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Gender inequality is again a topic of conversation in the online wrestling community.
If you recall, two months ago, Stephanie McMahon praised Patricia Arquette on Twitter for having the courage to fight for wage equality and equal rights for women in her Oscar acceptance speech, which led to controversy for WWE when AJ Lee publicly called Stephanie out for her company's unequal treatment of women in terms of both pay and screen time. Wisely, Vince McMahon quickly stamped out the heat on the flammable situation by twisting Stephanie's arm into thanking AJ for her opinion and co-opting the Give Divas A Chance movement by giving them more time to wrestle serious matches on TV.
However, the subject of worldwide female wage inequality came back to the fore today in the wrestling world when WWE's Lana pointed out the injustice in her own impassioned way on Twitter:
If a man were a woman for just one day the entire world would be a different place.
— LANA (@LanaWWE) April 22, 2015
PMS, periods, 9 months of hell, child raising, working, yet we still get paid less, without any justification but that we were born this way
— LANA (@LanaWWE) April 22, 2015
Sadly, amongst the nodding in agreement and deserved praise for speaking out on such a hot-button issue, were the usual assortment of right-wing straw man arguments, sarcastic comments and, most disturbingly, misogynistic and sexist abuse.
This shouldn't have to be said, but interacting with WWE performers is a privilege and they shouldn't have to be subjected to hateful slurs by fans when they stand up for their beliefs. Thankfully, Lana took away that privilege from the trolls that verbally abused her by quickly blocking those who did and warning all her other followers that they faced the same response if they also used misogynistic language against her:
I am blocking people that write nasty degrading comments below about women. I will not tolerate that on my Twitter feed.
— LANA (@LanaWWE) April 22, 2015
When you think about it, the response she provoked with her earlier tweets perfectly proves the point she was making. How can there be true equality for women when these kinds of hate-filled thoughts and opinions are still held by an outspoken minority?