I shame the matriarchy

Quoth La Twisty:

Central to today’s fun’n’sassy Empowerful Woman narrative, femininity is that set of self-absorbed, self-defeating behaviors required of women by the dominant culture to ensure a ready-steady supply of submissive sexbot availability.

Because there was never so hideous an abomination as a woman who can’t prove, through word, deed, and sportcorset, that she has successfully internalized the patriarchal message and is conversant in fulfilling male fantasy.

Femininity is the antithesis of humanity.

it goes on in that vein, with most everyone trying to outshine each other in the femininity-damning witty-epigram department.

but one thing is on my mind as I read this -

if femininity is so damnable, so abhorrent, so repulsive, why is it so insulting to be called "a man"?
 

well, pretensions to wit, at any rate.
 

interesting to see the commenters tread the thread between condemnation of femininity ("the product of artifice") and celebration of womanhood.
 

I'm feeling a little cynical about all of this shit right now,

Piny, my friend, no jury would convict you for that.
 

Antiprince was correct; in the end, it's all a matter of perspective.

I examine my feelings towards pro athletes and their salaries. A few years ago I might have followed parental example and concocted a complex and embittered view towards "those bastards that make $15+ million per year." By contrast, now I just enjoy the game and see their windfall as their blessing.(Their joints and ligaments will be shot by 60, if that is some recompense for the jaded...)

As of late you have seen me balance out on a lot of things. Following suit, I say people are people. Everyone- man, woman, cloaca-bearing amphibian- has needs, desires and drives. Undoubtedly women have had the shit end of the stick for some time. Both sexes share humanity though; I wonder if any person's inability to come to terms with their own demons forces them(as a matter of pride)to lash out at the nearest, most semantically chic punching bag.

Life is a two-way street. I don't want to be the guy who gets smooshed because my dick was stuck in a chicken.
 

I'm undergoing a kind of gender gestalt revolution right now. At first it was really messing with my head, and now it's just kind of bemusing.

I'm glad it's no longer messing with your head. we all really missed you.
 

*shrugs*

They're so unimaginative.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: if everything one knows about "femininity" one learned in the toy aisle at fucking Wal-Mart, that is mostly the result of one's own tragic lack of scope.

I need a little barfy smiley. What really fucking cracks me up:
"femininity==weakness"
"weakness==bad"
"patriarchy==bad"

-but-
"patriarchy==heirarchy"

-therefore- "assertion of weakness==acknowledgement of lesser than==bad==patriarchy."

So, basically, deciding that femininity equeals "weakness," and then deciding that you reject femininity based on rejecting weakness, is itself, inherently patriarchal.

Logic is fun.
 

oooh, Veronica - your logic! it's sooooo big!

give it to me! give it all to me!

seriously - I am so in love with you right now. your comment was wicked elegant.

can you teach me to do that? is there, like, "logic for dummies"?
 

I looked it up, and yes... there is a "Logic for Dummies." Heh. There's also an "Ipod for Dummies," a "John Paul II for Dummies," and "Anger Management for Dummies."
 

I define it as living in a manner that emphasises your feminine qualities.
For me, it means wearing clothing that flatters and accentuates my physical qualities as well as behaving in a quiet, decorous manner. I want to be thought of as 'ladylike', feminine.

I have a bucket for anyone who needs to barf. But do it quietly. Bodily functions are so masculine.
 

Fuck that bullshit and noise and the horse it road in on...said in my most feminine, sexbot voice of course...

Twisty and all her little asskissers are becoming exactly what it is the profess to hate. Judgmental "us uber alles" dictators of the One True Vision of Woman...opressors, even. Think about it...people specifically avoid commenting at IBTP for FEAR of invoking the shame fest dissenters get from Twisty and Her Merry Band of Analigus performers. People flat out avoid her because if you do not agree you are shamed, mocked, and told how stupid and wrong and fucked up you are. And then such things spread like wildfire across bloglandia (need I mention RandomBird?) It's a stinking chunk of ofal, really. Blame the Patriarchy? She and her crew are just LIKE the patriarchy in so many ways its laughable.

Guess what?

Better a fuckbot slave to the oppressive cock warlords than Twist and Co any day of the week. At least the Pat pays me for being degraded and getting fucked.

Oh yeah, sorry, I left my tact filter in my other thong.
 

Woo ren...such unladylike language.

As for what's masculine...that's easy. COme to my house, I'll show you (and let you smell).
Where feminine is an ability to multitask, masculine is an ability to focus on a single thing (which is why they have trouble finding the mayo). Feminine is quiet and decorous, masculine is loud and protective (of feminine). Feminine is smooth, masculine is prickly. Feminine is cats, masculine is dogs.
Ok, enough stereotyping for you? You do know I jest, right?
 

AP: “if femininity is so damnable, so abhorrent, so repulsive, why is it so insulting to be called "a man"?”

As you know, I was called “a man” at IBTP. It’s the new insult for “women who don’t agree with the site groupthink.” Profiting from femininity because the Pat pays for it, as Ren said, is bad, and profiting from capitalism because that pays too, is bad. So apparently, getting paid, period, is bad. And masculine. So then, is femininity = “not getting paid”? But wait, femininity’s bad, right? So then getting paid is good? This shit’s confusing!

Ren said: “People flat out avoid her because if you do not agree you are shamed, mocked, and told how stupid and wrong and fucked up you are. … Blame the Patriarchy? She and her crew are just LIKE the patriarchy in so many ways its laughable.”

Agree! I posted about that just yesterday.

I posted my definition on IBTP, and fully expect a major post-lashing.

“Femininity is subjective. There’s no one-size-fits-all definition. For some, it’s a self-defeating prison where inmates adopt Stockholm-like patriarchal mantras. For others, it’s a tool to get out or stay out of that prison. And for another group, it’s not all bad or all good, just another way to live in whatever moment feels right at the time.”
 

What is feminine/masculine - a sociological construct bearing only marginal resemblance to anything inherant or biologically based?
Oops, sorry, had my academic hat on there.
The funny thing is that Twisty and friends actually LIKE certain things traditionally considered feminine. They've just relabelled them as somehow not patriarchally imposed, whereas all the things they don't like are. That's convenient and all (being nurturing is just the way women are, high heels are imposed), but it's also intellectually lazy.
I avoid her comments section nowadays. Why bother? It usually sounds as if there's only one commenter restating the same thing with in marginally words over and over again. They're like the RadBorg.


Rootie - My cat has a penis. Oops!
octogalore - You're going to get torn a new asshole. Which is SO anti-patriarchal.
 

Cassandra -- good point about intellectually lazy. I just don't get why owning one's desire for femininity or upward mobility or anything which would give women a higher-than-grass-roots platform is a bad thing. We do want to get our voices heard by more than just others who think exactly like us, don't we? I mean, isn't the point to actually make something happen, or is it just to mill around, tearing new assholes at will where people disagree?
 

" I mean, isn't the point to actually make something happen, or is it just to mill around, tearing new assholes at will where people disagree? "
You really want me to answer that?
 

The main thing about Twisty (which she has actually admitted to) is that she is a racist. It was an indirect confession, at any rate. She said that anyone who benefitted from oppressing those of another racial group were racist, even if not self-consciously so. So, I call her out as a racist for invading Iraq, and seeking to benefit from the oil resources there.
 

I wonder if any person's inability to come to terms with their own demons forces them(as a matter of pride)to lash out at the nearest, most semantically chic punching bag.

which makes me wonder how our experiences with our own personal micro-patriarchies color our perceptions of the wider world.
 

How much of what we now experience as "femininity" (that which is decorative, purely ornamental, ultimately useless) is a holdover from the rise of the middle class and the separation of spheres of influence in the late nineteenth century?

how does "feminine" differ from "effeminate" in the 21st century?
 

As you know, I was called “a man” at IBTP. It’s the new insult for “women who don’t agree with the site groupthink.”

octogalore - I have fought that battle a bunch of times. the first time it happened it actually made me cry. because I am weak and (ahem) feminine.

I hate to see that happen to anyone. I'm sorry I didn't speak up louder for you.
 

AP;

we need an "i got called a man" club!
 

yeah - one of those little blog icon thingys.
 

"Life is a two-way street. I don't want to be the guy who gets smooshed because my dick was stuck in a chicken."

Well, that was a mental image I did not need..
 

"(need I mention RandomBird?)"

That one is over my head...what or who exactly is a RandomBird?
 

The chicken is the fight that cannot be won. If I have a deep emotional attachment to a Sisyphean task that must end in failure then I will be smooshed with the chicken when he does what he always does in the joke.

It's also a paraphrasing of something I heard in The Last Boy Scout with Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans.
 

I am fascinated at the amount of attention Twisty is able to garner for herself. Probably because The Southern Way to deal with her kind is to simply ignore them.
 

Cassandra -- yeah, rhetorical question, I guess. If the point were to make something happen, the stoning to death of others who agree on the low-hanging-fruit points wouldn't be so prevalent.

AP -- I appreciate everything you said. I would cry too, if certain things weren't so comical. Like where one of them claimed, tongue in cheek, to have slept with my husband, and then proceeded to have fun with various supposed sexual deficiences of his, and then when I responded in kind, I was accused of being "scum" who was "viciously attacking."
 

Faith--RandomBird is a "personal blogger" (she mostly blogs about her love life and mental health) that trackbacked to Twisty's sportscorset entry. Twisty ripped her to shreds. Then Pandagon picked it up. She was basically Farked, feminist-style. She was called mindlessly misogynist. She was told that she was in denial about having been orally raped, and the degree of rape was discussed in detail. The fact that "young women" can't be feminist was brough to the table, but it was decided that surely RB would "grow up" and realize that men hated her. They picked at her body type, her admitted bi-polar disorder, and on, and on.

The end result was that someone who considered herself a feminist, and apparently had actually joined NOW, decided that feminism wasn't for her. Smooth move on their part.

It was hideous. And, it's the reason I stopped bothering with IBTP.
 

"It was hideous. And, it's the reason I stopped bothering with IBTP."

I stopped bothering sometime around "All blowjobs are degrading and oppressive."
 

Oy. I'm just glad I was between blogs during the Blowjob Bit. Made it much easier to ignore.
 

The blowjob eruption was indeed a low point among many.

The fact that Empowerful has become such a fun joke on there is ironic, I think. It's a combo of two words that many on that blog feel are so inappropriate for women that they have to make a funny to shame women who have the gall to feel either of them.
 

hey look, watch me be scum...she's a smug, elitist egomaniac...but her fucking bootlickers are worse. If Twisty told them to drink the cool-aid in the name of patriarchy blaming? Um, yeah.
 

Hey AP, would I seem "unmasculine" if I asked if you are mad at me or just ignoring my interview questions? Not to look like a big pussy or nothing......
 

am fascinated at the amount of attention Twisty is able to garner for herself. Probably because The Southern Way to deal with her kind is to simply ignore them.


Twisty writes well and has some valid points to make. I agre with the above comment, though. Ignoring someone (especially if they are on the internet, and therefore easy to avoid) is often very appropriate. I find the notion that anyoen can be called upon, at any time, to give an account of themselves for their opinion (or because they've disagree with another's opinion) to be simply one of the more erroneous aspects of western thinking and its hyper-rationalism.
 

It's a combo of two words that many on that blog feel are so inappropriate for women that they have to make a funny to shame women who have the gall to feel either of them.

Yeah.

They're quite depressing. I think one of them barfed up something along the lines of "Women have as much power as a man's dog" recently.

Just... what a message of Hope!!

I just read some of today's responses on that thread, and all I could think was, "Who the hell ARE these people?! What planet are they on, and why do I know so little about it if it's just next door?"

I just don't get it. There have been a few occasions where I realize that some of those women have such a different approach to possessing a vagina and such an extremely negative view of what it is to be a woman, that I just can't relate in the slightest. It's not that I disagree with them about feminism... it's that I disagree with them about the basis of humanity and the Meaning of Life itself.
 

Ogtagalore - Well that's disgusting. To bring your husband into it, make it personal and then whine when you retaliate...yeah, that's real feminist (rolls eyes).
I hadn't heard the Random Bird story before, must have been during my Hiatus. That's just...horrfiying, actually. Remind me why we think hounding other women out of the movement is a good idea, again?
 

Oh, by the way, I just got critiqued on my "pornstitution-heavy blogroll"! Have I ever said that I'm pro prostitution? Nope. Does what I actually believe matter? Apparently not.
 

Don't you know, Cassandra?

If you link to "pro-pornstitution" you are "pro-pornstitution." Apparently, "pro-pornstitution" is like cooties. Highly contagious.

You don't hit the top of the food chain until they start referring to you as a "rape apologist." Should be lobbed your way soon.
 

Veronica - You're probably right. The fact that I write about why rape is a VERY BAD THING all the time probably doesn't make any difference to some. Sam's all pissed at me over a comment that wasn't even directed at her...reminds me of someone else who always assumes everything is about her.
The funny thing is, the only person on my blogroll who's pro-porn as such is Ren. Everyone else seems to be ambivalent. Ambivalent doesn't seem to be allowed as a choice, even though I think that's where most of us are in reality.
 

Cassandra -- so true, ambivalence is declasse apparently, the goal is to be virulently sure about victimhood.

Another accusation I got in the "I fucked your husband and it was over in one minute!" thread was "wealth flaunting in this thread while viciously attacking others [who are dissing your husband]." Which was odd, but I checked just to make sure, and the only items mentioned were being happily married and unashamed of having a job. Apparently, to be a true feminist you need to be heterosexual or employed only apologetically.

Kinda takes the fun out! Hmm, maybe that's the point?
 

"If you link to "pro-pornstitution" you are "pro-pornstitution." Apparently, "pro-pornstitution" is like cooties. Highly contagious."

Well, it's simpler than that, I think. You are because they say you are. They could say I am, if they wanted to, and most of their constituency wouldn't argue the point. They could call you pro-crabgrass and it would stick.
 

MWHAHAHAHHAHA I am evooool.Renegade Evoooolution. A yep.
 

CS: ps. where was this pro-porn blaming? Might I gaze upon it?
 

Hey AP, would I seem "unmasculine" if I asked if you are mad at me or just ignoring my interview questions? Not to look like a big pussy or nothing......

that's a good question. Is it unmasculine to inquire as to someone's mental state? is it unmasculine to look like you care about how people feel?

oh, and no - I was just oblivious. but I fixed that. :)
 

this is an interesting thread - but I notice nobody is saying much about what femininity means to them.

maybe we've all beaten that horse to death so many times, we don't care anymore what femininity means.

in terms of the "what is femininity" project - I'd have to agree with Octogalore, in that femininity is totally subjective.

I wonder if we can only define what it WAS, and not what it IS.

Does observing femininity change femininity?

For me, more broadly speaking, femininity can be a devouring force, with teeth and claws and insatiable hunger. not necessarily negative, but certainly not necessarily passive either.
 

AP:

My take on femininity:
http://renegadeevolution.blogspot.com/2007/03/feminine-desire-rage-edition-previously.html
 

that post was a thing of beauty, Ren. I'm not sure if I told you.
 

thnaks...i like my version WAY better that the twistyettes view.
 

i like my version WAY better that the twistyettes view.

well, I wonder if many of the commenters there are trying to say "The Patriarchy thinks femininity is XYZ and PDQ," not "I, Jane Random-Commenter think femininity is XYZ and PDQ."
 

but then we get back to veronica's elegantly logical explanation that viewing femininity through the dark glass of patriarchy is patriarchal.
 

Does observing femininity change femininity?

Shroedinger's Corset?
 

exactly.
 

I also feel like I should say I have a deep admiration for people who can pull off the whole "woman" drag. it's a lot of time and effort and care and skill that I don't seem to possess. when I try to do the full female jacket, I feel like I look funny, so I really admire people who can do all that and don't look ridiculous or clownlike.

when I was very thin, and my situation had me trying to wrestle with all that feminine armor-plating on a daily basis, I used to look in the mirror and feel really weird, like I wasn't a real woman but more like a caricature of femininity.

but I think that was just me.
 

Ren - On the Vortex thread about prostitution that we were all on a while back. Feel free, but note...
I actually really like Victoria. Victoria and I are cool. Sam seems to have decided I'm the enemy, which sucks, because according to V we'd actually get along in real life...
I'm seriously confused, though. Is anyone else here under the impression that I'm all "rah rah I love prostitution!With no reservations at all!"? Because I'm not at all sure where she got that idea.
 

AP - "which makes me wonder how our experiences with our own personal micro-patriarchies color our perceptions of the wider world. "
Now that's the big question, isn't it? I think out personal experiences sort of set the filter through which we view everything, and it's very difficult to look outside that. For everyone.
Which brings us to Veronica's point..."I just don't get it. There have been a few occasions where I realize that some of those women have such a different approach to possessing a vagina and such an extremely negative view of what it is to be a woman, that I just can't relate in the slightest. It's not that I disagree with them about feminism... it's that I disagree with them about the basis of humanity and the Meaning of Life itself. "
That's where I'm at right now, too. I just don't see the world the same way they do. My universe doesn't look like that. I don't feel like that about myself. I don't WANT to feel like that about myself. It feels like a dead end, like "abandon all hope ye who enter here". Why would anyone sign up for that?
 

Is anyone else here under the impression that I'm all "rah rah I love prostitution!With no reservations at all!"? Because I'm not at all sure where she got that idea.

Cooties.

I'm serious.

You've been written off. I mean... how to put this?

I have repeatedly asserted that I am not a "sex positive" feminist. I've said that I could give a shit less if stripping is "empowering." I've clearly stated that I do see porn as prostitution, and that I find prostitution problematic. I've directly said these things to a couple of the women in question. It doesn't matter.

Because, see, it's been put forth that I'm part of the Pro-Pornstitution Tag Team. I'm also a "smug" "rape apologist" because of a run-in with Bea. (Which is why I didn't have much to say directly about her comments on lingerie. I try my best to avoid discussing her.) It was also said that it was convenient that I'm a rape victim, myself. Convenient.

If you're on the list, you're on the list. It doesn't matter what you actually think. It's all about the company you keep. If Sam's written you off, well.. the rest will follow shortly. Especially if you write about BDSM anymore. Or lusting after dudes. Actually, "Female Desire Week" might have already done it.


It feels like a dead end, like "abandon all hope ye who enter here." Why would anyone sign up for that?

I'd rather not write a book here in AP's comments... but... simply, if Patriarchy never dies, then Ms. RadFem is always, and forever, The Heroine. She's always the special one that sees through the Veil of Reality. She's always the special one with the special insight.
 

veronica - do what you gotta do. giving you the space you need is the least I could do, considering the social hit you take from hanging around with the likes of dirty ol' me.
 

It's okay. I feel like I'm beating a dead horse.
 

V - "It was also said that it was convenient that I'm a rape victim, myself. Convenient."
WTF? As in, they think you went out and got yourself raped so that you could win brownie points in arguments?
Seriously, WTF? I didn't think anyone would stoop that low.

On another note...I don't see how lusting after dudes could be interpreted as bad from a feminist point of view. If I was posting pics of half-naked women I could see how that would raise hackles, but treating men as sex objects...how is that anti-feminist?

I'm seconding the thing you said that I voted before. I don't understand how some people's minds work.
 

On another note...I don't see how lusting after dudes could be interpreted as bad from a feminist point of view. If I was posting pics of half-naked women I could see how that would raise hackles, but treating men as sex objects...how is that anti-feminist?

'Cause the Menz WANT YOU to want to have sex. You're playing into their nefarious plotz. You're a WILLINGLY SHACKLED member of the Sex Class, lusting after MENZ WHAT HATES YOU!

I wish I were fucking kidding.
 

Um, what about what I want? Does that not count?
I know, stupid question.
 

Oh, Veronica, you're brave to open up, and make fun of no less, the Men Hate You can of worms. That's another IBTP thread that got me a sentence of 50 public lashings, for saying I felt the statement was overly broad, self indulgent, and pointless.

The trainwreck that followed was so bizarre I could not look away. First, it was annouced that my husband DID hate me, would shortly leave me, and that he had metaphorically fucked an ex-prostitute commenter. Then I and various other convicted married heteros were advised that we should shave our heads, grow our hair everywhere else, and hang out solely with lesbian separatists, only read feminism-related books, and THEN SEE if our husbands were still with us.

Well, since if my husband started doing these things, I would be on the next bus to the heavy benching section of Gold's Gym to see what might look tasty, I didn't feel that this was a particularly valid test of "hate"... since last time I checked, I don't hate men...
 

Nice. I had a run-in with the "Your husband is using prostitutes, and your not allowed to assume otherwise, because you never know!!" crowd. Fun, aren't they?
 

Um, what about what I want? Does that not count?
I know, stupid question.

You don't really want what you think you want, Cassandra. You've been brainwashed by The Patriarchy. The only thing that will save you is wearing a tinfoil hat.
 

Veronica and octogalore - Sorry you both had such crappy encounters with the RadBorg. It's amazing how NASTY they can get, and how they then claim that they're NEVER nasty and that we're imagining it. Because women are nurturing and shit, and that's not a result of socialisation at all.
Veronica - Of course, silly me, why didn't I realise? I should just remember to consult Twisty before making any decisions, so that she can tell me how I really feel.
The funny thing is they'd probably dislike me even more in real life. I just attacked my husband because I found the way he was eating his ice cream provocative. And now I'm listening to a band called Sex Machine Guns. I'm pretty much doomed, really.
 

octo - If my husband started reading only one kind of book, lost all sense of fashion and sprouted hair from every avaliable orifice and patch of skin I'd be out the door by the end of the week. Hey, maybe I'm actually a man?
Seriously, if he cuts his hair I'm out of here. I LIKE long hair.
 

The funny thing is they'd probably dislike me even more in real life.

I'd be willing to doubt that. I've noticed that a lot of people aren't nearly as "hardcore" in real life as they are online...
 

V- I've never met any of them in real life so I can't say.
If you're right let's hope that applies to some of the more militantly insane MRAs, too.
 

Not sure how late I found this thread but

as the McDonalds ads say

i'm lovin' it.

it's funny, I haven't personally been attacked in a long while.

either they've given up on me or they're afraid of my whips. :)
 

Trin - From their point of view you do not and cannot exist. Fucks with the paradigm too much. Therefore, you are ignored.
 

Per 'feminine" necessarily taking lots of time--meh, I dunno. I refuse to spend more than half an hour at most myself. usually it's more like 30 seconds. a little bit of lippy doesn't take long. you're thinking of "high femme." or "high maintenance" in straight parlance.

i have a book by Charlie Anders called "The Lazy Crossdresser's Handbook." might have some handy borrowable tips if one wished to pursue femininity without fuss.

or just take a page from the Radical Faeries (see my latest post).

As for TF and co:

"Bored now."

no, seriously.
 

If you're right let's hope that applies to some of the more militantly insane MRAs, too.

Walter Mitty for the Michael Savage generation is all.
 

oh yeah, Random Bird. that was the point where I went a teensy bit over the edge, at Pandagon. well, i wrote about it here and here if you want sordid history, sort of. dunno if there's a direct link to the Mess there though.
 

oh, and here which links right back to you, AP. still not finding the Pandagon link though. but that's partly cuz i don't wanna.

my goodness, i was cranky then.
 

On reflection I'm glad I missed the whole thing. And considering removing Pandagon from my blogroll.
 

"From their point of view you do not and cannot exist. Fucks with the paradigm too much. Therefore, you are ignored."

Cassandra, you've nailed it. Exactly. I'm too different or too powerful or too pervy or too SOMETHING to dare exist AND be a woman AT THE SAME TIME OMGZ.
 

yeh, that's about when I took Pandagon off mine.

i have to admit that there's a part of me that really wishes she'd kept the Edwards gig. i'd have put it back on with the successors at the helm. and Pam of course. as it is...
 

Trin - Precisely. All of the above, actually. You are insufficiently downtrodden. This will not do.
Belle - Yep, If it were mostly Pam and Illkya I'd be fine with it. Less smugness, more self-awareness.
 

Cassandra, I'm sure you're right. But That's strange. I don't often feel insufficiently downtrodden. I guess the thing this that when I do feel downtrodden, I usually feel downtrodden for who I am. For my way of being a woman, rather than my being one. A much more individualist worry. And heaven knows, we can't have individualists around here. . .
 

Individualism seems to be verboten, as every time I say anything someone doesn't like that's what I ge accused of.
 

oh for fuck's sake. for people like that it's just a fancied up way of saying:

"you are so SELFISH. SELFISH SELFISH SELFISH. how dare you think about yourself (like, as in, honestly acknowledging what you actually think and feel) when there are (casts about) penguins starving in Antarctica? huh? Why don't you think about someone ELSE for a change. Like, um, um, uhhhhhhhhhhh, oh, just hypothetically for example...Me. except for I'm not actually gonna say so because that would be too much like actually owning my shit. I'll just make grandiose yet vague appeals to Class Woman/the Masses, who -just happens- to sound exactly like my own personal story, because I'm Every Woman, but -it's not about me-, it's about THE PEOPLE. why are people always getting in the way of The People? so SELFISH. people suck. Up the People! VIVA!"
 

BD and Cassandra-- touche. They're too embarrassed to say: "what about ME? I would not mind getting some benefits from our world like you 'individualists". But I'm worried that I can't. Although I pretend I could, easily, if I were willing to play the stupid games you play, I fear that even if I did all that, I still might not succeed. So let's see, what can I do? I know: accuse you all who are out there doing your thing in the real world of selling out. That makes me feel much, much better! I know, I will call you men! That way I can take your gender identity away from you! And also, I can thereby make the point that maybe I cannot succeed because I am NOT a man. I am female therefore victim. I CANNOT succeed no matter what. So I don't need to try. It's more productive to tell others where they are going wrong. Yeah!"
 

for me it's even more basic than that: it's a control thing. bad boundaries. a person could be "successful" in standard RL terms and still pull that kind of shit. it's about, "how dare you be separate from me; how dare you manifest the possibility that My Theory Of How Things Work is incorrect, because then where will I be?"
 

Belle - "for me it's even more basic than that: it's a control thing. bad boundaries. a person could be "successful" in standard RL terms and still pull that kind of shit. it's about, "how dare you be separate from me; how dare you manifest the possibility that My Theory Of How Things Work is incorrect, because then where will I be?"
Yep. That's what I think is going on. If your whole identity is tied up in the theory, how do you respond to people who don't fit the theory? Damn those people for fucking up the nice, neat theory!
 

BD and Cassandra - agree. Although, and this may be unfair, I would bet that a large proportion of the anti-empowerful types are NOT successful in RL terms.
 

Octo - Difficult to judge, since I'm not sure how we're defining "successful".
 

Cassandra -- I think it's subjective, but my definition would be someone who's happy with both her personal and professional life.
 

octo - That's a tough one. How many people are truly happy with their professional lives? Most people are just soldiering on trying to make a living.
BTW, I appreciate your contribution to my thread and would be delighted to hear more from you.
 

Cassandra -- agreed, most everyone I know would quit immediately if they won the lottery, so maybe "happy" is the wrong word. Maybe what I'm getting at is "at peace with" or "not bitter about." Because it strikes me that anecdotal evidence suggests there is a difference in this regard between the anti-empowerful types and those who are not willing to be as hard-line about "men hate us" or "all femininity is evil."

I just have not heard anyone say the latter two things and at the same time feel pretty good about their boyfriends/girlfriends and work lives. Philosophies stemming from bitterness aren't any more valid than those stemming from rose-colored naivete.

And re your blog, many thanks and I hope to see more of you as well (if I can get my act together to post more).
 

octo - Post more and the people shall come, including me.
I get what you mean now, but I'm reluctant to call people out on that because, while I suspect a lot of people are speaking from a place of anger and bitterness, in many cases there's a lot of real hurt behind that. Women who really have been abused throughout their lives are inevitably going to have a different take on a lot of things, and I don't feel right about throwing that in people's faces.
In other words, it's easy for me to say "why are you so bitter and angry?" since no man has ever done anything really awful to me. For someone who has been genuinely victimised, it's not so easy, or at least that's my theory.
We're all influenced by our life experiences in how we see things.
 

Cassandra -- understood. But I'm not suggesting discounting people's perspective or calling them on it, simply that anecdotal evidence good or bad can't be used to back up blanket statements involving ALL or NONE. I think the perspective of women who haven't gotten a fair shake re employment or personal life is very valid and should inform policy. But it should NOT entitle them to insist that others' perspectives aren't just as valid.

I don't think it's in good taste to call into question anyone's bitterness, either. That person probably has a right to be bitter. But when the bitterness extends to (1) trying to develop an entire philosophy that can only fit a world in which female bitterness is universal, and (2) ridiculing and attempting to silence those who feel there are glimmers of hope that can be the platform for change, then I most certainly do have a problem.
 

Agreed completely. I'm just not sure how to go about pointing out the dyamics of what's going on - ie, I acknowledge that you, person X, have had crappy experiences and therefore have every right to feel the way you feel, BUT that does not mean that those experiences are universal or inevitable - without making the other person feel as if their experiences are being minimised or their perspective dismissed as invalid.
 

And there's the rub. There is no way. And since in those contexts (the "mostly crappy experiences" ones), the "THEY ALL HATE US" group outnumbers us, trying to do so is fairly masochistic. Not, of course, that I don't get off on that sometimes...
 

See, I don't think they really do outnumber us. I think there are lots of women who actually ARE feminists but who think that they can't identify as such because thinking "THEY ALL HATE US" is a requirement. Or who have given up participating in the conversation after getting torn a new asshole a few times.
I think we actually outnumber them, we just don't shout as loud.