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Dec 01
First (and last) Contact
Women have a long tradition of being diplomats. “Historically… marriage has been the major alliance mechanism of every society, and little girls are trained for roles as intervillage family diplomats…the married woman straddles two kin networks, two villages, sometimes two cultures” (The Underside of History, Elise Boulding, p.53-54).
Many women have decades of experience, settling a dozen disputes a day. To whom do the kids go crying “It’s not fair!”? Mom. She’s the mediator, the negotiator extraordinaire.
Girls develop language skills before boys, and their level of proficiency continues throughout their lives to be superior. Women in languages and linguistics degree programs outnumber men.
Translators? Women. Writers? Women. In short, women are better at communication.
(And) (So) We talk a lot. (Well, when we’re not interrupted by men.) Although ‘gossip’ can be superficial and mean, much talk among women is unjustly dismissed with that term – when women talk, they’re doing social cohesion work.
But of course communication doesn’t involve just words. And, well, women are also better than men at reading facial expression and body language. And they go deeper: men actually avoid any kind of psychological understanding (of themselves as well as others); women actively embrace such knowledge (“But why did you do that?”).
Lastly, women, whether by nature or nurture, are more predisposed to cooperate, whereas men are more predisposed to compete. We prefer a win-win solution; men love a win-lose one.
So why is it that when presidents fill their ambassador and diplomat positions, they appoint men? Is it because their ambassadors and diplomats will be talking with men? And men are more comfortable talking to other men? That would mean ambassadors and diplomats are men because they’re men.
Or is it (also) because the goal of a diplomatic exchange is not to cooperate, not to resolve conflict, but to conquer, to come away ‘one up’ on the other? Diplomats are really just smoke screens; mediation isn’t the goal at all.
And why is that? It could be as simple, and as awful, as (1) Women are good at mediation; (2) Whatever women are good at is devalued; therefore, (3) Mediation is devalued.
But look at where that’s gotten us. Planet-wide, we spend more on weapons than food, clothing, and entertainment put together. Unless of course you consider weapons to be entertainment. Which apparently men do. (Turn on any tv show during prime time, and nine times out of ten a gun will be fired in the first five minutes.)
But hey, when the aliens come, NASA’s first contact team had better include a bunch of women. Because please, guys, all those weapons of yours? They will surely be but slingshots.
[Hell Yeah, I’m a Feminist is a feminist blog, often radical feminist (radfem), always anti-gender and anti-sexism.]
Nov 22
A Little Less Evolved
Sometimes I wonder whether men have a defective chromosome: the Y was supposed to be an X, but somehow it ended up missing something – a case of stunted growth, or arrested development. This defective chromosome, uniquely characteristic of the human male, causes them to be a little lower on the evolutionary scale, a little less evolved.
Consider their fascination with movement. They always have to be doing something, moving around, busy at this or that. They can’t sit still. This importance of movement is characteristic of many lower animals; something doesn’t even register in the frog’s visual field unless it moves. Certainly movement is required for flight and fight. (And no other options occur to lower animals.) And for many, movement is a form of posturing – which explains the way men walk, and stand, and sit. On the other hand, such excessive physical activity may simply suggest that the organism’s mental activity does not provide enough stimulation.
Not only must they be doing something, they must be doing it loudly. They even speak more loudly than women. And when they’re not speaking, they must be making noise. They derive endless delight from engines, jackhammers, chainsaws… This propensity is suggestive of the lion’s roar – the louder the noise, the greater the threat.
Because, usually, the larger the animal. And of course size is another male obsession. Girth which in a woman would be considered obese and disgusting is carried by men as if it increases their legitimacy, their authority: they thrust out their gut just as they thrust out their chest. It brings to mind animals that inflate themselves to achieve greater size (the balloonfish can actually double its size). Men are concerned not only with physical size, in general and in particular, but also with the size of their paycheques, their houses, their corporations. The bigger, the better.
Closely related to the size thing is the territory thing. Men occupy a lot of space – again, look at the way they stand and sit. They take up, they occupy, more space than they need – they lean on counters, sprawl on chairs, take over small countries. They engage in turf wars, at every level.
Consider also men’s obsession with speed. Cars, trains, planes. Sex. Speed is, of course, important for flight, one of the forementioned behaviours favoured by so many lower animals.
Like their sexual response, men’s emotional response is, well, uncomplicated. They are easy to please. This lack of complexity is further indication that they are simply less evolved.
Some say that language is the mark of higher life forms. And, of course, any grade school teacher will tell you that boys lag behind girls in verbal development. They’re just not very good at communicating. I believe the word I’m looking for is ‘inarticulate.’
By way of summary, consider dick flicks. Also called action movies, there is indeed lots of action. And lots of noise. The heroes are usually big. And they have big things – big guns, usually. The central conflict of a dick flick is almost always territorial. There is little in the way of plot or character development, but there’s always at least one high-speed chase scene. And, understandably, the dialogue in a dick flick consists mostly of short and often incomplete sentences.
[Hell Yeah, I’m a Feminist is a feminist blog, often radical feminist (radfem), always anti-gender and anti-sexism.]
Nov 16
To the Morons who wear Make-Up
First, there’s the ageism you’re perpetuating: make-up is intended, to a large degree, to make one look younger. In many respects, younger is better, but in many respects, it isn’t (and anyway, make-up merely gives one the appearance of being younger). True, at some point in time, being old is completely the pits, but hey, that’s life, deal with it – without delusion or deception (or implied insult).
Second, if make-up were merely intended to (attempt to) make one beautiful, well, I suppose there’s no harm in that – the world can always use a little more beauty. However, I despair at the pathetically low aesthetic standards in use if a blue eyelid is considered beautiful – let’s at least see a glittering rainbow under that eyebrow arch! Further, I despair at the attention to beauty of skin if at the expense of beauty of character.
However, make-up is intended as much, if not more, to (attempt to) make one sexually attractive. (To some extent, I suppose physical beauty is sexually attractive, but that suggests a very narrow definition of beauty: a dog running full-out is beautiful but not, at least to me, sexually attractive.) (It also suggests a very narrow definition of sexual attractiveness.) I’m thinking, for example, of reddened (and puckered) lips – what is that but an advertisement for fellatio? Consider too the perfume (especially if it’s musk rather than floral), and the earrings (earlobes as erogenous zones), and the bras that push up and pad – all are part of the woman’s morning grooming routine, her ‘getting ready’ (that phrase itself begs the question ‘Ready for what?’) (‘Sex!’).
Now there’s nothing wrong with being sexually attractive per se. But there is something wrong – something sick – about wanting to be bait (sexually attract-ive) all day long. Especially when those same women complain about the attention they receive for their sexual attractiveness – the looks, the comments, the invitations (can you say ‘sexual harassment’?) Not only is there a serious self-esteem problem here, there’s a serious consistency of thought problem here.
Third, combine the first point with the first part of the second point and we see another problem: make-up endorses the ‘(only) young is beautiful’ attitude.
Combine the first point with the second part of the second point: make-up endorses the ‘(only) young is sexually attractive’ attitude.
Add the shaved legs and armpits (and eyeliner, for that big baby doe-eyed look?), and we see we’re not just talking ‘young’ as in ‘twenty years old’ but ‘young’ as in pre-pubescent (only pre-pubescents are hairless, only pre-pubescents have such smooth skin). And that’s really disturbing – to establish/reinforce the sexual attractiveness of pre-pubescents.
Why is it (we think) men find young women, girls, sexually attractive? I doubt it’s just the ‘heathy for childbearing’ thing. Because actually, it’s not healthy for girls to bear children, and it’s not even possible for pre-pubescents to do so. (And it’s not like the men follow up in nine months to claim their progeny.) (But then I’m assuming rational behaviour here.)
I suspect it’s the power thing. Men can have power over, feel superior to, children more easily than adults. So in addition to encouraging child sexual abuse, women who shave their legs and otherwise appear/act prepubescent are reinforcing the ‘sex as power’ instead of ‘sex as pleasure’ attitude (though of course I guess for many men power is pleasure).
Last, compounding all of this is the custom that only women wear make-up. Which reinforces the whole patriarchy thing: the women are sexual objects while the men are sexual subjects. (‘Course, without make-up, and the loss of about 20 pounds, and, well, major surgery, most men couldn’t cut it as sexual objects anyway.)
Nov 07
Swedish Cinemas using the Bechdel test!!
Check it out here!
[Hell Yeah, I’m a Feminist is a feminist blog, often radical feminist (radfem), always anti-gender and anti-sexism.]
Nov 01
What happens when men do the cooking and the baking?
Used to be women did the cooking and the baking. Then men starting getting into it. And in theory, I have no problem with that. In fact, I’m all for making everything gender-unaligned. But now that men are in the kitchen, suddenly it’s important. So important it’s being televised.
And my god, the drama! (And they call us drama queens.) The tension, the conflict… Chefs (yes, men are chefs; women were just cooks) scream with self-righteous anger at their minions, they rush around with great urgency making sure every sprinkle of cinnamon is just right, because, well, it’s so frickin’ important.
The phenomenon defies logic. Drama, therefore importance? No, because then the toddler screaming about his toy truck in the shopping mall would rank right up there with nuclear disarmament.
If anything, Continue reading
Oct 24
The Pill for Men
‘Outrageous!’ That was the word used way back in ’85 in response to the expectation that men take a contraceptive that had a side-effect of reduced sex drive. Hello. Let me tell you about the contraceptive pill for women. Side-effects include headaches, nausea, weight gain, mood changes, yeast infections, loss of vision, high blood pressure, gall bladder disease, liver tumours, skin cancer, strokes, heart attacks, and death. Oh, and reduced sex drive. (Thing is, and get this – do not pass go until you do – taking the pill is, for many of us, preferable to getting pregnant.)
But, you know, Continue reading
Oct 17
The Wife
The Good Wife, The Trophy Wife, The First Wives Club…why in the 21st century do women continue to be so frequently identified as wives? That is, identified in relation to men?
We don’t see a similar proliferation of tv shows and movies with “husband” in the title. The word is emasculating. It would be especially so if it were in the context of “The Perfect Husband” or “Julia’s Husband” or some such.
Why don’t people see that “wife” is just as bad, just as subordinating?
(They do. That’s why the male writers, directors, and producers use it so often.)
(On a somewhat related note, I once read with amazement the synopsis of a movie that went something like “A man’s wife goes missing from their house and …” — why didn’t they just say “A woman goes missing from her house and …” ??)
[Hell Yeah, I’m a Feminist is a feminist blog, often radical feminist (radfem), always anti-gender and anti-sexism.]
Oct 14
Ladies, It’s Your Fault – GREAT video!
Check out this GREAT video! “Ladies, It’s Your Fault!”
Oct 10
Marriage: A Sexist Affair
Marriage, by its very (traditional) definition, is a sexist affair: it involves one of each sex, one male and one female. And I suppose this is because, traditionally, the purpose of marriage was family: to start a family, to have and raise children.
This view is fraught with questionable assumptions, glaring inconsistencies, and blatant errors. I’ll give one of each: the connection between having and raising children is not at all necessary, hence the ‘one male and one female’ is not at all necessary; if the purpose of marriage is to have a family, why do couples who do not intend to have children nevertheless marry – and why don’t couples routinely divorce once the children are raised; the marriage contract goes well beyond family concerns – indeed, it barely approaches family concerns – one pledges to love and honour one’s spouse, not one’s children.
Notwithstanding the very mistaken connection between marriage and family, I’d like to suggest another reason for the sexism in marriage. Assuming that marriage entails love, and love entails ‘looking after’, sexism makes things ‘easier’.
Consider this: Continue reading
Books by Peg Tittle
Writing as Jass Richards
Writing as Chris Wind
