Next In Line: The Intersection of Disability with Asshole Customers and What Should Already Not Be Okay

In case anyone that has been following this blog (HAH! Followers.... I crack me up...), I'm no longer a grad student. My program ended up pushing me out (and no Mom, I don't have grounds for any substantive lawsuit). But that doesn't mean I stopped thinking academically about life and situations I may find myself in on a daily basis. Like one I found myself in the middle of on the way home a few weeks ago. 

I stopped at Target for a few things before hitting the highway: lotion, shaving gel, TP, etc. There were a surprising number of people checking out at such a late hour, so the cashiers were all kind of backed up and doing their best to get people out the door in a timely manner. I got in a line with two people in front of me, a gentleman in a suit that I'll call Silver Fox from now on (because he was probably in his mid-forties but damn handsome, and the salt-and-pepper hair gave him a very Richard Gere kind of look) in the middle of being helped. And a younger guy in line behind him, wearing one of these specific Dragon Ball/Z/GT shirts: 

Yeah, you've probably seen them, and to the uninitiated in the ways of the Dragonballs (insert dirty Lord of the Rings joke here, right?), the shirt is a mockup of the outfit the Good Guys wear (think of it as their dojo's uniform) (and yes, pedantic fans, I know, it's called Turtle Training School and run by Master Roshi). This guy also had on a hat with a patch in the image of Totoro on it, so I'm calling him Anime Dude for the rest of this post. 

The cashier (whom I'll call Cashier, so as to give him a "name" here, too) was a man probably a few years older than me (God, I'm officially in my 30s now...), and from listening to him interact with Silver Fox, I could tell he has some sort of developmental disability, accompanied with some sort of mild speech impediment (starting words with hard consonant sounds like hard "c" or a "b" usually involved a stutter). He was being pretty jovial, though, and Silver Fox was smiling and engaging pleasantly in the conversation that Cashier was making; I came in late to the conversation, but it seemed like they were just talking about their mutual love of cheese (I can only presume Silver Fox was purchasing some?). When Cashier told him to have a nice night, Silver Fox said, "You too, son," and grabbed his bag and walked away, smiling.

As Silver Fox was leaving, a woman not much older than me put a hodgepodge of stuff on the conveyer belt: some fruit snacks, an energy drink, diapers, and a thing of baby food. So while I'm a feminist and I don't think a woman's identity is based solely on her motherhood, I'm going to call her Tired Mama (because she sure did  look tired- I smiled at her in an "I get it" kind of way,  and she sighed and smiled back). 

Then Anime Dude's turn came, and after the usual, "How are you?"s were exchanged, Cashier asked, smiling up at Anime Dude (who was a good four or five inches taller than him), "So, that symbol on your shirt, is it Chinese or Japanese?"

"Japanese," Anime Dude said, frankly.

"Aaaah," Cashier said, enthusiastically, "okay, cool! Yeah, when they look like that, I figure it's got to be one or the other, so a fifty-fifty chance, right?"

"It's Japanese,"Anime Dude snapped, kind of jerking his head and his hands to emphasize it. His whole aura was prickly and hostile, and it even caused me to jump back a bit, and I was already a few feet away (because I hate it when people crowd me as I'm being checked out, so I try to provide the courtesy I prefer to others). 

"Oh," Cashier said, looking down now, "sorry." And his body language went from open and excited to closed off and sad, maybe even a little scared. I noticed that while he had maintained eye contact with the Silver Fox at every chance he could, save when he absolutely had to look at the screen or some other thing he was using to do the technical parts of his job at that moment, he was now staring at the things he was scanning, and the counter, and anything else besides Anime Dude he could look at (but, I should note, not anyONE else- he was focused on his station). His shoulders were slouched, his head craned downward.

After a few long, uncomfortable seconds in which  Tired Mama and I exchanged, "Did he really just do that?" looks, I finally couldn't take it.

"Well," I said, toward both Cashier and Anime Dude, "actually," and I tried to sound as authoritative as I could, "that depends. See, Dragon Ball-Z," and at this point, I turned directly to Anime Dude, "and yes, I recognize where that shirt comes from, I get it." And then I turned toward Cashier now, "Dragon Ball-Z, the show that shirt comes from, is a Japanese show, but  the Japanese language has three different  alphabets, one of which is based off of Chinese characters. And the symbols on that shirt," and I pointed at Anime Dude without looking at him, "are from the alphabet based off of the Chinese stuff." At this point, I moved a little closer and turned my body so that if Cashier wanted to, he could look at me and  not have to look at Anime Dude at all while still doing what he needed to in order to finish the transaction (which wasn't much, as they were in the transaction phase at this point). "So, it depends on how you look at it. You could say it's Japanese because it's the Japanese use of that symbol, or you could say it's Chinese because of the original use of it, a Japan-ized version of a Chinese thing, as a way of putting it."

Cashier straightened up like a flower blooming and smiled a little again. "Reeeeally?"

"Yup!" I said, smiling, "I took Japanese in high school, so I know all kinds of stuff about that sort of thing." 

Cashier's smile got even bigger. "Wow, I had no idea! That's so cool!"

"Not really," I said, chuckling, "I'm just a nerd that's into super nerdy things, and fixing mistakes is one of them." I looked pointedly at Anime Dude, who was now the one looking down a little. We made eye contact, though, and then he darted his eyes away.  

"Nah," Cashier said, "that IS cool! My New Year's Resolution was to learn something  new every week, and that makes two things for this week, so thanks!"

"Wow!" I said, "That's a really great resolution! Most people pick things they don't stick to, like losing weight or exercising. Lord knows I have tried that."

At this point, the receipt was printing, and as soon  as Cashier handed it to Anime Dude, who already had his bag, I moved into Anime Dude's space to "suggest" he get out. He went around the edge that's parallel with Cashier, and said, sounding defeated, "You have a good night," to Cashier. Cashier looked a little wary as Anime Dude kind of bowed to me and said, "And you too, ma'am." He looked up at me just before scampering off with a very apologetic look on his face.

I turned to Tired Mama, and she had a kind of smug grin on her own face, as if to say, "Hah, you showed him!"

I spent the rest of my time at the register talking to Cashier about his snow boarding trip from earlier that day and how cool he must be because I know I would spend more time with my butt in the snow than my feet on the snowboard if I ever tried that because I'm so clumsy. I could feel Tired Mama's eyes on me the whole time, and when I finally looked at her, she had a kind of... well... motherly look, like she was proud of her baby bird for flying. Cashier was genuinely funny and earnest, and I didn't pretend to laugh at his jokes, and couldn't have been more sincere when I said I hoped he got some good rest that night when he made it home. 

I knew I was justified. Anime Dude had been a jerk. I mean, Silver Fox had been joking and smiling, and Tired Mama seemed as shocked at Anime Dude as I was, and pleased with how I handled it.

But when I got to my car, I was like this on the drive home:

Seriously, I am still amazed I didn't crash... again... Ugh.

ANYhoo, the whole thing brought up so many emotions for me, on as many levels.

The most general is the interaction between a friendly cashier/person in customer service and an asshole customer. Cashier had been nothing but sincere and pleasant, and for absolutely no reason, entirely unprovoked, Anime Dude snapped at him. I don't care how shitty your day has been, it is 100% not okay to take it out on someone else; and if you catch yourself doing it, you fucking call yourself out and apologize. That doesn't make it okay, but at least it lets the other person know it wasn't them, and it makes it easier for them to move forward.  

This shit happens to me all the time. It's annoying, and I get it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't bother me at least a little. I've had people yell at me for nothing and snap every time I tried to appease them, and a few times they were bad enough before starting to tell me everything that they had on their mind (that had nothing to do with the store they were in, by the way), I even said something along the lines of, "Well, that has nothing to do with me, and I'm trying to make this experience as pleasant for you as possible, but that's easier when I'm not getting yelled at."

I actually had something like this just a few days ago- a gal came in and was super curt the whole time we were interacting, and the fact that she was shopping for a trip that was the next day made any solutions I offered with respect to ordering what she wanted impossible didn't help; I didn't want to ring her up, she had been so rude, but I did, and so I said, "And since I seem to have done nothing but get on your nerves and disappoint you today, I'm going to give you this coupon." She got bug-eyed and apologized, saying she was annoyed with her husband when she walked in, that must have been why she was so rude. I never said she was forgiven; I just nodded, said, "Ah, I see," and kept doing my thing, to give her the same message: That I had nothing to do with what happened with her husband, and she had been rude to me for no reason as I was bending over backwards trying to find what she wanted. She felt guilty, and seemed distressed. And to a certain degree, I felt bad, but not very much: She kind of deserved to realize she had been a shitty person to a super nice one, and it was entirely unwarranted. 

So Anime Dude. My pointed look and "mistake" comment that was totally for him, obviously, were meant to send that message: That he had been shitty for no reason to a perfectly, frankly exemplary, person behind the register- because not every cashier actually makes jokes and conversation. And I'm fairly certain  he got the point, what with how he basically ran off with his tale between his legs. And I'm happy about that. Anime Dude's behavior was 100% Not Okay. And us retail workers need to stick together, and any time we can educate the assholes we deal with is a win. Right?

But the other, deeper level, and the reason I was such a blubbering mess on my home has to do with disability. I saw my little brother in Cashier in so many ways. High-functioning, curious, sweet, sincere. For my little brother, being a cashier would be peek achievement level. And I hate it. Not because I think he's "above" that in some snobby way, but because I know he'll be in situations like the one I just saw. He'll get his own Anime Dude, that snaps for no reason, and he'll think  he did something wrong, but he won't know what. And he'll be as sad and apologetic as Cashier was. Because he won't be able to understand that it wasn't him, his customer was just a jerk, unless someone standing right there can tell him that immediately. And even if he tried explaining it later, he may not have the vocabulary and grammatical skills to express it in a way that someone besides a trained professional or a person in our family would understand well enough to reassure him it wasn't his fault. 

And that enrages me and makes me  want to scream and sob and break a whole dinner set or just knock  over anything knock-over-able in my general vicinity. 

I was proud and relieved I was there for Cashier, but I can't be there every time, and I won't ever be able to be there for my brother. 

I hate that we live in a world where customers can just be assholes and get what they want. But I hate even more that we live in a world that then makes people with disabilities like my brother feel guilty for that behavior. That allows them to feel that way. Because they don't have the comprehension to see that they didn't do anything wrong, that they did everything right. A world where people like my brother, people that need it more than others, can't defend themselves. A world where we put people that are already vulnerable, that already experience all sorts of systemic abuse, into situations where they are supposed to tolerate abuse like that.

This actually relates to the whole Orange Debate: Those oranges that are pre-peeled for convenience also happen to be more accessible, so they're beneficial on multiple levels. Well, this is the reverse: The fact that cashiers are expected to just take it (even though corporate handbooks claim otherwise, that they don't tolerate abuse and stuff, their actual definition of "abuse" really just comes down to overtly threatening language and physical attacks; being super shitty and snapping and even insulting doesn't cut it) is doubly-hard on people with lower cognitive abilities, since the people with disabilities working in customer service are even less likely than non-disabled persons to recognize they hadn't done anything wrong. And  by perpetuating this "the customer is always right" bullshit, we're actually perpetuating a system of ableism.

Because the system doesn't require an apology to the cashier. There is no remedy in the system for the genuinely distressed or hurt feelings a cashier with disabilities may feel as a result of the combination of their shitty customer's behavior and their own cognitive comprehension levels. There is no recourse for a person with disabilities that entirely, 100% unjustly believes they hurt someone else. That person just goes on thinking they upset someone, and that customer goes on with their day, being shitty to other people and not getting any kind of lesson on manners, respect, or humanity. 

AND  WHAT REALLY MAKES ME ANGRY IS I HAVE NO SOLUTION. THIS  IS HOW CAPITALISM WORKS. CAPITALISM IS INHERENTLY ABLEIST IN THIS AND SO MANY OTHER FUCKING WAYS.

I mean, think about it. What if Cashier had snapped back at Anime Dude? Anime Dude could then have complained and had him fired. And Cashier is already in a precarious state: Unemployment and poverty rates for persons with disabilities are leaps and bounds higher than other demographic groups, even when taking into account things like equal levels of educational attainment (so to put it differently, a PWD with a BA is less likely to have a job or more likely to be underemployed than someone without one). This is exactly how intersectionality works. Customer service workers are already lower in the pecking order and prone to being treated like crap by a shitty customer; a person with disabilities is more susceptible to them and less likely to at least have comebacks like I did with the gal who was pissed at her husband. I mean, if I snapped back, I am certain I could get another job, were I to get fired. But if Cashier snapped back, if my brother snapped back, not likely, or at least with much more difficulty.

Because I don't buy the "equal opportunity employer" line. If every company that claims they're "equal opportunity" actually was, the statistics wouldn't be so skewed against persons with disabilities. That's capitalism. These companies don't want to hire (or promote) persons with disabilities for any combination of these, and I'm sure many other that I'm forgetting, reasons:

1) Accommodations may be "too costly."

2) They may assume less output from disabled employees.

3) Whoever is doing the hiring at the ground level has at least latent, if not blatant, ableist tendencies that influence their hiring process.

4) They fabricate statistics to avoid investigations by any organization that may be monitoring them for discriminatory hiring practices. 

Etc.

I don't  really know how to end this. Except to say that customers really shouldn't be allowed to treat people working at where they're shopping/eating/whatever like shit, especially for stuff that's out of the hands of the people working there. But it's exceptionally vile when the target of the poor behavior is a person with a disability. And I recognize I'm saying this from my non-disabled, fully-employed position; but I can't help but picture my little brother with a mop at a McDonald's getting screamed at because someone just clogged the bathroom he had cleaned less than an hour ago, and  him crying because he didn't know what he had done wrong and had just checked on that bathroom and it was fine...

Sigh.

'The Killing' is Kinda Killing Me

SPOILERS for True Detective, Twin Peaks, and The Killing


I haven't finished it yet, but  there are two things in The Killing  that led to me  thinking it is just... Reeeeeally problematic. Okay, so if there's one trope I'm really tired of, it's the "whore gets killed" one in film and on TV (and yeah, I'm sure in books). One version is the Disposable Sex Worker trope, wherein the drama in the piece of pop culture in question centers on the quest to search for the murderer of at least one prostitute. A recent example that garnered much critical acclaim is True Detective. Now, don't get me wrong- I thought it was a fantastic piece of television, and it did a fabulous job of raising some poignant questions. It was well-acted, well-directed, and well-filmed. But the entire plot rested on the objectification of women's bodies, and not a single damn woman in the series had an existence that didn't depend on a man's. Because even the prostitutes at the brothel the detectives visit at one point, their whole schtick and reason to exist in the series is to service men and to be interviewed by the male detectives (or saved, too- another tired trope) (of course, SPOILER, dude ends up sleeping with her later... ugh). Anyway, my point is, I enjoyed the miniseries, but there was no humanity given to any of the victims, not even the main one whose murder the detectives were trying to solve. She's described basically as a whore and a junkie, useless and trashy.

Another and related trope, one I wish had an entry on TV Tropes but doesn't, is what I'm going to call the "Good Girl Has Secret Sex Life (That Kills Her)" trope. I started to really put my finger on this one when watching through Twin Peaks with my roommie in the fall. As Agent Cooper looks into the murder of Laura Palmer, we discover she wasn't the sweet, angelic highschooler all the adults in town thought she was- rather, she was a promiscuous drug addict that knew all sorts of shady dudes that could have potentially been the one(s) to rape and murder her. There's even this really disturbing subplot that she was having sex with her psychologist and left him sexy recordings of her voice. And so as Cooper discovers more and more about her, she's changed from a vivacious homecoming queen to a secret fille fatale that goes after adults instead of "silly highschool boys."

So this brings me to The Killing. In this one, the victim is another highschooler, like Laura Palmer, that supposedly everybody liked and was a good girl and all that kinda jazz. Her name is Rosie. But we quickly learn there's a dude she's been having sex with for at least a year; when a video made the night she was killed is found of that guy and one of his friends raping her (or at least it sure looks like rape), and the two highschool boys are shown it, they both smirk and laugh and dismiss it, one of them flat-out saying, "You ain't got shit." And later in that same episode, the police show Rosie's parents some huge high heels and costume jewelry that they don't recognize as being Rosie's, but those detectives are pretty sure it is. And finally, at the end of the episode, it's heavily implied that Rosie was sleeping with one of her teachers. The thing with the teacher is dragged on and on through the season, and is never fully resolved (I mean, we find out he had been trying to save a Muslim girl at his mosque from an arranged marriage, but it's still never completely proven Rosie and the teacher didn't have inappropriate relations). And toward the end of the season, we find out that she was sneaking around with a fake license to do things like go to casinos. And in the end, it turns out she was basically pulling a Laura Palmer and was taking part in an "introduction service" (read: prostitution/call-girl service) and it was through this that she met her killer.

I should point out, the marketing was strikingly similar between Twin Peaks and The Killing, too. The question of, "Who killed Laura Palmer?" was one of the taglines for the show; "Who killed Rosie Larsen?" is one for The Killing: 

Yet much of both of these shows emphasizes the sex life of the girl whose murder is being solved, not her killer. Seems a little disingenuine, and the tagline should really read, "Who did [character name] sleep with?" or, "How trashy was [character name]?"

SIDENOTE: There's also some backstory with the main character, Detective Linden, involving a former case that drove her a little over the edge. Said case involved a "dead hooker" (direct quote) that had been "slashed in her apartment" and dead for two weeks- with her six-year-old son trapped in there with her. It's not directly related, but still of note because it's framed as a defining thing for Linden, and it involved a "dead hooker." Literally the only description this victim gets, aside from the word victim, is the aforementioned "dead hooker" line. Her only purpose for being  brought up is as a plot device for angst and mental instability on Linden's part.

And it's important to note that while some time in the first couple episodes of S2, when the sorta-boyfriend gets interrogated again, he claims he and Rosie never slept together because  she'd cry  whenever he tried, we were certainly led to believe for nigh a whole season she had been having regular sex with him, or at least used to- and that this fact somehow contributed to her death. So, you know, teenaged girls can't have sex without being raped and murdered. 

And why does this bother me so? Well, for a few reasons.

I feel like both versions, the out-right prostitute, or the "whoring good girl," so to speak, put the victims on trial. Their backstory and history comes under scrutiny, their humanity is diminished, and they become less of a homicide (and usually rape) victim, and more of a Bad Woman/Girl that got what she deserved or, not-quite-literally dug her own grave. The investigation becomes an attack on the character as a person, under the ruse of tracking down the killer.

And I know prostitutes do get killed, etc. But that's not the point. These overused tropes are easy ways to build up edgy suspense. When the viewers are thinking, "What shady business was that girl into that got her killed?" rather than, "What sick asshole would do that?", we're emphasizing the wrong thing. Because no woman "deserves" or "asks for" being raped, let alone raped and murdered. It's just like how in real life, when a rape victim comes forward, she gets asked how revealing her clothing was, did she guard her drink, why was she out that late in the first place, etc. From a cultural standpoint, it's problematic, because it reinforces notions that a woman is somehow at fault or responsible for whatever violence a man inflicts on her*.

And also, the idea that if a teenager has consensual sex with a boy  her own age, she's a whore that deserves to die... it's just... I mean God. I get that perhaps underaged sex is problematic, but to send the message that it's going to get the girl killed (and, note, the boy doesn't even go to jail for anything, despite being caught drinking more than once). That just says sex is scary and leads to lack of information which leads to more teen pregnancies and just... (And no, I'm not saying that teen pregnancies are going to rise now that The Killing has aired, I'm just saying, teens are gonna bone, it doesn't have to always be about jealousy and murder.)

And when it comes to writing in general... it's lazy. Can you not come up with anything more original?

Really, when it comes to Rosie's backstory, the writers are just throwing tropes against the wall like they were spaghetti: Shady past, alleged teen seductress, the "who's the daddy" game (there's drahmah about that in S2, too), the best friend that's jealous because she's Hollywood homely and Rosie is the one all the boys paid attention to (turns out it was her in the video that looked like a rape)... I'm sure there are more, I just can't think of them. Except with respect to the Native Americans in S2.

Which brings me to the second big problem  I'm having with the show. 

In the S2 opener, Rosie's bloody backpack turns up on her parents' front porch. This is like two weeks after she was found, and after the D.A. filed charges on a member of the Seattle city counsel that was running for Mayor (it comes out that the current mayor faked some pictures to frame him). So this is shit-tastic scary- if the killer is out of commission (the city councilman got shot in the S1 finale), why would her backpack show up out of nowhere?

Enter the local natives: So the casino that Rosie was going to in order to presumably meet men through that service was at an Indian casino on tribal lands, property of the fictional Kulamish tribe. And in Season 2, the detectives dig deeper into the casino, and they come across Chief Jackson, a hardass gal that runs the casino and the tribe. In our introduction to her, she goes on about Sacred Mother Earth and some other vague hippie stuff people always assume  is associated with indigenous culture. In the first couple episodes of the season, the writers bait the audience into thinking maybe Chief Jackson is in on the murder: She uses thuggish scare tactics with her minions, going so far as to having Linden's partner ASSAULTED by a group of tribal men, she keeps a special room that our detectives are certain has evidence off-limits, she tries to cover up the fact that one of her tribe's members was the person that found Rosie's backpack, and she and her thugs all make claims of trespassing on the part of the Seattle police (she even says it to the councilman running for mayor)- and, importantly, us that as justification for said beating of Linden's partner (when it's really because of the cover-up aspects). And most of the Native adults speak in that kind of forced high, slow, overly-careful, Shatner-esque way that the dudes in this video fake when the white people enter their store (and Chief Jackson does it too, but only sometimes- she has the "accent" during her little storytelling session, but it's gone when she has her meeting with the politicians):

And why does this bother me so? While we do find out that (WHEW!) Rosie was just a maid and waitress at the casino, not a prostitute, it's at the expense of indigenous culture. And this fictional tribe is portrayed as basically a mafia, with a ruthless, bloodthirsty mob boss (Jackson- what an ironic name) as their leader. It's so hard to find representations of Native Americans in pop culture, and when they occur, they usually suck. I know I'm young, but I'm already bloody tired of Noble Savages and Tonto Talk, and now this? What, now tribes are actually just the Sopranos, but with casinos (read: tribal-run brothels) instead of strip clubs?

It's problematic because stereotypes are all the vast majority of white people know. And when that's all they know, they think they're legit. That's why there are still people that think Washington D.C.'s team name shouldn't be changed, that Tonto is "accurate" and (shudder) "culturally sensitive," that wearing a Pocahottie costume is a "tribute," why a lot of people genuinely assume every Native American just gets a "free check" every year for no reason, other than their being  Native American. 

So what is The Killing doing by turning its chief Jackson into a mafioso-type? Adding new, negative stereotypes to the mix of all of the preexisting ones- that tribal casinos are actually sex trafficking rackets that are run as rough and tumble as the Bada Bing, and that any white person that sets foot on tribal lands without the intent to spend money (or, you know, buy a whore) will get put in the hospital. What the fuck, writers?

And I know I'm drawing at straws, here, but while they spend at least the first half of S2 setting Chief Jackson up as yet another potential killer, or at least facilitator of the murder, she doesn't have her own entry on the Wiki page for the show's characters. Which says to me they really don't give a damn about her or the other indigenous people,  really, but rather are just using the Kulamish tribe to set up future plot stuff,  like  the potential for the falsely-accused councilman to eventually become corrupt or something, or to demonstrate how corrupt the current mayor already is- as in, for the development of the white dudes.  Which, like with all of the tropes surrounding Rosie and  her  backstory, is just lazy writing. AN ENTIRE GROUP OF PEOPLE ARE A PLOT DEVICE. Could they not think of something better for the tribe to do? How about Chief Jackson giving a damn about the dead girl? Or at least show us more as to why she's such a hardass. 

I'm like halfway through Season 2. I'll finish it, make no mistake- if only because I want to know who the frak actually did it. I mean, I'll give the writers this, they're definitely doing all they can to toss red herrings and confuse the audience. But I wish they could do it in ways that weren't reductive of women and indigenous people (and that weren't just overdone in general). Maybe the next curveball will be better- I'm hoping so, at least. But it just kinda  kills me- it's obvious the writers are good. And there are lots of great things about the show- I think my favorite plotline involves how Rosie's dad is affected (her mom, though, ugh...). He breaks my heart. So do her brothers, and her aunt. Rosie's family is the best thing about this show. And I also really like the councilman and his story- his backstory is pretty good (although it DOES rely heavily on the death of his wife, ugh), his relationships with both of his campaign advisers are very different but both very emotional and touching, and his scenes are some of my favorite. So yeah, I'll keep going, and I'm rooting for some characters. And these writers, too- that they break out of some of these overdone plot elements and come up with some new stuff. And I'm hoping we figure out more about the fictional Kulamish people (although again, if Chief Jackson doesn't have her own character entry, I'm guessing  she's only going to show up one or two more times at this point).

Here's hoping, at least.

*Yes, I know violence happens  to men, but these tropes only really occur in pop culture with women being killed by men, and the stereotypes perpetuated IRL are the same.