Perfect

[Content Note: Misogyny.]

I got an email from friend, who is basically the most amazing email penpal ever and sends me just the greatest observations all the time, and I asked her if I could share her latest here. So, with her permission, enjoy.

---

I don't know if you've come across the weather blog for the Washington Post. It's fascinating. Every post has like a million comments. Apparently everyone who lives here is obsessed with weather. People get into actual fights over the predictions.

Anyway, one of the writers for it is this guy called Jason Samenow. "Jason is currently the Washington Post's weather editor. A native Washingtonian, Jason has been a weather enthusiast since age 10."

I don't have a problem with him, because unlike hundreds of people in this area, I don't think I'm better at forecasting the weather than, um, the weather forecasters.

I'm just fascinated by this bio. I am trying to imagine a context in which you would ever see something similar for a woman. "A native Hoosier, Melissa has been a writer since she was 7."

Riiiiiight.

No one (no one) would consider that kind of information interesting or relevant if told to them by a woman in a professional context and would think it showed lack of professional judgment, because "weather enthusiast" is not a qualification.

If you were wondering who the deputy is: "Angela Fritz is an atmospheric scientist and The Post's deputy weather editor."

I know, right?

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[Content Note: Fat hatred; misogyny.]

Today, I received an email from someone who had found my Halloween post from last year, in which I explain why "fat lady" is a contemptible Halloween costume. And my correspondent did not like it AT ALL!

They informed me that they were going as a Fat Lady for Halloween this year, and it was OKAY because it's a fat lady from a CARNIVAL, which HONORS fat ladies, and I am terrible for not appreciating the nuance in fat lady costumes etc.

#NotAllPeopleWhoWearFatLadyCostumes!

All the mirthless laughter in the multiverse at the idea that a Freakshow Fat Lady Carnival costume honors fat women, when the entire context of traveling sideshow fat women is mockery and exploitation.

Now, I don't know how this person just happened to stumble across a year-old post. Maybe it was because someone they knew just posted it on social media. (Possibly even in indirect response to their announcement of their costume—and it was easier to yell at me than confront their friend.) Or maybe they were googling fat lady costumes and found my post. (And needed to yell at me for making them feel guilty.) But somehow, they came upon it, and their response was not to listen to a fat woman explaining why fat lady costumes are indecent, but to yell at a fat woman that she's wrong.

Welp, I'm certainly convinced!

I repeat: My body is not your costume. My identity is not your costume. My life is not yours to treat as a joke.

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[Content Note: Fat hatred.]

I just received a missive addressed to "Mrs. McEuwan" (close) which contained the following observation and helpful inquiry:

I have noticed that you write a lot about the negative consequences you experience as a result of being overweight. Have you ever considered that many of these negative experiences would be alleviated if you just lost weight?

LOL FOR FUCKING EVER AND EVER.

My absolute favorite thing about this is that Amy McCarthy and I fat-troll each other on Twitter and Facebook all the time, just to amuse each other, and this email is literally indistinguishable from the fake fat-trolling that Amy and I do to mock anti-fat trollery.


The thing is: People are actually serious about this. They seriously suggest losing weight, and all the various ways that we fatties could totally definitely for sure lose weight if only we tried them—"Have you tried kale and yogurt smoothies?"—as the most logical alternative to fat harassment.

The possibility that maybe people could just stop harassing fat people never even enters their minds as a viable option.

It seems more reasonable to suggest that I try to make my body do something it's never going to do without killing me than to suggest that maybe the people who hate and police my body could simply shut the fuck up.

This is what I mean when I say there is an eliminationist campaign against fat people in this culture. People think it's more reasonable for us to die than to expect fat haters to keep their thoughts to themselves.

And, naturally, no one should have to be thin, even if they can be, in order to not be harassed and shamed. We don't owe anyone thinness, in exchange for basic human decency.

[Twitter exchange posted with the permission of Amy E. McCarthy, Supreme Troll Queen.]

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[Content Note: Rape culture.]

Recently, after I said for the third or tenth or one biebillionth time "There's no neutral in rape culture," Shaker masculine_lady asked if she could make stickers with that phrase on it, to which of course I agreed.

Yesterday, in the mail, I received some of the stickers, because masculine_lady is awesome:

I am going to have some fun with those stickers. Watch out dudes who think skeevy bumper stickers are hilarious! Your stickers are about to get STUCK!

And because masculine_lady is also hilarious as well as a superhero anti-rape advocate, I received the stickers inside a card, personalized with this heartfelt note:


Further, the stickers were tucked inside this beautiful piece of modern art:


When masculine_lady and I met in person for the first time at the Forging Justice conference, we started an ongoing joke about a breakfast banana, and have been sending each other various images of bananas ever since, because of course we have.

Basically, this is a pretty good encapsulation of Shakesville for me: A serious commentary on social justice, wrapped inside a joke, delivered in a personal way between two friends whose friendship was forged out of shared passion and beloved community.

[All shared with masculine_lady's permission, including the use of her real first name.]

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[Content Note: Fat hatred.]

One of the most frequently leveled charges against people who do fat advocacy is that we don't care about fat people's health, that encouraging people to love themselves and live their lives and not hate their bodies is tacitly encouraging people to be unhealthy.

(Never mind that fat does not axiomatically equal unhealthy.)

Yesterday, I received this email from a Shaker, who wishes to remain anonymous but who gave me hir consent to share its contents:

Hi Melissa,

I'm a long time lurker/reader on Shakesville and wanted to thank you for all that you and the Shakesville community have done to educate me on my internalized fat-phobia/fat shaming.

Reading Shakesville is what convinced me that my doctors were wrong, that the excruciating pain I felt when I walked was NOT because I was fat. You made me look at myself and say, "Wait, why do I believe that I'm lazy about this when I work 80+ hours a week?" Your writing gave me permission to believe that I deserved to be able to walk without pain, that the stabbing pains I had in my lower leg were not punishment for being fat, but an indication that something was seriously wrong and my body needed help.

I found a solution because of you. Not because of doctors. Not because of medicine. Because you and Shakesville told me I deserved it.

Thank you so much.

[Name Redacted]

I do fat advocacy because I care about fat people's health.

And anyone who purports to be concerned about fat people's health will stop trying to demonize our bodies and shame us for having them, and instead get on board with the idea that there is little incentive to take care of a body you hate, that fat hatred is a barrier to seeking care, that fat hatred kills.

---

My inbox is always open, if you need emotional support in seeking healthcare while navigating fat hatred.

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This is definitely the best email I've ever received:


LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!!! The cheery salutation "Hello!" is brilliant, but the "I'm sorry" makes it perfect.

Dude, if I am the grossest thing you could ever imagine, I'm sorry but you have a colossally unimpressive imagination.

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Whenever I get an email addressed to "Shakesville," I know it's going to be a doozy. This one was too enjoyable, ahem, to keep to myself, so now I share it with all of you. Enjoy!

Dear Shakesville,

I haven't been perusing your website for long, but recently I've been checking in on it. I would like to register my disapproval of one of your practices. Most of your articles and links are prefaced by a "content note," eg. "Content note: this link discusses misogyny." I believe this trend, on your site and others, stemmed out of the newly common "trigger warnings" which give advance notice of discussions of graphic violence. While trigger warnings seem courteous and promote a safe space for people who have suffered trauma, your content notes seem to have an effect contrary to what your website, and feminism in general, ought to be pursuing. You seem to be trying to protect your readers from coming across anything which might upset, bother, disturb, or worry them. You seem afraid to let someone accidentally stumble upon any reminder that the world is dark and imperfect, that there are unpleasant, backwards, or ignorant folks out there. Even when the discussion itself is presented in the most accepting possible language, you insist on pre-warning your readership about exactly what they will be facing.

These warnings have, to my mind, the effect of alienating the very people who ought to be reading the articles and would get the most out of them. A prefacing note which reads "Content note: article discusses racism, classism, homophobia, and trans-phobia" says to me (a straight, white, middle-class, cis woman) that the article does not apply to me. When of course, the reason we are interested in these problems is not because they need to relate directly to our own lives, but because we care about justice and freedom from hatred and discrimination for all people.

I believe that this trend of prefacing any discussion of the negative things in the world with an infantalizing warning needs to be discontinued. Trust your readers to boldly face the reality of human nature. The world won't get better by pretending that we can choose to hide from it.

Respectfully,

[Some Asshole]

Apparently, one of the things my correspondent hasn't "checked in on" is the Commenting Policy: "Content Notes are provided to give readers the option to assess whether they've got the spoons (pdf) to process material that is potentially triggering to them. The provision of Content Notes is an exchange in which readers must participate: We communicate the information, and readers must assess their own immediate capacity to process content in the noted categories, then proceed accordingly."

But I don't guess I ought to be surprised that someone who imagines an article about oppression of groups to which she doesn't belong is something that does not apply to her (!!!) has as much a problem with the concept of "agency" that she does with the concept of "privilege." Providing content notes is the opposite of infantilizing: It recognizes and respects individual agency, lived experience, and immediate capacity to process.

A content note does not promise to protect readers, but provides them with the opportunity to decide whether they need to protect themselves.

We provide content notes because they give survivors of various trauma and oppressive harm the option to assess whether they're in a state of mind to deal with potentially triggering material before they stumble across it. It's a politeness. I don't feel inclined to apologize for that.

[Related Reading: I Write Letters.]

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[Content Note: Rape culture.]

Once upon a time, two dudes who write a web comic called "Penny Arcade" posted a strip that included a rape joke. Some people objected to this. It got nasty from there, in the same infuriatingly predictable way these things always get nasty. And then it got nastier, and more awful, and uglier, and more horrible, and worser, oof just so horrendo like whoa.

(The whole history is detailed here.)

The only thing that was certain is the only thing that's ever certain, which is that feminist survivors of sexual violence who don't find rape jokes funny are stupid, hypersensitive, rage-seeking missiles who want to censor the world. [sic]

Anyway. That was more three years ago. Last night, this arrived in my inbox:

I know this is really old, but I only ran across the post recently.

When was there a "rape joke" in Penny Arcade? I only recall a joke about a guy in a video game having a horrible life that the player character didn't care about. In what way did that joke diminish or endorse rape? Rape didn't seem to be the punchline or object of mockery. In fact, the target of the joke seemed to be the player character's insensitivity. Isn't that the exact opposite of laughing at rape?

Ran across what post? Who knows. Obviously none of the posts in this space that detail the joke (and subsequent jokes deployed in a double-down defense strategy). But even though this guy doesn't know to which joke I objected, he is certain that I'm wrong. Perfect.

The fact that I am still getting emails about this shit three years later is pretty rich, considering that "get over it" is the go-to mantra of rape apologists.

See also: Fat Princess.

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[Content Note: Misogynist slurs; reference to racist slur; Oppression Olympics.]

From an email that arrived in my inbox last night, authored by a self-described "young guy who has only just started researching all of this stuff about discrimination and equality":

I've been reading through the feminist 101 posts and, while I agree with the majority of points made in them, found issue with the subject of misogynistic language.

I love words and I love using them. I've never had a problem with swearing because I've always believed that context is what matters; not the words themselves.

If the argument against using these words is that, even if the context is harmless, it slowly but surely reinforces a negative mentality about women … then I would agree.

…Cunt began as a misogynist term; popular usage evolved it into an ordinary insult.

I'll be the first to say that popular usage doesn't erase the original meaning of a word, but popular usage does change the majority of peoples' own meaning of a word; this means that using the word cunt and bitch nowadays doesn't actually reinforce a negative mentality about women at all.

…I'd like to know what you think. If I've missed something or haven't made my point clear, please let me know.

What has been edited out and replaced with ellipses is a bunch of Oppression Olympics about how the n-word is still real bad and stuff. Unlike misogynist slurs. Which are just "ordinary insults," allegedly.

What I find most remarkable about this email, like all the others from men (always men) who feel entitled to email me and demand personal private education, is that its author fails utterly to make even the most cursory attempt to empathize with women who are the targets of misogynist slurs, deployed specifically to remind us that we are less than. He speaks about context as if "cunt" and "bitch" exist in a void. There is no context in which a word that is predicated on devaluing the feminine is "harmless." Not for women.

(And not for men from marginalized populations defined by gender and sexuality who are demeaned with misogynist slurs.)

"Nowadays," he says, misogynist slurs don't "actually reinforce a negative mentality about women at all." Even were it true (it is not) that men (and other women) who call women cunts and bitches are using the words in some sort of magical history-free context that isn't explicitly designed to demean women, and explicitly designed to demean men by comparing them to women, how women who are being called cunts and bitches feel matters.

Even if it were true (it is not) that misogynist slurs do not maintain institutional sexism that marginalizes women, that such slurs don't "reinforce a negative mentality about women" among the people who use them, we know—because multiple studies and millions of public statements by women about their lived experiences confirm this fact—that being repeatedly exposed to oppressive slurs negatively affects the people targeted by them.

Even if it were true (it is not) that misogynist slurs don't negatively affect the slur-users' opinions about women, they still negatively affect women's opinions about themselves.

There are certainly women who don't even bat an eye at being called a cunt or a bitch, myself among them. But it's not because the words don't have the capacity to harm—it's because I'm inured to them after a lifetime of pervasive exposure.

That misogynist slurs have lost their capacity to harm (some women) because of their ubiquity isn't evidence of their neutrality. It's evidence of humans' capacity to normalize abuse in order to survive.

What a luxury, what privilege, that's something my correspondent has never had to consider.

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[Content Note: Guns; rape culture.]

From a concerned correspondent:

You shouldn't advertise that you don't own a gun. It will make people know they are free to rape you.

Thank you for the hot advice, sir!

I hadn't considered that the only reason "people" aren't raping me is because of the possibility I own a gun, and now that I have eradicated that concern, I have communicated that "people" are free to rape me. I guess this is the endgame of "women should own guns to deter rape" arguments: Not owning a gun is construed as consent. Neat!

I have to admit, this is very confusing advice, since, despite having been raped, I am usually helpfully informed by concerned correspondents that no one wants to rape me because I am fat and ugly, since rape is totes a compliment.

Keep the excellent advice coming, friends!

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[Content Note: Fat bias.]

You are fat!

That was the entire email. You are fat! I think the exclamation point is what I love most about it. It's a real eureka moment.

Yes, Perceptive Correspondent. I am fat! Congratulations on your unassailable observational skills!

I will never cease to be amused by dudes (always dudes) who think that telling me I'm fat will be received as an insult. It has as much capacity to harm me as telling me I have blue eyes or brown hair. All it conveys is that someone else hates me because I'm fat. It does not have any power to make me hate myself.

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[Content Note: Harassment; war on agency.]

On Tuesday, Shaker MB shared a very moving guest post here, which was framed as an open letter to Rep. Paul Ryan, addressing how his views and policies are not actually "pro-life" at all. I've gotten a few interesting, ahem, emails from anti-choicers about that post. I'm sure you'll be shocked to hear that anti-choicers don't like having their cavernous hypocrisy so carefully detailed.

Anyway. Late yesterday evening, I got another email about the post, which was a typical wall of text full of anti-choice garbage and conservative talking points, with some bonus ad hominem for MB and me.

I decided to spare you the content of the missive from my delightful correspondent, save for hir supercool parting shot, because no one's life would have been improved by reading that mess of seething hatred, trust me.

Normally, I just delete these things because who cares. But I was in a pissy mood because Santorum Akin Walsh Mourdock Koster, and so fed up to the fucking teeth with the constant onslaught of aggressive, belligerent, ignorant, consent-hostile, agency-denying, anti-choice dogshit, that I decided to reply.


This morning came the fiery retort in giant red text.


Sounds like someone's been talking to Bill Donohue!

As you can imagine, I decided that this carefully considered, thought-provoking critique of my faculties warranted a reply.


A little while later, I received another dispatch from my correspondent, in even BIGGER red text.


Naturally, I sent a swift reply.


My correspondent, evidently under the impression that colorblindness might be impeding the penetration of hir messages, replied in green.


FACT CHECK! I do not have a "fucking asshole" key on computer. (Would that I did!) I also have a brain. I keep it safely in my brainpan for whenever I need it. Like when I need to compose replies to important emails.


I regret to report I have not heard back, but if there are any further developments in this modern answer to the Lincoln-Douglas debates, I will be sure to you update you with all due urgency.

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The Dénouement

After Melissa posted a piece yesterday in which she used the word "dénouement" as a verb, I noted in comments and by email,

Bonus points for using "dénouement" as a verb. Take that, prescriptive grammarians!

She mailed back:

I will almost certainly get yelled at for using dénouement that way, but I don't care! I like the sound of it! :)

And I may, just MAY, have decided to go ahead and use it even knowing someone would probably complain because I was feeling irascible, lol.

Then, a little while ago, I got the following email from Melissa:

Do I really need to add "Don't email me about my fucking wordplay?" to the email policy? LOOKS LIKE IT LULZ!

Attached to the email was, of course, a message from a reader explaining to her that the word "dénouement" is a noun only.

That's when the Authorities got involved.

Re: denouement--UPGAL Official Business: We Have Received Complaints

Dear MELISSA MCEWAN,

We have received Complaints about your use of the French noun "dénouement" as a verb. Our investigation has determined that this usage falls under Poetic License for Wordplay (#305).

Please find attached your Poetic License for WORDPLAY issued by Nosey Parker, Secretary of All Up in Your Grammar Business here at the Uptight Grammarians of America League (UPGAL!)

Please display your official UPGAL Poetic License in your Place of Business so as to avoid such static in the future.

This License comes with a fancy border and an official seal. There is no frame, but as you can see it is backed by a sparkly blue ironing-board cover. You may notice a smudge of white-out where we had misspelled "America". If that doesn't indicate our rigorous dedication to utmost perfection, well then what the hell will?

SIGNED,

Nosey Parker, UPGAL Secretary of AUIYGB

(1 attachment)

Re: denouement--CORRECTION

That's Uptight PRESCRIPTIVE Grammarians of America League.

Our bad.

UPGAL: "Our bad, but never yours!"

So, to dénouement:


Text: "Poetic License: The Uptight Prescriptive Grammarians of America (UPGAL!) Issue this Poetic License for WORDPLAY to MELISSA MCEWAN. SIGNED, Nosey Parker, Secretary of All Up In Your Grammar Business. UPGAL Official Seal." Image description: a hand-scribbled pen-on-paper drawing of a license with a squiggly border and round "official seal" doodled in the bottom right corner. The drawing rests on a sparkly blue background and is poorly photographed.

It's signed, sealed, and posted in your Place of Business.

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[Trigger warning for rape culture.]

Hey, remember this guy, my charming correspondent who had been banned or engaging in rape apologia and acknowledged having read in the commenting policy that people banned for violating that very policy are not welcome to bring their grievances about being banned to my inbox...? And remember how I pointedly explained that ignoring someone's clearly delineated boundaries is not just rude, but hostile to the notion of consent, and thus finds itself on a continuum at the other end of which is sexual violence...?

Well, I don't guess I need to tell you what colossal dipfuck has just sent me yet another email, the subject header of which is—I shit you not—"Sorry for invading your boundaries," that is, in fact, not (surprise!) an apology for disrespecting my boundaries, but is, instead, (spoiler warning!) a massive textwall manspalining to me how he TOTES IS NOT a rape apologist, even though he doesn't think it's victim-blaming to tell women not to drink so much if they don't want to get be raped, insisting that "rape apologist" is a slur (lulz), telling me that I'm being "hurtful," asking me to forward to him a copy of his original email (because he didn't bother to keep one, so now I'm his personal secretary), auditing my boundaries by telling me he can't figure out what my "publicly published Contact link [is] supposed to function as," if not a resource to whinge at me, and then concludes with this gem:

Apologies if you believe this e-mail also crosses any boundaries. If you do not wish to receive any more correspondence, please tell me (although I would appreciate my original e-mail if that is alright with you).

No. None of this is all right with me. That's why part of my published comment policy, in big bold letters, is: Being banned from Shakesville is not an invitation to take your issues to the email inbox of Liss and/or any of the other contributors or mods. And fauxpologizing for disrespecting clearly-delineated boundaries is worth a squirtload of good to the person whose boundaries you must disrespect to deliver it.

Of course, my correspondent has audited my boundaries and determined them to be bullshit, which is why he is still emailing me to try to convince me how much not an apologist for a rape culture the cornerstone of which is a disrespect of boundaries he is.

Lest there be any confusion: I am not writing about this because I am scared or hurt or offended. (As the masthead says, I'm just contemptuous.) I am writing about this because, when I write about things like this ongoing exchange, there are men (and women), more interested in living a life truly respectful of consent than my correspondent, who email me to say they have learned something about how better to respect other people's boundaries in everyday ways, and there are women (and men) who email me to say they have learned something about defining and defending their own boundaries, and their right to do so.

I also write about it because sometimes people think the moderators here take too hard a line on rape apologia, that we don't give enough leeway. Well. This is where leeway lees to.

And I write about it because I write about the rape culture, and the rape culture starts with every person who says, "I know you said not to, but I'm going to do it anyway."

You can't claim to be anti-rape, unless you're pro-consent.

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[Trigger warning for rape culture.]

The latest from the Mixed-Up Files of Ms. Basil E. Trollcollector:

Just wanted to let you know I read your comment policy (even the part that said "Being banned from Shakesville is not an invitation to take your issues to the email inbox of Liss and/or any of the other contributors or mods.")

Not e-mailing to argue, and you have a "Contact" link...so not sure why this isn't an appropriate forum to explain myself.

Just wanted you to know that I was aware of your comment policy and didn't think that it was "rape apologia" to defend [the idea that women shouldn't drink if they don't want to be raped].

…I don't have a desire to continue posting on the site, but being immediately banned for something that didn't feel at all outside of your commenting regulations didn't leave me chance to defend the fact that I'm not a rape apologist, nor a troll who refused to read (or read and ignored) your comment policy.

Once again, I will note the irony of someone violating my comment policy and invading my personal space, despite an awareness of my request that my contact information not be used for such communications, to insist to me that he is not a rape apologist.

For the edification of my correspondent, and anyone else who may be confused: The reason my inbox "isn't an appropriate forum to explain [your]self" is because I have said it isn't and explicitly detailed that it is unwelcome.

When someone sets up a boundary, they don't need to explain or justify it to you.

And when you ignore those boundaries, and someone's agency and right of self-determination to set and define those boundaries, you are an asshole who is hostile to the idea of consent.

That's it and that's all.

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The following email arrived in my inbox under the subject heading "I am a boy. I come in peace.‏" I knew I was in for a doozy.

Hi Melissa,

First, as a boy raised in a strict Catholic household with two working parents, I can say I respect your blog. However, I cannot say I wholly appreciate your content.

I used to work for [redacted]. In my first day (as with any job) we were given sensitivity training. However, ALL the scenarios given in the presentation were male-to-female sexual harassment, something that I, as a man, found extremely offended by.

I only worked at the U for six months. What forced me to leave? My boss, a fairly attractive woman in her 40's, was coming onto me. [details redacted]

This actually happened, and I'm not making it up. Don't say I blew her off because she was older or because she wasn't my type. I have very strict values that I don't date or get involved with ANYONE from work.

I do not appreciate your ignorance to these double standards. That it is only "sexual harassment" if it's male-to-female and if it's the other way around that I must be "a lucky guy."

I went on to work at [redacted]. There, I found that, as a man, earning the same as other women working on the production floor, was subject to more work. Many women refused to do any manual labor and took too many bathroom breaks, and subjected themselves to handpacking and paperwork. Whenever one of the machines jammed or stalled, rather than clearing the jam and resetting the machine, they call a mechanic which takes away from production output and creates downtime.

I'm not saying all women, there are some (mainly black, actually) that roll up their sleeves to get their hands dirty with the boys, and that I deeply admire and appreciate.

I have tried to address the issue of "we have the same job title yet because we're men we are subject to more work" and I got called "insensitive"...screw that. You have the same job title as me, you do the same things I do. No exceptions. This is the 21st century. Girls are not weak and fragile flowers. They're at the point in history where they can pick up a shovel and dig ditches alongside the men that love them and care for them.

What happened to the women who welded and riveted the machines that won the war? Where did they disappear to?

Thank you.

--[redacted]

I'll leave you to discuss the many comment-worthy details of this extraordinary missive in comments, and will make only this brief observation: It is neither "coming in peace" nor "respectful of my blog" to accuse me of content I have never written and attitudes I have never expressed.

Half (or more) of the letters I get from dipfucks like this are patently nothing more than disgruntled misogynists shouting impotently at the first feminist across whom they've stumbled, without the merest regard for the reality that the double standards of which they accuse me are the narratives of the Patriarchy, not of its critics.

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My inbox has been its own magical realm of ponderous nincompoopery lately, and some of the enchanting missives of which I am in receipt are simply too good not to share. Please meet my recent correspondent, Bill:

Obviously, there is quite a lot to love about this email, but my favorite part for sure is "inextricably concerned."

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lulz.

I believe in Steampunk Abortion Robots, no doy.

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On Feminism and Fireworks

I just got a fun email from a male blogger (who rarely, if ever, blogs about "women's issues") telling me that my coverage of International Women's Day was crap. Err, "disappointing." He was expecting to have something better to link to than the garbage I've served up.

I'll pause momentarily so you can both appreciate the inherent irony and imagine the look on my face when I received a missive from a gentleman complaining that my recognition of International Women's Day was insufficient for his purposes of lazily linking to it so he didn't have to actually do any work himself.

And, you know, leaving aside the chutzpah of treating the acknowledgment of International Women's Day as woman's work and expressing disappointment in his unpaid subcontractor for doing substandard work that failed to meet his expectations of excellence for work he wanted to take credit for, I sort of understand his complaint. It's not like any of my IWD content is extraordinary, or even remarkable.

And partly that's a reflection of my ambivalence about marking a single day, or a single week, or a month—which is something about which I've written previously—and my consternation about how to mark it effectively, if it is worth marking, for reasons Renee elucidates here.

But it's also partly a manifestation of the reality that IWD really is just another day. Another day in the world, and another day at Shakesville, where I try (and fail, and try again) to be the change I want to see in the world, and to advocate for all women: Black women, brown women, white women, tall women, short women, dwarf women, fat women, thin women, in-betweenie women, trans women, women with disabilities, able-bodied women, old women, young women, girls, women with children, childless women, healthy women, ill women, poor women, rich women, middle class women, employed women, unemployed women, immigrant women, women in every country, English-speaking women, non-English-speaking women, progressive women, conservative women, women in unions, women in comas, straight women, lesbian women, bisexual women, asexual women, powerful women, weak women, vegan woman, vegetarian women, meat-eating women, religious women, atheist women, agnostic women, educated women, uneducated women, women who have survived trauma, women who want my advocacy, women who don't, and/or every other conceivable expression, intersectionality, and experience of womanhood that exists on the planet.

I believe in and fight for women's equality, and I do not expect my sisters who do not share my privileges to wrench apart pieces of their identity in exchange for my alliance. (Nor do I want to be expected by women with privileges I don't share to wrench apart my own identity in service of a false solidarity.) We can't tear ourselves in parts: The female part of me now has equality (happy face!) but the queer part of me doesn't (sad face!).

A person either has equality or she doesn't. And as long as one of my sisters is marginalized on any basis, we have not achieved the goal in which I am interested.

That's an expansive proposition. It can't be addressed in a single day; I can't encapsulate into a blog post what it means for billions of teaspoons to be clattering away, the din of working teaspoons indistinguishable from the reverberating echo of teaspoons that went before and the tintinnabulous promise of teaspoons to come.

I guess my correspondent was expecting fireworks. And all I've got on the day he wanted explosions of colorful grandeur was the tedious daily business of feminism. Yawn.

Let us note with bitter amusement that if more people did the tedious daily business of feminism, International Women's Day might really be a day of celebration, warranting those fireworks.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

The Rape Apologist's Lament

[Trigger warning for sexual violence.]

From an email I received after a mod banned (for comments in this thread) yet another Super Special Dude Who Figures the Commenting Policy (Which Explicitly Prohibits Rape Apologia) Doesn't Apply to Him:

I think it's unfortunate that someone who points out the evils inherent in one person forcibly removing power from another person who deserves equal rites [sic] so quickly violates the basic truths they believe everyone should operate under. I believe that the points I made are valid and worth defending, however by disabling my comments, you have taken away my power to defend myself from the attacks of others. It's ironic, almost, that in the context of a [sic] DeVito's character being sexually assaulted by groups of men at a time, you've created a situation in which my comments, the embodiment of my ideas and beliefs, are forcefully made vulnerable to the simultaneous assault of numerous people.

Those who's [sic] opinions differ from the most popular one deserve to be heard and deserve to actively defend their positions. As a feminist, I would think that you could have at least avoided perpetrating such an act of hypocrisy.

I can't decide which part I like better: The implication that his inability to continue to comment here is akin to being gang-raped, or his assertion that rape apologists are an oppressed minority.

My correspondent's "valid and worth defending" comment (which remains in the thread for all to admire) ends thus: "People like you are so afraid of a person being offended or hurt that they take all the fun out of life. There are plenty of issues out there that deserve your attention, plenty of evil people who actually do things that hurt others. Get of your high-horse about what is and isn't politically correct or offensive and get upset about something that actually matters. Christ."

This, in response to my saying that I don't find rape jokes funny.

It is my obligation, you see, to stop being so sensitive and STFU so that people who like rape jokes can enjoy them without their amusement being dampened by knowing there exist people on planet who don't share their good humor, or something.

Yeah, I've heard that before. And I am struck, once again, by this thought: Even if complaining that survivors and their allies weren't "tough" enough were a legitimate argument, one would think that the champions of fairness and justice making it (such as my correspondent) would direct their ire in the right direction—at the fucking rapists who create survivors (and their triggers) in the first place.

You want to laugh at rape jokes without having to hear survivors complain about them...? Take it up with RAPISTS.

Oh, but that's the flaw in my position, isn't it? Rape jokes are only funny because rape exists.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!