I don't know who Gadamer is, but are you insunuating he's a two year old?
I like the new picture on that blog better.
(Nobody wants to talk about Goldstein anyway, right?)
3 - "Watch rescuers pull blood-covered victims from wrecked trains -- 1:59"
No shame. None.
Goddammit. People can stop blowing the shit out of other people any time now.
People can stop blowing the shit out of other people any time now.
Hmmph, maybe Wednesday?
I like the new picture on that blog better.
I dunno. Because it turns out that Lindsey is, like, cute. And I felt so much more pro-feminist reading her blog when I didn't know she was cute.
Good that she kept with the Johnny Cash shirt.
You didn't think the old picture was cute?
8: No, I didn't find the old one flattering. Then I saw other pictures of her and was a bit surprised that she was so totally hott.
She looked rather imperious in the old picture, despite the shirt. Though still cute enough to smite some of her hapless trolls, whose impure motives were evident to everyone else but them.
I admit that the old picture wasn't as flattering, but I still thought her cuteness shone through.
The old picture was more badass. This one is more traditionally cute.
Since B isn't here, I'll have to make the obligitory "would we be talking about this if Lindsay was a man?" comment. But my heart's not really into it.
In an out-of-character moment, I'll admit that it would sort of be nice to talk about the content of her views without reference to how she looks.
OK, done being ghey.
In fact, I've met her in person and was honestly surprised at how ethereally pretty she is. None of the pics really do it justice. She also has a lovely, goosebump-inducing voice.
And of course it's true that our being all, "wow, Lindsay is so pretty!" is a sad indictment of how important attractiveness in women is. Nonetheless, the fact is that Lindsay is, in fact, really pretty.
Holy shit, did I just out-PC B? I'll have to rape myself in the face or something.
If anyone's uncomfortable discussing Lindsay's looks, feel free to talk about how cute I am instead. I can take it.
I thought we agreed that guys should be talked about like this, too.
would we be talking about this if Lindsay was a man?
We've talked about it with Smasher, haven't we? And when Sausagely changed his picture, we discussed that as well. And lord knows if Ogged's picture had ever graced the front page, then changed, we'd have discussed it to death, right?
So, probably.
You did! I know, it's shocking. Quick, let's get back into the mind-swapping machine, this is weirding me out.
22 to 18. Okay, I have to go cook dinner now.
"wow, Lindsay is so pretty!" is a sad indictment of how important attractiveness in women is
It doesn't strike me as much different than "Wow, Labs is so tall!"
I figure it's a cosmic balance. Someone's probably called her ugly because they didn't know how to argue with her views on something; we call her pretty and it evens out. Plus, I really like the new(ish) hair cut.
On the other hand, I hate the idea that women get judged by looks. But I suspect rather nastily that this is because I am rather plain.
FL, you're quite enamored of that phrase.
I don't think it a coincidence that Teo posted about male attractiveness shortly after people told him he was cute.
It's actually kind of interesting that so few bloggers post pictures of themselves prominently on their blogs. Josh Marshall and Berube are the only other ones I can think of offhand, but then I don't read that many blogs.
Don't hate me because I'm beautiful, eb.
24: The attacks on women's appearance happen more frequently and are more vicious; a lot of the feminist blogs regularly end up in arguments where the choice verbal weapon is a variation on 'in your picture you look like a fat fuck you dumb whore no wonder you hate men.' Commenting on a woman's appearance is more loaded than a similar comment on a man's appearance would be.
But hey, this is just a compliment.
30 - Shhh...that was me. (OK, I got an email saying "The site is down!" and I thought it crashed again, so I wrote a whiny comment to test that it was down and only after that went through did I realize that the email was from when the site was down the first time and the email was just delayed because it was routed through the Unfogged servers and I felt my whining was unwarranted so I deleted it. See? Wasn't that boring?)
I really wish that they could set it up so that Ygelsias's picture didn't show up on every single post. Perhaps it's related to the fact that it looks like he's radically gained weight.
How many people would read Talking Points Memo if every single post was accompanied by a picture of Josh Marshall, whether in "respectable" or "alterna-stubble" mode?
I've been compared to Grizzly Adams, twice. Do I complain?
On the other hand, I hate the idea that women get judged by looks.
Guys do, too. That's why people end up checking to see if there are correlations between height and success in business and politics. Eh, shit happens. And I'm not willing to go find the new Lindsey picture, but she came off as very attractive in the lesbian Elvis pic.
I do think it's weird the way every single post on TMPCafe has the author's picture next to it.
31: The sidebar went from "Becks comments" to "[blank] comments" so it looked pretty odd. This is boring too.
And I'm not willing to go find the new Lindsey picture
Eh? Just click on the link in the post.
I like it because she looks like a femme lesbian. Does that make me back into an acceptable feminist/male-ally?
I don't remember her old picture much at all. But I've never been a regular reader.
37: I assumed the link was to Protein Wisdom, so I didn't examine the link. As for the photo...dayamn!
39: Google image search for "beyerstein" will bring it up.
She also has a link on her front page to her Flickr page. Y'know, if you're into that sort of thing.
23: I hope you're barefoot.
Anyway, as far as Lindsay goes, she's aces in my book. Great face, great brain. She's almost up there with LB in my pantheon.
See, that's the advantage of not posting pictures -- I'm much prettier in text than graphics. (Lindsay comes off remarkably well in either medium.)
I called her Berenstein for an embarassing long time, after the children's book authors.
I'm much prettier in text than graphics.
My cock is enormous in print.
24, 34: Come on. People don't regularly tear into men by nastily saying that they wouldn't have those opinions if they were tall, or if they were good looking; people do regularly tear into women by saying that we wouldn't be feminists if we weren't ugly. And an average-looking guy is fine; an average-looking woman is "plain." Yglesias may look like he's gained weight or whatever, but no big deal; imagine the reaction if Beyerstein were fat.
Sure, but, like, Beyerstein chose to put her picture up there like that. Most people don't. Given that she's deliberately showing everyone what she looks like, I don't see the problem with us here commenting on her appearance.
Which is to say, I agree with the general point, I'm just not that sure of its applicability to this particular situation.
I emailed Josh Micah Marshal that his super-respectable picture looked like it must be his dad. I don't know if he appreciated my help, but he did change it.
Yglesias got his start when he was about 20, and an eminent female blogger said his picture was so cute that she wanted to pinch his cheeks. True story. He's been cultivating an air of menace ever since.
Yglesias may look like he's gained weight or whatever, but no big deal; imagine the reaction if Beyerstein were fat.
Yeah, you apparently missed the brief thread on which someone (ogged) complained that people were being really mean to MY about an apparent weight gain.
I actually think ogged was wrong about that; I've read that MY thread, and I didn't see anyone saying anything really mean. Also, one of those people was Becks.
Do you mean this one? Or an Unfogged thread?
I remember that. But I don't remember people saying 'Of course MY thinks that, he's a fat guy.'
Given that she's deliberately showing everyone what she looks like, I don't see the problem with us here commenting on her appearance.
Commenting on it, no. Being rude, of course, wouldn't be excused, nor would dismissing her argument as the ravings of a cute blond. (Not that we're doing that here, but we're not complaining about mere commenting.)
54: Yeah, that one. Judge for yourself, Tim, but I only see a couple comments that could be called "really mean," and they get shot down immediately by other commenters. Becks, of course, is unfailingly civil.
I was thinking of ogged's characterization of it; I don't think I hung out with the riff-raff back then.
Some of that spam is pretty offensive, though.
48: Mmmm... I'm supremely wary of the "she chose to ___" kind of argument. The fact is that whether or not a woman is conventionally attractive matters more to most people than whether a man is (again, average women = plain, average men = average). That isn't something Lindsay created. The fact that, doubtless knowing this, she puts up her picture doesn't mean she's putting herself out there to be judged on the "hot or not" scale, even if she knows that this is a likely outcome.
All that said, I basically agree with Cala (which is why I said upthread, yes, I too was surprised at how very pretty Lindsay is). But I'm also aware that, in fact, I assess women's attractiveness more than I do men's. I don't like this, but it is true.
Yeah, women are more likely to be dissed for plain looks. But a man would get dissed for not earning a lot of money, while a woman probably wouldn't.
At first I thought Lindsay's new pic was meant as a joke, contrasting her image as an often-cynical, brutal critic (an image her old pic suited nicely) with a bright 'n' cheery photo. But I guess she's serious about it. It does make her blog seem more accessible to new readers; the old one was kind of hostile.
People comment on Berube's pic all the time, but he changes it so much and draws attention to it often enough that it doesn't seem like he minds.
There's currently a post up somewhere drawing attention to a Tim Burke photo.
but a man would get dissed for not earning a lot of money
How is this equivalent? Can you tell how much money a person earns by looking at them?
I admit that one of the reasons this bothered me is that I'd just read the pro/teen/wdom discussion about LB, and whether she's hot, and JG asking about the cucumber, and I thought, christ, here's a woman who actually took the time to read even a little bit of JG's magnum opus/lecture notes and type up some comments about it, and everything she says gets drowned out by the hot-or-not/ would-I-have-sex-with-her discussion.
61: Yeah, people comment on Berube's picture, but they comment on the picture as picture, not in terms of whether or not he's attractive.
64: That's definitely true: people always talk about what he's doing in the photo, not about how he looks in general. I was mainly thinking of him as someone who almost deliberately asks people to comment on his photo. I can't think of anyone else who does that, though I don't read too widely.
pro/teen/wdom discussion about LB, and whether she's hot
For a second I read "LB" as "Lizardbreath" and I was like "what?! If people are talking shit about LB, I will totally bust a cap in their collective asses" and got all momentarily adrenalinized. And then I was like "oh."
65: That said, however, he is a pretty good-looking guy. I mean, as long as we're objectifying Lindsay. And I have in the past commented on the bags under Berube's eyes being the mark of a busy academic.
Sad to say, I suspect that my posting a photo of myself on "Hating on Charles Bird" was the impetus for that site's being trafficked at all. (I took down the photo pretty soon after.) Knowing I was female and not, I don't know, covered in Trekkie-shaped acne, changed Charles's attitude towards me and the project, which was nice and insulting all at the same time. Anyway, the photo was a turning-point, one I rather regretted even though nobody had a chance to say anything mean.
I've seen some comment threads at John Cole's swell up with mocking comments that Oliver Willis is fat (Cole deleted the comments and castigated the commenters, btw). So while it's less common, it does happen here and there. coughMichaelMoorecough.
The ogged post linked in 71 is just right. And I say this even though I've met or seen like half of the regulars. The memories sort of blend into the online style.
For example, Lizardbreath is, as I remember her, quite attractive and slim, but she seems determined to assert that she's a schlub and ox-like, and so who am I to say otherwise?
The way people look stays with me less than their mannerisms. It amuses me to picture JM waving her hands around and rocking back and forth in her chair when she posts something where she's all excited. And punctuating witty comments with her cigarette.
I fully endorse the second half of 73.
You are all psychos. Does no one remember "Doughy Pantload" or "Jabba Goldberg"? Or, for gawd's sake, "Michael Moore is fat"?
People attack because they can. I took GB's point to be that IRL, the angle of attack on men is usually their wallet. True. The angle of attack on women is probably their attractiveness (or something related -- sexuality, relationship status, etc.). True. Online, people take what they're given--they attack stupid things they've said and, of course, pictures if available. I've even heard that they'll involve your kids if you know that you have them.
I don't know why we should listen to you. Only some call you Tim. Why not all? What are you hiding?
. Does no one remember "Doughy Pantload" or "Jabba Goldberg"? Or, for gawd's sake, "Michael Moore is fat"?
Yes, it happens to men. But it's not even in the same ballpark in terms of frequency. Those guys are pretty big targets. How often has it happened to a smalltime female blogger versus a comparably trafficked blog run by a man?
angle of attack on men is usually their wallet
Pet peeve alert! I'm sorry, but this is just not really that true. Personal kind of irrational theory: men think that women judge men based on how much money they have more than anything else, because it makes it a lot easier for them to impugn whoever rejects them, and/or to explain away their lack of success with women. But is this really so universal? No. The people who judge mates based on money are usually out-and-out assholes, and I would argue the outliers rather than the norm.
On the other hand, nearly everyone judges women based on appearance, even enlightened people.
78: I'm not clear on whether you're speaking to a specific example that I should know but don't. I'm sure women get attacked on the attractiveness grounds more than men. I assume this happens particularly when there is no picture. In the absense of any specific material, you go with what you know. With men, they go with "47 year-old balding loser who lives in his mother's basement" or some such similar.
You don't even need a picture, just a feminine pseudonym. There's research on this: feminine pseuds get 25 times more harassment than male pseuds in chat rooms, and the harassment is pretty much all sexual. Blogs aren't chat rooms, but I don't see why online behavior would be all that different from one medium to another.
Can you tell how much money a person earns by looking at them?
Can you tell what a man looks like just by hearing his job title?
Oops, shit, I meant to give a link with that info: here's my post on it, and you can follow the links therein if you're so inclined.
Can you tell what a man looks like just by hearing his job title?
Do people tend to make romantic decisions based on hearing someone's job title before they have a chance to lay eyes on a person?
No. The people who judge mates based on money are usually out-and-out assholes, and I would argue the outliers rather than the norm.On the other hand, nearly everyone judges women based on appearance, even enlightened people.
It doesn't have to be everyone, just as not everyone judges women on their looks. Moreover, it tends to be a continuum from the understandable to the obsence in both cases. I think Tia's said that cash prospects would factor into her decision about a long-term relationship, and I don't she's who you are describing above.
82: What's your point? Is this some kind of "men are victims too" thing, or what?
Perhaps this would be a good time to report that when I saw the previews for My Super Ex Girlfriend Uma Thurman's mannerisms therein reminded me strongly of Jackmormon. Not her personality, mind you. Just her vocal inflections, her hyperactivity, her emphasis.
not everyone judges women on their looks
In the U.S.? Really? Do you have any evidence of this whatsoever? Because I don't think I have ever met a single person who didn't assess women's looks on pretty much a daily basis.
Okay, maybe blind people.
Let's say 0 is "no one ever judges $gender on $quality"
and 1 is "everyone judges $gender on $quality."
Your comment amounts to the assertion that [men, money] and [women, looks] are both between 0 and 1, exclusive. That doesn't mean that [women, looks] is not orders of magnitude greater than [men, money], which is as I assert.
Because I don't think I have ever met a single person who didn't assess women's looks on pretty much a daily basis.
Cripes, B, I "assess" a lot of factors on a daily basis, most of them subconsciously. Most of them don't factor into my decision-making process. Are people you know meaner to you when you have a bad hair (or outfit or no sleep) day? Or do they just note it and not care? Because in my experience, it's more or less the latter.
I mean, didn't we all agree that #74 is pretty accurate? It is for me.
Well, in a decade or two, when women hold all the high-paying jobs after years of outnumbering and outperforming men in college, we guys will be judged by our looks, and women will have to take us out to dinner to show they're good providers and they care about us.
All I remember about Tim are his cocksucking lips.
#86: The point was that #62 is a non sequitur.
89: Great. I assert exactly the opposite, so we're equal. Is there a point there? Somewhere out there is a study done on women rating men in varying modes of dress. The finding was that attractiveness correlated better with cost of clothing than standard measures of male attractiveness. (This is all half-remembered, and the study was almost a decade ago.)
I'm not trying to win a game of misery poker here. I'm not sure what the sentence y'all want me to write is, but assuming it's that women have a harder time in the world than men, well, I agree. Women have a harder time in the world.
Most of them don't factor into my decision-making process.
I don't see how you can assert that when there is, again, tons of evidence that people do, in fact, enact unconscious bias all the time.
I'm not sure what the sentence y'all want me to write is
"I'm sending a $1000 check to apostropher."
Sorry, I thought I could get #98 in right after #96, but BPhD slipped in at #97.
She's able to do that because she's hott.
Women get all the breaks, I tell ya.
Women have a harder time in the world.
Dude, I know you think this. I'm not trying to be some kind of shitstirrer (okay, maybe a little). What I'm saying is that I see the following argument get made a lot:
Feminist: Women are judged on the basis of their looks above any other qualities.
Someone else: Yeah, well, men are judged on the basis of their income above any other qualities. So, it's not so bad and/or it doesn't matter and/or your problems are unimportant.
And that's fucking crap. Not that that's what you were saying, which is why I alerted it as a pet peeve (by which I mean to say I'm bringing in other objections aside from the ones that are raised by the substance of your actual comment), but it's still crap.
#103: How did you get to "...So, it's not so bad and/or it doesn't matter and/or your problems are unimportant"?
I would have wrapped it up by saying "...So, each gender has its own important problems to overcome."
Also, I thought #91 would have inspired at least some sort of response from someone.
How is 62 a non-sequitur? I was responding to your 60.
Tim, I don't think anyone (certainly not me) is trying to force you into saying anything in particular at all. It's just kind of frustrating when talking about whether or not judging a woman's looks can be a neutral act to have people jump in with "well, people judge men too." I mean, it's not a contest.
And if the argument is that the way men get judged by income is as bad as the way women get judged by looks, that's just silly. First of all, income is something one has a little control over (not as much as GB seemed to be arguing in a completely different thread); second, income is something that, at least, you have to know a person a little bit in order to know (as opposed to judging total strangers); and third, I'm aware of research on the effect of women's attractiveness on all sorts of things (including income--and that research, if memory serves, showed that looks matter for men, too, but not nearly as much), and of research on the effects of social class and income on things like health and so forth. But I am not aware of research that focuses on men's incomes specifically, nor of how that could be abstracted from all sorts of other things like education, race, social class, and so forth.
87--My swordstyle--which I believe you didn't get a chance to see--is incomparable.
GB, why would one trying to assert that "each gender has its problems to overcome"? Because one is trying deflate feminist arguments.
It's just a way of saying "there is no sexism, because men and women are disadvantaged equally."
Still crap.
104: I think JM got there the same way I did: without some implication of equivalence, there's no apparent reason to bring up men and income at all.
#105: You took the way of judging one characteristic and applied it to another where it's not, or at least, less, effective. I did the same thing in #82 to illustrate by example the pointlessness of doing so.
Another attempt to illustrate why 62 is a non-sequitur:
YOU: People judge musicians by how they sound.
ME: Well, they judge chefs by how their food tastes.
YOU: Can you tell how food tastes just by listening to it?
ME: Can you tell how musicians sound by licking them?
Okay, my response should have been this:
Me: People judge musicians by how they sound.
You: Well, they judge chefs by how their food tastes.
Me: Yeah, so? What does that have to do with anything?
I'd have said "what the fuck," but that offends you.
Because one is trying deflate feminist arguments.
No, because one wants the problems facing both genders to be taken seriously, instead of having one treated as the designated victim and the other as designated oppressor. This is not a zero-sum game.
Can you tell how musicians sound by licking them?
I know the answer to this! GG Allin tasted terrible.
But in fact, it's not the non-sequitur you think it is. The point is, even if judging women by looks and men by money were equally discriminatory, the fact is that looks is something you know about strangers, whereas money isn't. So women are going to get judged more. Which, again, is relevant if you're implying some kind of equivalency, and if you're not, then why bring it up at all?
the problems facing both genders to be taken seriously
I don't believe this. I want both the problem of sex trafficking and the problem of child labor to be taken seriously, but I don't respond to
"Millions of children are forced into labor every year"
with
"Well, millions of women are trafficked into prostitution every year."
It's deflation.
103: Fair enough. My own pet peave(s) is various reductive explanations of various social phenomena. Because we talk a lot about gendered stuff here, it gets tripped more by gender stuff here. (The one that really drives me nuts: "If a man did it, he'd be strong; if a woman does it, she's a bitch." Uh, no. We think he's an asshole, too. And, no, I don't think anyone here has said that.) My original point was simply that people are assholes, and they attack because they can. I think men are more prone to do this than women, but I have a tendency to underrate how cruel women can be.
Do I think women get attacked on various grounds more than men? I think so, but I think it's changing. I think people (particularly men) used to go after women because they could--women as a class were disfavored, and had fewer avenues to strike back. (I think it's worse than that--I think men attack(ed) women with less reason because if someone's weak, you want to keep them weak.) As that's changing, I assume (hope) we'll see less of a disparity of attacks.
#111: "Fuck" doesn't offend me. But it doesn't make you look like the sharpest knife in the rhetoric drawer, either. Your choice.
Anyway, the hypothetical comment about chefs would, of course, have come in the context of a debate in which it had been asserted that musicians have it rough because they're cruelly judged by everyone, while chefs sail on by without a care in the world.
110: Oops, sorry. My bad.
one wants the problems facing both genders to be taken seriously, instead of having one treated as the designated victim and the other as designated oppressor. This is not a zero-sum game.
No, it's not. Which is why assuming that talking about the way women are discriminated against is an indictment of men is silly. First of all, no one said that in this thread. In fact, I for one admitted more than once that I, too, judge women by their looks. Both men and women do this--that's how sexism works. And second of all, that kind of argument, that a feminist analysis is unfair to men, is a ridiculous anti-feminist straw argument. There's really no substantive difference between that and Silvana's 103, which you're trying to deny is a reasonable conclusion to make from your comments.
107 and 115 are exactly right.
118 is just rude.
I think it is generally possible to get a rough idea of someone's income level fairly shortly after meeting them. Granted, not from a mere photograph of their face, though.
Leaving aside the fact that I think the notion that all men are judged on their money is bullshit, my reponse to 121:
Yeah, but the idea you can get is "poor, kinda poor, has some money, has lots of money." You can't get much in the way of infintitely many subjective gradations or infinitely small variations on priority (tits man v. ass man, &c.), like you can with the way that people find ways to criticize nearly every woman on the planet.
120: How is 118 rude? I didn't insult you as a person; I merely described how a particular rhetorical choice makes you appear to others, and suggested it might not be having the effect you want it to. Honestly, what would you think about someone who threw around curse words as if they somehow proved her point?
I could just as easily argue that your accusing me of being offended by the word "fuck" was dismissive and mocking, and, hence, rude. Or your use of the word "fuck" in responding to me in the first place, which is not my idea of polite.
"Fuck" doesn't offend me. But it doesn't make you look like the sharpest knife in the rhetoric drawer, either. Your choice.
To be sure, I'm often taken aback by the language of the peons, but a draught of laudanum puts me back in high spirits.
So it would be ok to talk about how men are judged, just not on this thread because of the context? (Honest question, because I don't think anyone's discounting that men do get judged. The objection seems to be to bringing it up here.)
I don't remember asking you what you thought of my persona or my rhetoric.
And if you were offended--"not my idea of polite"--then you should say so, rather than lecturing me about not putting my best foot forward.
I missed the memo about only being able to comment on something if specificaly invited to do so. My bad.
B&GB: I think you're both reading too much into this.
[duck]
125: No, I'm totally willing to move into talking about how men are judged. It's just the whole implication of equivalence/setting up a straw feminist argument (112 and 118--no one said anything remotely like what GB is implying) is not the way to go about it.
Wow, GB, you managed to say that Beyerstein's old pic was "hostile" and call a woman "rude" for using the word "fuck" in the same thread.
If you're trying to convince that you "just want the problems of both genders to be taken seriously", you're not doing a good job.
Ah I'm fine. But you know women, easily excitable and all...
[double duck]
[that was a joke B, please don't hurt me]
127: You can comment on whatever you like, but correcting people who didn't ask you to do so is rude.
correcting people who didn't ask you to do so
Isn't that, like, every fifth comment here?
128: No worries apo, I know you like me better because I'm cuter. And you want to get in my pants.
Or your use of the word "fuck" in responding to me in the first place, which is not my idea of polite.
Uncouth! Uncouth I say. That sort of language is just not to be used in polite company. With each passing "fuck", the lotus flower that is Gaijin Biker wilts a little more.
130 addendum. Okay, you called her impolite, not rude. And accused of not looking like the "sharpest knife in the drawer"
#127: I didn't correct you. I offered my opinion, which you are free to ignore.
#130: If a guy had a pic of himself on his blog sneering or scowling, I would say the same exact thing about it.
133: Not quite in the same spirit, I don't think.
And you want to get in my pants.
Your pants are a very, very long ways away.
Apo, if it weren't one in the morning, I'd find your comments where you declared women who peppered their speech with "like" undatable, and further implied that doing it in blog comments was equally irritating, and then quote you in 133, and say something devastatingly smirky and clever.
137: Okay, well, it's my opinion that you've been rude and condescending. You're free to ignore that, especially since it's coming from someone who obviously isn't all that bright.
Your pants are a very, very long ways away.
Ask Labs if you can borrow his cock.
#135: It's not a question of being able to handle dirty language. It's a question of whether, in the course of a reasoned debate, relying on curse words makes you seem more or less credible.
139: True. Not as far away as GB's pants, though.
I'm not trying to date me, Tia.
Dude, GB, this is fucking Unfogged. People swear here.
144 continued: Plus, I bet I'm way sluttier than he is. Us dumb vulgar chicks are easy to get into bed.
146 - We aren't called "wizard cocksucker" for nothing.
"relying on curse words"? The substance of my argument was "fuck"? That's news to me. I thought it was an adjective, not a claim.
Is this the same Becks who once complained about that phrase?
145: I'll bet you chew with your mouth open, too. And I think that to avoid hypocrisy you must forswear masturbation.
GB, given that you are prone to commenting on various blogs, and that nearly all blogs are entirely peppered with profanit, would you like to provide me another example of where you've criticized someone's use of same in an otherwise substantive comment?
Thanks.
I'm outta here for an hour or so. Hugs and fuckin' kisses to everybody.
150: She's backing me up because we feminists all hate men.
So, to summarize: "You were rude!" "No, you were rude!" Repeat as necessary.
I'll bet you chew with your mouth open, too.
You'd lose that bet. My momma didn't raise no barbarians.
154: I seem to remember it being a safe for work-related complaint; in other words, 150 is a joke.
profanit
The generic name for Nunfuckerol.
Man, I planned on going to bed early. This place is evil.
156: I'll take your failure to contest the second part of my comment as assent.
If you're willing to pick up the slack, sure. Just understand, it's a busy job.
150 & 157 - It was a safe for work complaint. But I am working from home until tomorrow! Go wild with the profanity for the next 24 hours! Then, I'll be back to complaining.
GET THIS MOTHERFUCKING PROFANITY OFF THE FUCKING BLOG NOW
If you're willing to pick up the slack, sure
So wait, you want me to pick it up when it's in what condition?
Anyway, I'm almost as far from your pants as B is.
I'm almost as far from your pants as B is.
Then screw you. I'm masturbating, baby.
I think women, and men to a lesser extent, are strongly sorted by attractiveness in settings that attractiveness really shouldn't be all that crucial. There is no getting around how people use attractiveness to select mates, but attractiveness is a huge factor in the job market (especially for highly desirable jobs with lots of applicants).
I'm not sure attractiveness is less crucial for men (it might be); I'd speculate that the primary difference is that the standards of attractiveness for men are broader than they are for women.
To be fair to GB, he is ruthless about enforcing his "no profanity" rule in the comments of his own blog, and has even shown a remarkable level of anger toward repeated violators. I've always thought it's a weird hangup to have, but this really wasn't a reaction to a woman not being fucking congenial.
I think women, and men to a lesser extent, are strongly sorted by attractiveness in settings that attractiveness really shouldn't be all that crucial.
That's just something ugly people say.
Job descriptions that immediately make you hott: Prince; Princess; King, less so.
175:
"It's all very fine
If you're really divine
And everybody wants you bad -
You can take what you please
With the greatest of ease
And nobody will let you feel sa-a-ad"
- Kevin Ayers
172: In my limited experience, men hire other men in their own image. Nerds hire nerds, shorties hire shorties, hipsters hire hipsters. But men hiring women are far more influenced (though not usually to the point of determination) by looks.
re: 143
"It's not a question of being able to handle dirty language. It's a question of whether, in the course of a reasoned debate, relying on curse words makes you seem more or less credible."
That point of view really annoys me -- not singling out you, GB, I hear it a lot. Swearing can be both big and clever. It can provide comic counterpoint to a serious point, it can deflate someones pretentions, it can defuse an otherwise heated debate, or it can make it more heated, depending. Arguments can be improved by the insertion of the right swear word at just the right point and listeners can be made to laugh or get angry. Swearing is one of the rhetorical 'big guns' and swearing well is both a skill and a joy if done *properly*.
Just ladling on abuse -- i.e. swearing badly -- is dumb but that's no argument against swearing in general.
Personally, I don't really like cheap snark because it's usually lazy and not funny, but good swearing rocks.
I don't really like cheap snark
Right, get the fuck out of here.
Oh fuck. People? Did you not get the memo? It's in comment 5.
re: Swearing can be both big and clever.
hmm, pwned by 181
182: Yeah, that. And this. And this. Not a good week to try and stop drinking.
And I've noticed that a lot of friends and colleagues who used to watch their language quite carefully have started fucking swearing like sodding troopers all the bastard time during the past year. Is this a general phenomenon or just around here?
I blame the news, me.
182: Didn't that go poorly last time around?
What's this shit about curse words reducing credibility?
Metacomment: in what way would that statement be more credible if I'd said "stuff" instead of "shit"?
GB is in danger of being put into the fatal "prissy" category, along with Ralph Reed and Lindsey Graham and other excessively pretty choirboy types with cocksucking lips.
GB is in danger of being put into the fatal "prissy" category
Maybe GB is Ogged's true heir.
re: 185
I don't know, I've been going the other way. Where I grew up, swearing is punctuation. I've burst out laughing when going home and hearing people speak sometimes as I've not heard it for a while. It's like they are in a competition.
These days I don't swear that much.
she seems determined to assert that she's a schlub and ox-like
I worked with her for two years. This sounds right. And she curses, too!
I forget, what is this a propos to?
Relating to 187 and picking up the male good looks thing: men are judged more on "presence" which generally involves being tall, muscular, not fat, having a relatively deep voice, having a goodlooking but not pretty face, and moving in a masculine way.
Regarding the face, it's better to be at the ugly side of goodlooking than the pretty side. Regarding movement, this is the big one. The same guy will be judged more highly if he moves like a linebacker, than if he modes like a ballet dancer.
Sly Stallone is short, but trick photography and casting hide that fact. His career could have been ruined by a few strategically placed candid photos.
I don't declare equivalence, but there are "looks" factors for guys too. But since the judges are usually men, fuckability isn't exactly part of it. (What I just said may apprly to some women, but I think that many or most women would be very happy with a ballet dancer with a pretty face. Probably not one shorter than them, though).
Ballet dancers mode all the time. That's one of the problems with them, along with not liking girls.
Couple of thoughts:
190: Thank you. I'm trying to maintain a persona here.
Men being judged on income = women being judged on attractiveness: Taking it as a given that it happens as much as people say it does, it's still a poor parallel. Outside of a romantic context, women are penalized for poverty as much as men are -- any 'male only' income effect is a straight romantic effect (which doesn't make it right, just limited). But the gripe we're making about women being judged on attractiveness more than men is that it's a global effect -- people drag in a woman's attractiveness or the reverse where it's got nothing at all to do with anything.
Cursing: I do all the time (although I do try to keep a lid on it at work. Except when men around me start apologizing for swearing -- I hate that shit. If that starts happening, I throw in a strategic 'cocksucker' or two until the apologies stop.)
But it's silly to think of swearing as decreasing credibility. It might have in the past if it were a marker of belonging to a less educated class, but it simply doesn't have that effect these days. (Not that GB isn't entitled to have a strong idiosyncratic distaste for it.) And Matt's right about the rhetorical power of profanity when done well.
Outside of a romantic context, women are penalized for poverty as much as men are -- any 'male only' income effect is a straight romantic effect (which doesn't make it right, just limited).
Part of what people are denying is the claim that physical attractiveness is a 'female only' concern. That seems trivially true--there is (I think) a fair bit of work out there indicating that (as Emerson says) attractiveness matters in the job market. Precisely how it works, I couldn't say. But I've know very successful men and very successful women; I wouldn't say that "attractive" is the first word that springs to mind.
Once you're the one doing the hiring, your attractiveness doesn't matter.
I've seen research saying that litigator is a looks-intensive profession for men, and I think that's probably true -- on the other hand, I think B. and Emerson are right, that 'looks' for men means the capacity to appear physically imposing, and that it's a much looser standard. Men don't get nitpicked about their looks the same way as women.
But there's a story about an extremely famous and successful trial lawyer Ideal and I worked with once not getting (a job, a promotion? I can't remember what it was) at a US Attorney's office because the guy in charge said he 'looked like a farmer'. Which he did -- little bland-looking ugly guy. Very, very impressive in the courtroom, though.
To me, it all becomes pretty clear when you ask "Who's hiring whom?" A heterosexual man (the norm) hiring a guy would look for heterosexuality and either buddy qualities or macho, depending. Hiring a woman he might look for fuckability even if he wasn't planning to, but he might also not hire any women at all for responsible positions. (Being too sexy also can hurt women, I've heard). A gay man would hire differently, and a straight or gay woman still differently.
If either ugliness or beauty can harm a woman, it would seem that there's a big asymmetry.
Of course, hiring is ideally done entirely on the basis of credentials, achievements, and talent, but I think that "personal qualities" always are a big factor, and some guys who think of themselves as mertocratic actually have a serious bug about women of any description.
Me: People judge musicians by how they sound.
Does GB mean to imply some equivalence between women being judged by how they look and musicians being judged by how they sound? Because, motherfucker, please.
also, last 30 seconds of last match.com date:
him: where'd you get that mouth?
me: fuck off.
(Being too sexy also can hurt women, I've heard)
I think the research indicates that a sexy appearance is neutral (or maybe beneficial) for women in low status positions but bad for women in high status ones.
I was just making a far more narrow claim that women who post pictures on blogs get harassed more than men do and have their opinions dismissed or applauded based on their looks. This is borne out by more one study, some of which are linked at B's blog.
To the extent that a) there's a wider range of what counts as attractive for men and b) men have similar hurdles (income, stature) which aren't visible in a blog picture, I'd argue that men and women aren't in similar situations regarding posting pictures on their blogs.
Since this doesn't entail that men are never judged on physical attractiveness, I'm not sure why people are bringing in that as a counterexample. Given that's it's a common rhetorical tactic ('let's talk about violence against women and how it should be a concern for campus law enforcement' 'men get abused toooooo') to dismiss or minimize a complaint, knee-jerk reactions are going to be common.
Except when men around me start apologizing for swearing -- I hate that shit.
Oh Christ, I hate that so much. I had a job in college where I worked with a bunch of macho-y guys (and I was the only woman working there our of 10-12 employees) who would call me "sweetheart" and shit and apologizing for swearing or making crude remarks. They never seemed to notice that I swear all the time, and refused to stop apologizing.
It's so condescending and fake; it's pretty fucking easy to control your language, so if they really cared, they would just not swear. But no, they chose to talk as if I wasn't there, then draw attention to my being there by apologizing. It's a pretty effective way to make someone feel like they don't belong.
A useful comeback for such apologies if they're really getting to be problematic: "Nice fucking language." (hat tip to Idealist.
200: I think that the thread drifted, which happens a lot. And we were also talking about whether it's OK to talk about Lindsey's cuteness.
Which I do think it is. Bringing up looks in a conversation that's not about them is bogus and often sexist -- commenting on the esthetic merits of a picture that someone's voluntarily posted is fine so long as people are polite about it.
Silvana, have you ever been friends with a guy who hardly swears at all? Even a generation ago, I used to get "what's up with that?" from girls I knew. It's not that there weren't such guys, but that such guys didn't usually like them or want to hang out with them. Some actually told me that my not swearing was making them uncomfortable, even when I swore — other sense of the word — that wasn't true.
s/b was making them uncomfortable, because I must be disapproving of them —
205: Sure. In fact, I have a friend at school who claims he's never uttered a "swear word" in his life (and I certainly have never heard him do so).
I did find it a little baffling at first, but after that, whatever. I resist the urge to harass him about it, because I feel like doing so is assuming (which I think where the discomfort you mentioned comes from) that he is abstaining because he finds it morally reprehensible, and then take that as a judgment on me, a line of thought I find to be annoying (i.e. people who get all huffy about vegetarians, people who don't drink, etc.)
I'm amused that this discussion is taking place in the "cocksucking lips" thread.
207 addendum: On the other hand, said friend I think has a bit of a crush on me, and after analyzing that he does not swear, drink, smoke, or do drugs, I concluded that even though he's sweet and pretty cute, I don't think I could date him.
So, take that for what you will.
So you require the "usual nons".
I would say that's right; any three of the four will do. Although I could probably get by on two.
It's like we were made for each other, silvana.
Hey! Silvana was made for w-lfs-n!
Weiner, us liberal girls are sluts, remember?
it's silly to think of swearing as decreasing credibility. It might have in the past if it were a marker of belonging to a less educated class, but it simply doesn't have that effect these days.
Sorta kinda true, but not entirely. I have readers who will make the "swearing doesn't make you look all that smart" complaint on the blog not infrequently (usually, ironically, as a way of implicitly criticizing some argument I'm making without actually engaging the argument), and the rare use of profanity in the classroom startles a lot of students (which is one reason for using it, if that's the reaction one wants to get--e.g., when teaching things that run counter to student's entrenched beliefs and which, therefore, they often can't even see without being startled out of complacence).
This, of course, is precisely why I have the pseudonym I have, and also a big part of why I swear, and a big part of why I object to the implication that doing so somehow makes me inferior, in and of itself. Language is language, and all language has its uses. The assumptions people make about profanity/vulgarity w/r/t gender, education, social class and so forth are assumptions that I object to on principle.
All levels of discourse have their time and place. It's valuable to shake up people's presumptions and unexamined expectations about these things, especially when those expectations work to reinforce pernicious hierarchicies. I don't care if people disagree with me about that, but I'm offended by the implication that my use of language isn't something I've thought about.
And since it is something I think about, quite a lot actually, I think it's fucking stupid to think that the way I talk makes me sound fucking stupid.
As Cheech said, "As for all you people who say that dope makes you seem stupid, well, you're wrong, because.... because.... because you're just fucked."
re: 221
Truly words to live by.
220: That's totally different!
Actually, it's pretty good evidence that I have a hangup about these issues of presentation and reaction, isn't it? Oh well.
221: Cheech. My homey.
See, now I'm thinking about this dress up thing. I wouldn't swear at the opera or the symphony, partly because those aren't places in which I see the role of the audience being about performing (or challenging) social norms, especially not norms of language use. The symphony/opera isn't about me; it's about the music, and anything that distracts from that is a distraction (and therefore, rude, I would argue).
Whereas forums that *are* about language use--the classroom, blogs, argument--seem to me to be excellent venues for challenging that stuff.
Then again, it's clearly wrong to say that things like opera and symphony aren't, in part, about reinforcing social hierarchies. Hm. I shall have to think about this.
I would hate to be forced to change my positioin on the subject, though, because I like occasions for formal dress, and there are so few of them.
You should sign into your gmail account, b.
re: 219
Yeah, I've thought about the language I use long and hard.
It's inevitable consequence of living in England but having a Scottish accent*, working in an environment with people very different from those with whom I grew up, and so on. I suspect that a LOT of people have, at some time or other, thought pretty hard about how they talk and the vocabulary they choose. Especially people who work in professions that are centred around language use -- academics, for example.
I don't swear when teaching though. Or at least, if I do, I'm not conscious of doing it.
*I'm sure it applies just as much to Americans moving from the rural south to the urban north-east, and any number of other similar cases.
B, you are such a tool of the patriarchy.
I wouldn't swear at the opera or the symphony,
Oh, so guess who's going to the opera on saturday to see Don Giovanni (assuming rush tickets are available)? That's right, me! I asked my pal who's been here for several years if he thought that one could wear the same outfit first to the opera and then out to some Love Parade–related event, and he said it would probably be no problem.
Profanity is rude and aggressive. Less rude today because it is so commonplace, mostly just aggressive. It doesn't make one's point any stronger. I can't imagine that students are so unused to hearing profanity that it would shock them into changing entrenched beliefs. It's just unpleasant to hear it from a teacher.
re: 230
I don't think it _has* to be either rude or aggressive. It certainly can be both, but it doesn't have to be.
It's the Phineas Cage effect. Profanity is part and parcel of the violence-aggression module in the brain. Normally, the frontal lobes maintain strict control. I suppose one can train themselves to have profanity be part of their normal, non-aggressive vocabulary but it would still be exacerbated by agression.
Context is everything with swearing. I swear a lot, myself, but I try to be careful not to swear when I'm really angry because it makes a person seem extra-aggressive, or more hostile or aggressive than s/he really feels.
And I really hate it when people blow up and swear in front of me when they're angry because somewhere in the back of my mind, "angry swearing person" = "I'm going to get smacked."
When someone argues in a way that is awfully similar to driving a metal pole through your skull, is it not appropriate to react appropriately?
See also the Onion article from the grandma bothered by all the cursing in porn.
I read this odd thing about David Lynch ones. He never swears.
See also the Onion article from the grandma bothered by all the cursing in porn.
There's always the mute button, barbar.
What's wrong with being aggressive?
I can't imagine that students are so unused to hearing profanity that it would shock them into changing entrenched beliefs. It's just unpleasant to hear it from a teacher.
Well, I could be wrong about the effect that the judicious use of the word "cunt" has when teaching, say, Rochester. But in, oh, about seven years of teaching things like that? I've found that hearing the teacher do it does, in fact, shock students and that as a conseequence works that were very difficult indeed for them to talk about, not only because they use "bad words" but because "I can't believe these were important poems back then" actually spur a great deal of interest in reexamining their ideas about the durability of contemporary attitudes towards profanity and sex and make it a lot easier for them to discuss the poems. Last year we even had a really interesting side discussion about discourse levels and canonization as a result of it.
But yeah, you might be right. Maybe it is just an unpleasant experience for them.
What's wrong with being aggressive?
I'm not sure what DA and YM are talking about, but, often enough, aggressive behavior often leads to aggressive responses. That doesn't always turn out well.
Maybe it is just an unpleasant experience for them.
I really dislike swearing when it is the spoken equivalent of people whose written vocabularies are so limited that they use "nice" or "awesome" or "cool" to describe every third thing. When it's more judicious -- when I trust that the speaker has deliberately chosen the word because it best fits -- then it seems appropriate and almost always acceptable.
The major exception is if the speaker knew or should have known that the audience would be either so thrown or so offended by the word that they will tune out whatever the speaker is saying.
I used to have a boss who swore like a sailor, and I found it generally entertaining and/or neutral. But when he was talking to our accountant, who he knew was a devout woman who found his "taking the Lord's name in vain" really, really offensive, he still sometimes swore. Which I thought was a) disrespectful and b) counterproductive to a productive working relationship.
Same goes for professors, I think. Swear for punctuation, not gratuitously.
#219: Language is language, and all language has its uses.
That statement really doesn't advance the discussion at all. The question is whether your use of this particular language in this particular context is a good idea.
You admit to using profanity to "startle" or "shake up" your audience. In that, it's the verbal equivalent of a slap in the face: "Hey! Snap out of it!".
And that's why, in the context of a serious debate (as opposed to joking around), I find profanity insulting to the person on the recieving end of it. It contains the implicit assumption that the recipient is so stupid or set in his ways, that the only way to break through his thick shell of ignorance is with the bracing slap of a well-placed expletive: "Whoa — that person just cursed at me! I wasn't really following the conversation before, but now I guess I'd better wake up and pay attention!"
Additionally, treating people in this manner — as dumb sheep who need to be shaken up a little — encourages them to be just as rude, hostile, and condescending in return. That's why I don't allow cursing on my blog: it sets off a downward spiral of hostility and disrespect.
I also think using profanity in this context reflects poorly on the user. It's very flattering to oneself to assume that you're the one who "gets it" and the person you're talking to is a complacent buffoon who can only be woken from his stupor by the jolt of your artfully-dropped F-bombs.
But the more likely scenario is that you simply haven't made a convincing argument for your point of view. And cursing won't get you there. It's, in effect, an admission of defeat: "I can't convince you with logic, so I'm going to swear a lot and hope I can browbeat you into submission."
As we all seem to agree, profianity is violent and aggressive. Yes, it has its uses, but respectful debate isn't one of them.
I find profanity really annoying coming from people I dislike. From people I like, I don't have a problem with it.
I really doubt b was saying that she only uses profanity to shake up people's perceptions; perhaps that's how she uses it most of the time, since she is an academic and that's what she does, but there are certainly other uses for it (as many other people have said here). In this specific case, I assume she was using it merely for emphasis, as we often do here in this informal, conversational forum, even when discussing serious issues.
I find profanity insulting to the person on the recieving end of it.
In other words, you were insulted. I apologize for insulting you, and will try to remember not to swear at you again.
I'd rather you had just said that instead of trying to rationalize it as a universal rule. In any case, I don't believe I've ever seen your blog; I know you from apo's, where I've seen cursing not infrequently, and I didn't remember you objecting to it--it always seemed part of the guys joshing guys vibe over there, much as it is here.
Oh Christ, is the Mineshaft going to get all churchy now?
What's wrong with being aggressive?
I wasn't passing judgement about whether aggression is good or bad, it can be either, only that profanity in its use as profanity is aggressive. When cunt is used as part of a poem or treated lovingly like McEwan does in Atonement, then the word is taken out of a profane context. And it may still shock people who aren't able to make that switch. There's nothing wrong with that either.
I used to swear much more when I was younger but I rarely do now. However, I have no control over what I say when I'm driving.
Listen, apo once offered to come over and give me a free vaginal exam. In the context of that conversation, it was really funny. I laughed, out loud, at work. In any other context, I would have beat the shit out of someone, never read them again, etc. But it was funny. Did it make apo look like a really great upstanding guy to say it? No way! Did it make me look like a self-respecting person that I laughed? Hell no! But it was really fucking funny at the time.
Not everything that emits from someone is a statement of personal worth or purpose. Sometimes there's a context. If you don't like what someone's saying in that context, you're welcome never to listen to them again, but you're not welcome to decry the very fundaments of their soul.
Was that irony, Yamamoto? I don't believe we've been introduced.
"Cunt" in a poem isn't profane? Have you read Rochester? If not, here's a sample:
A Ramble in St. James's Park
Signior Dildo
The Disabled Debauchee
The Imperfect Enjoyment.
249: Sorry for offending you, A White Bear It was meant has humor.
"Aggressive behavior often leads to aggressive responses. That doesn't always turn out well."
Perhaps within your own value system it doesn't always turn out well, but who are you to project your worldview on others? Many of us feel that aggression is always good.
In my opinion, the various ways of using profanity can be valuable components of a balanced rhetorical diet.
I was deleted from The Valve just the other day for using the word c**t in an ironic way. I have also been deleted from Crooked Timber. But not banned.
250: Discussing someone else's profanity in a literary context is surely different. Just as this discussion is not profane.
The poetry itself is profane, and deliberately so, is the point.
And yet it is marvellous poetry. Because profanity is not inherently different from poetry (nor the mark of the uneducated): language is language is language.
252: Didn't offend, dear. Just checking. I know tempers can flare high late in a thread.
As poetry, yes, I see your point, B.
Mayumi Nimatsu, a marriage counselor who has dealt with the problems faced by many couples, thinks she knows the reason why Japan has managed to produce such a large number of chaste middle-aged men.
"This generation reached adulthood just as Japan was in the middle of the bubble era. Matchmaking parties started to become popular and there were plenty of opportunities for the sexes to mix," Nimatsu says. "But, on the other hand, it was also the time when women began insisting any men they would show interest in have the three 'highs' (a high income, a high academic background and height). This really polarized the situation, with men who'd be popular with women standing out above those who wouldn't be and probably did a lot to contribute to the high rate of virginity amongst 40-somethings now."
Strange article. Women are so demanding that men are virgins? Maybe in a society that according to the article used to have a lot of arranged marriages, marrying for love suddenly left a lot of guys out of the loop. But the part you bolded makes the women sound like shrews for choosing guys that are educated and make money; is that supposed to come as a surprise, that education and income might be attractive?
(I read the '5% did not respond' as 'probably gay.')
But to say that the problem is that the Japan dating scene is more Americanized? How many 40-year-old virgins do we have? Maybe Japanese men are more picky.
apo once offered to come over and give me a free vaginal exam
Offer still stands.
GB, perhaps it's not unreasonable to suggest, whenever possible, the "two out of three ain't bad" rule. Like businesspersons who say you can choose exactly two of "good, cheap, and fast," men and women alike who have high standards could consider the Panera lunch problem of "pick two." For me, it's "funny, attractive, and brilliant"--pick two.
#259: But the part you bolded makes the women sound like shrews for choosing guys that are educated and make money; is that supposed to come as a surprise, that education and income might be attractive?
I notice you subtly omitted the third "H", height. That's a physical marker that's obvious at first glance. Kind of like looks for women. Except the guy ALSO has to be rich and (the Japanese equivalent of) Ivy League.
I don't know, what would you call someone who values height, money, and a name-brand diploma (not the same thing as intelligence) over personality and character?
I dunno, GB. I see a lot of men pay lip service to 'personality' and 'character', and maybe they're even being honest, but I still don't see too many upper-middle-class guys dating women who aren't thin, attractive and similarly educated (not intelligence, mind. young grads go to the same firms and date other young Ivy grads.) Heck, I see a lot of Ivy-league educated women valuing 'personality' and 'character'. but I don't see too many not going for the taller guy with the law degree and the high income.
So I guess it didn't strike me as ridiculously strange. People are often shallow in their preferences. But again, maybe the men aren't picky or dating outside their social circle; the guy who is short & has the Ivy League equivalent and makes a lot of money has got to be attractive to someone. Is he only looking at specific women of his class/city/location? The article sounded like the equivalent of the Sunday NYT: we're talking to Ivy Leaguers with lots of money, not to the people in Kansas.
re: 263
Yeah, re: "dating women who aren't thin, attractive and similarly educated". You're right, a lot of people have pretty narrow expectations with respect to this, I think. Men and women.
I've been aware of disapproval from some people I know because I married someone who doesn't have a university degree.
263: I would just like to note that I have been rather surprised many times at seeing the girlfriends/wives/fiancees of my male classmates (at law school). Even the short, not terribly attractive (not hideous, but nothing to write home about) have hot, sweet women.
Who are in art school or similar.
I guess I've just seen it in too many friends to buy that all Japanese women are so shallow that there's a huge virginity problem in Japanese men, and that the reason is the women have picked up American values (when there's no corresponding glut of 40-year-old virgins here.)
Consider a friend of mine. Top school, tall enough, articulate and funny guy. Had a hell of a time finding a woman to date while he was in law school. Why? Part of it was that the women he ran into at the alumni club meetings in his mid-twenties, at the hot young 'professional' clubs he frequented, were all in their mid-to-late twenties and were looking for an adult, not a adult student. The whores! And some of them were indeed cruel and we mocked them for being the golddiggers that they were.
On the other hand, Lawyerboy's expectations were quite high. He wasn't dating outside of alumni club; had he been dating other law students, maybe the lack of income would have been less of a problem. Or if he hadn't only been partial to leggy brunettes. He's engaged now, but it's hard to say that his dating problems were only because he was too demanding.
264: You could blow off the conspiracy theory and suggest that similarly educated people pair up because they are constantly thrown at each other with all the force at society's disposal. They probably went to school with each other or each other's sibs (whether that means Loose Chippings High or MIT). They've imbibed the same cultural prejudices with their mothers' milk. They go into lines of work they can all understand, at least superficially. Why wouldn't they end up in bed together?
As an extreme example, I remember when, in full middle age, the Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford, who was short, dishevelled and unhygenic in a way that only senior Oxbridge academics can achieve, suddenly went and married the Professor of Classical Studies at Wellesley (tall, elegant, and knew how to operate a washing machine). Presumably they were the only two people they knew who understood what the other one was talking about. Who else could they have married?
265: I wouldn't say that was noticeable in my day, about twenty years ago. I don't know why, perhaps the art students feel more urgency about providing for themselves now.
Staying in a very traditional motel in a tiny rural town while packing up my mother's house with my brother. Wireless network. Wonder what the fishermen and race mechanics use it for? Probably as many different things as we do.
Was struck by how the people I saw out walking last night had no "small town" about them, no bad haircut, crappy clothes or weight markers, as I've often noticed in the past over the years. It may just have been chance or the hour, or the town may be changing. I'm sure the people who look bad are still around, but I didn't see many of them last night.
OT help:
So, you guys remember this post?
I totally got the "I think you're reading too much into it" line last night, and I attempted to initiate a free and frank discussion with the offending party about why I don't ever want to hear that phrase again, and I think I did a pathetically bad job of explaining why it sucks. It's still bugging me. Where are my SBFs?
re: 265
Actually, most of my male friends seem to do OK in terms of 'punching above their weight' vis a vis the physical attractiveness of their partners. Can't be about teh money though. Most of them don't have any.
As has been brought up in these discussion before, the guys who go about moaning that they can't get dates/girlfriends because they aren't tall enough or rich enough despite their scintillating personalities may be deluding themselves about the scintillatingness of those personalities.
I'd just like to caution that over the years I've had some unpleasant misunderstandings with my wife because I sometimes react violently to a movie which I may come to respect, and rewatch carefully, and eventually tend to refer to favorably. I have the opposite reaction to Tia's date; I almost never fail to read a great deal into what movies mean rhetorically. I've trained myself to hold it in to avoid spoiling the occasion.
I wouldn't advise assuming a permanent attitude issue from initial reaction to a movie. Many other things may be going on, unique to the person's susceptibilities.
273: Well, it wasn't about a movie, it was in the context of a discussion we were having, where we disagreed, and after failing to sway me to his position, stated that I was "reading too much into" (concept we were arguing about).
IDP, it's not the different reaction to the movie that's the problem. It's the phrase. "I disagree" would be fine. "I think you're reading too much into this" is obnoxious.
Tia, but why would you say that it's obnoxious?
Because she's reading too much into it, obviously.
Should have been able to express disagreement with your sense of the issue's importance without leaving you feeling as if he thought you were overwrought, if that's what you mean. Some people, and you'd be likely to come in contact with many of them, need to win too much. There's nobody I don't agree to disagree with, because I know how often I change my mind when I think about things.
274: I really wasn't doing that for effect. I assumed that the relevant phrase must be "I think you're reading too much into it." But you've linked to a post, which must fit in some important way, and the "reading too much into it" phrase doesn't seem to be important to that post. Maybe the coffee hasn't kicked in, but I really was unsure what phrase you're talking about. (Am now assuming "reading too much into it.")
It seems to presume that critical responses to art and to the world are confused or mistaken. It doesn't just take issue with what the reader is reading, but with the quantity of reading that's being done. And especially in the context of a man talking to a women, it has unpleasant "don't worry your pretty little head" overtones.
276: I get that, it's just that I'm the person who reads too much, or reacts too violently. Sometimes people have to think about it, but they ought to be able to acknowledge any level of seriousness as in some way legitimate.
A person who refused to respond to ideas and rhetoric in a movie, or to take them seriously, would be signalling profound incompatblility to me.
Comity?
281: I can see the idea that it's an irritating phrase because it's a standard phrase that's long been used to dismiss women's opinions in areas of specific concern to women. That makes complete sense. But I have no idea what he's supposed to say when, in fact, he thinks you're reading too much into it.
what would you call someone who values height, money, and a name-brand diploma (not the same thing as intelligence) over personality and character?
A woman who expects most of her social status and income to depend on her husband's?
Which, to respond seriously, sucks, sure: but the problem isn't because women are jerks; it's because the cultural expectation (correct me if I am wrong, as I have never been to Japan in my life) is that women are not going to have careers in the same way that men are. Which, if Japan is even remotely like the U.S., probably means a sizable pay gap, a marriage penalty for careerist women, and enormous social and economic pressure on women to hitch their wagons to men's stars.
Now, if career opportunities (including all the soft, hard-to-see stuff like mentoring and family leave for women and men, and not tracking women into lower-status, lower-paying jobs) are equally available, then yes: women who care primarily about men's income and education rather than their personalities are being shallow. (Although I will point out that men and women alike tend to marry within their own social class, which generally means similar educational levels, romantic myths notwithstanding.) But no shallower than men who care primarily about looks and not marrying a woman who is better-educated or better-paid than they are--and even more importantly, the women's prejudices push men as a class forward, rather than holding them back.
280: Oh, ok. Well, yes, I was talking about "I think you're reading too much into it", which I both said was the line that I got, and was (what I thought to be) the focal point and/or punchline of the linked post.
Mostly I thought you were being difficult because of (comment I can't find in the hoohole where you asked me a similar question).
I don't think there's been enough of a dispute to require the extending of the comity branch.
283: That's kind of exactly what he said, and the point at which I was like "umm..."
283: How about, "hm, I'm not sure I see that" or "I'm not sure I agree"?
Anyway, the "reading too much into" thing depends very simply on a simple question of evidence. Can the over-reader present the evidence and reasoning that leads to her interpretation? If so, there's no such thing as "reading too much into it"--you may not agree with the conclusion, but surely you can at least see that it's not being completely made up out of thin air.
(Exceptions apply where people have severe problems with ultra-sensitivity and social shyness and/or where long-standing unresolved issues are bubbling underneath the surface, at which point it may be reasonable to feel that having forgotten to pick up the dry cleaning isn't necessarily evidence of having an affair. Although, on the other hand, a pattern of forgetting things may well be evidence of passive-aggression.)
There's a world of difference between "I'm not in the mood to talk about this now" and "This isn't that important." The latter implication would be poison to me. I expect different priorities, since they change anyway, but not a judgement of the worth of the thought, or the insight, or the issue.
283: Engage the substance of her critique? "I think you're reading too much into it." sounds dismissive, but "I think you're reading too much into scene X's message because scene Y contradicts it in ways A and B" doesn't presume that she's nuts for thinking that a movie might have X subtext.
Part of my objection to it is that it's the boilerplate line that people just use to deflate and/or diminish arguments without engaging them, and they don't even believe it. For example, in this particular instance, I know that a huge part of the reason this guy likes me is because I'm smart and analytical, and it's like if you really thought I was "reading too much into it" you would be objecting to the fact that I am a thinking person, which is clearly not your problem with me.
I'd cut a lot of slack to someone not ready to argue coherently in the immediate aftermath. That wouldn't rule out respecting the reaction, even when not immediately articulable.
Silvana's situation seems more annoying, because the issue came up in arguing, not after a powerful impression not necessarily intellectual in origin, as in a movie or play. New facts, a new argument or rhetorical effect, or just encountering the strength of another's belief, can at least be acknowledged as having made an impression you're not completely ready to respond to.
288: I'm not sure I agree. A lot ot this is going to be dependent on the relationship. "Hm, I'm not sure I see that," is how you talk to someone you don't know very well and whom you worry about offending. "Fuck off, drunky; just because Big Daddy touched you as a boy, and it's been the central theme in your life ever since, doesn't mean it's a point of obsession for everyone else, too," is how you talk to friends. And sometimes using overly friendly language is a way of signaling friendship. See, e.g., every thread ever on this site.
294 is true, but caution is the better part of valor. On the first few dates is not the time to try to pull off the jokey 'oh your cute monomania' lines unless you know you're good at it, i.e., it's gotten you laid before.
294: But an arms-length exchange was a given in both Tia's and Silvana's situation. A point where people have to try to express what they mean, and can't let the history and friendship they already have do the work.
I'd cut a lot of slack to someone not ready to argue coherently in the immediate aftermath.
True, but in that case, the phrase is, "I'll have to think about that", not "You're making too much of it".
Okay, I was trying to keep this more hypothetical, but the point is that the discussion concerned something about which I was undeniably correct, that is, whether the phrase "I parked my car in the garage" used to refer to intercourse is misogynist (someone else had said it, not the dude I was arguing with).
297: Did you think I wasn't trying to make that exact point? Was I that unclear?
So, he could disagree with me about that (although it is stupid to do so, since I'm right), but saying I'm "reading too much into it" is untrue and kind of repellent.
270: Yeah, I'd go with the short, "it's dismissive" explanation.
Fuck off, drunky; just because Big Daddy touched you as a boy, and it's been the central theme in your life ever since, doesn't mean it's a point of obsession for everyone else, too," is how you talk to friends.
Well, not if, in fact, your friend was molested as a kid. Presumably the situation in which "you're reading too much into that" is upsetting is where someone is actually serious about/engaged in an argument, right?
Not that I, myself, have never ever resorted to the skeptically raised eyebrow when someone is nattering on about some conspiracy theory or other.
Well, not if, in fact, your friend was molested as a kid. Presumably the situation in which "you're reading too much into that" is upsetting is where someone is actually serious about/engaged in an argument, right?
Probably not about child molestation. But a few of us have made fun of ogged for having cancer, for example. I am hoping he doesn't think that we're not worried about it, or think it's worthy of worry, nonetheless.
Did he argue context-is-everything or flatly deny it might be misogynist?
303: First the former, then retreated to the latter.
Scratch 304, I mean "first the latter, then retreated to the former."
Crap.
300: Yeah, it is. It's a move men make all the damn time when you're pointing out some kind of sexist subtext, and it infuriates me. You should have beaten him, or at least kicked him really hard in the shin.
It's a move men make all the damn time when you're pointing out some kind of sexist subtext
Thankyou, that's what I was looking for in 270.
302: Absolutely. But he jokes in much the same way. So the understanding is established.
Plus, be honest: it really isn't worth worrying over. But Ogged is such a drama queen.
307: You're welcome. Be sure and throw in an extraneous swear word when you explain this to guys. It shows them you're not to be trifled with, and if they object, you can call them pussies.
299: Sorry to misunderstand you, IDP, I read you as saying you'd give a grudging pass to someone babbling because they didn't have anything thoughtful to say yet, even if what they babbled was unintentionally offensive.
Oh, and the response to the "context is everything" fallback position is, "yes, and the context in which that remark is sexist is modern American society, which we live in." (Fill in whichever nation/time period is appropriate.)
This is awesome! I can fight with Silvana's dates by proxy instead of getting started making curtains to sell the house despite the fact that we've never had curtains up in the three years we've lived here!
Bitch, PhD., feminist argument batgirl.
Awesome! I'm so totally going to add that to the "critical responses" section of my c.v.
308: As I said, appropriate responses are relationship-dependent. And people are going to vary in their evaluation of the relationship and how best to advance it. To the extent that he was dismissing silvana's reading (was it of the same movie?) out of misogyny or some like attitude, he's a dick. (But, if silvana knows him moderately well, you might think silvana would have picked up on this before.) To the extent he was trying to bed silvana and this irritated her, he's made a mistake. (If that's all he was trying to do, he probably should have just have agreed with her.) But it's possible that he just disagreed with her reading, and treated her as he would another female friend. Maybe his response was generally inappropriate, maybe it was inappropriate because he was speaking to silvana, but that's the sort of thing he will only learn through experience.
290: I think you're reading too much into it." sounds dismissive, but "I think you're reading too much into scene X's message because scene Y contradicts it in ways A and B" doesn't presume that she's nuts for thinking that a movie might have X subtext.
If someone made an argument that Walter Farley's Island Stallion was an extended meditation on young man coming to terms with his gay sexuality, and pointed out that the horse was named "Flame," and that the young boy "rode" the "stallion," I'd probably respond that the he or she was overreading the story. But I'm not sure I could point to anything that positively demonstrated why I thought it was an overreading.
LB, you're a LITIGATOR. There are plenty of workplaces where i's not appropriate to swear.
Damn, I'm too lazy to hunt down the comment with the link to Malcolm Gladwell's article where he mentions that the Princeton kids are all attractive. When I visited Princeton, that wasmy experience too. But does this apply in all areas.
I knew a guy in college who used to complain that Harvard women were ugly. This huy was no great looker himself. He was dumpy and short with black hair; he kind of reminded me of Danny DeVito--only less attractive. I don't think that he was right, but I do have a sense that different schools have different aesthetics. Princeton seemed to be populated by people with preppy good lucks--sort of wholesome. Harvard certainly has preppy good looking people (more men of that type than women), but that aesthetic doesn't seem to dominate the way that it does at Princeton. My theory is that Princeton eopleare the best looking; Yalepeople combine preppy--ish guys with artsy women and that Harvard people are,on the whole, the least attractive of the bunch. I'm sure that his is just a reflection of my latent anti-semitism. I general, I like Yale and Harvard people better than Pricnetonians.
Could someone tell me what is meant when people use the word cute. I mostly know, but it's always been a strange word for me. How does it differ from hott? Can someone be both cute and gorgeous. I've always thought of Catherine Zeta Jones as gorgeous, but she seemed too imposing and sultry (dark brunettes often do) to be described as cute. I wouldn't describe Nigella Lawson as cute either.
When I was a kid, I hated being called cute. I hated being told that my outfit was cute. I was very small and looked young for my age, and I wanted desperately to be grown up. I always tried to get dress shoes that didn't have straps, because shoes with straps reminded me too much of Mary Janes, and those were for little kids. Of course, now grown women wear Mary Janes all the time.
I'm still a little conflicted about the term cute. I think that I'd prefer to be called pretty than cute, but I guess taht there's a lot of research showing that what a lot of men find attractive in women are features (at least in the face) that could be termed child-like. (Whether this is some sort of purely biological preference reflecting fitness in evolutionary terms--they'll be good breeders--or some remnant of patriarchal oppression--women should be diminutive and unthreatening--seems irrelevant to the question at hand.Most of the people talking about this do seem to be in teh ev-psych camp, though. So, maybe it's all bullshit.)
Damn, I've got to remember not to comment using Safari.
Bosto sounds like Basta!, which is a word I occasionally exclaim even though I don't speak Italian nor regularly talk to Italian-speaking people.
I think someone could be both cute and pretty, but not cute and gorgeous.
No particular reason.
319: And you'd be right. I don't think someone can be cute and beautiful, either, but I'm not as sure of that. Meg Ryan, in some movies, is so cute that she might be beautiful.
Cute seems to be an Americanism.
Brits, unless unduly influenced by American usage, would only use 'cute' to explicitly intend the 'childlike' connotations. You wouldn't say of someone hot that they were 'cute'. You would say, of someone's child, that they were cute.
I knew a guy in college who used to complain that Harvard women were ugly.
In my experience, guys at top universities never find their female classmates to be as attractive as the women at the women's college down the street.
315: "I disagree" would also work. But that's a pretty extreme example, isn't it? And why are you watching movies about stallions on a first date, anyway, IYKWIM?
'Cute' and 'gorgeous' don't go together. And 'cute' only works as a description of women until about age 22 or so. I tend to use 'cute' to describe someone who I might acknowledge as pretty, but not stunning, and not quite my type, or someone childlike.
BG, I agree about the shoes. Slip-on shoes were the coolest thing when I was nine.
I don't think someone can be cute and beautiful
You people aren't thinking hard enough. Young Phoebe Cates: both cute and beautiful.
See, I was torn on cute+beautiful. I'm going to go with "yes".
322: AITTID. I was twiting B, Cala. I'd link, but I can't find the series of comments about The Black Stallion.
Yeah, I remembered that. Seriously, though, as long as you're not dating B, it probably won't come up.
323: My sister is kind of cute. She is very young looking even though she's 25 and has very child-like mannerisms. In fact, I sometimes think that she projected more meture mannersisms during the two years she spent at an English boarding school than she did in college in Southern California.
322: Too true, Cala. There used to be a joke about that: Wellesley women were better looking than Cliffies, Smithies were prettier yet, and by the time you got to Vassar, the women were downright gorgeous. This guy didn't think that Wellesley women were attractive either. FWIW, he grew up in Kansas as the son of a University Professor. His Orthodox grandmother was still in New York. I don't know whether that skewed his perceptions.
This group of guys commented on women's appearance all the time. There were certain women they found very attractive and worshipped from afar to whom they gave nicknames. On was named Blue. The layout of the Winthrop Huse dining room only exacerbated the problem. It's sort of underground. The upper level windows are at the street level which means that you have to walk down into the dining hall. There was a theatrical quality to it. Lots of people watching--both when people came in and when they went to get coffee.
I don't know why I hung out with those people for as long as I did. My roommate was friends with allof them, and I had been good friends with one of the guys. I must have had serious self-esteem issues.
I think that people still call me cute at 30, but I look pretty young and am still seen as tiny--though I don't think of myself that way--just sort of petite. Someone called me kiddo not that long ago, although I get "hon" more often.
But it's possible that he just disagreed with her reading, and treated her as he would another female frien
Yes, but as Silvana pointed out in 300, he's wrong: it is misogynist. His disagreement may be in good faith, but it's a good-faith defense of misogyny, which is unacceptable.
If someone made an argument that Walter Farley's Island Stallion was an extended meditation on young man coming to terms with his gay sexuality
They'd be wrong. The book isn't about a young man coming to terms with being gay: I'm pretty sure that the boys in both books are straight. Nonetheless, the book has homoerotic (and racist) subtext all over the place.
Now that I think about it, I'm labelling Elisha Cuthbert both cute and gorgeous.
Graham has used "pretty", "cute", "beautiful", "hot", and "sexy" to describe me. He says it depends on mood.
whether the phrase "I parked my car in the garage" used to refer to intercourse is misogynist
Perhaps I'm dense, but why is this phrase misogynist in and of itself?
Cute = pretty. Possibly tomboyish. Often used casually to simply mean "attractive" without necessarily expressing focused interest.
Pretty = delicate or conventionally feminine features.
Beautiful = more severe, more about bone structure than "pretty."
Gorgeous = like "stunning" or "striking," attractive in a way that is immediately noticable. I'd use gorgeous for highly attractive on the prettyish end of the spectrum, striking on the handsome/beautiful end, and stunning on the hot end, myself.
Hot = fuckable.
Handsome (in women) = severe features, perhaps not really beautiful, but still with the more severe features and a sense of presence.
I'd do a taxonomy for the guys, too, just in the interests of balance, but now I have to go help PK buy a bug cage because his Spanish summer school homework assignment is to bring a bug to class tomorrow.
I'm labelling Elisha Cuthbert both cute and gorgeous.
That is so wrong. I can't believe you wrote that.
My boyfriend has a thing for Elisha Cuthbert. Well, first season of 24, anyway.
"Cute" is a fascinating word. When I was teaching English my Egyptian students almost always misused it; they seemed to be using it to mean "nice" or "sweet" or something. It was really hard to explain exactly what it means.
I think sometimes "cute" is a gateway compliment: a guy might want to say something positive about a woman's appearance but in the early stages saying "beautiful" or "gorgeous" or whatever might make it seem like he's trying too hard. Later, when the relationship is established, he'll be more effusive.
She's neither. She's definitely not gorgeous--she doesn't have the caricatured beauty features I associate with "gorgeous." She's not cute--there's an implication of "pleasant to be with" in "cute," and she's fucking irritating as hell in the few episodes of 24 I've seen. You are hurting America by taking this position, Apo.
Vanessa Paradis, circa 'Be My Baby' both cute and hot.
I've never seen 24 so I've got no way to evaluate that statement.
But the idea that she isn't gorgeous, well, I think you'd better cue up Ask, Tim.
337: Yes, exactly. I asked an Italian teacher of mine who was married to a German what the Italian word for gemutlich was. She said, essentially, that gemutlich was untranslatable. Italians don't do cute in that way, but taht the closest word was carina.
There is also the phenomenon of Japanese cute. (A friend of mine teaches English to Japanese women.) This is Hello Kitty cute and is often quite immature. She tends to get assignments back with hearts on them.
Cute, as distinct from Japanese cute, is not at all incompatible with beautiful or gorgeous.
"Cute" is the adjective I'd use to describe 90% of the women I'm attracted to, and many of them are also beautiful.
Pathetic, Apostropher. Apparently, you use "gorgeous" the way the doctor in Seinfeld used "breathtaking." She's young, blonde, and fit--dime a dozen.
343: Sure, if you live in Lake Woebegone, where every child is above the average.
Plenty of Irish women use "cute" to mean hot when referring to the preferred sex. It probably contains some implication that the object of desire isn't way older than the speaker. Gay Irish men would also use it, though not so much - straight men, not really, unless they actually want to imply the childlike thing.
I suspect this reflects who has had their idiolect influenced by years of watching Sex and the City.
"cute" = "nicely bouncy"
Tim, I have several dimes in my pocket. Please send a dozen Elisha Cuthberts to my house. Thanks.
313: I have, in the past, sent an email to B. asking for backup on a feminist argument with the subject line: "It's the Bitch Signal!"
I use 'cute' of men as pretty much a straight synonym for 'appealing'. I suppose I wouldn't use it of a much older man, but for someone younger to slightly older than I am it doesn't mean anything particular with respect to type, just that I find their appearance pleasing. I don't really approve of this usage -- it sounds unfortunately teenage -- but it is how I talk.
This came up on Crooked Timber: in Irish English "cute" very often means "smart, ingenious, tricky, sly". It shows up in old American cop fiction as "Don't get cute", spoken to the bad guy by the police. I noticed it quite a bit in Flann O'Brien.
I believe it's a cropped form of 'acute', and the 'adorable' sense is a result of the meaning's having drifted.
350: That's how Donny always used it when Marie made him look dumb on The Donny and Marie Show. "Cute, Marie. Cute."
East Asia has traditions of innocuous cuteness which make a lot of women there seem underage even when they're 25. They also have a lot of cute, kitschy child-and-baby-related stuff that makes American Midwestern kitsch seem sophisticated.
332: Yeah, you're being dense. It's pretty straightforward objectification. It's like the urinal that's a woman's mouth. Metaphor that likens human beings, or parts of them, to inanimate utilitarian objects, express contempt for them. Think about the "car in the garage" example. Let's talk about cars: they're fast, and liberating, and they take you places, and they cost of lot of money, and status symbosl. What about a garage?
Well, it's the place you put your car. And a bunch of other junk. Your garage exists solely to house your car and your discarded household crap. Usually ugly buildings, utilitarian in nature, stationary, and generally quite dull.
See it now?
If I told you that the same friend of my date would refer to a woman's mouth, vagina, and anus as Input 1, Input 2, and Input 3 respectively, would you question whether that's misogynist, too?
To the inputs, sure, absolutely misogynist. As to the car/garage thing, that seems not particularly different than referring to boogers as "bats in the cave". I mean, context would be important here, obviously, and the friend seems to provide pretty convincing context of being contemptible. But taking the phrase qua phrase, it strikes me more as sophomoric than embodying a hatred of women.
OT: Ogged looks OK on the blood thing--he doesn't need a transfusion. Or so claims his latest entry. So, possible evidence regarding #308.
I don't think context is important at all. It doesn't matter who is saying it. That's the hurdle I was struggling with last night. I don't care if the person who says it is misogynist or not, they might be over-the-top misogynist, or just hold the baseline level of misogyny that we all have from living in this society, the phrase itself, and phrases like it that compare women's sexual organs to objects, are misogynist.
But it compares the man's sexual organs to objects as well. That's the conceit. Maybe it should be a more rarified object, but don't most metaphors work that way?
Or, perhaps, a better analogy: I remember hearing, as a kid, the charming phrase "put the hot dog in the bun." This doesn't have the car/garage excitement dichotomy, but it's still using inanimate objects to describe body parts. Again, it's sophomoric (and I'd suspect any adult still employing either one of being emotionally retarded), but it strikes me more as simple physical analogy than a vehicle of contempt.
I think your perspective may be a little off, because it's the kind of thing you'd say and no one would be offended by because if you said it it would be funny in context. (See 248.) That doesn't make it not misogynist, it just means that you're really good at conveying that you're kidding.
From someone who's not conveying the 'kidding' thing quite so well: a garage is a volitionless inanimate object with no purpose but to contain cars. It's something that exists solely in service of cars -- without a car, a garage is entirely pointless. What Silvana said about it is dead on -- it's sophomoric, but it's sophomoric in a way that belittles and dehumanizes women.
In re hot dog/bun: nope, still a vehicle of contempt.
But it compares the man's sexual organs to objects as well.
So? It's the man who's making the comparison. I presume men don't generally have contempt for their own penises and see themselves as nothing but an object for women's sexual use.
It's like B. said, the context is sexist American society, and that matters.
But taking the phrase qua phrase, it strikes me more as sophomoric than embodying a hatred of women.
I seem to recall "He parked his car in her garage" as being the punchline to a joke I heard in 3rd grade, an age at which my classmates and I were just discovering sexual innuendo. Back then, to refer to such concepts in such terms was the height of sophistication. For an adult to use such metaphors is playful at best; at worst, who knows.
But it compares the man's sexual organs to objects as well. That's the conceit.
Cars have drivers -- a car in motion is an active thing expressing volition. It's not an object, it's an actor.
Or, perhaps, a better analogy: I remember hearing, as a kid, the charming phrase "put the hot dog in the bun."
This one I wouldn't call misogynistic, just middle-school-ish. I'd find it very very weird from an adult, but just because of the immaturity.
Hey! LB, that bit about the car being a volitional actor is good!
(takes notes)
(actually, I am having this argument over email right now)
Okay, I can see the car/garage thing. 363, though, seems like circular logic in a way I can't quite pin down.
It's like B. said, the context is sexist American society, and that matters.
Agree. My general belief is that for that reason, it's sometimes good to fight, and win, even if you're wrong (or more accurately, not clearly right). As I think I've said before, I find many claims about sexism compelling on their face, but I often find the explanations about how it works less so.
365: What about vagina as vacuum, sucking up detrius (here, the penis)?
seems like circular logic in a way I can't quite pin down
You're right, apo. I said that the phrase expresses contempt for women, because it compares them to objects, so even though it compares men to objects, too, it doesn't express contempt for them, because the utterer has no contempt for them.
So it's like
object --> contempt
no contempt --> object --> no contempt.
But then see LB, who is smarter than I.
What about vagina as vacuum
Who compares vaginas to vacuums, and in what context?
370: I was trying to think of a metaphor in which the vagina was active. Best I could do on short notice.
In re hot dog/bun: nope, still a vehicle of contempt.
Love the hot dog, hate the bun? Since when are hot dog buns objects of contempt?
372: To be fair, if you went to buy a hot dog, and all they had were buns, you wouldn't make a purchase. If they were out of buns, but still had a hot dog, you might still buy it.
Would it be bad to stop dating someone because of a lack of sufficient understanding of my vitriolic response to the car/garage and input metaphors?
Well, my work here is done.
Time to go vacuum.
a metaphor in which the vagina was active
Flowers, sorta.
378: Flowers are rooted and lack the freedom of movement of cars or bees. The obvious example is, I think, of a mouth eating something, but that's a cure worse than the disease.
Dude, flowers are about as active as a rock. Alive, yes, but from a human perspective, they might as well not be.
lack the freedom of movement of cars or bees
The obvious answer is "spaceship," thus the delectable double entendre of the action classic Bees on a Spaceship.
And, of course, "plane." I'M TIRED OF THESE MOTHERFUCKING SNAKES IN MY MOTHER FUCKING PLANE.
381: Yeah, I thought about that, but really the analogy made is to the landing bay or scooping bay, which is again not active. The active part is the tractor beam--I have no idea what that would be. Phermones?
flowers are about as active as a rock
The most common vagina metaphor, though, and nobody considers Georgia O'Keefe misogynist.
383: I think you misunderstand. The plane and the spaceship are the vagina, the critters, the penis.
Apo, you're confusing "person A is misogynist" with "x phrase or comparison is misogynist."
I don't think O'Keeffe is particularly misogynist, but insofar as her art capitalizes on the long trend of likening vaginas to flowers to be plucked, yes, it has misogynist underpinnings. That doesn't mean she is one. See 359.
386: I'm not seeing the similarities, then. You could just make the vagina the car, and the penis the garage, then. Anyway, we're doing this wrong. We should look to actual practice. What do women say when they're speaking crudely (and arguably dehumanizingly) about sex?
I could see saying something about the penis as a stick shift in a car, with the woman as the driver. But that's all I got.
her art capitalizes on the long trend of likening vaginas to flowers to be plucked
Or maybe, you know, they just kinda look like flowers.
And are the reproductive organs of plants.
To be fair, if you went to buy a hot dog, and all they had were buns, you wouldn't make a purchase. If they were out of buns, but still had a hot dog, you might still buy it.
Says you! The other day at the supermarket, I bought hot dog buns and no hot dogs! I had two of the buns with breakfast today, sans hot dog, toasted, with margarine. They were delicious.
Love the bun, man. Love the bun.
A plane and a spaceship are both cylindrical and hollow and can fit things inside them. But mostly I'm kidding.
I bought hot dog buns and no hot dogs!
Misandrist.
387: Wait, are you saying the world would be better off if O'Keefe hadn't painted the various flower paintings?
What do women say when they're speaking crudely (and arguably dehumanizingly) about sex?
We don't. That's the fucking point.
I'm pretty crude generally, and the things I say about sex range from "we slept together" (chastest) to "we fucked" (most crude). Pretty much it.
And you know what? I use "we" pronouns for things that involve two people, like intercourse. I would never later recount sex by saying "he fucked me," unless it was for effect to properly characterize an encounter where the guy humped away while I laid there like a log.
We don't. That's the fucking point.
I. Call. Bullshit.
397: Alright, well someone else is going to have to pipe up then, 'cause I can't think of anything. Seriously.
Contextwise, how about "If you find it annoying when A says y, that's a good sign that you're not going to like A, even if (or especially if) it doesn't annoy you when B says y".
IE, maybe there are other things about him you don't like that you haven't fully articulated, but which seem to crystalize on this particular phrase.
"Parking the car in the garage" sounds like a jokey, unromantic, matter-of-fact, unexcited view of sex, which might be more or less misogynist but in context is not flattering. A similiarly unenthusiastic might come up with a similiarly unexcited metaphor.
395: Or, crude, yes; possibly contemptutous, yes; but not dehumanizing in an analogous way. The closest I'm coming up with is something like "It's Raining Men" -- it's not viewing men as individual persons, valuable for their spiritual qualities; it's just, crudely, about sex; but it's not hostile.
395, 400: Don't feel bad. Relatively speaking, it's early days in the feminist movement. Rome wasn't built in a day, and all that.
What about putting sugar in a bowl? Is the bowl a dehumanized object? The sugar?
I have a female friend who occasionally goes out to (in her words) "find a cock for the night."
Or, while I'm thinking of silly songs "I Like 'Em Big And Stupid". That gets to active contempt, but it's still not the same sort of analogizing to an inanimate object that you get in the other direction.
(And apo -- women know the crude things men say; we hear them said. If you can't come up with analogous crudities from women, there's a good chance that it's because they really don't exist in the same way.)
OK, I'm wracking my brain here. Maybe "hunk"? (Shudder. Hate that word.) It connotes (to me) "hunk of meat."
That's the best I can right now.
SUGAR IN THE BOWL! SUGAR IN THE BOWL! GET THIS FUCKING SUGAR OUT OF MY BOWL!
(Sorry about that.)
OK, I'm wracking my brain here. Maybe "hunk"? (Shudder. Hate that word.) It connotes (to me) "hunk of meat."
That's the best I can do right now.
410: Yeah, that's really the thing. Men as objects are usually men as ATMs. I've heard that much more than I'd have expected. I don't hear it as much as men talking crudely about women, though.
410: Is that how women talk about men, though, or is it how men talk about how they think women feel about them? (Using people I know as a sample is pretty useless, because we aren't representative of anything, but it sounds more like the latter than the former to me.)
I've only read few comments, but I feel informed enough to chime in! Look, of course women don't denigrate men as much as sexual meat, but why. One big reason men talk of women that way is because they see them as basically interchangeable flower vases; i.e. they look a bit different, but when it comes to performing, they're all about the same. Therefore, women as lovers are depersonlized. Obvs, for the most part this perspective isn't to be found among women. I'm not sure it's because of the difference of physical sex or of social sex, but I suspect both.
Well, yeah. More men use dehumanizing sexual language about women than the reverse because more men view women sexually as dehumanized objects than the reverse. That's the point of the critique.
more men view women sexually as dehumanized objects than the reverse
Of course. Nobody would deny that. My bullshit was to "we don't talk crudely about sex."
No, I heard it from a coworker. Her beef was that he husband only had a penis -- no paycheck.
She traded up shortly thereafter. She was a right-to-lifer too, if that helps you understand her better.
Oh, sure. Dr. Oops and a good friend were once interrupted by (I think) a cab driver driving them from one bar to another: "I ain't never heard no conversation in no locker room like from you two ladies..."; there's loads of crudity going around.
What I thought you were asking for, and Silvana told you didn't exist much, was that sort of dehumanizing sexual metaphor.
I've also overheard women talking very frankly about one of their fiances. The punch line was "Well, if you're going to marry for money, marry an old guy, because you're more likely to actually end up with the money that way."
What I thought you were asking for
That was SCMT.
420: Yeah, yeah, men all sound alike.
One difference is that the things I've heard women say about men were not said to the men themselves, as part of the foreplay.
One teenboy fundamentalist warned another teenboy fundamentalist that the latter's girlfriend "wanted his bone" on Big Love, but a woman didn't say it.
Following on 417, I've heard that sort of stuff, too. I have a friend who used to bragg about getting guys to buy her expensive stuff she didn't really want. In that case (and maybe most), it was a method of measuring power.
A t-shirt I've seen at a Limited Too store -- "I Love My Daddy's Credit Card".
Oh, I saw a T-shirt like that on a woman: Girls just wanna have funds.
Actually, that's different, because it doesn't say the funds are coming from a man.
But aren't those shirts actually examples of misogyny (or, at least, sexism)? The person wearing them may be trying to be all ironic like, but the person who produced them kind of squicks me out.
428: Yeah.
Totally unsupported hypoethesis: I bet you the two people who designed those two shirts are both men.
Or, I agree with 413.
375: No, don't date him.
I, personally? Think the hotdog/bun thing is sophomoric, but it doesn't piss me off (although inasmuch as really, the hotdog/bun combo is, let's face it, about the hotdog, so yeah, it's kinda sexist. The flower comparison? Fine, whatever, although I think that, O'Keefe notwithstanding, vulvas look more like sea creatures than flowers, what with being fleshy and all. Anyway, I don't see that as sexist strictly on the "dehumanizing" front--we *do* often talk about sex organs as things, don't we? Men and women?--but rather just because the "flower" thing kind of fetishizes the whole "delicacy/femininity" thing. But then again, vulvas are, while not exactly "delicate," certainly feminine and sensitive, so, hey. I'm open to being convinced on the flower metaphor = bad argument, but I'm not seeing it right now, I have to admit.
But the car/garage thing is misogynist in a subtle way, yeah. First, because as with the hotdog, the garage exists *for* the car, second because of the whole male-centered thing, and third because of the idea of ownership. The male-centeredness isn't just explainable as "well, it's a guy doing the talking," I would argue. It's that the metaphor connotes a kind of passivity and "always open" sort of sense about vaginas: there they are, "for" cars. It's not, for me, because the garage is *stationary* (like, say, a flower or a mollusk) but because it's basically an empty hole. The ownership thing is a li'l weird too--the driver owns the car, *and* he owns the garage it's parked in. Kinda yukky. I mean, at the very least, why not "I parked my car in her garage"?
Anyway. Who the hell "parks" their dick while fucking? Sting? Get outta here with that boring tantric new age crap.
428: I used to try to draw a distinction between the terms misogyny and sexism. But lately I've kept quiet . I too often end up getting called a moron (and sometimes a misgynist and a sexist, too), even after pulling out a dictionary.
pulling out a dictionary
Perhaps not the best wording here...
431: The problem is that dictionary definitions are incomplete (plus, definition #2 for misogyny is "discrimination"). People think of misogyny as active hostility, but there are lots of ways in which hostility is expressed very subtly (and culturally).
Like, for instance. I'm willing to bet that pretty much every woman on this site and probably all the guys, too, curl their lips inwardly at certain uber-femme behaviors. Girlish giggling, little high-pitched shrieks about non-terrifying things, affectations of delicacy or what have you. But if you think about it, our finding those things contemptible is not entirely something we can disentangle from contempt of femininity--because we associate all of those things with being "girly," which is, of course, "bad" and worthy of contempt. We've all got the internalized image of the fussy mom, who again, elicits rolled eyes and condescencion (contempt), whereas the dundering dad stereotype is one we kind of empathize with--yeah, dad's a dolt, but at least he leaves me alone. Or whatever. And while men who are annoying might make people angry, women who are annoying often make people, again, just condescending. There are lots of ways, very subtle, in which even without hating women, we're misogynist.
Anyway, my exhibit A in that argument is always Alexander Pope. Who is absolutely fabulous and who in many ways liked women a great deal. But nonetheless, he absolutely despised weakness and silliness (including his own illness). Intolerance for the weak or needy or helpless is part of our fear/loathing of things that we code, culturally, as feminine.
The sex metaphor "playing hide the salami" avoids the passivity problems (at the cost of being even more penis oriented), but I don't think it would be unobjectionable.
I love Bitch and want to have her bitchy little babies.
Shit. Link is to comment 15. Why doesn't that work?
But if you think about it, our finding those things contemptible is not entirely something we can disentangle from contempt of femininity
I disagree. Presumably at some point in the past, girlish giggling & all the uberfemme trappings were considered sexy, feminine, and alluring rather than annoying. Now we reject those trappings rightfully as artificial constructs that have little to do with true womanhood. Our disdain results because we have disentangled it from femininity, and what's left is a set of ridiculous behaviors.
We don't like being weak, needy and helpless because they're not pleasant states, not because they're associated with being female.
In other words I'm rejecting that the inference goes from 'behavior exhibited by women' -- 'women are evil' --- 'behavior is bad'; but rather that the annoying behavior was in fashion -- behavior falls out of fashion -- women who exhibit behavior are behind.
434: Sheesh, B, you should teach about this stuff.
I later realized that I was trying to force a distinction that simply wasn't practical, given the usage already-in-progress. Plus, the distinction I was making was one of degrees (i.e., misogyny = sexism+), which was oversimplifying.
Even though I'm quibbling on the hot dog/flower metaphors? Aww.
(Quick, Mr. B., let's box PK up and send him to Silvana!)
You know, the flower thing reminds me. A friend and I, in grad school, wrote a fake personal ad that put together the most appalling lines from the real personal ads of the previous week. The headline was, "I'm no flower." Then it continued something like, "and you're not a damn bee." The final line was, "and you don't drive a fucking SUV."
We only got one call, from a guy who said he had a girlfriend, but he just had to call and tell us it was the funniest ad he'd ever read.
438: No, honestly. All of those are artificial behaviors designed to heighten feminine qualities--higher voices, smaller bodies, less physical aggression, and so forth. And even during times when they're admired, they're also simultaneously despised (see Pope). It's not a question of not liking being helpless/weak/needy--it's a question of actively disdaining others who are in that position, or who seem to be. You know, that whole, "don't be a pussy" thing (tell me that's not pretty clearly an equation of weak/feminine).
But if you think about it, being weak/helpless/needy is part of the human condition. It's unpleasant, but so are a lot of things that, while we want to avoid them, we don't actually despise.
434: I do, in relation to explaining how to read Pope and appreciate him while acknowledging that sure, he's a misogynist--but then, so are we all.
359 says: I don't think context is important at all.
363 says: It's like B. said, the context is sexist American society, and that matters.
This has been another edition of critiquing arguments which reach conclusions that I agree with. Also, in the context of 359 'context' might mean who is saying it, rather than the society they're saying it in, but I'm not sure.
It's unpleasant, but so are a lot of things that, while we want to avoid them, we don't actually despise.
I'm not sure this holds, either. We despise feigned weakness/neediness/helplessness, certainly. (Portuguese diving team) We despise inappropriate weakness/neediness/helplessness (Italian diving team.) And sometimes we despise things we fear (severe disability.) Btu outside of that, it seems we feel pity for weak, needy, and helpless people, not disdain.
But I don't think it's due to hating women, therefore we hate weakness. I think it's the other way around. I'm pretty sure if women ruled the earth we'd still dislike affect and feigned girlish giggling.
444: I think what she meant in 359 was, "context in the limited sense that my date was using it" doesn't matter--e.g., "you need to know him, he's a nice guy" or "that's just the way guys joke around together" or whatever.
444: I'm actually doing some work now, but when I said "context doesn't matter" what I meant was it doesn't matter if a misogynist guy or a non-misogynist guy says it in an either joking, serious, or ironic way, it's still a misogynist phrase, because no matter what the INDIVIDUAL context, it's occurring in the larger context of our sexist society.
Does that reconcile my two statements?
438: I, as expected, disagree with this: But if you think about it, our finding those things contemptible is not entirely something we can disentangle from contempt of femininity--because we associate all of those things with being "girly," which is, of course, "bad" and worthy of contempt.
Essentially on the grounds of #438. And now I want to have her babies.
Agree with Cala almost entirely on the following:
I'm not sure this holds, either. We despise feigned weakness/neediness/helplessness, certainly. (Portuguese diving team) We despise inappropriate weakness/neediness/helplessness (Italian diving team.) And sometimes we despise things we fear (severe disability.) Btu outside of that, it seems we feel pity for weak, needy, and helpless people, not disdain.
I think when we see others in tough times, we often enough feel not merely pity, but sympathy and empathy. Everyone's been weak/needy/helpless, and if you don't hate the other person, you'll likely be charitable in your assessments of people in such straights. It's about disliking the use of such characteristics by the woman as an indicator of their femininity, as when flirting, etc.
Whether or not we despise weakness in others, and we frequently do, it's really not uncommon to despise it in ourselves. It's easy to say, "it's objectively unpleasant," or "it's something we should conquer," but our very notion of weakness and need as something to stamp out rather than something to accept as part of being alive is in fact somewhat gendered. Becoming a "man" is conquering weakness. It's actually not as prima facie true as some people like to say it is that weakness and need are bad; certainly the pathological fear of them is worse then they are themselves. An extremely common relationship dynamic that I've seen several times, and have occasionally been a party to, is this: lonely, isolated man who can't communicate for shit encounters nurturing woman and, in a moment of surrendering to need, confesses something to her, or asks for help. Lonely man then resents his need having been exposed, and becomes angry at the woman and blames her for exposing him. Lonely man then proceeds to disparage the woman and her female approach to doing things, if not specifically in those terms. That's not to say that the same dynamic couldn't play out with different gender roles, but I see this one frequently with men and women in the roles I described.
In even more generalized, schematic terms: dominant class A projects quality it has decided is undesirable, even though it's an essential function of life, on oppressed class B. A then despises B for its association with the quality, even though it often needs B to take care of or address the quality in some way. It happens with race and housecleaning, gender and housecleaning, race and sexuality, gender and sexuality, etc. In the case above, it's men, women, emotional openness and emotional work.
None of this is to say that everyone always despises weakness, or there's no countervailing cultural narrative, especially now, about having the strength to accept help. There can be more than one conflicting narrative at a time. But it is true that many qualities which have been assigned as female, in one not uninfluential narrative, are disparaged. Saying we don't hate them because they're female, but because they're bad is fruitlessly chicken and the eggy. In this narrative, our attitude toward them is disproportionately hostile and they are associated with women; misogyny and a hatred of weakness are intertwined; it's all part and parcel of the same effort to glorify dominance and control.
I just do not see how people can say we don't despise weakness, culturally. We tell kids not to whine; we discourage them from crying when they hurt themselves or when someone hurts their feelings; we still mostly think it's important for babies to "learn independence" by sleeping alone; we perceive people who are on public assistance as contemptuous; we stigmatize mental illness; we're embarrassed if we see an adult crying in public; we laugh at people who cry at movies; we look down on gullibility and naivete; we feel uncomfortable and awkward around people who are genuinely bereaved; we make few or no provisions for the truly sick or old, as a society; we stigmatize addiction; we react to "excessive" cuteness with mockery; we react to our own pain or helplessness with shame; we admire people who react to their own helplessness by "not whining," or by "being brave," and so on. Yes, we have an instictive reaction of concern when we see someone get hit by a bus. But let someone be in a long-term condition of helplessness without a very obvious physical reason for it, and even with an obvious physical reason, let them be helpless and unhappy about it, and we mostly edge away and mutter something about how it's too bad, but they need to stop feeling sorry for themselves.
Saying we don't hate them because they're female, but because they're bad is fruitlessly chicken and the eggy.
Not really. But I don't think we're disagreeing much except whether weakness is an essential part of life to be encouraged. [Not much you say? Fuck off -- ed.] If you cherrypick the evidence down to 'expressing feelings is only weak because women do it more', sure. That's hardly universal among all Western cultures.
But what about things like: being in shape and strong, being able to defend oneself against a physical threat, being self-reliant enough to meet many of one's basic needs, being able to quickly and cleverly solve a problem without needing to pitch a fit first, being able to discern when to lead and when to follow, knowing when to headbutt and when to bide own's time.
Being weak and unable to defend oneself seems to be a bad thing, not something essential or even conducive to life. Flopping about hoping someone manly can fix the light bulb or get a job and pay the rent or kill the tiger on the veldt. If you're feigning weakness and powerlessness, you're giving all that up to another person. Hope they're on your side. Want to place a bet?
Fruitless chicken-and-eggy. Well, maybe. But let's put it like this. If you're right, then women as a class are fucked. Because whatever women are becomes despised. Might as well give it up now because if that's how the inference works, we'll just be despised for different things. If I'm right, weakness/helplessness/neediness, while what *counts* as weakness certainly may change with culture and time, will always be despised. Women, however, can work to ensure they're not identified with the despised.
I wouldn't dispute that, culturally, we despise weakness or that sometimes (often?) that weakness is 'gendered', i.e. associated with particular traits and behaviours that we also associate with femininity and the absence of such weakness assocaited with masculinity.
There are also some counter-narratives too. We commonly hear people saying that if men had to go through childbirth there'd be no babies, or that 'men have lower pain thresholds than women', or that (turning the cliche on its head) 'men are really the weaker sex'. How often do we hear jokes being made about male weakness when ill? 'He's like a big baby. I get a cold, he gets, like, the worst flu ever', etc.
None of that is to dispute the gendered nature of much of our characterisation of weakness but it is interesting that those counternarratives also exist.*
* Of course some of these may actually serve to reinforce the strong/male v. weak/female stereotype by shaming weakness in males and are just instances of exactly the same phenomena already alluded to in earlier comments.
Agree with Cala. Weakness objectively sucks, and this is not due to misogyny, although in discussions the two quickly become blurred.
By the way, I tend to really disdain people who overreact to signs of weakness. It's almost as if they're very... weak. (Certainly not womanly.)
If you're feigning weakness and powerlessness, you're giving all that up to another person.
Okay. But logically, why is that something to look down on? I mean, how does it hurt *you* if I'm acting like a ninny? Doesn't it make more sense to think, "that poor thing, she's such a ninny"? Really, think about it: why is being weak and ineffectual worthy of contempt? Why do we (you, in this case) see it as something that's so natural as to be universal?
If you're right, then women as a class are fucked. Because whatever women are becomes despised.
No. Why? Are we assuming it's natural to despise women, and therefore whatever women are --> despicable? Yes women can (and do) work to not exemplify despicable traits, but in many ways, our doing so is rightly subject to the criticism that by, say, eschewing domestic labor for paid employment we're merely buying into sexism rather than actually eradicating it. Babies are weak and ineffectual, and we find them adorable. Except for the folks who pride themselves on cynically resisting infantile charms--I used to be one of those. And it seems clear to me now that, in large part, the "I dislike children" argument is in part motivated by a dislike of the cultural associations we have for children/childbearing: children lack self-control, they're weak, they're messy, they're dependent, they render those around them dependent (on public goodwill, among other things), spending time with them involves a certain sacrifice of dignity, etc. Which, btw, it's probably significant that we now prefer to address by laughing: the "wipe my butt!" stories are *funny* in part because of the humiliation factor. But, really, why? He's a little kid. He cares about being clean. Of course he needs help wiping. But inasmuch as feminism means we *have* gotten to the point where we're suspicious of things like the angel in the house/dear mama/self-sacrifice model (because it's weak and pathetic), we now deal with that stuff through (self)-mockery. But at the bottom of both is the idea that needing help wiping/helping someone wipe is, really, pathetic.
There are also some counter-narratives too.
Sure. Ideology is complex and paradoxical. Most of the counter-narratives you cite, though, are the kinds of things women say to one another to reinforce a sense that their doing all the shit work is because men can't handle it--it's a way of venting the frustration of doing the shit work without actually challenging the status quo. When men say stuff like that, it's usually said as comedy. It's kind of like saying, "yeah, I admit it: I just can't choke down rotten food the way you do. You must have an iron constitution."
I'm much closer to Cala, except that I think most of the self-reliance stuff is bullshit, too. What I react to is people being weak/needy/stupidly giggly as part of their performed persona. Other than that, I take them as I find them. As I suspect most people do. For example, a surprising number of people have confessed to various moments of weakness, be it physical or otherwise, in comments here. I've yet to see anyone mock them for it; it's much more common to find ourselves tripping over one another to express sympathy. And I don't think we're a very abnormal group(in that way).
Most of the counter-narratives you cite, though, are the kinds of things women say to one another to reinforce a sense that their doing all the shit work is because men can't handle it--it's a way of venting the frustration of doing the shit work without actually challenging the status quo.
Yeah, that's probably a fair point. That doesn't mean those counter-narratives can't be pretty unpleasant in some contexts, but I think you're right.
re: 457
That's interesting. I wonder to what extent the antipathy we have towards traits we feel are a performance rather than 'authentic' -- an antipathy I tend to share -- comes from some fairly confused post-Romantic notions we have about authenticity in the first place.
457: Sure. We express sympathy up to a point. But we've all of us (including me) gotten impatient with, say, Gary because the weakness associated with his depression and desire for attention makes us acutely uncomfortable. We've been, as a group, far less immediately and instinctively supportive towards Alameida's recovery than towards Ogged's cancer, at least in part because we've all got some internalized discomfort around problems of addiction. I'll go out on a limb and say that, like me, we were all of us relieved when Ogged's reaction to having cancer was to continue to be his jokey self, and to be earnest, not so much about his own weakness but rather by being empathetic with his poor mother. If his other blog were all about "poor me, poor me!" we'd feel a lot more uncomfortable and it would be much, much harder to be supportive and empathetic.
(And b/c I feel bad about pointing specifically at other people's weakness, I'll note that when I was severely depressed and reacted to it by being really combative and demanding attention, it drove some of you nuts--even if, unlike Ogged, you didn't think it was bad enough to ban me over. *And* fwiw, in hindsight I not only think that was a fairly understandable response, but I'm rather ashamed of having been such a pain in the ass.)
459: YES. And also, again, "authenticity" is male--think about our idea that "realism" is gritty, truisms like "life sucks" or "no one ever said life was fair" or "shit happens"--whereas affectation/artifice are female. Art is for poofs (unless it's an "authentic expression" of something or other), romance is "unrealistic," marriage narratives don't present a full picture of the world, and so on. All of that stuff is quite clear in the Romantic period, right alongside the idea that women are "naturally" weaker and softer than men. (Which really starts with Milton, except for the parts about chivalry, which go back to the Middle Ages, but in medieval romances a weeping knight is in no way emasculated.)
The following should be read with the understanding that my mind has been worn down by a hell of a lot of lesson-planning today. And I'm getting somewhat annoyed at the implication that I think we should be taunting the disabled.
But logically, why is that something to look down on? I mean, how does it hurt *you* if I'm acting like a ninny?
It depends. Are you able to fight the tiger? Was I relying on you? Are you helping me fight the tiger or am I left by myself while you kick your heels and cry?
Doesn't it make more sense to think, "that poor thing, she's such a ninny"?
Again. Am I going to be eaten by a tiger while you mope about being a ninny? Then I'm kicking your ass and praying to the gods that there's a cultural narrative that says you can be a ninny when the tiger is dead.
Really, think about it: why is being weak and ineffectual worthy of contempt? Why do we (you, in this case) see it as something that's so natural as to be universal?
Because quite a lot of it is counterproductive. Oh, I'm a girl, this math problem is harrrrdd. Oh, I'm a girl, I can't fix the toilet or the car. Oh, I'm a girl, if I bat my eyes and wear a tight top and be a ditz I'll get an A. Gee, ethics is for girls, metaphysics is for boys. Maybe if I'm not smart Johnny will like me.
Why is weakness worthy of contempt? Well, I had qualified that earlier, so let's put all those qualifications back in. Someone truly weak and helpless isn't worthy of contempt. They're worthy of pity and aid and sympathy. And yes, we can throw all the emotional trauma in here, too. Someone feigning it can get over themselves. Someone who has the resources to overcome weakness should be encouraged to do so ('wipe your own damn ass, PK'). And the reason is that society doesn't have time to wipe your ass because we need you to help kill the tiger.
In short, I have limited time and limited resources to expend on those who need my help. I don't think encouraging self-reliance in those who are capable of it is a bad thing. And I don't see a way of encouraging it without acknowledging that while some weakness is unavoidable (sickness, old age, etc.), some of it needs to be stamped out because we've got tigers to kill and dragons to slay.
re: 460
Indeed, someone very close to me has a family member in a situation not unlike the worst case scenario for Ogged -- multiple cancers -- and has also had a brush with pretty serious illness.
This person is being pretty stoic about the family member and was teh stoic when actually facing illness and while I admire the stoic behaviour partly just because of the very real strength behind it, I'm sure a lot of it is precisely to do with the discomfort we feel when dealing with other people's weakness and the fact that, at a selfish level, this person being stoic makes life a lot easier for me.
Are we assuming it's natural to despise women, and therefore whatever women are --> despicable?
Far be it from me to speak for Cala, but I think the issue here is where the equation weak = feminine = despicable came from in the first place. If it was a manifestation of misogyny by associating femininity with a quality that was already culturally despised, as you seem to be arguing, then why wouldn't a new association be made between femininity and another socially derided quality? Misogyny's still around. If, on the other hand, misogyny originates from perceived qualities of femininity that coincide with inherently negative qualities like weakness, which seems to be Cala's argument, then misogyny will no longer have the same force if women no longer live up to the stereotypes.
(I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I think those are the arguments.)
I think we've moved on from the arguments onto whether I hate people who cry.
But that's a fair characterization. I think Alexander Pope found his illness intolerable because of the pain it put him in and limitations it gave him, not because he hated women and thus, limitations which were neutral became hated.
a manifestation of misogyny by associating femininity with a quality that was already culturally despised, as you seem to be arguing
No, I think what I'm saying is that the feminine / weak / despicable association is a dialectical construct. Feminine and weak define and support one another, and as a result both are "naturally" despicable. Which seems preeminent depends on which angle you're looking at the ball of wax from.
465: Yeah, it took me a while to write that and by the time I posted it the discussion had moved on.
Pain and limitations would naturally make one feel impatient, angry, and sad, yes. But ashamed? That makes no sense. I'm not saying he felt ashamed because he hated women: I'm saying his shame and his misogyny were two handles on the same baggage.
And fwiw, I'm not accusing you of hating criers. If anything, I've tried to show the extent to which *I* recognize my own impatience with weakness--after all, in the great Linda Hirshman debate, I was the one arguing that women should ditch childcare and follow the money, and you were one of those saying no, damnit, nurturing activities are important too.
466: There's an empirical question here, though (actually a set of related questions). Who first associated femininity with weakness? When? Why? It seems like how you answer those questions will shape your perspective on the issue.
What if I make them cry, and then headbutt them?
I'll probably get whacked over the head for this, but after a while these discussions start to seem like Where's Waldo. I see misogyny behind the tree. I see misogyny under the rock. I see misogyny behind the lamppost. Eventually it begins to resemble seeing patterns in static. Stare long enough and you can see anything.
470: Morally? Yes. Legally and professionally? Alas, no. However! You can make them cry, and we'll all happily join you in laughing at them.
469: That's impossible to answer, inasmuch as locating the origin of ideologies is never completely achievable. Roughly speaking, I'd say, Milton (and, by extension, the Puritainism he was drawing on. But then you might have to go back through Christianity and try to disentangle the threads of Mary's and the Magdalena's strength from the threads of their (highly sexualized) weaknesses, and think about the ways that the weakness=sin association shifted from a universal to a gendered category throughout the history of Christianity, and maybe back into Jewish traditions for all I know, and so on. But if you're looking for a firm bright line, I'd say Milton, who elevated the "he for god alone, she for god in him" motif into a nationalist epic, at least for the English-speaking world.
Headbutting is just a natural expression of my cultural identity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_kiss)
I'll probably get whacked over the head for this,
The concern evinced by the above makes me despise you, Apo. That and the Cuthbert thing.
473: No, not whacked: but that's the whole point of ideology. You're soaking in it.
That and the Cuthbert thing.
You're just jealous.
You're soaking in it.
Will it help my dishpan penis?
apo, that bothers me, too. I have shoes. It's the patriarchy. I have a cellphone. Patriarchy. I study philosophy. White guys! Double plus patriarchy.
And yes, I understand that it's a concept. But it's so broad as to be practically meaningless. Am I serving the patriarchy? I blame the patriarchy?
I don't wanna blame the patriarchy. I wanna blame people and then pull out the calabat. I can't beat a concept.
Well, at least I won't get whacked over the head with the calabat, then.
Having shoes isn't patriarchal, I don't think. Unless you have more pairs than guys do, and some of them are heels. In which case it's not shoes per se, it's the ways that shoes are gendered.
See? It's all quite simple.
Shoes are just metaphors for vaginas.
Boy howdy, will I! I'll suck that dirty thing deep into my vacuum bag, I'm telling you.
474: I'm surprised you don't mention the Greeks, which is where I would guess the whole thing originates. But my point is that you would have to actually go through all that stuff to answer the questions I posed, and only then would you have a firm basis for discussing whatever it is we were discussing a while ago.
I'll suck that dirty thing
Paging Fontana Labs. Paging Fontana Labs.
Yeah, I forget about the Greeks. I'm poorly educated. (Were women actually considered weak? I mean, Antigone, Medea...) But like I said, I don't think the question really has an answer. These things . . . evolve. And they continue to evolve. And they are changing, and I am one with that . . . evolution.
and only then would you have a firm basis for discussing whatever it is we were discussing a while ago.
How would that give you a firm basis? Our understanding of the relationship might have changed over time, or our present or it might not be constant across sub-populations, etc.
It's mostly Aristotle (and Paul). The scarcity of primary sources makes it hard to judge the totality of the society, but there are certainly elements along these lines (see this book review for some background).
I'm quite skeptical of "the question doesn't really have an answer, man, things just, like, evolve and stuff" answers. It may not be possible for us to know the answer, and certainly social attitudes change and develop over time, but surely it's worth investigating.
How would that give you a firm basis? Our understanding of the relationship might have changed over time, or our present or it might not be constant across sub-populations, etc.
Sure, but you've got to start somewhere. Do you have a better suggestion?
491: The "evolve and stuff" was a quotation from an obscure movie. And I did try to pinpoint a specific source for the particular connotations of feminine weakness we're dealing with today, in Milton, no? I have no doubt whatsoever that there are feminist scholars in lots of fields who are arguing for other origins, though.
Surely it goes back further than Milton. Not everyone speaks English.
But, okay, Milton. What did he do? Was weakness already bad and he added feminine = weak? Or were feminine = bad and weak = bad already there and he combined the two? Or what?
Sure, but you've got to start somewhere. Do you have a better suggestion?
There are a couple of questions that I see here. First, is feminity associated with weakness? I think we can point to a number of things ("don't be a girl," etc.) that suggest the answer is, "Yes." (I think even that gets complicated as you try to be more specific.) Second, how did it happen? Don't care. Treat the symptoms, and it'll end up taking care of itself. Our culture today is pretty ephemeral, and the speed at which it reorganizes itself is shocking. It wasn't so long ago that Jesse Helms (I think) was inserting gender language into civil rights bills to denude them through mockery (I think). Now we have a woman who is the front runner for the Democratic nomination, and is a credible candidate for the Presidency.
I mean, how does it hurt *you* if I'm acting like a ninny?
It hurts me if your behavior reinforces a definition of the feminine to which I am expected to conform. It's the "acting" part that matters. I can kill my own goddam tiger, but I don't want to drag it back to the cave and have everybody go, "Gosh, that wasn't very womanly of you, Groff."
Yes, Paul and Milton. I think the submissive "angel in the house" model of femininity was a phenomenon peculiar to the English-speaking parts of the world. what's annoying about Paul and Milton is that they undermine what should have been a message of radical egalitarianism in Christianity to restore the patriarchal model. Someone like that always seems to pop up just when things are looking promising.
Well, presumably the different cultural manifestations of sexism have somewhat different cultural paradigms and origins. But it's fair, at least, to say that the modern interpretation of the Adam/Eve myth is carrying a lot of weight.
Weakness was a manifestation of original sin and consquence of our fallen status. But Milton's description of the Adam/Eve myth--which interestingly differs from the Genesis version in was that have become generally seen as being from the bible, although I'm afraid that without the text in front of me I can't remember what the specific differences are, though I think one of the biggies is that the serpent is Satan in Milton's account, but not the bible's--describes Eve as soft, shy, beautiful, fair, somewhat coy, weak and in need of Adam's protection and guidance, "he for god alone/she for god in him," more easily tempted, etc. She eats the fruit because the serpent appeals to her vanity; Adam eats it because he feels that now she's fallen she will need his protection even more. Interestingly, the poem is kind of conflicted. On the one hand, both Adam and Eve are, by definition, perfect before the fall, and PL says this; on the other hand, there's a fair bit of foreshadowing of Eve's artifice and vulnerability before the serpent ever shows up. Art trumps doctrine, a bit.
So basically, you have weak = sin, which both men and women share; but by the end of PL, it's more like, all humans are weak and sinful, but some are more sinful than others. What started out as a creation myth about how suffering comes into the world, and specifically death, which is intimately related to childbirth (which I suspect is part of why it's the woman who eats the fruit first--and the bible does specifically say that her suffering in childbirth is part of the punishment for that sin), turns into a myth about innate difference and the idea that men and women complement one another--PL works really hard to say that the differences aren't a matter of "better" and "worse," but merely of separate spheres--but nonetheless, it's not an equally weighted binary.
And then, during the late 17th and 18th and 19th centuries, we've increasingly got the idea that marriage is about love and coupling, rather than about property rights and the production of children; and the shift from (women's) virginity as a practical virtue (idealized, sure, but also about protecting a man's "stock"--and only one virtue among many) to understanding virginity as a particular and primary virtue of women. Falls from virtue are increasingly seen as "weakness" rather than simple sin/badness. And then we start urbanizing, and labor moves off of the farm/cottage industry into a more capitalized system of wages and alienation from home, and wealth shifts from land to cash, and women are increasingly legally prohibited from property rights and pushed into the domestic space and conceived of as fragile (rather than as broodhorses and helpmeets on the farm), and increasingly the sign of middle-class status is a wife who merely manages the servants, rather than working herself, and we develop all sorts of whacko theories about how education and work dry up women's uteruses (the new myth about childbirth and women's status), and capitalism/colonialsm/the empire increasingly define women ("home") as consumers and men ("out there") as producers/explorers. And on the one hand, we idealize women's role as consumers and admire fashion and taste in the acquisition of china and the drinking of tea as all very ladylike and refined, but on the other, it's also kind of decadent and spoiled of women to be so attached to things and petty comforts. Men, on the other hand, want the comforts of home (which is why, after all, they marry) but at the same time they despise the folderol and fuss and really, old chum, there's something to be said about getting away from all that frou frou and off on the high seas!
And so on.
The same person who can kill tigers might be unable to verbally express love, or might recoil if asked to wipe the shit off of a baby's ass. It's hatred, fear and contempt of weakness, vulnerability, and infirmity that creates the latter inabilities. Obviously you should do your best, and not feign incapacity when you are capable. But it's just not the case that weakness is "not something essential or even conducive to life". Everyone has weak and vulnerable moments and aspects. Contempt for them is contempt for self. And extreme fear of weakness just creates the rigid mind and rigid society that relegates whole categories of experience to another caste, because it has constructed them as signalling weakness.
And what's constructed as weakness and what is strength changes, which is exactly why we should be suspicious of the imperative to strength. In junior high, strength might be constructed as athleticism, weakness as intellectualism, and the smart kid will be mocked and disparaged.
I don't think it's women's job to work to make sure they're associated with what's not despised. I hate the streak of misogyny that devalues the qualities traditionally associated with the feminine because they are feminine. Rather I'd call bullshit to people who disparage nurturance, domestic labor, attention to personal and domestic aesthetics, frank expression of emotion, and reading Sex and the City on the train.
Okay, back to the argument.
Treat the symptoms, and it'll end up taking care of itself.
Not quite. Because let's say we treat the symptom like so: being weak is girly, so therefore I will be a strong woman and I will be taken seriously. And all women should be encouraged to be strong independent women in order to achieve equality. (Which is basically the mainstream feminist argument.) Now, if in fact there are certain conditions of being a woman (pregnancy, motherhood) that inherently put one in a temporarily dependent state, then that particular way of addressing the symptoms is going to make the problem of being a woman more, not less, acute in some ways. We see that argument being made nowadays: that the problem isn't dependency and weakness, inasmuch as dependency and weakness are inherent parts of the human condition that we all experience at some point or other. And that society should take that into account and make allowances, rather than penalizing people for failing to be The Ideal Modern Economic Man, i.e., completely free of family ties, emotional baggage, or silly cares about non-productive things like long walks in the sunset.
On the other hand, what if we treat the symptoms the other way round? Women are weak, so let us declare that that is perfectly fine and pursue equality by valuing their weakness and protecting them from harsh realities like war and work and ugly partisan politics and so forth so that they can dedicate their fine and noble feminine energies to such gentle pursuits as raising children and arranging flowers. We've tried that, and it obviously didn't work all that well in creating equality, either.
So something is wrong, then, with the proposition that we can achieve equality by simply addressing surface conditions. What we need to do, at least to start with, is to examine the ways that the substructure ('scuse the Marxist terminology) is *inherently* stacked against women specifically and human weakness more generally. And then we can start to see how, during the Enlightenment, "human weakness" (i.e., "human nature") was increasingly associated with women--the more "natural" sex--whereas human strength, i.e., reason, was the province of men. Affectation is offensive in women because it undermines their real charms--natural modesty and so forth--but affectation in men (not feminine affectation, i.e., no fops or fags, but masculine affectations of being highly educated, above emotional foibles, and so on is truly the best of all that is civilized (i.e., unnatural) in humanity.
So something is wrong, then, with the proposition that we can achieve equality by simply addressing surface conditions.
I don't think follows at all. The strides women have made in 50 years, or even twenty years, are unbelievable. I'm in my thirties, and I can't believe the changes that have happened in my lifetime. I'd be astonished if there were another targeted subpopulation that's had anywhere near the amount of movement in a similar period of time. If treating the symptoms is what we've really been doing so far, it seems to have worked pretty well. Is there more to do, and is that "more" more intractable? Probably. But the success is unreal to me. I seem to remember reading an article when I was young in which the statusof "marital rape" as a wrong was being treated; I can't imagine that being done today, at least not in a respectable magazine.
17: Okay. But my, specific, personal ninniness isn't representative of all women unless women are already a despised caste, as Tia puts it. Then one woman's failings = all women's failings, because Woman is a concept, rather than an individual person.
Plus, what Tia's saying: okay, great, you can kill your own tiger. But what if you can't, because you've caught some kind of illness? And what if everyone has been shamed out of weak ninny activities like sitting around and playing with dolls and fixing hair and being other-directed, and they're all off killing their own tigers, and no one is left to sit around the campfire with you and comb your hair and murmur sympathetically and fuss over you until you feel better?
The same person who can kill tigers might be unable to verbally express love, or might recoil if asked to wipe the shit off of a baby's ass. It's hatred, fear and contempt of weakness, vulnerability, and infirmity that creates the latter inabilities.
We're heading rapidly into Straw Tiger Land here. Because I was talking about literal tigers. Since we fight them a lot here on the East Coast.
I don't consider those things weak. Whining about having to wipe a baby's ass though, is pretty weak. And I don't think that acknowledging that some weakness is best not given countenance leads us to shunning all emotion. I don't burst into tears if my class doesn't go well or if I rip a skirt, but that doesn't mean I have squelched all emotion.
ather I'd call bullshit to people who disparage nurturance, domestic labor, attention to personal and domestic aesthetics, frank expression of emotion, and reading Sex and the City on the train.
And isn't it so totally cool that no one was doing that on this thread! Except that Sex and the City wasn't that interesting a read. Except for the part where Carrie fought the tigers with a Manolo Blahnik stiletto.
507: Absolutely. But that success has put some enormous pressure on other areas, like caretaking, right? So we're beginning to realize that eschewing weakness isn't the full-on answer. Now, I personally think that the women/weakness association isn't dead yet, so we need to press forward, we girls, and you boys need to step back a bit and embrace your feelings and your nurturing side and start feeilng responsible for babies and clean floors and damnit, honey, I want home home by 6 pm! the same way women used to be. But as we're starting to realize, if no one does that work, there is trouble.
Now, I happen to like modern capitalism pretty well. And I think that in order to retain it, we need to bring weakness into the economic realm and figure out how to make it pay, as well as cost. And folks who are tax-allergic think that's fucking insane--who is going to fund all this quality daycare?--so they want the solution to lie in Personal Responsibility and You Make Choices and maybe traditional families but if not, then it's okay for the dad to stay home or for you to hire private daycare, but if you can't afford children you really shouldn't have them. (Which is an unworkable and unrealistic solution, but that's what you get when you want to have it both ways--a complex economic system, for free.) And hell, folks who are more radical than I am say sure, we can decide to be Sweden only with maternal and paternal leave, in order to keep things balanced, but that's only gonna shift the burden of maintaining our standard of living over to the Chinese unless we seriously cut back while at the same time paying very high taxes. And then there's the "no, capitalism is inherently patriarchal precisely because it only values labor that earns money for pay, which is inherently alienating" kind of argument, with which I have a lot of sympathy, only I'm torn because I like movies and shoes and dining out and being a modern urbaniste.
Or, you know, something like that. Now I'm going to watch Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant creating a lovely bourgeois fantasy in which men are men and women are women, and they both dress beautifully and do exciting, glamorous things and no one ever has to wipe anyone's butt, ever.
Right, Cala, I didn't actually say that anyone on the thread was doing that.
I'd be astonished if there were another targeted subpopulation that's had anywhere near the amount of movement in a similar period of time.
Homosexuals, over the same period.
Cala, I know you don't consider ass-wiping weak. But society at large does and it thinks that ass-wiping is primarily the job of poor people, mostly poor women, although more and more we're thinking that upper-middle class women are perfectly entitled to hire someone else to do the ass-wiping, or to insist that their husbands do it once in a while. Which just passes on the despised weakness to another group of women (but notice that even so, it's the upper-middle class women who are responsible for the nannies, who are doing "their"--the u-mc women's--jobs, NOT the jobs of u-mc men).
512: No, they can't marry yet.
Although arguably, the fact that women are still expected to is equally disabling. Hmm!
512: Not unless you think being gay wouldn't effectively prevent someone from becoming President, let alone being the front-runner.
Right, Cala, you don't consider all that stuff weak. But the point is that weakness and strength are frequently constructed in various ways to reinforce hierarchies and glorify dominance, like I said earlier, and an excessive fear of weakness supports those hierarchies. For anything that one could call weakness, displays of emotion, lack of physical prowess, whatever, contempt or fear of them in the self is rigid and destructive. Weakness, however construed, is an inevitable part of life. And the experience of weakness, vulnerability, and failure is valuable in different ways than the experience of strength, success, or achievement. I'm not saying it's good to fall into a puddle of tears every single time you break a nail, and I think you know that. Everything in its measure.
I'd say that they started from further behind. Women didn't have to pretend they weren't women.
And the experience of weakness, vulnerability, and failure is valuable in different ways than the experience of strength, success, or achievement. I'm not saying it's good to fall into a puddle of tears every single time you break a nail, and I think you know that. Everything in its measure.
But that gives us very little programmatic direction. Moreover, I think most people have had enough trouble in their own lives or those of people that they love that they are circumspect about easy denunciations of weakness (at least at a person to person level).
To some extent, the problem seems to lie with the amorphousness of "weakness." Weakness is bad, our instincts tell us, but as we see the benefits of some specific act, we stop treating it as weakness.
We've been, as a group, far less immediately and instinctively supportive towards Alameida's recovery than towards Ogged's cancer, at least in part because we've all got some internalized discomfort around problems of addiction.
I call bullshit, B. I definitely think that people have problems with issues relating to addiction and mental health. Some of this is simply rational self-protection. Addicts and really mentally ill people can make life hell for those around them--lost jobs etc.
But I didn't see this in the way people responded to ogged and Alameida. In fact, pretty much everyone said that it was really fucked up that our society stigmatized addiction and other forms of mental illness in the ways that it does, because they can both be deadly. I wasn't that much of an old-timer, so it was easier for me to express sympahy for the rosy-toed one; I didn't want to hit the wrong note vis a vis ogged. Too jokey is in bad taste; too earnest is out of keeping with this blog and can easily descend into mawkishness. There's a certain kind of detachment and humor which is much more compassionate than more overt sentimentality, but it's also harder to get it right.
508: I agree with you, but the fact is that women are a despised caste, so one woman's failings do influence the perception of all women.
Your (generic your) behaving in certain ways raises or lowers the bar for everybody else. I'm thinking about things like self-mutilation to enhance sexual attractiveness, e.g., now that every other hollywood hopeful is an anorexic with a boob job, why don't you have a boob job? don't you care about being attractive? and put down that fork!
Everytime some girl does the "math is haaaard" thing, she encourages some math teacher to take girl students less seriously. the teacher may resist, but the girl is showing that she thinks the culture in general gives her permission to fail at math.
I'm not saying that killing tigers is better than making pots. I don't see self-decoration or emotional expressiveness or empathy as weaknesses at all, or exclusively feminine activities or qualities, either. But those qualities are rewarded in women and devalued and even punished in men in our culture, and the reverse is also true. (although less so as time passes.)
Actually, I think SCMT is right that women have made great progress, at least in the west, over the last hundred years. But the fact that there is a vocal minority (I hope it's a minority), that would like to slow or reverse that progress seems terribly threatening to me.
520: Yes, and I didn't mean to say we were being assholes, and this is Ogged's blog (still) in a way it isn't Alameida's. And hey, maybe I'm just projecting. But there seemed to me to be a bit more formality in the rehab threads, especially initially. I could be wrong. I put it out there as something to think about.
521: Or, you know, she could be a little girl who really finds math difficult.
And don't you see that heaping scorn on women who get plastic surgery blames the victim and, literally, is misogynistic? Or on little girls who have math phobias? We all make our compromises with the status quo. I'm married, but I didn't take my husband's name. I shave my legs nowadays, but I didn't used to. I'm ambitious, but I feel somewhat conflicted about that.
I'm right with you: plastic surgery is fucked up, and women shouldn't get it. But saying that women who do are perpetuating sexism is, I think, somewhat misguided. They aren't being feminist: but it's a bit much to imply that they're to blame for the very system that's created the compromise they're making.
gosh, now I feel really bad for being mean to little girls.
I'm not saying that women who do these thing are solely responsible for perpetuating sexism. But they are not helping, and if they are capable of helping, they should help.
I have nothing substantial to add except that every time this thread loads in my RSS reader, I think it's called "Gawker: Cocksucking tips".
Carry on.
I know I will go to my grave regretting not having read this thread more closely. Or perhaps...
On "Math is hard":
This isn't really relevant to the discussion, but I guess I want to rant a little. Back in college, I was astounded at how universal it was for women to claim they are bad at math and that they "can't do it." Even as me and a bunch of female friends were walking across the fucking stage getting our mathematics degrees, they still wanted to claim that they weren't that smart and weren't that great at math. The thought of one in particular of these women still infuriates me; she was a fantastic student who totally knew what was going on (I knew because I sat next to her and looked at her notes and watched her), but every time the professor asked her a question, she would look sheepish and girlishly giggle and say "I don't know."
When do we get to the point where women aren't plagued by unfittingly low self-esteem? I thought that maybe it would be at a relatively elite law school, but no, my friends still plead that they're not that smart, they refuse to speak in class, and even the women who do speak rarely express an opinion without hemming and hawing. I'm still shocked that it just doesn't stop.
I got your back, B. I support women who get breast implants.
(Actually, I kind of wonder who actually gets them. I've never known a woman who I knew had them. I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a class, or at least an expectation, thing going on there. And if it's class, I have a hard time thinking ill of them. And, while I think it's weird now, I can totally see myself hypocritically going in for the facelift or whatever in twenty years.)
I support women who get breast implants.
There's got to be a joke punning on "support" in here somewhere.
I can totally see myself hypocritically going in for the facelift or whatever in twenty years
Oh, Tim. You just come begging for abuse, don't you.
I think breast implants look deformed. I find them a complete and total turn-off.
527: this is what I meant by the "Math is Haaard!" thing. If women refuse to own their competence, aren't these women complicit in their own oppression?
it's a bit much to imply that they're to blame for the very system that's created the compromise they're making.
Yes, poor things. The math involved in determining the proper course just flies right over their heads.
Oh, Tim. You just come begging for abuse, don't you.
I like to think we're all helping carry that load while ogged is bedridden.
I think breast implants look deformed. I find them a complete and total turn-off.
Either I've never been sufficiently intimate with a woman with breast implants to judge, or some of the implants are fine.
527: this is what I meant by the "Math is Haaard!" thing. If women refuse to own their competence, aren't these women complicit in their own oppression?
Again, this isn't just women. There are two types of male geeks: the aggressive ones, and the very, very shy and demurre ones. I think there are just fewer aggressive women, maybe because, in part, they can model their behavior on non-aggressive male geeks if they want. Path of least resistance and all that.
532: Uh, what? Huge swathes of the country grow up without meaningful exposure to feminism; you only can extend so far outside of the ideologies you're exposed to; even if you have been exposed to feminism, how to live in a feminist was is in fact very difficult to figure out and the subject of intense debates among feminists; and even if you have a sense of ideal, right action, it may be too overwhelming or difficult, or the imperatives of the other course too strong. If you have a deeply ingrained, visceral belief that you'll only be loved if you do X, it takes a lot of discipline not to do it.
Math is hard:
I am really good at math, even though I went into the humanities. But in high school, after having won fucking math awards in middle school, my mom wanted to register me for the sophomore honors class and skip freshman algebra. The teacher tried to discourage it, because, he said, he was used to ambitious freshman wanting to skip and then having to drop back, and he was very demanding, and most middle school algebra programs weren't as good as they thought they were, etc. My mom overruled him, what with her being a feminist and all, and I went into geometry.
Now, the teacher wasn't being sexist: there was a boy who also skipped freshman algebra, and he got the same warning I did from the teacher. But regardless, I was spooked: here I was at a New School With Big Kids, and the math class specifically was a group of sophomores who'd all been together the previous year in algebra, and I was new and an outsider.
So, distracted by self-conciousness and anxiety, I really didn't do that well in geometry. Except for one test. Ironically, none of the other students had done very well on it, but I got an A: the other kids were griping about how "no one did well on this test, there must have been something wrong with the test" and the teacher said, "One person did well on the test. Bitch got an A." And the whole class turned to look at me, and I almost fucking died of embarassment and from then on I did even worse.
Same story the next year, in trig; at the end of it, practically sick with feeling stupid and like a failure, I opted to repeat the class. So did the boy who was my age (who by the way had been doing worse than I had). I slept through virtually all the trig classes my junior year, got a B something, and went on to calculus my senior year.
Older and more confident, and knowing that my major problem up to that point was enormous anxiety rather than actually not being good at math, I decided I was damn well going to get an A in calculus. Which I did, of course. (Interesting side note: I got accepted early admission to Brown, which may have had something to do with an admissions essay I wrote on precisely this experience--it was my way of explaining the poor math grades while showing that I was a self-conscious learner, etc. Anyway, it worked.)
College freshman calculus? Boring. Rumors of how hard sophomore organic chem was going to be? Spooked my chicken-shit ass again, and I switched into the humanities. My senior year I was trying to at least fill out a minor in biology by taking a graduate course, but I ended up a credit short or something.
So, in fact, I have a lot of sympathy for the "math is hard" girls. I think that the very sense of responsibilty and intelligence that makes some bright girls into excellent students also makes them easy to psych out when authority figures accidentally express doubts about their abilities--even when those authority figures aren't being sexist.
(Footnote: sadly, the boy who took the same high school math classes I did started having some major behavior issues by senior year, didn't graduate, which scandalized everyone, and shot himself a couple of years later. So obviously he was more scarred by something than I was.)
524: Sure, and yes. But in part b/c of that story, I'm inclined to think that putting pressure on women to live up to x or y ideal only makes things worse--obviously women who are that insecure are already pretty subject to a lot of perceived social pressure. Better, I think, to focus on the larger problem rather than the feminist infighting.
(And I realize that my unqualified support for Hirshman seems contradictory to what I'm saying here, but hey. I'm a girl, I reserve the right to be inconsistent.)
534: You're just doing the "but there are men too!" thing again. Believe me, I knew a lot of geeks in college and I know a lot of geeks now, and the ones who disavow their competence are almost universally women. Men may fall into "aggressive" and "shy," but even the shy ones don't refuse to acknowledge that they're smart, they just don't talk a lot.
And why do you say women behave a certain way because they're modeling their behavior on men, anyway? That's neither true, nor does it explain what you are trying to say it does.
535: I believe I can unironically say that, in regards to 532, you're reading too much into it.
And why do you say women behave a certain way because they're modeling their behavior on men, anyway? That's neither true, nor does it explain what you are trying to say it does.
I didn't say they do, I said "maybe" they do. And I suggested it as a hypothesis because it seems reasonable that if you go into a field that is dominated by men, you are more likely to have to choose a mentor/model that is a man. I'm not sure how you would avoid that.
More "math is hard": At least two, maybe three professors in college actively tried to diminish my abilities by making fun of me, refusing to call on me, or just not listening to what I was saying. I remember in my analysis class, where I was probably the second-best student in the class (the first being this awesome 16-year-old genius over from the high school that I totally wanted to have sex with), I wrote a very difficult proof up on the chalkboard, and the professor examined it, and noticed that I had written a less-than sign instead of a greater-than (apart from that error which was clearly a mis-writing rather than an actual mistake, it was flawless), and opined in front of the entire class that I may be dyslexic, and moved onto the next proof without comment.
You wanted to have sex with a high school?
Obviously some people have some issues with image, esteem, etc, but the boob implant thing doesn't seem like a big deal. Really, if you're otherwise fairly happy with your looks, but for whatever reason don't have what you'd like upstairs, what other option is there? As a guy if I want to achieve more of the standard ideal look I can achieve quite a bit with certain exercises. I can reduce my body fat, increase the mass of my upper body muscle groups to increase my ration of shoulder to waist, etc. But it's not like a woman can bench press her way into a larger cup size.
538: I'm pretty sure that despite being addressed to 532, 535 was really more of a general response. At least, that's how I read it.
Also, stop oppressing Tia.
Also, stop oppressing Tia.
I would if I could, but I'm soaking in it.
But that gives us very little programmatic direction. Moreover, I think most people have had enough trouble in their own lives or those of people that they love that they are circumspect about easy denunciations of weakness (at least at a person to person level).
I'm not trying to give any programmatic direction on an action-specific level, but to argue for a theoretical orientation towards weakness, however construed: that experience of it is inevitable and in fact has its own value. No one can be independent and self-reliant all the time through the whole course of their life. I think the degree of circumspection about denunciation of weakness varies with a lot of things, like in group/out group membership. Many people are in fact not that circumspect about denouncing welfare queens or the like, though that's not at a person to person level. B made a long list of ways in 452 that society shames weakness. That doesn't mean that's the only way anyone ever responds to weakness, or that there aren't contrary impulses, but it's certainly a powerful force. Risk seeking, aggression, homophobia, and emotional suppression are all "masculine" expressions of a fear of weakness, which, homophobia excluded, have value, but which are easily, and frequently, hyperexpressed in destructive ways.
Oh man, I was going to link that very comment, silvana, but got lazy about finding it.
I was lazy about finding it too, and it wasn't in the hoohole, and then I remembered, oh yeah, it's in this thread, because I posted it yesterday.
I spend so much time reading this damn blog. I need a Kotsko fellowship.
Risk seeking, aggression, homophobia, and emotional suppression are all "masculine" expressions of a fear of weakness, which, homophobia excluded, have value, but which are easily, and frequently, hyperexpressed in destructive ways.
Boy, I'm not sure I believe that risk seeking and aggression are primarily responses to fear of weakness. I think they come out in response to a fear of weakness, but they seem to come out for a lot of reasons. In specific, I think aggression might be its own motivation.
540: Yeah, somehow it's easier to combat if it's obvious enough to piss you off. At least ime. It's the subtle or genuinely not-sexist stuff that really does a number on your self-confidence. I don't know if this is as true for guys, but I would think at least slightly less so, at least in areas where they're supposed to be good or neutral at whatever-it-is (which sadly tends to be most of the jobs that are economically beneficial.)
542: Pushup bras. Padding. Also, learning to deal with it? But then that's easy for me to say, IYKWIM.
But they are not helping, and if they are capable of helping, they should help.
I had another thought on this: are we really helping by criticizing frivlous women rather than, say, the much bigger problem of broad-based cultural prejudices and/or the active anti-feminist apologists like Caitlin Flanagan? I mean, it's not like men aren't perfectly happy to criticize frivolous women without our help.
are we really helping by criticizing frivlous women
Would you be helping by giving them a pass? I see Waldo.
550: You've never known guys who show off and act tough to impress other guys?
553: No, absolutely. That's what I was trying to say in when I wrote I think they come out in response to a fear of weakness. But sometimes aggression seems to come out just for the sheer joy of it. Particularly with young guys.
552: I specifically didn't intend to be advocating just giving plastic surgery a pass: that's why I said we should criticize "the much bigger problem of broad-based cultural prejudices." You know, love the sinner, hate the sin. That kind of thing.
However, in the other thread I'm totally engaging in the "fake boobs, ick!" thing, so feel free to consider the source. Still, I mostly just feel really sorry for women who feel they have to have plastic surgery. (Unless they write annoying articles arguing that it's a fabulous feminist act, or simply accepting it as a fait accompli that every woman needs this information in order to maintain her youthful looks.)
542: Pushup bras. Padding.
Uh, aren't these trying to pull off the exact same thing as implants? Why would these be more acceptable than implants?
554: Certainly, god knows. But was the original comment that that's the only reason for aggression? I can no longer remember.
556: They don't run the risk of masking mammography results? Or infection? They're not permanent or potentially disfiguring? They cost $30 instead of $3000? They don't require weeks of recovery from surgery?
Oh crap, also, bras don't potentially alter your ability to breast feed.
Geez. I had read your comment as "frivolous women like Caitlin Flanagan," and was briefly confused how you'd circled back to plastic surgery again. I need to go to bed.
You're weak, apo. WEAK! HAHAHAHAHAHA!
That's not what my mom said last night.
Um, I mean...
Great thread, guys. I've been reading for hours, with no place nor need to jump in, and despite being away from home and stressed, I feel at home. I love you all.
556: They don't run the risk of masking mammography results? Or infection? They're not permanent or potentially disfiguring? They cost $30 instead of $3000? They don't require weeks of recovery from surgery?
Sure, but this line of reasoning just strikes me as "striving to conform to a physical ideal is ok so long as it's cheap and low tech."
Yeah, well, striving to conform to a physical ideal without hurting yourself is a lot less fucked up.
IDP! Have fun (or whatever fun can be had under the circumstances) in your small-town location of wireless goodness.
When it really comes down to it, I don't much care how people choose to live their lives, which is just as well, as mine has been no shining example.
I'm not criticizing frivolous women. I think everybody should have as good a time time as they possibly can in the time allotted to them. I just don't like to see people degrading themselves by playing stupid. It may be more comfortable in the short run, but it's unhealthy in the long run.
(Unless they write annoying articles arguing that it's a fabulous feminist act, or simply accepting it as a fait accompli that every woman needs this information in order to maintain her youthful looks.)
I guess I haven't been very clear, but when I said e.g., now that every other hollywood hopeful is an anorexic with a boob job, why don't you have a boob job? I was thinking of the entire industries that exist to convince women that they need to spend money, have work done, starve themselves, go into debt to buy shoes, in order attain an artificial ideal of femininity, it wasn't the end-user I was criticizing.
", it" s/b ". It"
I hate when I hit post instead of preview.
mc: did the temp. pseud. refer to anything?
568: Comity! Anyway, I was all shocked to be arguing with you. But kind of pleased in that "it is always good to occasionally disagree with the people you usually agree with" kind of way.
No, just a name for the sock-puppet cavegirl.
Silvana: Thanks, we're ok. Stay cool. I knew a guy who died in the '95 heat. Beautiful Baritone professional, probably got exhausted and disoriented.
567, 571: You know you're a regular (and that time passes slowly in the Mineshaft) when you don't comment for twelve hours and people greet your return like you've been gone for a week.
572: phew! I was thinking: "can I be that wrong?" But now, Love-fest!!!
High mc. Yeah, Silvana, it's silly but I'm gratified. I'm going to bed though. G'night all.
'Night, IDP.
Speaking of reading too much into things...
(...as we were a few hundred comments ago)
Yesterday B said that she'd do a taxonomy of male attractiveness if it weren't for the fact that she had to go out to buy PK a bug cage.
I'd love to see one. I have to go out to buy some cheap vegetables at Haymarket, but I'm looking forward to reading it when I return.
