So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. – Revelation 3:16
Many of my readers are probably at least somewhat familiar with the website Jezebel, which describes itself as “Celebrity, Sex, Fashion for Women”; it’s part of the Gawker family of news & commentary sites. Jezebel’s political bent is more or less third-wave feminist, and though it’s very pro-porn and seems inhospitable to neofeminist anti-prostitution propaganda, its staff also appears vaguely uncomfortable with sex workers; I think of them as something like a gaggle of debutantes volunteering at the local homeless shelter because they think it’s the right thing to do, but unable to really disguise their disgust for the “icky people”. There are occasional columns about strippers and whores, and once in a while one will see reader comments about sex worker rights, but that’s it; no sex worker rights news, articles condemning persecution of prostitutes, reprinting of any of the many articles debunking prohibitionist rhetoric, nothing like that. Back at the end of January they even participated in spreading the “Super Bowl sex trafficking” hysteria, obediently repeating the lies promoted by Christian groups who would oppose most of what Jezebel seems to stand for.
I’ve never commented on any of the stories myself; the general tone of the replies is so party-line whitebread “feminist” that I don’t really feel I’d be welcome. But while writing my December 8th column I read this article about Sugardaddyforme.com in which the author, Sadie Stein, starts a profile on the site for research purposes and discovers to her apparent surprise that the other members are “surprisingly human” (presumably she thought they were all robots, apes and spirits). So I decided to take a chance by sending her an email, suggesting she start a profile on one of the escort boards so she could discover the same thing about sex workers and their clients. As I’m sure you’ve already guessed, I got no response whatsoever. After that, I sort of gave up on using Jezebel as anything but a source of stories which might inspire columns.
Then last Monday (March 28th), I was scanning the site as usual and saw this article attacking Satoshi Kanazawa, which was obviously directly inspired by his column of the night before talking about me! Though the author, Anna North (who also wrote the aforementioned Super Bowl trafficking story) was clearly familiar with Kanazawa already, the suggestion that she could be “essentially” the same as one of those nasty whores seems to have set her off. Interestingly, she has nothing bad to say about me (though she does misquote my description of a neofeminist by calling it my definition of a “contemporary feminist”, which as my readers know is not at all the same thing). Considering that Kanazawa and I aren’t all that far apart on the subject I thought it was interesting that she was so vicious to him but gave me a free pass, presumably because of my sex. Unfortunately, she also gives a free pass to the neofeminists by weakly describing them as feminists who “insist on lockstep orthodoxy”. This kind of weak-kneed faux “sisterhood”, refraining from criticizing other women merely because they are women (even if one strongly disagrees with their beliefs), is exactly what caused the collapse of second-wave feminism in the first place; mainstream feminists should have had the sense to ostracize the man-hating, anti-sex crowd back in the 1970s, but instead they passively watched while monsters perverted the movement into a crusade for their own warped agenda.
Another example of Jezebel’s discomfort with the sex trade can be seen in this story (also from March 28th) about hookers’ business cards; apparently some New York politician who’s been living under a rock his entire life just discovered that some low-end escorts pay guys to hand out business cards for them and therefore wants to ban the practice. Though the author, Irin Carmon, doesn’t seem too fazed by the idea of prostitution and also appears to have a healthy degree of skepticism about the politician’s attempt to paint his effort as “for the children”, take a look at her headline: “Pimps Use Alessandra Ambrosio’s Image To Sell Actual Sex”. Actually, the (often Hispanic) males who hand out these cards are the hookers’ employees, not their bosses, and they’re usually teenage boys rather than grown men. But Miss Carmon has clearly bought into the myth that any non-customer male who has anything to do with a whore MUST be a pimp, and her use of the term conjures up a lot of negative stereotypes a real friend of sex workers would not choose to evoke.
And then there’s this one from the day before the other two, which references this New York Times scare piece on the dreaded scourge of teen “sexting”. Though the author, Morning Gloria, does seem to find the lugubrious tone of the Times article absurd, she yet agrees with its principle that photos of the human body are dirty, bad, wrong and “sexist”, and that something needs to be “done” about girls taking them. Does she remember that girls of our generation (and at least 60 others before it) were slut-shamed quite effectively without any pictures at all by use of the grapevine (remember the word “reputation”, ladies)? Hell, no! Does she point out that the suffering of the girl in the story was caused not by the picture but by the other kids’ stupid parent-taught attitudes about it? Of course not! She instead feels compelled to turn the incident into a feminist parable:
And, while we’re at it, why don’t we get to the root of the problem and examine why, exactly, teenage girls only feel valuable insomuch as they’re seen as “sexy?” How are we talking to our daughters? When are we complimenting them? Are we socializing them to be pretty pretty princesses or productive, thoughtful contributors to society? As long as the greatest compliment that a girl can be paid is “you’re beautiful” and not “you’re smart,” shit like this is going to keep happening, no matter what kooky consequences we cook up for the bullies who attempt to use young women’s sexuality to shame them.
Maybe if the ladies at Jezebel would actually read about evolutionary psychology instead of simply mocking it, they’d understand why normal women (not just teenage girls) want to be seen as sexy, and why “you’re smart” will never have the same impact as “you’re beautiful”. I was repeatedly and enthusiastically told I was fucking brilliant by nearly every adult I knew from the time I was about five years old, and you know what? I still consider “you’re beautiful” to be a greater compliment, despite “socialization” to the contrary. “You can process information well” is a fact, not a judgment; it’s no more a compliment than “you’re of average height” or “you have brown hair”. There’s no feeling in it, while “you’re beautiful” is almost pure feeling. If feminists would get over their fear of their own femininity they’d understand that, and Jezebel would be a much less annoying website.
Could it be (and I think it has been suggested elsewhere, so this may not be so original) that the current neofeminist hysteria is at least in part fuelled by the same visceral rejection of evolution in general, and evolutionary psychology in particular by even the majority of the scientific (and not just “scientific”) community? C.f. Pinker, Kurzban, etc.
On a different topic, and inspired by the first paragraph, we are seeing the “Super Bowl sex trafficking” hysteria in relation to the London 2012 Olympics. The arguments and the numbers are remarkably similar, and having read your pieces about it I now start to wonder if they’re actually all reading from the same song sheet. No need to say that the hysterics seem to be prevailing, although I do remember hearing a few quite loud dissenting voices. But then, I dare to look beyond the tabloids and similar, so I must be weird and brainwashed myself… 😉
Vice-versa. Evolution disproves “social construction of gender”, which is politically correct, therefore the politically incorrect facts must be rejected to conform to the politically correct theory. A century from now people will be shaking their heads at this delusion the same way as we shake our heads at the engineers who insisted that man could never fly.
So I shall start considering engraving “Here lies one who knew evolution is true” on my gravestone. Sadly, last time I looked on the family one there was barely space left for my name and dates. I sometimes wish there *was* life after death so I could come back and gloat. 😉
Remember, though that the “beauty is a social construct” line is only valid when applied to female beauty. When the same women discount men based on height, baldness, etc., then suddenly the “social construct” goes out the window and their hardwiring comes into play in the form of “dealbreakers.” It’s only men who aren’t allowed to be hardwired!
@Days of Broken Arrows
(the Reply link doesn’t show for some reason)
I doubt that women who consider beauty to be a social construct are even thinking of men in terms of beauty or any of the things you list. The women who are, on the other hand, are just proving Maggie’s point (and mine) that they are driven by evolved psychological systems that favour healthy males who will produce – and be able to are for – healthy offspring.
I think he’s referring to the way that a woman who evaluates potential mates for height, musculature and yearly income is considered relatively normal, while a man who rates women by generous hips and bosom and a youthful appearance – for the exact same reasons – is still seen as a shallow pervert.
Bit of a caricature, seeing as most of the girls I know think “He’s got to make a lot of wonga” as a dealbreaker is ditzy at best, but as a general thing taken over the whole of society it holds. Society is rather stupid like that.
Evolutionary psychology teaches us that the society is not “stupid that way” but rather that individual members of our species are behaving in an adaptive way evolutionary honed through millions of years. Due to the unusually fast development of society in the very recent past some of these adaptive behaviours become out-of-place is all. Which is not to say that any or all of them are still right – we’ve evolved big brains to figure that out among other things, after all – just that they are more likely not culturally imposed or brainwashed things. And why men chase beauty (or rather are turned on by it) and women financial security is too long an explanation for this small box, and anyway me not being an expert in the field is best left to those who are. Kurzban, Boyer, and Pinker come to mind first, but are certainly not the only sources. Tooby and Cosmides are also very much worth a look.
Emily — bingo, exactly!
I don’t doubt Vlad’s assessment of evolutionary psychology is correct. But I was specifically commenting on the media’s perception of men and women as exemplified by Jezebel, Oprah, etc.
Women are considered “savvy” to want what they want while men are said to be “shallow.” I could swear this ties in somehow with Christianity’s “shaming” of male sexual impulses, but I’m getting off-topic…
@Days of Broken Arrows [2]
It does seem that I have missed your point there, and I agree that men tend to be considered shallow for their natural preferences. Given that, I’d rather think that it’s a result of the (neo)feminist rather than any religious “teachings”. AFAIK, in pre-feminism times men were not pushed towards choosing women for their intelligence or knowledge. After all, in most of the pre-feminist history women were not even sent to school to learn anything more than cross-stitching, cooking, and similar stuff. It does seem to me that wits-over-tits ™ philosophy came in the same package with the women-lib or at least when women finally could attend proper schools and universities and thus actually demonstrate they can be as clever as men (I’m phrasing this quite imprecisely, so can all please not use it to start are-women-cleverer-than-men discussion 😉 ).
I will not accept “women are cleverer than men” bullshit on this site, any more than I will accept “men are cleverer than women” bullshit. Research has conclusively demonstrated time and again that the basic intelligence of both sexes is equal; that is a fact. However, the bell curve describing the range of intelligence among men is much flatter; in other words, there are many more women of average intelligence than men, and many more brilliant men than brilliant women, and many more abysmally stupid men than abysmally stupid women. Also, men tend to be good at the sort of deductive reasoning which gives them aptitude for math, science and invention, whereas women tend to be good at the sort of inductive reasoning which allows us to figure people and incomplete pictures out. The classic way of putting it is that men tend to be smarter than women, but women tend to be wiser than men, the two words being used to describe different types of intelligence.
To use myself as an example: I flunked out of calculus and computer science was like Greek to me, but I’m very good at understanding people and pulling concepts together into these little essays I post every day. Poor deduction, good induction. Another example:
Man: A+B+C+D+E+F+G=H
Woman: That makes my head hurt!
Woman: (MN) – X = Z
Man: How the hell did you figure that out?
But neofeminists cannot accept these facts for reasons discussed in my column of March 27th; it doesn’t satisfy them to be as good as men in a different way because their femininity is the real issue in the first place. As I said when I first coined the term “neofeminism” back in the early ’90s, “A neofeminist is someone who not only wants to win the race, she wants to do it in your car!”
Interesting! I wasn’t aware of the difference in shape of bell curves for men’s and women’s IQ. Thanks for sharing. Having read it now, I can actually see how it makes sense.
And, as clumsy as my previous post was, I was actually trying to point out that “the basic intelligence of both sexes is equal;”. 🙂
@Days: The serious, institutionalized shaming of men’s natural impulses didn’t start until first-wave feminism degenerated into the “social purity” movement late in the 19th century. Before that, men’s sexual impulses, though Christianity declared they should be fought, were still accepted as natural. But it wasn’t until the 1980s that there started being widespread campaigns (by neofeminists and other social engineers) to attempt to impose the Christian belief in “sinful thoughts” on the entire human race. Previously, social activists held that it was actions which had to be changed, but flush with the civil rights victories of the ’60s and ’70s the social engineers declared that people had to be brainwashed into “right thinking”, and that even doing the right thing for what social engineers declared the wrong reason was a sin. In neofeminist terms this means accepting women as equals wasn’t good enough; they had to be accepted and thought about in the way they declared men “should” think about them, no matter how unnatural it was. This is of course impossible and so condemns men to a permanent status of “correction”, like sex offenders indefinitely sentenced to “hospitals” after their prison sentences are over. 🙁
Maggie, we’re on the same page. I AM really smart and have always been complimented for being so. But nothing, and I mean nothing, has the impact of “you’re beautiful”. I would trade every single one of the “smarts” for “beautiful” in a heartbeat.
But let’s just distinguish between BEING smart and being TOLD you are smart, as a compliment. I would never trade intelligence for beauty, because without intelligence, you cannot possibly fully benefit from beauty. The Jezzies seem to get confused about this, too. Valuing beauty does not mean you do NOT also value intelligence. It is not a zero sum game. The ideal, of course, is to be both.
I am not a beautiful woman, and I never have been. I am, however, very attractive and I have never wanted for male attention. In my case, it’s the whole package that works together, not just the physical. Maybe that’s why I love being told I’m beautiful. Because I know I’m not. Not really. Not like Megan Fox beautiful.
I wonder if very beautiful women value being told they’re smart?
I hated that article about Satoshi, but I never comment at Jezebel. They are just too hardcore. They are not interested in having their beliefs challenged.
Not at all. Any variation from party-line is shouted down in the exact way someone who preached tolerance of homosexuals would be in a Baptist church. 🙁
Jezebel: Written by LUGs who forgot to G.
Why the choice re intelligence and beauty? Why not both?
However, personally, given the choice, I would much prefer being complimented on my intelligence than my beauty / attractiveness.
For someone who would seem to promote broadmindedness, your posts can sometimes be remarkably narrowminded, and sadly, aggressively so… I don’t think it’s useful or productive to pigeon-hole people/views into boxes that clearly don’t reflect reality, which is clearly never as black and white as you portray it to be.
I am a feminist. And I’m neither anti-male, nor anti-sex. To suggest that all feminists are anti-male and anti-sex is as ridiculous as suggesting that all prostitutes sell their bodies against their will. You condemn sweeping generalisations and then turn around and sweep away to your hearts content LOL. #FAIL
You obviously didn’t read any of Maggie’s posts carefully enough. How else could you accuse her of pigeon-holing, black-and-whiteness, etc. If anything, Maggie seems to be trying her best to tell the world that nothing is black-and-white. Not to mention that she did not even attempt to pit beauty vs intelligence. My guess is that while probably really not anti-male nor anti-sex, you still see the world through the glasses tinted by the very things this blog is trying to fight against.
And now that I have cast a second look above, I see where the problem is: if you could have read into this blog that “all feminists are anti-male and anti-sex” then you probably didn’t actually read any of it – and especially not the sideline where neofeminism and how it differs from everything else is described. So, I might have actually been wasting my time…
Well, the personal attacks in the comment above and those that follow, save Maggie’s, Grahamj’s & Laura’s (thanks BTW), are to me a clear indication that some of you feel as uncomfortable about having your views challenged as the “Jezzies” (and others who don’t share your opinions), that you are so quick to skewer.
To quote Maggie with respect to having beliefs challenged:
“Any variation from party-line is shouted down in the exact way someone who preached tolerance of homosexuals would be in a Baptist church. 🙁 ”
With respect to your shouting me down:
Vlad re : “you still see the world through the glasses tinted by the very things this blog is trying to fight against.”
Far from it. You have no idea who I am, nor what I stand for. And you are certainly not in any position to judge either.
Andrea: obviously we differ in how we define feminist. Your accusation regarding my intelligence (or to be more accurate, in your opinion, my lack thereof) was needless, insulting and erroneous.
Emily: thought-provoking comment, which in this case does not apply.
Kelly: I’m not interested in kissing your ass, or anyone else’s for that matter. But you are surely welcome to kiss mine… 🙂
@Susan on April 8, 2011 at 5:22 am
Interesting what you perceive as a “personal attack”. What you chose to quote from my original reply is not a personal attack (i.e. argumentum ad hominem, look it up) but rather my assessment of your point of view based on what you wrote originally. Everything else I wrote is arguments in support of such an assessment.
We are not shouting you down (at least I’m not), just pointing to the holes in your arguments or imprecise reading/processing of what others write.
Susan – I apologize for telling you to kiss my ass. It was unnecessary; I don’t need to add childish catchphrases at the end of my posts to get my point across, I’m more intelligent than that. Again, my deepest apologies.
Vlad: Thank you for your response to my comment.
I would reply that your assessment of what I wrote was based on incorrect (or perhaps I should say “imprecise”?) assumptions (i.e. that didn’t read the posts “carefully enough,” that I “probably didn’t actually read any of it,” and “especially not the sideline…”).
Maggie says in the sideline:
“…neofeminists and their castrated lap-dogs have become quite proficient at warping any and every discussion on the rights of individual women into a means of furthering their own anti-male, anti-sex agenda.”
Despite having read a number of Maggie’s posts AND the sideline “carefully,” I’m not sure I understand exactly what she means by the term neofeminist. Perhaps I will gain a more complete understanding in the fullness of time.
Nevertheless, I stand by my statement that assertions such as these in which whole groups of people are characterised in a certain way, and then purported to have a single agenda is both narrow-minded and not very useful. (Though perhaps Maggie has some reason for framing things in this manner…)
Just because I don’t agree with your POV, doesn’t mean my reading or processing is “imprecise,” (whatever THAT means!). It simply means that I don’t share your view.
As for poking holes in my “argument,” you didn’t. You just made guesses and conjectures and inferred that I don’t know what I’m talking about. Also, I wasn’t making an argument, I was simply providing a comment, with which you are free to agree or not.
Finally, in the interests of productive discourse, I respectfully request you to forgo remarks such as “wasting my time,” and “look it up.” They are uncalled for, patronising, and irritating.
Thanks again.
Kelly: your apology is gratefully and graciously accepted. Thank you so much for offering it. I’m sure you are intelligent and beautiful in equal measure. And should I ever decide to take up ass kissing, no doubt yours would be a most delightful one with which to begin 😉
@Susan
(WordPress comments system needs more levels!)
Oh, but what you insist of calling my assumptions are my considered opinions after having read both your reply and what you were replying to. Put another way, based on the original text and your subsequent reaction to it, my *conclusion* is that you haven’t read the original carefully enough or you haven’t understood it correctly or even at all. It was you who were assuming things that Maggie (and others here) have said mean some things that were never said, and those things are suspiciously similar to other ungrounded attacks on the points of view as expressed by Maggie (and others here). So, in fact, I could have accused *you* of assuming Maggie (and others) said all the things you said they have because you were blindly protecting your own cherished worldview. Or rather I did, but also gave you a benefit of a doubt and suggested you read the original more carefully lest you missed something. As for the quote from the neofeminist sideline, while out of context it does look like a horrible thing to say, when the text is taken as a whole it actually is not nearly like that.
And, I didn’t say you’re wrong because your POV is different to mine. I said you’re wrong in what you’re saying because what you’re saying does not *logically* follow from what Maggie has written. There’s a world of difference right there.
As for the choice of words, I may agree with “look it up” (although you should really, before calling something a personal attack when it obviously isn’t), but “wasting my time” is and was both appropriate and called for.
Finally, since we’ve now been round the houses of “personal attacks”, “assumptions”, and “quoting out of context” I think I have spent all my energy for trying to have a reasoned discussion. Do note that, we are now discussing *method* rather than *substance* where you seem to be after a *method* win which can then be proclaimed a *substance* win. But I’ve been in too many discussions like this one before and rather than waiting for the Godwin’s law to kick in I’ll just retire from it.
PS
Were this the good old time of Usenet I’d now be off to edit my killfile.
Susan, what I mean by a “neofeminist” is one of those women who CALL themselves “feminists” but are in fact anything but pro-woman. Their agenda is not pro-woman but anti-man and anti-heterosexual relationships. Neofeminists are those who follow the teachings of people like Andrea Dworkin and Catherine Mackinnon; men are always “oppressors”, heterosexual relationships are tantamount to rape (though they never quite call it so) due to “power imbalance”, porn is “rape”, prostitution is “rape”, BDSM is “rape”…in fact every interaction between men and women they don’t like is compared to rape, like a poor internet arguer compares everyone to Hitler or Nazis.
In order to further their agenda neofeminists promulgate the disproven “theory” of “social construction of gender”, the notion that the personalities of all babies are identical and that all sex differences arise from differing treatment based on their biological gender. This supports their agenda because A) if there are no real differences women must therefore be suited for everything men are even if they’re not; and B) if we’re all the same there can only be one “healthy” standard of behavior, which is of course the female, so that male behavior is demonized and pathologized rather than recognized as the male norm.
Neofeminists cannot even actually be called “pro-woman” because their doctrines (including the Swedish Model, mandatory prosecution of domestic violence, banning of porn and BDSM, etc) infantilize women and negate our agency and capacity for sexual choice.
Oh, snap! You sure told me.
Sorry, Susan. The very term “feminist” is both anti-male (it excludes HALF of humanity) and anti-sex (the central belief being that gender is a social contruct).
Calling yourself a feminist would be the same as calling yourself a white-ist and then claiming that you do not privilege whiteness and in fact care about all colours.
I call bullshit.
And to accuse Maggie of narrowmindedness is the height of presumptuousness.
You would prefer to be complimented on your intelligence rather than your beauty? Well, you don’t lack beauty, so perhaps this is the answer to my question above. You like being complimented on your intelligence for the same reason I like being complimented on my beauty – we neither of us have it.
Allow me to add a couple modern-day definitions which may add proper clarity to the conversation I see coming up.
Narrow-minded: disagrees with me.
Intolerant: doing something I don’t want tolerated.
Maggie, have I ever told you about Emily’s Law of the Internets #339?
“When you see a response that goes, ‘I disagree, ad hominem, LOL, you suck’ they really couldn’t come up with anything better.”
Maggie has never so much as hinted that all feminists are anti-male and anti-sex. She even invented a word, “neofeminist,” to distinguish between those who are anti and those who are not.
Oh, dear, Susan, I definitely don’t consider all feminists anti-male and anti-sex! As Sailor B pointed out, that’s why I coined the word “neofeminist”. Sadly, though, the mainstream feminists allowed the neofeminists to take over the movement in the late ’70s; by the mid-’80s mainstream feminism had devolved into a caricature of its former self. ’60s feminism embraced all choices a woman could make: housewife, career woman, whore, hippie, you name it, but everyone else was eventually marginalized and the “career woman” was held up as the model of what all women “should” be. It’s because of this descent into dogmatism that second-wave feminism is dying off and being replaced with the far more inclusive “third wave” of feminism, which counts among its number many sex worker rights supporters, pro-porn feminists and even a large percentage who reject the “social construction of gender” myth. 🙂
Thanks for the measured response and clarification of your views, some of which I share, some of which I don’t.
I will continue to follow your blog with great interest 🙂
Thank you, Susan; I certainly don’t expect all my readers to agree with everything I say! We can often learn more from polite disagreement than from agreement, and by “we” I mean humans. 🙂
Well Susan, you got a hard time here for choosing a wrong word or two. It seems to me that nobody wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt, let alone clarify your point of view, which I thought could be the beginning of a discussion rather than the end of one.
That’s the way it goes on the net.
Graham, I also felt my readers were a bit hard on Susan, which is why I tried to explain the words I wrote which seemed to cause the misunderstanding. 🙂
Personally, I don’t usually find “LOL FAIL OMG” to be conducive to a discussion, or indication that the perpetrator particularly wants a discussion (a fight, maybe, a conversation, probably not).
But then, there are nicer people than Emily.
I gave her the benefit of the doubt in the post I just made. I thought her post was pretty great to be honest.
Em – yeah the LOL #FAIL part was definitely where I crossed the fence from polite disagreement to the reaction below
If your Internet experience is like mine, EVERY blog I’ve seen has SOME personal bias on it. There’s also usually at least a few unfair blanket statements and stereotypes. This is 1 reason I love message boards and THEY can be unbalanced also, unfortunately, just not as much for a few reasons. 1 of those is the # of topics that are covered which helps to get different points of view which is wonderful. What I’m fed up with is the unfair blanket statements about certain groups. This seems to be everywhere, unfortunately. Also the stereotypes. Some of my favorites: all Christians and Muslims are totally anti-sex, have boring sex lives (if they have 1 at all…eyeroll), and spend their days ordering others to be sexually conservative like them, etc., etc. Another favorite: the family members of ALL murderers are trying to get them out of the charges, are in denial, etc. Also if your family member murdered that means YOU’RE as bad and will be violent 1 DAY ALSO…eyeroll again. Anyway, there’s unfortunately more examples than these. God help us. For years I’ve been posting stuff on blogs, etc., that show OTHER points of view, experiences, etc., because so many are loaded down with 1 point of view. I get so tired of it and am glad others do also! I really woke up to this when I became an MVS (surviving family members and/or friends of murder victims) and ran into OTHER MVS who treated me different once I talked about what kind of case my family had. That got me to resolve to NEVER quit speaking out and exposing this ###***. I saw the same kind of ###*** once I got online. I want to thank you for saying why not BOTH? Why do we have to follow these “rules” and “limits”? Why not break away from them? Also this evolution thinking. Do we automatically HAVE to be what they say? I’m convinced this is ANOTHER contributor to women using men left and right for whatever they can get PLUS judging them on looks only. It can be used as a cop-out: it’s just evolution I’m acting on. Why do we have to follow it? Anyway, thanks again for saying why not both in regards to beauty and smarts.
I forgot to say my above post was to Susan M.
QUESTION – Susan (and everyone else)
IF A TREE falls in the forest and there is nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound?
ANSWER —
Yes, IF it is a REALLY LOUD TREE!
P.S. FYI Emily: re LOL? it’s in the OED LOL #justsaying 😛
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12893416
Kelly, while it may not be in the OED, neofeminism has been defined and discussed elsewhere by various and sundry for more than a decade. Maggie is not the first to have coined the term. And, surprise, surprise, there are as many definitions as there are people who use the word.
Here’s a selection of posts I find particularly relevant to the discussion at hand:
The Neofeminism Definition
Sandra Linville (1999)
http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/words/18916
“Who was the first neofeminist and was there a last feminist – and did she turn out the lights when she left? I’m not sure anyone knew exactly what a feminist was and now the “neofeminist” label is being tossed about. Obviously words aren’t numbers and aren’t always precise. But labels are even less precise. Many times the meaning of the label is in the eye of the beholder or the bestower of the label. Whatever. The English language is fluid and we are always coining new words and sometimes the definition gets lost.”
Neofeminism
Oakling (2003)
http://everything2.com/title/neofeminism
“Feminism is a multi-faceted thing, with second-wave feminism, third-wave feminism, womanism, the Mujerista/Feminista Movement, riot grrls, et cetera, and neofeminism is yet another aspect of this wild and ever-evolving movement.”
You Are More Than Your Vagina, No Matter What Neofeminists Tell You
John Bambenek (2006)
http://www.bloggernews.net/12577
“Women traditionally have been looked upon as sexual objects. So what do these neofeminists do? Celebrate and proclaim liberation in being a sex object, of course. Frat boys on campus look at these poor girls as a vagina on two legs and they want to slap that idea on a T-shirt and sell it. They’ve gone one step further from the prostitution of women to preaching harlotry. The difference between a prostitute and a harlot is that the prostitute at least has enough self respect to demand payment for services rendered.”
Neo-Feminism?
The Anarcho-Feminist (2010)
http://anarchofeminist.tumblr.com/post/690405043/neo-feminism
“I believe that biologically all humans have differences and particularities. I believe in the fundamental individuality and freedom of all human beings. Therefore I do not believe that any single biological and/or cultural trait is in anyway inalienable or inevitably defining. As much as I’m sure that certain bodily functions, shapes, colors and sizes change your personal experience of life, I do not think that these traits in themselves define unalterably who we are.”
More discussion here:
(2006) http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Neofeminist
(2008) http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080725191539AAXRf9N
(2009) http://antimisandry.com/chit-chat-main/open-question-neo-feminism-female-supremacy-18704.html
I believe definitions differ depending on who is doing the defining, and that meaning, in its broadest sense, is informed by life experience and perspective, both of which are unique to each individual. I don’t think anyone has a monopoly on the “truth.” In fact, I don’t believe there is any one truth about anything. There’s only a multitude of perspectives.
What’s your view on that?
“I believe definitions differ depending on who is doing the defining, and that meaning, in its broadest sense, is informed by life experience and perspective, both of which are unique to each individual. I don’t think anyone has a monopoly on the “truth.” In fact, I don’t believe there is any one truth about anything. There’s only a multitude of perspectives.
What’s your view on that?”
It’s one of my most favorite topics!
QUESTION – Susan (and everyone else)
IF A TREE falls in the forest and there is nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound?
There are still sound waves, and plenty of animals to hear them. 🙂
Maggie – clearly. But neither you nor I subscribe to the ridiculous theory of primacy of consciousness.
The idea espoused by Susan that there is no one truth about anything is a philosophical disaster responsible for the intellectual and moral bankruptcy I mentioned in my post below.
You won’t be getting any apologies from me. Your posting is just typical female passive aggressive bullshit.
I love your blog! You’re so narrowminded! But I totally get what you’re saying! LOL FAIL. Ha ha! Just kidding! I hate how you pigeon-hole people! But I totally love your blog!
I’ll say to you what I say to all the women who engage in this kind of manipulative social bullshit: fuck you and your girl shit.
Oops! I mean, I totally love you Susan! You’re such a cunt! Just kidding! Love you! LOL!
(Sorry, Maggie. I just hate this kind of shit).
And now I am happy the bad^H^H^Hgood old days of Usenet are behind me…
Let’s all keep calm and above all polite?
I mean, in front of the ladies?!
LOL
But I do mean what I said in the first two sentences…
Andrea: Likewise I’m sure 🙂
Andrea for the win!
Dude, I’m freakin’ dying over here. You just made this whole thread worth it.
OMG! I just realized something, “Neofeminism” is not in the OED, LOL. Perhaps that accounts for some of the #confusion.
#WINNING
Yep. You’re right.
THIS ###***: “The difference between a prostitute and a harlot is that the prostitute at least has enough self respect to demand payment for services rendered” makes me resolve even MORE to keep my arrangement and STAY what I call a “wild woman”. Talk about arrogant and writing off those of us who won’t charge a cent for sex and never will! This stuff doesn’t even give a chance for wild women to say WHY they don’t charge, etc. So sad. Anyway, this made me want to break things so now since I’ve said my piece on it: thanks for showing that there’s MANY different definitions for the same term! This is something that (again) makes me want to break things in regards to how Christian fundamentalism is defined! It’s the same kind of thing with it! I’ve met at least 1 person who says I’m NOT a fundamentalist even though I THOUGHT I was! That got me to thinking about it all which is a good thing. Why do we have to be in these ###*** boxes anyway? Thanks again for posting this as it needs to be known there ARE different definitions for at least a few terms and why shouldn’t there be?
I LOVE this also (being sarcastic here): Celebrate and proclaim liberation in being a sex object, of course. For SOME reason my years of wildness BROUGHT me more self-esteem. How in the world can THAT be (eyeroll)? Yes, I had some bad experiences (too many men were liars, rude, etc.), but even those taught me and raised my self-esteem in the sense that I learned what I never wanted in men even if they were “sex only” friends. The work it took to meet a few decent 1’s was worth it! And the decent men confirmed for me how ###*** it is out there for men who just want sex like I did with no ###*** games, etc. involved. I get upset at 1st reading stuff like above, but then laugh at it and resolve even more to fight it.
It’s because it was YOUR choice. Some women choose to succeed in business, some in art, some in creating a positive and nurturing household, some in exploring their sexualities or writing. None is more valid than any other; the important thing is that a woman do what she feels she must, making her own decisions instead of obeying the commands of others “above” her. If she follows her bliss (as the late Joseph Campbell put it), her self-esteem will increase. If she follows a party line, even that of a party which claims to have her best interests at heart, it will not. That’s another reason neofeminists are so miserable; they’re constantly told following the dogma will make them feel better, and it doesn’t because they abdicated their choice to others.
Laura, there is no denying that promiscuity was good for you. Maybe it wouldn’t be now, maybe it would, but you needed it in your early thirties, and I’m glad you did it.
I wish I could meet your celebrity again; I have a video for him to autograph. And it would be nice just to say hi.
@ Vlad The Impatient
Yep. You’re right. I stand corrected.
Your critique/takedown of Jezebel is both beautiful and intelligent. I still wander over there occasionally–much less so than when Wonkette was still part of Gawker Media. While I had the expected problems–humorless, quick to take offense, very narrow range of both experience and attitude–this post nails it perfectly.
My opinion in 500,000 words or less 🙂
Beauty and intelligence are subjective. I’ve been called beautiful, I’ve been called plain. Mention two words related to geometry and you’ve already lost me but allow me to discuss medical x-radiation and the effects at a cellular level of an unborn fetus.
In society (not just on blogs of hookers and/or feminists) beauty is valued over intelligence in women. Not saying you can’t have both, it’s just the way it is. I see not so attractive male news casters all the time, rarely do I see an unattractive female newscaster. Why? Two women can apply, one plain, one gorgeous, with equal CV’s and the gorgeous one will get the job 99% of the time. Why? Because the audience (both male and female) prefer to see an attractive woman give the news. Models can be smart but they can’t be ugly. Actresses are better known for their looks than their brains although many are very intelligent. That’s just how society is in this day and age.
Tell your daughters it’s ok to have both beauty and brains but beauty doesn’t last forever so it’s best to go to school, college, etc. You are going to get older, you may get in a wreck and fly face first through the windshield, have something worthwhile in the brainpan because there are places that have beautiful women at a dime a dozen but the woman with beauty AND brains is rare.
This is the way I see it: A good personality – grace, charm, goodness, spiritual beauty, etc – definitely affects how a woman is perceived. A woman who is gracious, charming and sweet will be perceived in person as more beautiful even if it doesn’t show in her pictures. A woman who has good physical looks but a poor personality will not be perceived as “beautiful” for long by those who know her.
Intelligence, by contrast, is unaffected by personality; I would never use the word “beautiful” to describe a total asshole, but I could still validly describe her with “intelligent”. All inborn reactions aside, I still think “beautiful” is a more flattering compliment because it may include spiritual characteristics which “intelligent” doesn’t.
As I said, “you’re smart” is exactly like “you run fast” or “you’re tall” or “you have good hearing” or “you’re very healthy”; none of those are compliments, they’re just statements of fact. 🙁
This column made me think of this video that I was shown the other day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=K_uRIMUBnvw
I feel like this is the sort of thing that these neofeminists must love. For myself, I don’t think the apology is worth the disk space it takes up for the same reason I think most generalized apologies for past actions are bullshit. Mostly due to the fact that they weren’t there and didn’t commit these actions so what exactly are they apologizing for? Now if they wanted to bring recognition to this fact, then fine, but don’t pretend to be apologizing on my behalf. It’s not like this solves anything, which is kind of the point of an apology.
I guess all I really see here are a bunch of beta males who have been successfully convinced that men are bad and of no benefit to the world. I could very well be reacting to this too emotionally but it really made my skin crawl.
Someone else posted that on another comment thread; it must be getting around! I could only watch about two minutes of it before I was overwhelmed by its creepiness; was anyone else who saw this thing irresistibly reminded of The Manchurian Candidate? 🙁
I hadn’t, but now that makes it much more creepy. As long as you are talking about the great film from ’62 and not the weak Denzel remake. 🙂
I find it interesting that it is called “Dear Woman.” This reminded me of something else that was addressed, quite simply, to “Woman.” I’ll post it, and you can hear for yourself that the man in the video does tell the woman that he never meant to cause her sorrow or pain, that he is forever in her debt, that she has shown him the meaning of success.
And he does that without making himself out to be subhuman simply for having a Y chromosome.
I generally try not to notice remakes, especially when they try to “update” period pieces that cannot be updated. 🙁
“The Manchurian Candidate?”
The original with frank sinatra or the rubbish with denzel washington?
I thought the original was better even though it had far less ‘spectacular’ filming. And anglea lansbury made Merryl Streep look second rate.
But yes….the brainwashed monotone sounds the same.
There is only one Manchurian Candidate. Remakes of movies which were perfect as they were are beneath my notice. 🙁
One to go with ‘dear woman’.
I wasn’t this bad….but hell…I wasn’t far away as a beta loser father provider!! LOL!!
When I still worked in consulting for an industry far more venal than and only nominally different from the escort business, I had to deal with the Gawker people making outrageous accusations against some of my clients. That you would have a run-in with their trademark superficial, insipid style of journalism hardly surprises me, Maggie.
Superficial is right; it’s like junk-food journalism, no real substance. 🙁
The 4 S’s of today’s journalism – Shock, Scare, Sadden, Seduce. It’s what many people want.
Ah, back on my vampire schedule 🙂
The quote at the beginning of this post reminds me of a Rand quote I think I used a few months back…lemme check..oh yeah I remember now: “There are two sides to every issue: one side is right and the other is wrong, but the middle is always evil.”
When I read the Jezebel article about our favorite evolutionary psychologist my first thought was that it’s author is a crap writer. It takes very little creativity to list someone else’s “crap” ideas without bothering to rub two brain cells together yourself to explain exactly what about their ideas that you feel is crap.
on beautiful vs. smart….I too was consistently told that I was fucking brilliant until just before high school when I got completely fed up with being “smart” and decided, much to my parents’ disappointment, that I was more interested in being “beautiful”. So, I started wearing different clothes, hanging out with a different set of people, and dating older guys; I dropped out of high school to attend college when I was 16, and gave up that very dubious effort to become a stripper and escort when I turned 18. Well, after 10+ years of that, “beautiful” started to get real fucking old, in part due to the same exact subjectivity of it’s nature that Maggie mentioned. In other words, after hearing it so much for so long , I began to consider being called “beautiful” to be a crock of shit. I am not in fact traditionally “beautiful”, although granted I am very attractive and often recieve more attention than younger and prettier girls due in part to the “package deal” aspect and quite likely in large part due to the hypothetical “genetic prostitute” gene which I’m becoming more and more convinced I predominantly possess. Regardless, at 31 I must say that I consider “smart” to be the higher compliment.
But, dammit, I still wear sexy clothes and very much want to be considered “sexy”.
Go fucking figure. Maybe there is something to Satoshi’s “crap psychology” after all.
“prostitute gene”?!?
What is that? Seriously, I am interested. I’ve never heard of this before.
It’s a theory of Amanda Brooks’ which I talked about in my column of January 17th (there’s a link to her original column there so you can read it as well).
I read recently that there is also a christian gene, discovered by gay scientists. It was an April Fool’s Day joke.
A Christian gene? The horror! Please hide us from it! (Eyeroll).
I have been told that in Japan, telling a woman she is beautiful is a compliment, but telling her that she is cute is a bigger compliment. I’ve never had the opportunity to test it.
Could it have something to do with a well known Japanese (men’s) interest and love of young women – to put it mildly and in a more politically correct way. 😉
As in, underage girls are more readily perceived as cute, and grown women as beautiful?
When I look at the evolutionary psychology versus social construct argument here, I can’t help but wonder about confirmation bias.
As an example, one study I came across says men feel less jealousy about women having sex with other women than men, which indicates a biological link behind the feeling. A study on another sample, that of college students, shows no difference – which can be taken to show that this biological basis can be seriously influenced by social norms.
The more we dig, the more we can find a mix of evidence for both claims, and the reality most likely is somewhere in between. However, we all tend to accept at face value evidence that validates our beliefs and scrutinize evidence that doesn’t. At least, according to basic University-level cognitive psychology.
Evolutionary psychology is compelling on many levels, but it doesn’t mean that each widely popularized claim derived from it is necessarily valid and cannot be overturned by cumulative evidence. As another example, I now hear that the popular argument of “men are wired to spread the seed, women are wired to seek the best stable partner” is not being supported by cross-cultural evidence: that accumulated evidence points to cheating being equally rampant in both sexes, in order to promote genetic diversity of offspring.
And there you seem to be an example of confirmation bias by basing your “counter-evidence” on an unspecified study that seems to confirm *your* bias. 😉
Which is not to say that any theory is not a valid target for criticism, and most importantly, shooting down by experimental evidence. With a note that the experiment has to be a well set up one. Not everything you see called an “experiment” or a “study” is necessarily up to the required standards.
Again, not to say that the ones you quote are not, but I cannot judge as you do not provide any links or at least names. When I have referred to evolutionary psychology (EP), I have also referred the people to a few names whose books can be consulted on a general level. Mind you, all those names are proper, recognised scientist who just happened to have written something a layperson can enjoy and understand.
Do you perchance have links to the studies you mention? At least the girl-on-girl jealousy ones. The “I now hear” statement is to vague for me to even start asking for the source, but if you can point me there I’m curious to have a look.
Finally, and this is not personal but a general statement so don’t take it personally, it takes some skill and/or experience to see if what’s reported is a) what the study reported on really found, and b) to recognise a faulty experimental setup. Neither is rocket science, but both require more than a cursory read.
Oh, and EP never claims that *everything* is an evolved adaptation, it just happens to prove – by well designed theories validated experimentally – that a lot of what was thought as due to nurture is in fact received by nature. But really, one needs to read one or two introductory texts if not full books, and with an open mind. The EP primer by Tooby and Cosmides is a good starting point even if it is not written in the most popular of styles, and requires a bit of patience. But at least it will not take a couple of weeks to read like, for example Religion Explained by Boyce – which, BTW, almost contains more general explanation of human psyche than explanation about religion and its source.
Gee, I do go on sometimes…
Second attempt at reply since I ended up sharing a bit too much on the first… The caution with which I treat EP arises precisely from the difficulty of experimental design.
For example, Chapter 13 of “Cognition” by Daniel Reisberg, a University textbook on cognitive science, indicates that there are several alternative explanations for our failures in reasoning. However, all make similar predictions and to date, it has not been possible to design experiments that would confirm one explanation over the other. As the result, all of those theories make sense, they are also confirmed by existing experimental base, and they may all be right – but nonetheless, each individual one might also turn out to be wrong.
And just like you make a general statement on skill that it takes to evaluate study design, I am making a general statement calling attention to the somewhat speculative nature of many psychological theories, including EP, and the immense amount of unknowns in psychology.
Unfortunately, I do not have links to those studies as one was mentioned in class and another was posted in a hallway as a spotlight on current research, complete with full methodology, but I don’t remember the names. I mentally filed both but did not follow up. At the moment, my priority and free time is limited to the fundamentals of psychological science and sadly, I have to postpone getting to all the other tasty morsels till I have more time to pursue my own research…
Ingrid, I have no idea what you look like, but by pointing out the murkiness of psychology and reminding us that we should take this into account when making psychological pronouncements instead of acting like it’s as well understood as orbital mechanics or some such, you have become beautiful in my eyes.
I don’t know. Japanese lolicons get a lot of attention, but I don’t know if there are actually any more on that side of the Pacific than on my own, considering all the stuff that shows up on a search engine if you type in the word “teen.”
But Japan does seem to be obsessed with cute. Even a lot of their heavy metal bands are kind of cutesy. And Hello!Project groups… {eyes glaze over… in a cute way}
Here’s the song I sang at A-KON karaoke year before last:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdjaLQudcqw&fmt=18
I even did my own take on the dance.
Please save us from CUTE! Wink…lol!
I’m taking all the cute on myself, dahlin’, so you don’t have to worry about it.
Dokkin hanamaru egao ga BUU-BUU-BUU!
“God why must these living dead know pain with every breath
So help your brother along the road no matter where he starts
For the God that made you made them too these men with broken hearts”
This shows not only a difference in taste, but in perception. From my POV, it looks like this:
I am a basically happy person who generally enjoys listening to happy music. Laura enjoys listening to music that makes me want to slit my wrists. Is she that unhappy?
I’m sure that she sees it very differently. I keep this in mind when she starts playing her depressing-ass stuff. She is often quite happy, and enjoys a good cheerful Beatles tune, for instance, as much as or more than I do. She even likes surf music, despite the fact that neither of us surf (in Dallas).
Vlad – I really liked this link on EP http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evolutionary-psychology/ interestingly enough it’s from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Granted it is very basic, but it’s at least somewhat informative for those of us who are interested but too lazy to read a whole book 🙂
Ingrid – I don’t think anyone here is saying that any particular opinion they have is 100% FACT when it comes to topics such as evolutionary psychology. Most realize that “it’s all relative” which makes it an interesting topic of intelligent speculation.
Susan – sigh.
“For someone who would seem to promote broadmindedness, your posts can sometimes be remarkably narrowminded, and sadly, aggressively so… ”
Mags – add that one to your list of entertaining statements made about you. It is in no way accurate momma!!!!! hugs!!! but I do think it’s funny and actually complimentary, the reason why goes back to to the quote you mentioned and the one I mentioned. People these days are so worried about being politically incorrect or about what others might think that most are afraid to even form an opinion and instead simply bow to the whims of the collective. I am sick and tired of people who sacrifice themselves and their own thoughts and beliefs to the “group” whatever group that may be. Come on motherfuckers, have some originality! Have people grown too lazy to form their own thoughts? Or have they just taken the good characteristic of openmindedness to it’s evil extreme? According to Susan, you are “narrowminded” for having an opinion! If you metaphorically sweep ALL feminists into one big pile of crap, why take the time and mental energy to come up with the concept of the NEOfeminist? It would seem easier to take the metaphorical broom to the whole lot of them rather than making discernments in what you just swept up.
I have noticed a slightly more aggressive tone in your recent posts and you know what? I like it! I also think it will serve you well, as I know I’m not the only one out there sick of hearing the same old tired bullshit. What I like about you is that unlike the fake ass fucking feminists who want to be the same as men, you actually have the balls to stand for your own ideas. So Susan can kiss my ass.
Wow, Kelly! Thank you, and hugs!
I reckon I have been a tad more aggressive lately; not too much, I hope! 🙂
certainly not too much at all 🙂
Kelly, thanks for the link. It is indeed fairly well written and reasonably balanced especially as it comes from the (sort of) an opposing camp. Unfortunately (but this is due to its stated purpose not any visible intent) it does not tell about arguments pro et contra. For that one does need to go to a text (written) by either side which is less a review and more a polemic or a study. I think there are two key elements that make people oppose EP: blank slate theory, and obviousness of non-adaptive behaviours today. The first is generally refuted by arguments that go along the lines of inability and unnecessary “expense” in evolving a “blank slate mind”, and is more difficult to put down in two sentences. The other one is almost too obvious and that may be why people get caught out. Evolution moves at a glacial pace so evolved behaviours we see today have evolved to cater for a social (and physical) environments of hundreds of thousands of years ago, but got caught in the hyper-fast progress which was a *by-product* of evolving a massive and complex brain. If people kept that in mind they may not have fits when reminded that men are adapted to “spread the seed” and women to “look for security”. Finally, EP never states that a behaviour being adaptive and evolved means it is necessarily *rigth* in the current context. It in fact stresses that we should use those massive and complex brains to figure out right from wrong and try to behave better. But to achieve that we have to acknowledge deeply ingrained and unconscious mechanisms and work around them, rather than mandating things change assuming that we can wipe the slate clean as if by magic. Which finally enabled me to go full circle and end up somewhere roughly on topic. I hope. 😉
Or more simply put, “those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.” Only people who know WHY men and women tend to feel and react the way we do can either use or avoid the pitfalls inherent in those behaviors. Denying one’s own nature and those of the opposite sex is unproductive and leads to nothing but misery; neofeminists are among the most miserable, maladjusted humans on the planet for this PRECISE reason. 🙁
Andrea – LOL yes the “prostitute gene”, one of those possibilities on which it’s interesting to speculate without taking it quite as seriously as one commenter in this thread apparently thought I meant it. But…it is an interesting thought; in fact I mentioned it in a recent post on my blog and it’s funny you noticed the term cause I actually linked here and directed readers to your comments as an example of a possible “genetic prostitute” who is not a prostitute!
I do hope that doesn’t offend you! It was meant in a very positive way 🙂
Kelly, it does not offend me in the slightest!
I’m one of those women who will look one of the raging feminists in the eye, after she has claimed that women who live off of their husbands as housewives are nothing more than prostitutes and say, “Yeah? So? And I’ll bet I give way better head than you, too”.
My husband is a prof, so we are often in the company of delightful academic feminists. I always try to work “blowjob” and “obey” into the dinner conversation. It makes them a hilarious shade of purple.
Funny, they keep accepting invitations for my awesome perogies, though. That’s either because they totally love my food, even though they hate me (freeloading back stabbing bitches), or they have to suck up to my husband to get ahead (and who’s the whore again?).
Either way, if there is a gene for prostitution, I must have it!
LOL Andrea! I think I’d pay to hear that! 😀
Your discussion of faculty-wife witchery reminds me of one of my favorite novels, Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife. If you’ve never read it I highly recommend it, though it has to be understood as a novel written in the 1940s by a man for men if you want to get the full creepy effect. 🙂
Third option: repressed masochists, enjoying the pain inflicted by being forced by social norms to listen to something they both hate and turns them on. 😉
FWIW, I also come from an academic family, and have seen a lot of very successful female academicians. Interestingly (and probably good for my mental setup) not a single one a neofeminist, and rarely one even claimed to be a feminist at all. However, all of them were staunchly for women equality more or less along the lines being discussed here (not that I think they’d have surmounted certain views on whores and other similar topics – but then, you can’t have it all).
But I think the major “cure” for me, that put me off of (neo)feminism came as early as first four years of primary schools through a teacher(esse) who force-favoured girls. I’ve written a tad more extensively about it elsewhere (see the link off my ID) under the title “Cured of Feminism” so I’ll leave you with a shameless plug rather than a potentially boring expose. 😉
Andrea – I had the feeling that it probably wouldn’t offend you, but yanno it’s always nice to make sure 🙂
Regarding the snotty feminist academics, my father is a professor and both my parents work in the field of higher education so I am all too acquainted with the type. Unfortunately that type somewhat includes my parents. Needless to say, they quit letting me get anywhere near any of their colleagues a long time ago LOL.
…i will behave in maggies house, i will behave in maggies house…
Why? No one else is 😛
Or maybe I should just speak for myself….
On the subject of beauty & brains, here’s a story you might find interesting: http://www.amazingwomenrock.com/stories-written/acid-attack-survivor-katie-piper-shows-off-her-beautiful-face.html
Suffering Sappho, a girl goes to town for the afternoon and when she gets back she finds the kids have had a wild party in her absence!
🙂
sorry momma!!!! I promise I’ll clean up the mess…after I’m done playing 🙂
What’s the emoticon for sticking one’s tongue out? 😐
😛
😛
Don’t know if it’ll make a face, but I’m about to find out.
It did! It did! It did make a face!!
;P
Well then, Kelly: 😛
[…] Some people spend way too much time in the mirror saying, “OMG, liek, girl power to the max, yalls!” […]
And this be the reason I behave in Maggies house. We huddle in the corner and take notes so that we can misbehave at my house without making a mess for others to clean up…
I was repeatedly and enthusiastically told I was fucking brilliant by nearly every adult I knew from the time I was about five years old, and you know what? I still consider “you’re beautiful” to be a greater compliment, despite “socialization” to the contrary.
Maggie…
LOL! I can believe that!! I was told that “you will never be as smart as your big brother” and and adult telling a boy “you look handsome today” is about as big a compliment as “your nose hair is well trimmed”
Women want to be told they are beautiful to affirm they might just be able to land some dumb man to pay for them for the rest of their life, so far as I can tell.
There is no form of flattery that works so well with women as to tell them they are beautiful. None. And there is no faster way to a mans heart than for a woman to tell him how much SHE wants him. Oh…the games people play.
If we were all honest it would be much easier…..then again…perhaps ‘marriage with children’ would go away if our mothers were honest to us boys about it.
I never bother with jezebell or slate or femanisting. I am amazed women do not go and throw the likes of jessica valenti into the street and tar and feather her for the lies and hatred these women peddle.
Hey, Peter? I have something to say to you, so listen closely, kay?
Fuck you, Peter.
Women want to look beautiful so they can land some dumb man to pay for them for the rest of their life?
That would be ME you are talking about, Peter, and my stupid fucking IDIOT of a husband who just happens to have a Pee Aitch Fucking Dee. Sound it out, Peter.
There are REASONS that men and women have different roles in a family unit, Peter. I am at home full time because I am RAISING THREE CHILDREN, who just happen to have inherited 50% of their DNA from Dumb Man, as you are so kind as to call him.
Here are some things I do for my Dumb Man every day:
Fuck him
Clean the house
Do the fucking laundry
Homeschool the children
Cook awesome food
Have a cold beer on the counter when he gets home
Read extensively in his field so I can understand his work
Did I mention fuck him?
It really pisses me off when other men call my husband a chump for having his wife at home full time. Did that situation not work out for you?
Boo fucking hoo. Look in the mirror first. Yes, there is systemic discrimination against men, particularly when it comes to dividing the assets and access to the children acquired during marriage.
But don’t you fucking dare call my hardworking, beautiful, honorable, noble knight DUMB for taking care of his family by having his wife at home.
Fuck. You.
I’m also fucking hot. So there.
I am becoming more and more convinced that including you as an honorary harlot was an excellent idea! 🙂
[There are REASONS that men and women have different roles in a family unit, Peter. I am at home full time because I am RAISING THREE CHILDREN, who just happen to have inherited 50% of their DNA from Dumb Man, as you are so kind as to call him.]
^ This right here.
Maggie has helped me work through quite a few of my issues, and I agree with both her statement and what Andrea is saying…”traditional marriage as it is *supposed* to be.” To me, that means that there are equal but different roles, much of which occurs naturally, and both parties recognize their huge responsibilities in such a situation.
There is indeed, of course, abuse of this set up, on both sides. And it’s terrible. I am a firm advocate of men’s and father’s rights.
But geez louise, it’s like women can’t win. They can’t be professional whores, they can’t make their own sexual choices, they can’t work in male fields, and now they can’t even be full time wives & mothers.
WTFX wrong with people?
As I’ve discussed before, if you’re a would-be dictator (male or female), women are the ones you have to control if you want to control society because we’re the ones who make and shape the children. So until we as a species stop tolerating attempts to control society, women will always be the ones who are manipulated (either by tyrannizing us or by attempting to suck up to us). 🙁
Dear Peter, you need work BADLY on being less modest! You’re so modest about so many things about yourself it’s really sad.
“As I’ve discussed before, if you’re a would-be dictator (male or female), women are the ones you have to control if you want to control society because we’re the ones who make and shape the children.”
Generally speaking a wonderful insight. I wonder if this dynamic in your view is a modern problem or universal truism.
Women would rather have beauty than brains, because they know that men can see better than they can think.
It’s a universal truism: “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” That’s why so many politicians are opposed to educational voucher programs, and why communist countries were so happy to provide day care from the age of six weeks; it was so they could push the mothers back into the factories and brainwash their children to turn them in if they spoke ill of the party.
I want to make one thing clear, though; I never said I would rather have beauty than brains, I said I would rather be complimented on my beauty rather than my brains. Given my druthers I’d rather have both, which is fortunate because I do. That having been said, intelligence only goes so far except in certain professions; in all other walks of life, and in day-to-day living, an exceptionally intelligent person has no real advantage over a normally-intelligent one. The idea that intelligence is the chief virtue is an artifact of the first half of the twentieth century; in nearly every arena of human society, learning and experience trump intelligence every damned time.
Personally, give me character over stunning good looks any day : Intelligence, wit, charm, warmth, empathy and passion make up for a whoooole lotta plain.
Maybe I’m an aberration 🙂
[…] feel a deep ambivalence for sex workers which bursts forth every so often. I once wrote that “I think of them as something like a gaggle of debutantes volunteering at the local homeless shelter ….” Here’s a recent example in which writer Tracie Morrissey’s belief in “sex rays” is […]