There is a lot of excellent discussion on the internet about gender today.

[digitaldiscipline]

That headline is used without the faintest whiff of sarcasm and irony. It is, if anything, understating the case because I can't keep looking back to see all the comments.

First, there's yuki_onna saying things about the disparity in reception and reaction to online expression of opinions women are subjected to, and as a corollary to that, [Unknown site tag]'s blog hosting a bit of extra discussion spurred by his sharing of her link.

Then there's nihilistic_kid taking on and laying waste to a couple of broadsides about spurious claims of misogyny. Bad writing is bad writing, and we're allowed to not like it for being bad.

And, lastly, there's a reaction piece that takes down a well-meaning Cracked article, which includes a passage, which I'll quote in a moment, that's applicable not only to gender discussion, but is more broadly the case when it comes to the state of play in the American political theater.

They believe in their hearts that women are inferior, and fear that if they're disproved in this contention, their entire sense of self will crumble, because that sense of self is all built on being a "man". They get angry and mock other men they believe are trying to hard to be pleasing to women---genuinely pleasing, not faux "build skyscrapers" pleasing---but men who take care of their looks to be sexually attractive (they get dismissed as "metrosexual") or men who treat women with respect. Those men are seen as undermining the united front to artificially lower women's standards. It's not an accident that the biggest misogynists are the first to flip their shit at the idea of swapping out big greasy burgers for some broccoli on occasion.

---

More personally, I want you all to think about how society right now is actively hostile to women, and even non-heterosexual males, and do something to make it better. Sure, my girlfriend makes happy noises when I espouse arguably feminist opinions, but that's not why I do it. I have a mother. I have sisters. I have a niece. I have female friends. None of them are second-class, second-rate, or second tier human beings, and anyone... ANYONE... who treats them that way through their attitudes, politics, or otherwise makes themselves a second-rate being in my estimation.

Comments

[cheez-ball.livejournal.com]

You'll be interested to know that in many parts of the internet people think I'm a dude. Specifically where I write with a gender neutral pseudonym and use a gender neutral user pict. I don't correct them because...it says a lot about the people who comment.

It's nice to know there are men out there paying attention to what the base-line experience is for women today. Some days it feels like men are clueless and I have to remind myself it's because the ones around me literally can't see how someone else's experience is so vastly different even though we share the same city, skin tone, etc.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

In the early days if Usenet news groups, some people thought I was a guy, despite posting under my real name (then again a lot of guys on the goth groups posted using women's names) because I took part in music geek conversations. Apparently girls aren't supposed to have my encyclopaedic nerdy knowledge of music, nor my guitar collection.

[drcuriosity]

I applaud this post, and support its content 100%.

[happygoth.livejournal.com]

Hells to the yes.

(I hate the word "metrosexual," because it suggests that feminine is a bad thing, and that caring about your looks, aka "being superficial" is something only women do, and therefore something that makes a man less of a person. For the record, I generally find a man n times more attractive when he wears makeup or takes care to polish his appearance, n being the quality of the makeup job or attention to detail.)

Halleloo.

[thebigpants.livejournal.com]

Good discussions. I admit such attitudes make me despair.

Living alone and traveling alone frequently makes me painfully aware of just how many men have diminishing and predatory attitudes toward women. It makes me tired from being on the alert all the time.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

You weren't far from my mind when I wrote the closing; I'm still weirded out by everyone who approached us when we were chatting at D*C last year asking *ME* if they could take *YOUR* picture.

"Dude, ask *her.*"

I just wished people would have stopped interrupting our conversation, but understand that con mentality of "photograph all the gorgeous things" can blinder people when there's a camera in their hands and a memory card to fill.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Last paragraph-well said!

[fallenlibrarian.livejournal.com]

you have linked to things that are giving me a lot of food for thought. thank you.

[lizkayl.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this. I'm always glad when other people notice and don't dismiss this issue as 'girl rage' type issues.

Er, mild nitpicky remark.

One of my feminist blogs pointed something out to me that bugs me a little- Obama, when giving a speech on women's reproductive rights, spoke of women as "They're our mothers, and daughters, and sisters, and wives." .... Does that mean when he was addressing citizens of the US, he was only addressing the men?

You just did that, too. You just said "None of them are second-class"... shouldn't that be "none of you are second-class"? The default it to address the men.


Dr. Nerd Love is for the most part making my inner feminist happy these days.

The rest of America is turning me into a rage-beast.

[cassandrasimplx.livejournal.com]

"I have a mother. I have sisters. I have a niece. I have female friends. None of them..."

You just said "None of them are second-class"... shouldn't that be "none of you are second-class"?

Not unless he's specifically addressing only his mother, sisters, niece, and female friends.

I think this is really a point of grammar/construction, rather than authorial mindset. While he has many female friends, and is presumably addressing some them as part of his friends-list-as-a-whole, singling them out by using "you" would seem to exclude everyone else from his audience, which is not visibly his intention. This is perfectly natural syntax to talk about his female relatives and friends, even TO female relatives and friends, in the same way that "I've talked to several men about this issue, and none of them..." would not imply that I am excluding men from the audience I'm addressing. He's being maximally-inclusive, not exclusive.

[drcuriosity]

I think it's part grammar, part rhetoric. One could employ more formally precise language, but that may make one appear "too professorial" to a target audience that is already predisposed to dismiss any argument not couched in familiar terminology and phrasing.

While not the entire audience, I think that misogynists are the primary audience for those remarks, too. They're the ones who most need to be convinced that women deserve respect, and that there are people - both men and women - who will stand against their bullshit.

[lizkayl.livejournal.com]

Valid point award. :)

[cassandrasimplx.livejournal.com]

(Alternate example, thought up to avoid hot-button categories and then discarded as too nonsensical to make my point, was "... in the same way that 'I talk to many people every day, and none of them are oak trees" would not imply that the audience I'm addressing are not also people.")

(And then I edited both comments because I left out the "not" before "imply" both times. I apologize; it's been a headache kind of day.)

[hellsop.livejournal.com]

Calling out dislike and disrespect of Twilight and Justin Bieber as misogyny presupposes that women are generally the only people that could or would like either and such stems from them being women. I do not think anyone that you are friends with be willing to assert that.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

While those two things are primarily aimed at and marketed to a young female audience (or, in the case of Twilight, what's generally an older female audience with a craving for whatever it is they offer), I don't think it's necessarily a misogynist stance to say "Holy crap, that's fucking horrible shite."

[ivy]

Thanks for the links -- I had read the first one but not the rest. And I <3 your last paragraph, but you knew that.