respond how he responded:
Hey that sign is right. You have both tires and tits and you've given me nothing but trouble!