Sexism - It's a Real Thing

[Moiraine]

10 minutes ago, zoogs said:

I mean I just think both of these are gendered putdowns:

- Woman's claims are probably fiction she is attempting to pass off as fact

- Highly credentialed woman obviously shows no skill in her area

 

But they're not, and you should know they're not, because they're coming from me. Ya, women can be anti-feminist. But I'm not some random woman you've never talked to before. I think the article is fiction because it sounds like fiction. I don't think I said she's a bad writer. I said the writing in the essay is bad. The form and grammar are probably great. It's the over the top s#!t that really bothers me. "We speak of it like an infection: has it spread to your household yet? " <-- come the f*** on... Let's assume every example is real. It could have been a good piece if she had written it straight. The fact she didn't made it all seem fake and dramatized. I read her article on emojis, and there not being female ones for important jobs whereas there are ones for male police officers, etc., and it was alright. That's the type of stuff that may sound like nothing but it actually is something to me, because it's everywhere in society, including in small things that people aren't conscious of until they really think about it.

 

 

2 minutes ago, zoogs said:

So, I'm curious about this. The essay is broadly about the strains in relationships caused by liberal men who have pretty negative reactions to the active and sometimes angry activism of women since the 2016 election. If we were to point to some public expressions of that activism and then highlight visibly hostile reactions to it even from within the left, and we agree that this is a legitimate problem...doesn't that actually have everything to do with the essay? Isn't the type of person who would have that reaction precisely the subject of the essay? I mean, it's not everyone, thank goodness, but it's also not nobody, and it's anywhere from no trouble at all, to a bit of a bother, to totally shattering to those who find themselves in this boat.

 

I would say they're related to the essay. But they're obvious real examples. The problem with the essay is it's made up or sounds made up. People don't talk that way. We don't NEED to make stuff up! That's what the things you're posting show. There are legitimate problems, which you've already mentioned. All of the examples she wrote about sound stupid, and then there's the one thing that is completely over the top crazy which is the man who burned some of the woman's possessions while she was gone. The woman crying that she has 3 children - her marriage might end because her husband isn't feminist enough? Both of these people are idiots if they're real, in my opinion. As are all of the other couples described.

[zoogs]

I don't think you or I are immune to using gendered arguments. I do know you and don't think you are anti-feminist, but I do think the nature of this takedown resorted to those lines. I just wanted to really push back on the idea that this is some dumb woman who, because she got all dramatic, spewed out some poorly-written nonsense, which is what I felt was the case being made against her.

 

I agree with you that we don't need to make stuff up to make our case, but I reeeally think "this doesn't feel real to me" is a flimsy, subjective basis on which to rest the claim that she did.

 

Also, I don't know if I'd go as far as to say people whose relationships fail over this are idiots. It's hard. To be sure some of them probably are; many people are. But not being in those shoes I really don't think the point is to blame the people who couldn't find some way to salvage it. And of course, it's likely that "not feminist enough" is both not the only reason in that case, and a really trivializing rendering of the husband in question. As for crazy relationship stories, I've heard my fair share...anyway, even if everyone involved is an idiot, I think the point is still that *this* is what is setting it all off.

 

Let's focus on what we agree on, then? There's people with a profoundly felt, unshakeable conviction that gender issues aren't real, and it's difficult. You and I know and agree that there are people who fit this category, and that no, a large share of them probably will never get it, would be happy to do anything other than to get it. However much I think we both wish they just would.

 

On the fire guy, I dunno, I can kinda see it; like, he thinks of Hillary as a snake or a bitch, thought it'd be amusing to chuck some things into the fireplace or whatever. Some people like smashing or shooting or exploding or setting things on fire for the sport of it, and maybe that's the context. People had some fun destroying their Keurigs in creative ways because it upset Sean Hannity. Here is a video of someone literally setting Hillary's book on fire and thinking that would be a cool thing to upload to YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jh2MTAWOaUM Politics gets people really worked up. 

 

[Moiraine]

45 minutes ago, zoogs said:

...I do think the nature of this takedown resorted to those lines. I just wanted to really push back on the idea that this is some dumb woman who, because she got all dramatic, spewed out some poorly-written nonsense, which is what I felt was the case being made against her.

It didn't. And that idea never existed except in your head. You're 100% wrong in this and were the previous 2 or 3 times you said it.

 

There are women who are stupid, who are overdramatic, and there are female writers who write a bad essay. They don't need to be protected and have the people who are critiquing them accused of using "gendered arguments." With this argument you're projecting weakness onto women by saying these criticisms can't possibly be legitimate and must have been made because they're women. No one called her dumb, btw. And how anyone can possibly read those first 3 paragraphs and not think they're over-dramatic is beyond me. I don't care whether the author is male or female, I would have used those same exact words regardless.

 

 

 

Quote

I see it sometimes in the grocery store: the way he scowls or rolls his eyes when she suggests the honeyed ham.

Eye-rolling during ham-selection, a clear sign of liberal-man-gone-chauvinist-pig.

Edited March 8, 2018 by Moiraine

[RedDenver]

17 hours ago, Moiraine said:

Quote

I see it sometimes in the grocery store: the way he scowls or rolls his eyes when she suggests the honeyed ham.

Eye-rolling during ham-selection, a clear sign of liberal-man-gone-chauvinist-pig.

 

That said a whole lot more about the author judging strangers than about feminism.

[zoogs]

Really good thread from David Roberts here in talking about the lens through which we view every story, in a very default way, and the way it sticks out when it's inverted. A few quotes:
 

Quote

 

"In these stories, women are bit parts, chapters, passing interactions that shape (or bring down) men. We do this instinctively, subconsciously (yes, even women ... socialization affects us all) ...

 

"If we valued women as individual human beings, autonomous and freestanding, with their own talents and stories ... we would see this accumulation as an ancient and ongoing tragedy, an enormous squandering of human potential stretched out over generations and generations, still underway as we speak. We would be horrified."

 

 

It reminds me when we talk about some scandal-embroiled famous director or whatever and all the talent they had, and the pleas I've read many times before to think instead about the talent we all never got to see because they were silenced, or pushed out, or discouraged from the field because of the harassment they endured.

 

And speaking of accumulation, take for example the percentage of directors of top movies who are women, it's not high and it's probably a lot lower than you were thinking just now. I remember hearing a couple -- remember that I am a smug, coastal liberal elite who eats soppressata and am surrounded by likewise -- talking about how poor the representation of women onscreen was, how much lower the salaries commanded by female stars. The guy responded, evenly, that this was just the market and what people want to see, and anyway, they needed to be focusing on [whatever work]. Socialization does affect us all, but no, more to the point, it's what the status quo pool of overwhelming male-dominated control of creative production wants to see and assumes everyone else does, too.

 

Back to the tweet thread, @drvox mentions @rtraister and @JessicaValenti who do a lot of great writing on this subject and are valuable reads/follows to anyone curious.

[zoogs]

Case in very much point:

Scare quotes, too.

[Guy Chamberlin]

On 2/27/2018 at 10:00 PM, zoogs said:

As women are wont to do, she's probably both hysterical and fabricating.

 

 

 

I think the true measure of equality is when we recognize that women are just as capable as men of creating anecdotal essays around a provocative POV to drive up the views on their blog. 

[zoogs]

I think maybe a better measure of equality is to recognize how frequently and easily we all fall in the trap of rendering women into provocative attention-seakers with lowbrow ulterior motives compared to men -- and maybe "finally, we have found a woman in this category, too" is like saying "true equality is recognizing that women can also be nothing more than a pretty face with no real talent".

 

 

[Guy Chamberlin]

45 minutes ago, zoogs said:

Case in very much point:

Scare quotes, too.

 

 

If you want to point out that the #metoo movement is taking down men once protected by their heralded position, you would need to cite the heralded position. The word "greatest" seems less neutral  than "most famous" or  "most respected" but if those extra letters push the push notification to four lines, the low level underling who writes them would have gone with "greatest."

 

If you are citing the Metropolitan Opera's stated reason for the firing, you put "sexually abusive" in quotes. That's how journalism works. 

 

I don't know anyone who is shocked that high culture is populated by arrogant male predators -- or thinks this crosses any line the previous outings didn't. 

 

There's a long history of brilliant artists who were raging azzholes. We can have a whole other conversation on whether you should stop loving their work or acknowledging their talent. 

Edited March 13, 2018 by Guy Chamberlin

[Guy Chamberlin]

13 minutes ago, zoogs said:

I think maybe a better measure of equality is to recognize how frequently and easily we all fall in the trap of rendering women into provocative attention-seakers with lowbrow ulterior motives compared to men -- and maybe "finally, we have found a woman in this category, too" is like saying "true equality is recognizing that women can also be nothing more than a pretty face with no real talent".

 

 

 

You do realize that you've been mansplaining feminism to a reasonable cross-section of perfectly intelligent posters, right?

[zoogs]

We can reasonably disagree on the article. It is not reasonable to portray "seeing women as something they are already prone to being seen as, too" as the real equality. If it helps to change the subject from women to make the same point: "Progress is finally being able to see Black people on the street as also possibly dangerous criminals." 

 

Making a feminist argument is "mansplaining", but asserting the default, male-oriented perspective as the Actual Feminist position is not? OK. We can disagree, but let's stop getting things this backward. To be clear, I have not and am not accusing you of this term -- you are the one who has brought it up.

 

The easy headline here is "Met fires prominent conductor James Levine, finding evidence of sexually abusive conduct." You're going through an awful lot of trouble to justify.

 

Edited March 13, 2018 by zoogs

[Moiraine]

The quotations bothered me too.

It doesn't matter that it was a quote. The fact is there are 2 different ways to read it, and one of them is really not good. And they're a newspaper, not a random message board poster.

It's kind of like the oxford comma argument, there can be more than one meaning depending on if you use it. Except doing it one way here (using quotations) looks a lot worse. They could've easily made the meaning clear by writing it like zoogs did. Or they could've had it say "citing 'sexually abusive conduct" <-- that would've fixed it too.

Edited March 13, 2018 by Moiraine

[Guy Chamberlin]

56 minutes ago, zoogs said:

We can reasonably disagree on the article. It is not reasonable to portray "seeing women as something they are already prone to being seen as, too" as the real equality. If it helps to change the subject from women to make the same point: "Progress is finally being able to see Black people on the street as also possibly dangerous criminals." 

 

 

 

Again, an odd way to characterize a post.

 

 To make the same point you simply have to say "I think the true measure of equality is when we recognize that black people are just as capable as white people of creating anecdotal essays around a provocative POV to drive up the views on their blog."  

 

I may be wrong about the intent behind the Times push alert, but when I read it I did not feel  any pity or injustice for Levine.  If anything, I thought of the person writing a push alert about the Metropolitan Opera, having to remind less cultured readers that this was a pretty huge deal in that world.

[zoogs]

https://twitter.com/MonstererBunny/status/973388654667272197

 

Connecting some threads on perspective, film, and the perfectly normal and usually respected valuing of different traits by gender, a Twitter thread:

 

 

Particularly good example with the nice compare and contrast:

 

 

Lastly the thread gets disconnected somewhere because of just-deleted posts, but obviously it ends in this pleasant exchange. NSFW language warning:

 

 

...between a female software engineer and a guy who appears to be unhappy that Trump won, blames it on "feminazi"s such as her, asserts that reasonable and intelligent women hate feminists, and caps it off with the classic suggestion that she's just bitter because she's not getting laid.

-----

 

Here is another thread offering some nuanced criticisms of a particular shared quality in some shows which, to be clear, the author nonetheless enjoys (and what else are we going to watch right now, anyway). 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

I've soured a great deal on the Homer character in recent years and this kind of puts some of my feelings about that in text. Though I kind of feel this extends far beyond cartoons with the whole "bumbling doofus dad / capable tough woman who holds it all together" trope in sitcoms that sometimes gets cited as n example of our culture's woman-revering feminism. It's a reinforcement of the "we suck sometimes, thank you so much for putting up with us" theme that gets mentioned in this thread, and which I feel is less an exercise in self-deprecating humility than it is a hope for things to stay as they are.

 

Anyway, I'm sorry for posting so much in so many different directions, but I really like this topic and am always finding something. shared or elaborated in an insightful way. Speaking of TV, have any of you watched Covert Affairs? For a CIA spy show I feel it's one that does a much better job than most of either not demonstrating the usual roles, or inverting the trope. Of all the shows I used to watch and have revisited more recently, it's one of the few that is still passing muster.

 

 

Edited March 13, 2018 by zoogs

[zoogs]

@Guy,  that wouldn't be the same point at all. Women are the category of people who are usually written off as just trying to get attention, or their serious efforts belittled as juvenile, not men; this doesn't mean that you'd be wrong to say this about any women, but it does mean "actually, that's the real equality" is a reeeeeeeeeeeeal stretch of an interpretation. Frivolous and attention-seeking is the default bucket women get thrown into, and maybe you feel it is justified in this case but it is not some bold new equality to "develop" the ability to do this.

 

You assert reason in the face of odd interpretations; "woman writes provocative stuff just to get hits for her blog" is a truly strange interpretation of a regular writer and Professor of English composing a heartfelt essay for a literary website that is not her own. Let's disagree on our feelings about the content and leave it at that.

 

To the push alert, the suggestion is not that it was nefariously composed so as to solicit pity for a man who plainly deserves none. I posted that as a follow-up to my previous post, a thread by @drvox on the recent This American Life podcast in which he goes in depth about how such stories are usually framed with the man as the protagonist and the consequences of such a singular way of consuming these bits of news. I do feel, independently of that, whoever came up with the phrasing had to try pretty hard to make it look that way. Their pity for Mr. Levine was obvious, and it's disappointing to see this as a neutral breaking news alert from the self-designated paper of record.