Obligatory shit-stirring.
Well,
wolfychan is taking the week off of ranting in order to think about flowers and bunnies, so I guess this one falls to me. A few days ago, Charlotte Allen, a true gem of the modern post-feminist movement, wrote this charming little article about how women are stupid because we read chick-lit and can't add and...actually, I get a little lost right around the spot where she says she doesn't know how many shoes she owns and that the talents of the female mind lay in the home. Because we can put blankets on couches, which as anyone knows, men are utterly incapable of.
Anyway. The article was not well-received, and instead of just writing a little apology--"Sorry, I thought I was being funny, guess not, my bad," she has written a long (looooong) Q&A style explanation of how she is hilarious and anyone who doesn't agree is a humorless feminist who probably kicks men in the testicles and eats babies for lunch.
Some choice excerpts below.
Washington:"They Scream, They Swoon. How Dumb Can Blacks Get?" "They Scream, They Swoon. How Dumb Can Men Get?" "They Scream, They Swoon. How Dumb Can Latinos Get?" Ha ha! Very funny. I'm laughing my head off. Inside. Get a clue.
Charlotte Allen: Is this a compliment or an insult?
You can't figure that out and you have the gall to think we're dumb for not getting your joke?
Washington: Okay, you said you didn't see it as satire (and clearly you haven't written satire). Have you ever written humor before? Because you have written articles critical of women who don't fall lockstep into your idea of how women should act. Given your previous writings, why should anyone have thought "oh, now she's being funny"?
Charlotte Allen: I'm not sure which articles you're referring to. Isn't it obvious what's funny and what's not?
No. No, it really isn't. Because nothing you write is funny, except in a pitying 'what a moron' sense.
New York:"Women aren't a historically oppressed minority." Really? So we've always had the right to vote, not to be raped and have control over our bodies? Can I have some of whatever wacky antifeminist weed you're smoking?
Charlotte Allen: Minority? Not when I last counted. And when did women get the vote--1921? 1923? Rape was a capital crime under Roman law. You know--the Romans, 2,000 years ago. As for "control over our bodies," I guess you mean abortion. Wasn't Roe vs. Wade decided in 1973?
Lady, buy a clue. Here's the definition of minority, which I discovered after three seconds of painstaking Wikipedia research: "A sociological minority is not necessarily a numerical minority - it may include any group that is disadvantaged with respect to a dominant group in terms of social status, education, employment, wealth and political power."
Women got the vote in 1920. Rape was not a capital crime under Roman law, and was only illegal at all because it deprived fathers of the 'right' to choose their daughters' spouses. Not exactly liberating. Many rape victims ended up forced to marry their attackers.
New York: I get it! Your piece was a stab at Swiftian level satire -- by using clearly flawed logic to assert that women are inferior, you attempted to prove that women are in fact brilliant! Thanks for being such an awesome feminist, Charlotte.
Charlotte Allen: I gather you're making an attempt here to mimic Jonathan Swift.
The wit! The snappy responses! You just can't keep up with this woman!
Flushing, Mich.: Dear Ms. Allen: It's pretty clear you could have gotten away with a similar article demeaning men. It's done all the time and any who complain are dismissed easily. It has been pretty clear for some time that you cannot write such things about women. My question is why you thought you could get away with it. Do you have evidence that the taboo is weakening?
Charlotte Allen: I hope that articles like mine will weaken that taboo. But right now, just to hint that men and women as groups have different aptitudes is to risk the fate of Larry Summers. Fortunately, I'm not president of Harvard.
That's because men and women, as groups, really don't have different intellectual aptitudes. The reason that your article pissed people off is not that you were so zingingly, brilliantly insightful--it's that you were fucking wrong, and you don't seem to be able to grasp that.
wolfychan is taking the week off of ranting in order to think about flowers and bunnies, so I guess this one falls to me. A few days ago, Charlotte Allen, a true gem of the modern post-feminist movement, wrote this charming little article about how women are stupid because we read chick-lit and can't add and...actually, I get a little lost right around the spot where she says she doesn't know how many shoes she owns and that the talents of the female mind lay in the home. Because we can put blankets on couches, which as anyone knows, men are utterly incapable of.
Anyway. The article was not well-received, and instead of just writing a little apology--"Sorry, I thought I was being funny, guess not, my bad," she has written a long (looooong) Q&A style explanation of how she is hilarious and anyone who doesn't agree is a humorless feminist who probably kicks men in the testicles and eats babies for lunch.
Some choice excerpts below.
Washington:"They Scream, They Swoon. How Dumb Can Blacks Get?" "They Scream, They Swoon. How Dumb Can Men Get?" "They Scream, They Swoon. How Dumb Can Latinos Get?" Ha ha! Very funny. I'm laughing my head off. Inside. Get a clue.
Charlotte Allen: Is this a compliment or an insult?
You can't figure that out and you have the gall to think we're dumb for not getting your joke?
Washington: Okay, you said you didn't see it as satire (and clearly you haven't written satire). Have you ever written humor before? Because you have written articles critical of women who don't fall lockstep into your idea of how women should act. Given your previous writings, why should anyone have thought "oh, now she's being funny"?
Charlotte Allen: I'm not sure which articles you're referring to. Isn't it obvious what's funny and what's not?
No. No, it really isn't. Because nothing you write is funny, except in a pitying 'what a moron' sense.
New York:"Women aren't a historically oppressed minority." Really? So we've always had the right to vote, not to be raped and have control over our bodies? Can I have some of whatever wacky antifeminist weed you're smoking?
Charlotte Allen: Minority? Not when I last counted. And when did women get the vote--1921? 1923? Rape was a capital crime under Roman law. You know--the Romans, 2,000 years ago. As for "control over our bodies," I guess you mean abortion. Wasn't Roe vs. Wade decided in 1973?
Lady, buy a clue. Here's the definition of minority, which I discovered after three seconds of painstaking Wikipedia research: "A sociological minority is not necessarily a numerical minority - it may include any group that is disadvantaged with respect to a dominant group in terms of social status, education, employment, wealth and political power."
Women got the vote in 1920. Rape was not a capital crime under Roman law, and was only illegal at all because it deprived fathers of the 'right' to choose their daughters' spouses. Not exactly liberating. Many rape victims ended up forced to marry their attackers.
New York: I get it! Your piece was a stab at Swiftian level satire -- by using clearly flawed logic to assert that women are inferior, you attempted to prove that women are in fact brilliant! Thanks for being such an awesome feminist, Charlotte.
Charlotte Allen: I gather you're making an attempt here to mimic Jonathan Swift.
The wit! The snappy responses! You just can't keep up with this woman!
Flushing, Mich.: Dear Ms. Allen: It's pretty clear you could have gotten away with a similar article demeaning men. It's done all the time and any who complain are dismissed easily. It has been pretty clear for some time that you cannot write such things about women. My question is why you thought you could get away with it. Do you have evidence that the taboo is weakening?
Charlotte Allen: I hope that articles like mine will weaken that taboo. But right now, just to hint that men and women as groups have different aptitudes is to risk the fate of Larry Summers. Fortunately, I'm not president of Harvard.
That's because men and women, as groups, really don't have different intellectual aptitudes. The reason that your article pissed people off is not that you were so zingingly, brilliantly insightful--it's that you were fucking wrong, and you don't seem to be able to grasp that.