Girls thread cont.

aw!
I actually went all day today in public with no make-up (except eye make-up) because I went to the dermatologist. and it wasn't so bad! (except at the dermatologist he decided to check me all over for moles so I thank God that I put on nice undies even though I badly have to do laundry). However I am making up (...) for it now as I am using PRIMER for the first time and have on lipstick for the first time in about 3 years. It's because I have to go out later and I'm bored. The primer is making a difference right now wrt how my make-up is going on, but it could all go horribly wrong. I could end up not being able to write...

Went to brunch w a few people yest, including someone nice, intelligent, talented, not a juicebox or an asshole, who is caring and respectful of all the women I've ever seen him with, and is by all appearances an ally, if that's a good way to put it, and he told me that the true force behind everything in the world is "pussy power."

He dates my good friend, who is very happy and holds her own, so I guess it's all fine and everything, but I just stared at the ceiling and said, "It's so INTERESTING to me when white middle-class men don't think they're the most powerful people in the room" and today I feel RAGE.

It's so disappointing when people turn out not to be very bright or nuanced and I wanted to like them as equals but...now we will have to not-discuss certain subjects, ever.

I guess I'm p dumb for being surprised by that. I keep ascribing ilxor-level qualities to people I meet irl and they keep turning out to be not very informed or able to discuss ideas or movements or w/e, and to believe repugnant things.

i...don't know how to say this without sounding like an asshole but a lot of smart men i have known have been dumb about gender. eventually i had to kind of realign my image of smart.

^^^
also "pussy power"...really?

that's that thing where men turn all their angst about the chicks who never slept with them into a phantom "power" without thinking for even a second about the experience of being a woman.

Yeah. I will...think about that, hs. I tried the angle "Don't you see that you're continuing to define male success by access to/possession of female sexuality?" but it had no effect, he says this is the way the world works, very sorry to break it to me, not arguing that women don't also have challenges vis a vis dealing with men, but this is simple reality.

But I don't think chicks have ever refused to sleep with him!! He's smart and cute and has options! And is dating someone by his own choice who doesn't subscribe to any of this nonsense!

I guess I don't feel rage as much as bewilderment and agitation at finding myself again in this Teflon box with the walls closing in, at least as far as reaching out to & connecting with this person is concerned.

yeah i know exactly the feeling you're describing.

even if chicks always sleep with him when he wants, that kind of comment indicates his only way of viewing women is through the lens of his own access to sex with them.

the thing a lot of smart men do is the thing that was happening in the wooing thread the other day...they are smart and they know they are smart and they have been encouraged all their lives that their opinions are important and that everyone wants to hear what they have to say on every subject. while the smart women i know are more likely to hang back in coversations and listen and respond to what is said, especially on a topic that they may not know as much about as the other people speaking (i.e. as a white straight woman i would not chime in with my opinions about what it is like to be a black lesbian woman, because all i can really do is listen/try to understand/be an ally).

i was trying to write something very much like that post, bell, but failing completely. when i mentioned that i had to realign my image of smart i partially meant preemptively stopping myself from thinking of dudes like that as automatically smarter than me. anyway, otm.

Completely unrelated: I tried applying crazy super-red lipstick with my finger yesterday, just to see how it looked. Within 10 mins of leaving the house the coffee barista said "wow look at you! love your lipstick!"

!!!! :D

Sometimes I feel like a complete alien you when you guys talk about these things. It's not that I don't agree with and/or understand what you're saying. I think that maybe I willfully ignore certain things or choose to look at things through lens. Either that or I don't encounter as many assholes* I don't think I could (or would want to) walk around that angry or bitter or threatened all the time. I literally wouldn't want to leave my house.

* highly unlikely

"pussy power" is pretty inexcusable though

^^^ this (xp to E). i have a hard time participating in these discussions bc i haven't really experienced a lot of sexism, and also because i have seen the effects of sexism towards men (i won't go into that here, bc it is sort of long and probably boring and probably too personal for ilx). it's not that i disagree with the overarching arguments put forward by ppl like laurel and hs and jenny et al., but it's just that my personal experiences don't leave me very well-informed on the subject.

veggrrrll: i know, right??? it was truly a revelation to me. p.s. i might be in sac next sunday if you have a spare hour or two for a coffee? not sure yet, going up to meet with artist about book we are making, which might take all day.

It kind of sounds like you're saying that feminist (or patriarchy-aware, if you prefer) women are angry, bitter, and threatened? Which is the humorless feminist/feminazi stereotype in a nutshell?

I didn't mean that to sound dismissive of anyone's experience btw. More often when I read these discussions and feel alienated I wonder why I'm not more angry, threatened etc because I realize that probably should be. That said, I think that's where the ignoring a lot of stuff comes in. I don't know. I might not be making any sense.

It kind of sounds like you're saying that feminist (or patriarchy-aware, if you prefer) women are angry, bitter, and threatened?

NO! That's not what I was saying at all.

I am a feminist through and through and resent the insinuation that I'm not tbh.

Hang on, brb. Will write more. That was just - pretty obnoxious imo.

ENBB, the friend of mine that he's dating is sort of like you, in that respect: She never thought about it, because she never noticed anyone abridging her rights, because she just did what she wanted, cheerfully, anyway, and thought, aww wasn't it nice of that person to look out for me? Meanwhile hypothetical possibly-lechy older guy or whomever is left in her wake feeling lucky that she smiled at him so glowingly and asked for his help.

O_o

i can't speak for Laurel or Jenny but 1) i get mad like 20 times a day and 2) i like to have some big-picture framing for my experiences; patriarchy or whatever you want to call it works beautifully for this purpose. (don't want to overstep but i think Jenny has this overarching systems thinking habit of mind going on, too.) both of those are basically personality traits, and i wouldn't wish either of them on others, particularly the rageball one. they're not right or wrong they're just the way i am. i know it can be alienating to people and i am sorry about that in this thread because i love this thread and all the contributors to it!

xxxp!

Not insinuating anything. Just clarifying bc it sounded out of character.

I mean luckily for my agreeable friend because she's thin and pretty and capable of glowing at people. I love her but I could roll my eyes out of my head when this comes up.

well, i mean, feminism is right, but i think both macro and micro approaches to it are valuable and neither is better.

ENBB The question marks were supposed to soften my post so it read as inquisitive and not accusatory - I shouldn't take shortcuts in such discussions and I'm really sorry for not being more clear.

ENBB, the friend of mine that he's dating is sort of like you, in that respect: She never thought about it, because she never noticed anyone abridging her rights, because she just did what she wanted, cheerfully, anyway, and thought, aww wasn't it nice of that person to look out for me? Meanwhile hypothetical possibly-lechy older guy or whomever is left in her wake feeling lucky that she smiled at him so glowingly and asked for his help.

O_o

― Making like Melusine (Pyth), Monday, December 5, 2011 1:49 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Permalink

Laurel - can you elaborate on this a little more? Like what kind of situation are we talking about here? I'm just trying to understand your example/mindset.

a lot of smart men i have known have been dumb about gender.

otm. the wooing thread was making my head all splodey last wk. i hang back when talking about relatively safe topics. when there's Men Telling Women About Sexism (or why women are misunderstanding womens' common experiences in this culture) i get really agitated and have to disengage. this happens a lot.

i really admire jenny and others who can speak up to others' privilege and ignorance. i wish i had that confidence.

xp--it's completely understandable to distance yrself from some of this stuff. i've been reading more feminist blogs and such lately, and awareness of this stuff is draining. it's like anything--you keep informed on what you can handle. i don't read much current events stuff because it's just too draining. i go thru phases where i tune out the feminist writings for the same reason.

xp again oh hai i take a long time to type. back to read more carefully.

sometimes i feel like women feel a lot of pressure to respond to things in similar ways but we needn't!

horseshoe go ahead and speak for me bc you're smart and that 20x per day rage sounds about right.

Although I do wish this on everybody, if I'm being honest, since I think we'd get more done about the 10000000s of social injustices (firm believer in intersectionality here) with more angry people.

i guess it can be hard to disentangle agreeableness as an innate (and perfectly lovely) personality trait and agreeableness as obligatory social conditioning for women. i am not sure who i am responding to now nor whether that's relevant.

can you elaborate on this a little more? Like what kind of situation are we talking about here?

Well, for one instance: You know the way men say, "Smile, beautiful" and in that and other ways try to make you interact with them as a happier/more agreeable person than you feel like? When that happens to her, she thinks, "That was nice of that strange man, he wants me to have a better day. I guess now I *do* feel like smiling!"

Also she just doesn't realize people are flirting/hitting on her, because she's that way to everyone all the time. So she gets passes made at her even though she was married AND WEARING A RING, but she never never stops anyone from being over-friendly or familiar with her before it gets that far. So she lets herself be OOOZED over and hugged and have her hand clasped for long periods and doesn't notice that it might be GROSS until someone LICKS HER HAND in public. True story.

also to clarify, i wish feminist consciousness on everyone because it is just the truth, but i don't wish my personal intensity on others; i am like that about everything, guys. it can be exhausting.

Re: filtering - I'm fixing to mute a whole bunch of repro justice ppl on Twitter because I knowwwwwwww and it just grinds me down and bums me out to read about the nonstop assault on women's bodily autonomy and sometimes I need my internal fortitude to stare down another dipshit lawyer who treats me like a secretary because he needs something done and I'm the closest person with boobs.

And re the Romants thread, after my last post I gave up, removed the bookmark, and haven't looked back so don't go giving me too many props there.

it can be hard to disentangle agreeableness as an innate (and perfectly lovely) personality trait and agreeableness as obligatory social conditioning for women.

She is 100% the former and stands her ground for her own rights and desires like 5x better than I do!!! But I get the impresh that men who interact w her see it as the latter quality.

OK - really interesting and will post more. I'm regretting starting this discussion now though because I'm trying to eat and have a mtg in 20 mins. If I disappear - I'll be back in a bit.

[Redacted] just said something to me in chat that I think it's probably 100% otm and colors my experience a lot wrt to my everyday interaction with men. I've thought about this a lot but didn't really know how to express it without sounding like, well, an asshole.

"I think you do present like my friend (redacted) in many ways on this topic
and frankly she has benefited from men's sexism and used it in her best interests again and again and again for many years and doesn't really "notice" it becuase it works TO HER ADVANTAGE."

That said the "Smile, honey!" command is one of my biggest pet peeves and if anything usually makes me scowl even more.

I get the impresh that men who interact w her see it as the latter quality.

No, wait, sorry, that wasn't quite accurate: I don't think those men even NOTICE that it's a "quality." I think it just reinforces THEIR belief that pretty, talented younger women will glow and sparkle at them as part of the natural order of things.

It's even more interesting/aggravating because after her, I'm the next person they have to interact with.

XP Oh shit can we take that person's first name out of that post, please?!?

Oh man, I'm so sorry - I didn't even realize her name was in there. :(

that makes sense. the awareness of how/the degree to which one benefits from male sexism is a huge thing in itself...my own acknowledgement of that is a big difference between my young enthusiastic feminism and my old lady jaded feminism.

Who are the sandbox mods?

x-post - No, I know it is. I think I may be making myself seem more ignorant about some of this than I really am. :/

holy god @ "pussy power." it's kind of inconceivable to me that that's a real thing someone thinks.

I'll just stick to recommending you guys some sparkly shit as is my place in life.

(OBVIOUSLY I AM KIDDING JUST IN CASE THAT WASN'T CLEAR)

;)

i used to be a lot less aware of sexism in general, and have ignored misogyny in friends/people i've dated and even participated myself in misogynistic thinking. over the last few years i've educated myself a lot more about feminism, been a part of many online discussions about feminism and gender, and even participated in activist events, which i never would have seen myself doing 5 years ago.

in a way, being aware does make me angrier about things. but before that i was internalizing the anger and directing it at myself, which was not healthy for me in any way.

XP Oh shit can we take that person's first name out of that post, please?!?

got it

oh i didn't mean to say that you had to think about it/hadn't already thought about it. it's just been something i've been talking about a lot with irl friends lately. because we're getting older and more jaded lol.

xxxp to erica

Well, I ended up getting a pair of very chunky charcoal brown suede lace-up steel-toed work boots of some brand I have now forgotten. I had to try on about 3 different brands to get one that was the right length for my foot without being *too* wide (which is a problem I'd much rather have than too narrow.) But the funny thing is, it has been so long since I bought a pair of proper boots (i.e. not rubber boots or stupid flimsy vegan boots made of hemp and cardboard) that I forgot, with steel toed boots, you don't break them in, so much as they break you in, and my ankles got ripped to shreds before I taped them up. I know this will pass. So I'm pretty happy.

Might still go to Camden and see if I can find motorcycle/engineers boots, or I might persist with trying to break the heel of the left boot of the pair I have.