An occasional feature highlighting comments on other blogs that are full of win.
[Content Note for linked material: Isla Vista mass murders, misogyny, gun culture]
What I think would be helpful for a lot of men to understand (women too probably) is that sex and love aren’t earned. Can’t be earned. They are a matter of grace from the other person. And, because they can’t be earned, whether you are getting sex or love is not a reliable signifier of your value as a human being and aren’t a metric by which one person should be compared to another.
This 2009 quote from Harriet Jay’s remarkable blog Fugitivus came up in a ManBoobz thread. I wanted to highlight it firstly because it’s marvellous, and secondly to link back to the original post to make it easier for others to cite it.
Stereotypes exist pretty clearly to benefit the current social order, and when somebody enacts the stereotype perfectly, it becomes evidence for the stereotype, and when somebody acts in the complete opposite of the stereotype, they are exceptions and also fall into other very convenient stereotypes …
If you look very closely at just one wire in the cage, you cannot see the other wires. If your conception of what is before you is determined by this myopic focus, you could look at that one wire, up and down the length of it, and be unable to see why a bird would not just fly around the wire any time it wanted to go somewhere.
A nugget of awesome from SKM on the Shakesville post Adria Richards Does Belong at Tech Conferences.
Here are a few examples of someone angry or expressing disagreement without being all rude about it:
I like that I don’t worry about being beaten for my sexuality by bigots. I like that I don’t worry about being pulled over by a cop because my skin color. I like that I don’t have to be worried about being under paid because of my gender and race. I like that I don’t worry about people attacking me for finding out that my sex at birth and gender match. I like that I don’t worry about a bunch of people making laws over what goes on in my body. I like that I can speak out and not worry about being physically assaulted due to my size and gender.
If you step on my foot, you need to get off my foot.
If you step on my foot without meaning to, you need to get off my foot.
If you step on my foot without realizing it, you need to get off my foot.
Being a feminist is not a merit badge you pin to your sash one time or an achievement you unlock; it’s a journey outside the borders of ingrained belief and a process of self-correction.
[Evolutionary psychology hardly covers] the evolution of morality, the evolution of politics, of cuture, of the artistic sense, etc … There is instead an obsessive focus on gender roles.
Basically, they reckon all women suck, all the time.
