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June 10, 2008
Misogyny
Naamah proposes that women complain loudly about misogyny more often. I think she is onto something.
And the sad part? I don't think to mention this shit when it happens, because it is fucking background noise. It is so endemic in this culture that when it happens to me, I do not perceive it as exceptional, even though I absolutely do perceive it as threatening. For fuck's sake, I don't even remember where the above incident with the wedding ring asshole even occurred because it has blended in.Now, I'm pretty lucky -- I live and work in an area known for its tolerance (SF Bay Area) and while I work in tech, which is heavily gender-polarized, the company I'm at is made up nearly entirely of awesome people. And I mostly hang with nerdy types, who may be nervous around women but generally aren't actively horrible. I also have what I've seen termed the "fuck off bubble" going on (as opposed to the "hump me gene" some unlucky gals have). I don't get hit on much, and when I do, it isn't by pushy assholes. I think I radiate "I will kick you in the balls if you fuck with me" so hard that they leave me alone.That is, now that I think on it, fucking appalling.
This doesn't mean I don't get the occasional bout of assholery directed at me, just that it happens really rarely. At least, I think it does. I'm going to try to pay more attention and see if I spot anything to report on. I'd like to encourage my readers who have blogs of their own to report on misogyny in action in their lives as well. I think Naamah makes a good point -- that shit shouldn't be background noise. We should be calling folks out for it.
My classic example of misogyny in action in my life is the issue I had with PE in middle school. We were coed all year except for one section, when boys were to do wrestling and girls were to do aerobics. I hated aerobics and thought wrestling sounded like more fun, so I asked the teacher, "what if a girl wants to do wrestling?" he said, "Oh, you don't want to do that." And I, in my little middle-school head, said Oh, it's on, asshole, and got my Mom involved. Long story short, I took wrestling (with my buddy Jenny as my wrestling partner so the boys wouldn't be tempted to grope me during class). It was pretty fun. Admittedly this was in the early nineties and I imagine things are different at that middle school now, but still. The situation was fucked up. I can see separating the genders for contact sports like wrestling, but the boys-wrestling/girls-aerobics dichotomy is bullshit.
File under: Feminism
Posted by Ealasaid at June 10, 2008 03:29 PM
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Comments
How does your experience translate in to the hatred of women? The social dynamics between men and women as well as the nature of male-female interpersonal relationships are complex and nuanced.
However:
I don't see the hate. Treating women differently based upon (now here I'm playing devil's advocate- please do not incinerate me) conventional, socially accepted gender roles (girls doing aerobics or volleyball and boys doing gymnastics) does not equate to hatred or mistrust of women.
Not even a little bit.
Posted by: Jonathan at June 10, 2008 04:59 PM
It's amazing what one can accomplish when one doesn't know what one can't do.
-------Jim Davis
You don't by any chance have the comic strip where Odie runs up the tree and Garfield, watching on, says this, do you?
I lost my copy of it sometime ages ago (more than 16 years now, since I haven't seen it since I got married) and I've been looking high and low for another copy ever since.
Posted by: Barbara at June 13, 2008 06:21 PM
It annoys the hell out of me. For instance, when my barber rolls his eyes and moans about the supposedly daft things his wife has done he just expects me to acquiesce to his observations about women, as if they're another species.
But one thing you don't expect is find this behaviour on the left. My wife is a regular contributor to a well known left British discussion board, and she's just had to battle for it to insert provisions against sexist behaviour and comments on its rules. Incredible.
Posted by: a very public sociologist at June 15, 2008 10:50 AM
Ack, sorry it took so long to approve everyone's comments! You've all been whitelisted so there won't be a delay next time.
Jonathan -- to me, sexism rooted in the idea that women are inferior to men (which this bout of sexism was; wrestling is a competitive, aggressive activity and the implication was that we poor, weak girls couldn't handle it) is based in misogyny.
This wasn't about whether girls were strong enough to wrestle with guys, this was about the idea of girls wrestling at all. That PE teacher was extremely uncomfortable to have us in his class, even though we weren't in physical contact with the boys. To his credit, he tried to teach us the same as he did the guys, but it was obvious that the idea of women wrestling was very distressing to him.
Posted by: Ealasaid at July 1, 2008 02:21 PM
Graphics from works 