A couple more pieces of joy from Twitter, in response to my #YesAllWomen tear.
Me: @AUseaotter So you know who random attention seekers are, vs. “real” sexists? As if seeking attention by trolling #YesAllWomen isn’t sexist?
Asshole on Twitter: @GretaChristina @AUseaotter are u a dude or a gurl?
Me: @AUseaotter So you know who random attention seekers are, vs. “real” sexists? As if seeking attention by trolling #YesAllWomen isn’t sexist?
Second Asshole on Twitter: @GretaChristina @AUseaotter Who cares, Granny? Pipe down.
It’s really striking when Lewis’ Law — “Comments on any article about feminism justify feminism” — get demonstrated so blatantly. Sometimes sexism, gender policing, and misogyny are subtle and unconscious — but sometimes, they’re really, really not. Sometimes, they get spelled out as explicitly as is humanly possible. Literally telling a feminist woman, in words, that she doesn’t fit prescribed gender roles? Literally telling a feminist woman, in words, that she’s old and should stop talking? It would make me laugh, if it weren’t so sad. Or, alternately: It would make me cry, if it weren’t so funny.
For the record: I don’t find “you don’t fit prescribed gender roles, and I find your gender presentation confusing!” to be an insult. Quite the contrary. Gender normativity is boring and stupid. And to the degree that “I find your gender presentation confusing!” is supposedly an insult because saying someone is trans or appears to be trans is supposedly an insult: Fuck that noise. As it happens, I’m cisgender, but fuck that noise.
And for the record: Who cares? I’ll tell you who cares. The thousands of people who have bought my books; the thousands of people who regularly read my writing in AlterNet, Salon, The Humanist, and Free Inquiry; the roughly 2,000 – 6,000 people who read my blog every day (more when I have a spike); my close to 10,000 Facebook readers; my over 10,000 Twitter followers; the “I’ve lost track of how many but certainly in the thousands by now” people who have come to hear me speak, not even counting conferences and the Reason Rally; the 199,127 people who have watched my “Why Are You Atheists So Angry?” talk on YouTube (okay, that’s almost certainly not 199,127 unique people, but still). That’s who cares. Bugs you, doesn’t it? The fact that I — a woman, a feminist woman, and a middle-aged feminist woman at that — am successfully making a full-time living by writing and speaking words that people want to read… that really gets under your skin, doesn’t it?
That sounds so second grade: “Yer ugly and yer mom dresses you funny! She does yer hair in a funny way too! So there! Nyah!”
My apologies to any second graders who are offended by the comparison.
“Who cares?” type comments always make me shake my head. Well dude I think it’s reasonable to conclude that you care as evidenced by the simple fact that you’re even aware of tweet to which you’re responding.
I’m sure you didn’t mean to insult women who like normatively feminine presentations or men who like to present in a normatively masculine fashion.
Gender normativity is the ideology that says that your gender presentation has to match the stereotype that our society assigns to your anatomical sex. If you reject the ideology, then you can embrace the entire spectrum of gender presentations. If you take away the boring old command performance, then whatever people come up with is their self-expression, and therefore fun and interesting.
@Ibis3:
“normativity” isn’t the state of happening to be normal for a moment…or even for long stretches.
I’m sure Greta didn’t mean to insult women who like **normal or normalized** feminine presentations or men who like to present in a **normal or normalized** masculine fashion.
But if they **like** their presentation to be normative? Fuck that.
Do you get the difference?
I’m absolutely sure Greta didn’t mean to insult anyone for their gender presentation, traditional or otherwise. She’s arguing that the ideology is boring.
@ibis3
…And Lindsey Beyerstein contributed while I was typing. i hope that both of us saying similar things in very different ways can help illuminate what’s going on here.
If you have any further confusion, Ibis3, just ask. I’m sure one of us or Greta would be happy to answer.
@Lindsay Beyerstein:
Is she? Or is she arguing that reproducing a dominant ideology without thought is boring?
Thoughtless reproduction is boring. How we make sense of and prioritize the different phenomena of life and society is endlessly fascinating…to me.
Calling someone “granny” as an insult while using the phrase “pipe down” in the same statement is just too good to be true. And what a great handle. For random attention-seeking real sexists.
Alas, too true. On a lighter note, I am pleased to know that there’s a name for this phenomenon– and that it’s named after a woman, of course.
Greta’s good people.
As for Jamal Holmes and Nationalist UK? Adolescent jealousy.
Cackling.
That sensation of wanting to both laugh and cry? Over at Shakesville, we call that lolsob. 🙂
Great takedown, GC.
Hey, “Nationalist UK” this nationalistic Aussie cares among humdreds probably thousands even hundreds of thousands of others.
Greta Christina (checks to make sure I haven’t typoed Great Christa as so often and kinda aptly misspelt), I’m not going to to tell what to do but can you speak up please, some folks are obviously still struggling to hear and get the message! 😉
[…] “Who cares, Granny? Pipe down.” “are u a dude or a gurl?”–”It’s really striking when Lewis’ Law — ‘Comments on any article about feminism justify feminism’ — get demonstrated so blatantly.” […]