ginmar ([info]ginmar) wrote,
@ 2006-06-16 17:25:00
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Oh, for fuck's sake
Take someone who's engaged in 'bad feministing' by boasting about all the times she's tilted with strawfeminists, and add a piously-expressed concern that such trasntalking might hurt the movement---trashtalking that she herself engages in. What do you call this shit?

I sometimes read complaints that women who say they were told they can’t be a feminist because of X (shaving legs, wearing makeup, whatever) are blaming strawfeminists, but how does this kind of trashtalking help the movement?


You know, I really don't give a fuck if somebody told you not to shave your legs. What I care about is you're so goddamed stupid or evil as to blame this on feminism in general, and have been doing so loudly for quite some time. The real point here is that the trashtalking is coming from women who define feminism as the enemy when they haven't a fucking clue about its principles. The shit they say invariably dovetails nicely with exactly the shit that anti-feminists say, but these women making the complaints about legshaving, makeup-wearing, whatever claim to be feminists solely for the purposes, one suspects, of bashing real feminists. The feminists they describe, for example, sound an awful lot like the liberals that Ann Coulter talks about----you know, the babyhating, welfare-loving, draft-dodging, pork-loving, granola-munching, 'fragrant' hippies that are so stupid they appear only in front of the conservatives who bash liberals. How conveniant!

How fucking stupid.

The real issue here isn't the strawfeminist: it's the fact that these twits seem to think that if they have one bad expereince with a feminist---which I highly doubt----then they get to damn all feminists. I mean, if I see somebody acting and sounding like Rush Limbaugh talking about about 'feminazis' am I supposed to take them any more seriously when they say the exact same thing, except they piously claim the feminist label for themselves?

"Oh, I'm a bad feminist! *giggle* I shave my legs and wear makeup and I'm submissive to my husband and the real issue is that feminists just don't give a fuck." If you're such a fucking feminist, why don't you bitch about something that actually matters, exists, and causes harm to other women. It's a really individual issue you've got going on there, babe. As long as we're trading mythical anecdotes, here's my experience of feminists and feminists: some great people, some good people, some annoying people, some plenty irritating individuals, who nevertheless don't give much of a fuck about leg shaving, makeup-wearing, whatever, because while you're going on and on about those evil feminists real women are dying in childbirth, being raped, being imprisoned and abused just because they're women and you don't give a fuck because you have feminists to bitch about. Go shave your goddamned legs, wear your fucking makeup or not, whatever. Accepting that feminists are human means accepting, well, that they're human. If you meet one alleged fairy feminist who you claim shits on your pillow and hate them all from that day forward because you think they're all alike, the issue isn't feminism but your eagerness to hate it.


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[info]auntishouse
2006-06-16 11:37 pm UTC (link)
Awimmin! (rather than amen)

Shaven/unshaven, bra-burning or leather-wearing -- whatever. It is the real LIFE AND DEATH issues that women face daily that matter to me.

I haven't got time for those who use the other petty matters (like the pros or cons of shaving body hair, using cosmetics or being submissive to husbands in bedrooms) to slam all women. It simply means that the slammer has bought into our long-time cultural tradition of hating all women, including themselves.

Feh.

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[info]ginmar
2006-06-16 11:38 pm UTC (link)
Well, they use hatred for feminists to make themselves feel better, so...

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[info]fromaway
2006-06-17 12:47 am UTC (link)
God damn.

I saw the post to which she was responding, too, and, you know, as a straight woman I wasn't offended. I found it kind of funny, and, well, mostly I just didn't care.

The only real issue I have with Twisty's post is that a whole bunch of people took the bait, and that triggered this boring-ass Suck If You Love Jesus pile-on from the online Learn To Like It contingent.

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oh, brother.
(Anonymous)
2006-06-17 12:58 am UTC (link)
i had a troll who made a great comment today. he said, in reference to my query about if he was really interested in "equality" then how come all his links were to men and fathers and one link to a "second wives" web site?

he said that only second wives were "real feminists" because they wanted to be "fair".

so i said, Huh, I guess that means someone is only a feminist if she's in your bed?

*pounds head on table*

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oh, brother.
[info]txfeminist
2006-06-17 12:59 am UTC (link)
for some reason, I thought i was already logged in. duh.

i had a troll who made a great comment today. he said, in reference to my query about if he was really interested in "equality" then how come all his links were to men and fathers and one link to a "second wives" web site?

he said that only second wives were "real feminists" because they wanted to be "fair".

so i said, Huh, I guess that means someone is only a feminist if she's in your bed?

*pounds head on table*

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[info]enname
2006-06-17 03:56 am UTC (link)
"Oh, I'm a bad feminist! *giggle* I shave my legs and wear makeup and I'm submissive to my husband and the real issue is that feminists just don't give a fuck." If you're such a fucking feminist, why don't you bitch about something that actually matters, exists, and causes harm to other women.


That sums it up pretty much for me. Stop tilting at windmills and actually go do something that helps others. I don't have the patience for the kind of shit that is all about 'memememememe' and how aggrieved me feels, when really it is kinda petty stuff. It distracts from the issues and women who really need attention.

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a number of years ago I found this amazing series at the library
[info]bellatrys
2006-06-17 04:20 am UTC (link)
which was an encyclopedia of animal behaviorism, from the perspectives of a bunch of zookeepers and field zoologists, coming at it from a purely observational "what are we seeing here?" rather than a "this is what we're going to see because" stance.

One of the things that kept getting reinforced was how little the behavior of herd and pack animals in the wild fitted into the neat male-female stereotypes that were claimed by people who wanted to appeal to the "animal kingdom" as justification for the male-dominated human societies.

Another thing was, how carefully evolved many non-predator species are to be able to allow them to fight amongst themselves a) rather ferociously b) without actually killing each other. Thus all the horns of different kinds of antelopes are *best* for sparring with *other of the same kind of antelopes* and no others - the ones with rings, the rings lock together, the curved ones balance each other, the prongs catch only the right kind of other ones. These, and other body modifications, they're not designed by "fitness" to fight off competing *species* for food, or battle off predators, they're mainly there to aid in internal status battles, whether for mates or for rank in the herd, and deaths in these fights tend to happen by accident only. (Predators, OTOH, being designed for killing, often end up killing each other whether they intended it or not, becaues they have very sharp teeth/claws and a lot of jaw strength.) The antelopes and gazelles and things, mostly just run away when it comes to predators, even though they have sharp horns and hooves - although the females, even without antlers, have been occasionally known to fight off jackals with their feet to protect their babies while the "alpha males" just hightail it - none of that paternal chivalric "natural" protective instinct on display whatsoever. They can always breed more calves/kids/fawns next season, after all - very little personal investment of bodily protein required on the father's part!

The point of this rambling anecdote is that social animals find it way easier to fight amongst themselves for good things, but flee like bunnies when a heavy-duty challenger arrives on the scene. We see that with women choosing to fight other women, rather than challenge male dominance. And yes, I know that technically we are all the same species - but that's the core of the sexist problem, isn't it? That traditionally, men see us as subhuman, and antifeminist "traditional" women see men as totally Other and incomprehensible, to be dealt with and worked around like natural disasters.

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Re: a number of years ago I found this amazing series at the library
[info]al_zorra
2006-06-17 11:09 pm UTC (link)
Thank you for your post, bellatrys, particularly the observations of [These, and other body modifications, they're not designed by "fitness" to fight off competing *species* for food, or battle off predators, they're mainly there to aid in internal status battles, whether for mates or for rank in the herd, and deaths in these fights tend to happen by accident only.].

Not to mention [We see that with women choosing to fight other women, rather than challenge male dominance.].

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