The patriarchy is a giant parasitic space porcupine.

[psiradish]

Some time ago I was doing a google image search for something-or-other, when I got a result from yonder livejournal entry: http://hyel.livejournal.com/895483.html In this entry was a link labeled The Internet Superhero Feminists. And one can hardly see a link labeled The Internet Superhero

Comments

[star999chick]

Ugh. Feminists. *srunches nose*

[psiradish]

S'funny, because you're probably the most latently feminist person I can recall ever speaking with :)

[star999chick]

I like how people think that promiscuity (ala men) = feminism, so I'd be interested to hear how exactly you think I've got a feminist hiding away in me somehow.

I have certain matters of inequality that I disagree with, yes. But I'm also one of the most sexist people I know. I definitely like my gender roles traditional in my own life, and I think that if you ever got me in a room with a feminist she'd want to kill me after five minutes. In fact, I'm pretty sure she'd dislike me the second I get to "strip club".

Am I pro-choice? Sure - but that has more to do with my pragmatic approach to lawmaking than any sort of social outrage on the issue. Do I think men and women should be paid the same? Sure, but I don't get worked up thinking about how we don't. Frankly, I think many offensive stereotypes about women are true, I see them all the time. Does that mean that all women are like that? No, but men and women are different, we're sexually dimorphic animals, and last I checked there was pretty compelling evidence that those differences

[psiradish]

My prominent recollection is you pointing out the uneven expectation for women to be attractive, with a decidedly frustrated tone. Besides that, it was just a vague feeling. With the arguable addiction elements of your promiscuity (...should I probably not be mentioning that publicly?) it's hard to call it an example of sexual freedom, so no, I don't think that entered into it much.

I'm not sure how outrage ties into being pro-choice. Defending pro-choice can certainly lead to outrage, but that's the case for every position opposed by large numbers of religious conservatives.

It's not surprising that people often fulfill stereotypes; even offensive ones. Stereotypes are not born in a vacuum; they're genuine observable trends of varying strength that people, in their all-consuming need to keep things - including other people - as simple as possible (wee, a stereotype!), senselessly attribute to all members of a particular group. Now, gender stereotypes may turn out to come true much more often than others, but that would only

[burning_roses]

Wow, that was a lot to read. So, I agree with about 90% of the stuff that was written in all those articles. I totally agree about rape, workplace discrimination, body image, childbearing issues, domestic violence, sexual and behavioral double standards, etc. These things are huge problems, and they need to be fixed. In that sense, I guess you can call me a feminist. And yet, I get annoyed with a lot of feminists because I don't think they go about working for change the right way. I have a lot to say so I think I'm gonna put this in list form for easier digestion

[burning_roses]

3) I wish feminists would quit acting like men have it easy all the time. They don't. Yes, women have a lot of shit to put up with, I know. I totally acknowledge that it sucks being a woman sometimes. It sucks when a girl says I look "healthy" and means it as an insult. It sucks that Luke and Matt make huge mistakes at work and my boss lets it slide, and then he practically breathes down my neck, waiting for me to make some tiny error so he can give me hell for it. It sucks that I fear for my safety whenever I walk somewhere by myself at night or go on a date with a guy I don't know very well. Nevertheless, gender roles suck for guys too, and I'd argue that they're much stricter than women's roles. Guys are supposed to be out winning the bread, fixing the cars, paying for everything, drinking beer, watching sports, trying to get laid, never showing their emotions and never crying. That's the guy stereotype, and it's a lot more rigid than the female stereotypes, as far as I'm concerned. One thing I can say about being a woman

[psiradish]

Aaand responses. Which took a very long time to write.

[psiradish]

Personally, I have no problem with make up, just its popular restriction to women's use. I'd probably be too lazy to go through the trouble most of the time, but it would still be nice to have the option of Photoshopping my face in real life like I do with digital photographs. I'll always shake my head in bemused wonder at the thought of a woman voluntarily wearing high heels, though. And for me, having my wife take my last name would make me feel like I was claiming her as my property, even if I knew she could and would break my nose if I ever treated her as such. If for whatever reason she insisted on it I'd probably change mine to hers in return. Though my preference would be either merging our individual last names into some brilliantly clever new one (though I'm not sure how much potential for brilliant cleverness there is in "Fiegener"), or the both of us taking the other's last name and then hyphenating our original on the end

[psiradish]

Anyway, as for myself, I've generally been easily identified as a nerd - a group that's been ( partially) subverting the typical male stereotype for decades - which served to cloak any exceptional variation from gender norms I may have possessed. Besides that, high school wasn't remotely the hostile place television seems to consistently depict it as. And I certainly didn't stick out much going to college in the rather liberal land of anywhere-near-Seattle. However, now that I can put in words the rampant stupidities pervading society, and understand the importance of fighting them, my invisibility may not last.

*phew* Done. And I shall be on AIM sometime tomorrow (forthwith I shall slay Magus and restore honor!).

[burning_roses]

I just wrote a long response, and then IE (I'm still on my boyfriend's computer and he still uses IE because he's an idiot) went all emo and shut down, taking my response with it. GRRR ANGRY. I am going to summarize each paragraph I had because I am NOT typing that all up again in detail

[burning_roses]

And this is the part where I come in here and demand an update. Woooo.