6.28.2010

Now, what did you say?

I'm tired of the double standards. Especially the one where women have to be meek and kind and subservient to get shit done(good thing HerrTech doesn't read this blog, he hates it when I curse needlessly). A couple weeks ago one of my colleagues told me not to become "a bitch, like so-and-so" is. So-and-so is extremely polite and optimistic. She encourages everyone, even douchebags who should be slapped back to Failville. (Failville, the new Farmville for Failbook!) But I guess any woman in authority becomes a bitch. He attempted to correct himself and say that that was ok and necessary in the business world, that he himself was an ass more often than not. But the fact that his immediate impulse was to not appreciate how authoritative, confident and proactive she had become was discouraging.
 
So imagine my lack of surprise when this all broke out on the blogosphere. Where two of my favorite female bloggers were called out for being bullies on the merits that they had called out another blogger for being a racist. Supporting data that when people left comments on their site they actually defended their own opinions on things or disagreed with said commenters. And other people disagreed too. That made it a conspiracy.
 
But the problem here isn't discourse or what has happened to being polite and the usual whining about anonymous commenters on the internet...the problem is two women had strong opinions. This isn't allowed. Even on the internet. Even where either one of them could be a dude in real life pretending to be a woman (for what purpose I don't know, but there you go). All it takes is an internet moniker where someone can place you in the female category and then immediately lump in all their stereotypes about what you're doing right or wrong. Isis gets accussed of blogging about her kid too much or blogging too much about shoes. Because in order to be a "true" feminist, I guess you can't like shoes or heels. That is just wrong. And on the other end of the spectrum Zuska is often insulted as being not feminine enough, one of those "hairy legged" feminists. So there's no winning. And now because people read their blogs some douchebag is asserting they have "power" and that by disagreeing with other people on the internet that is considered bullying. I hope said douchebag moves on to topics of more interest because Isis and Zuska know as well as I do the real crime here; blogging/writing/speaking while female.

4 comments:

  1. I'm glad you brought up how frustrating it was that in addition to the "bullying" comment, both Isis' and Zuska's ways of doing feminism were criticized. Ahem, I may feel that high-heeled shoes are encumbrances that stifle the revolutionary potential of many women, but it is not anyone's place to demand that other people's choices match some ideal of non-compliance with the Patriarchy. We're all doing the best we can with the social programming we've got. And if Isis blogs about shoes and sexism, it takes a lot of chutzpuh for some porn-apologist to demand that she conform to his idea of what a feminist should be in order to be respected as a feminist blogger. Ditto to Zuska; she's never doing enough outreach to d00dly d00ds for some people, but some of those trolls are happy to make veiled (or not so veiled) rape allusions/threats on her blog. That one thread degenerated into actual threats of violence so quickly -- I'm astonished that JGG can't see that the "bullying" he laments is so very different from the actual violence that is directed at Zuska and Isis ... for speaking their minds.

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  2. Thanks, and I agree with you on the high heels. I, too, can not seem to pull them off. But like that old quote, I may not wear those shoes but I'll defend to the death your right to wear them.

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  3. I really appreciate your pointing out how differently Isis and I approach our blogging about feminism, and how neither approach is satisfactory - Isis should be more militant and less feminine! Zuska should be less militant and more feminine! Neither of you tastes great and you're both too filling for our tiny d00dly brains!!!

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  4. Yeah you can't win. Though I laughed at your comment you make it sound almost like evaluating a breakfast cereal more than thinking about people!

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