blog: If I told you where I got my news, you wouldn't believe me.
1.
Photo 19 of 365.
2. I'll save my longer rant on this for Frenemy Cosplay, but, apparently, there's no such thing as good Firefly cosplay.
3. In culture-clashing lolarious new, Vanity Fair profiles 4chan and get's it... mostly right? I take issue with the writer's tone in some places, but mostly it's just interesting. Y'all know how I feel about Anonymous, so my reaction to this sudden storm of media coverage is a combination of activist interest and, well...
4. This post on
wtf_sexism (I think it's members only community, so you might not be able to view the post) is about men addressing women with terms like "sweetheart", "honey", "darling", and such and why it's offensive. The writer actually gave an interesting instance where a male professional's name was turning up on caller IDs as a woman's name, and that people, thinking he was a woman, would call him things like "sweetheart". There are some interesting points in the comments about this differing by culture, which, though it doesn't make it any less offensive, is true.
What it made me think of, though, is when I was working as a waiter. It was fairly common for middle-aged white men to address me as "sweetheart" or "darling". Needless to say, I bristled, but said nothing. The thing is, there was also this young Black man who came in on a regular basis, and he always (was polite and tipped well, for one, which was not always the case with the other men) called me "sister". This struck a totally different chord. It threw me off a little, at first, partly because it was a familiar form of address from a stranger and partly because, frankly, it's not address that white people are used to, but, once I thought about it and got used to it, I started to think of it as a compliment. There are a lot of reasons why this address is framed differently than the others, race and relative age being the most pertinent, but, in my mind, it really comes down to the word itself. Calling a woman "honey" (a consumable) or "darling" (a diminutive form) has patronizing overtones, regardless of the speaker's intent. Calling a woman "sister" suggests familiarity, kinship, and, to some extent, equality by suggesting a common generational context. Based on this experience, I conclude that it is not the assumption of familiarity that is offensive, as some have asserted, but the specific situation of certain language within patriarchal systems.
...Oh god, I have enough brain power to write that sentence but not enough to explain it. Basically, in this particular case, it's actually what you say, not how you say it (or what you mean by it).
4a. A few days ago, a friend of mine, who I've been struggling with for years, finally had the Sociological Revelation (and subsequent Sociological Freak Out). It was a beautiful thing to witness.
Photo 19 of 365.
2. I'll save my longer rant on this for Frenemy Cosplay, but, apparently, there's no such thing as good Firefly cosplay.
3. In culture-clashing lolarious new, Vanity Fair profiles 4chan and get's it... mostly right? I take issue with the writer's tone in some places, but mostly it's just interesting. Y'all know how I feel about Anonymous, so my reaction to this sudden storm of media coverage is a combination of activist interest and, well...
4. This post on
wtf_sexism (I think it's members only community, so you might not be able to view the post) is about men addressing women with terms like "sweetheart", "honey", "darling", and such and why it's offensive. The writer actually gave an interesting instance where a male professional's name was turning up on caller IDs as a woman's name, and that people, thinking he was a woman, would call him things like "sweetheart". There are some interesting points in the comments about this differing by culture, which, though it doesn't make it any less offensive, is true.
What it made me think of, though, is when I was working as a waiter. It was fairly common for middle-aged white men to address me as "sweetheart" or "darling". Needless to say, I bristled, but said nothing. The thing is, there was also this young Black man who came in on a regular basis, and he always (was polite and tipped well, for one, which was not always the case with the other men) called me "sister". This struck a totally different chord. It threw me off a little, at first, partly because it was a familiar form of address from a stranger and partly because, frankly, it's not address that white people are used to, but, once I thought about it and got used to it, I started to think of it as a compliment. There are a lot of reasons why this address is framed differently than the others, race and relative age being the most pertinent, but, in my mind, it really comes down to the word itself. Calling a woman "honey" (a consumable) or "darling" (a diminutive form) has patronizing overtones, regardless of the speaker's intent. Calling a woman "sister" suggests familiarity, kinship, and, to some extent, equality by suggesting a common generational context. Based on this experience, I conclude that it is not the assumption of familiarity that is offensive, as some have asserted, but the specific situation of certain language within patriarchal systems.
...Oh god, I have enough brain power to write that sentence but not enough to explain it. Basically, in this particular case, it's actually what you say, not how you say it (or what you mean by it).
4a. A few days ago, a friend of mine, who I've been struggling with for years, finally had the Sociological Revelation (and subsequent Sociological Freak Out). It was a beautiful thing to witness.