Canadian Podcasters Called Out for Condoning Sexual Harassment Sue Woman for—Wait for It—Harassment

Two Canadian podcasters who giggled gleefully as a guest lamented the fact that it’s now more difficult to openly harass women on the street—before mentioning that he’s still likely to assault women passerby—are miffed that a woman listener called them out on their bullshit in an Instagram post. To recoup the damage done to their feelings, the pair are now suing the woman for harassment for upwards of $15 million.

The Toronto podcast, called The Construction Life, is ostensibly aimed at improving the lives and livelihood of those who work in the construction industry. However, on a recent episode, the podcast, hosted by Manny Neves and Jim Caruk, featured a recurring guest, a plumber named Danny, who discussed at length the pleasure he has taken in making the lives of women he encounters much, much shitter:

“‘Today things are different,’ the CBC reports Danny as saying in the epidode. “Like, if you see a sexy woman on the street when we were 20 years old, you whistle. Today you even look at them, you got the cops behind you, they’re charging you. It’s the truth. It’s ridiculous what’s going on today,” Danny says.

“I’d still whistle,” Caruk responds.

“Yeah, but …,” someone says before Neves asks: “You’d still whistle?”

“I’d still whistle,” Caruk says.

“I’d probably put my hand out and ya know, try to reach [inaudible],” Danny adds.’”

Lovely.

In response to the episode, Natasha Fritz, who owns a company called Natural Carpentry, sent an email to the hosts, whom she’d once met as a guest, and the section was edited out after a discussed episode allowing Fritz to explain exactly what is so wrong with harassment and sexual assault to the men was shelved. After being given the runaround by Neves and Caruk about the proposed episode, Fritz posted the audio to her Instagram alongside statistics about the prevalence of the very behavior the men on the podcast found so hilarious, and action Neves and Caruk deemed a bridge too far:

“Despite stating in the lawsuit that Fritz raised “important points” and apologizing to her via email, Neves, Caruk and the company Candelaria Pictures Corporation are now suing her for a total of $15,250,000 for posting an edited version of the exchange on her Instagram page that puts the comments next to unattributed statistics about sexual harassment and assault.”

You see, in hindsight, the men believe that allowing people to hear the shit they allowed to go down on their show amounts to “inciting harassment and wide-spread hate.” Wow, it’s almost as if unwanted comments from strangers can make a person feel unsafe. But at least they’re safe from Danny so long as they manage to sit further than arms’ length the next time they invite him on their podcast.