What I’m reading while I’m not doing schoolwork
Of course, articles I read lead to books I want to read, which both lead to long conversations I want to have with a wide variety of acquantainces, and then it’s all just too much.
- I am thoroughly enjoying Hugo Schwyzer’s blog, which I just discovered this past week. He’s a pro-feminist, gender studies professor with really gentle, clear and compelling writing. I love his recent posts “Homosociality, pro-feminism, and the support of other men” and “Defining Misogyny”, which is a must-read for anyone living in this culture:
…We are eager to evade personal responsibility. An anti-Semite can comfort herself by saying, “Oh, I don’t hate Jews — Hitler hated Jews. I just think that they have too much influence in our culture.” A racist can say: “Oh, I don’t agree with the Klan. But if my daughter brought home a black man, well, I’d be pretty unhappy about that.” Surely we’d all agree that these are examples of bigotry? Similarly, a man can say “I don’t hate women. I love women. But I think that feminists are out to control and manipulate us.” That’s misogyny too…
- Amanda does a terrific and funny job deconstructing one of those awful “10 Ways to Get and Keep a Man” checklists. It makes me terribly sad to think there are women who actually heed lists like that. And in this post, she explains why “men who claim they like pussy but won’t lay tongue to it” are assholes.
- Confusing and/or obvious poll of the week: Nation split on Bush as uniter or divider. 49% say uniter, 49% say divider. Also, I’m morbidly fascinated by the 18% who thought that the inauguration ceremony would in itself heal the political divisions in this country.
- I totally want one of these: TV-B-Gone. Zap, zap, zap. (log-in:emily7@hotmail.com; password:read)
- Alas, a Blog weighs in on a recent insipid NYT editorial by Maureen Dowd.
- Slate mag on Hardees’ new porn-y burger commercials
- In Our Name…enough said.
William said,
January 24, 2005 @ 9:44 am
About the quote, I totally agree with the point being made, but his example of anti-Semite thought just struck me the wrong way.
There’s quite a big difference between objecting to a cultural identity and the influence it may have in the greater cultural diaspora and classifying people according to their ‘race’.
Respecting Latino Americans, for example, is not in anyway connected to holding what is referred to as “Latino culture” in high esteem.
I, for example, fucking hate Nazis. But when Nazi-culture was briefly considered equivalent to “German culture” it would have been totally non-racist to say I thought the Germans had too big of an influence on our culture.
I’m not in anyway comparing Jewish culture to Nazi culture or saying German culture currently involves the swastika or something… But the point is one can object to a “people’s” cultural identity without unfairly targeting their genetic identity.
We choose culture, we don’t choose race.
Right. Um. /rant.
asfo_del said,
January 25, 2005 @ 12:51 am
All straight men will say they like women, but if they don’t like feminism, then they don’t respect women or consider them worthy as human beings, whether they realize it or not.
What the quote seems to be talking about are veiled statements that attempt to frame bigotry in some semblance of a reasonable form, but the underlying meaning is just: yep, I’m a bigot.
I agree that culture is not the same as race, but to racists and misogynists, that distinction does not occur.
William said,
January 25, 2005 @ 11:00 pm
No, but there can be legitimate statements misinterpreted in the righteous fury of anti-racism that, in reality, stem from non-racist people. And when these folks take crap from us for attacking… say the criminal bent of “black culture” in the US, then we waste energy and they form bonds with the real racists.
“Jews having too much influence on our culture” could very easily be a perfectly legit opinion (much the same way I feel that Christians have too much influence on our culture) and the framing of this type of comment as a prime example of the veiled racists/sexists, I feel, threatens to teaches the wrong lesson.
“All straight men will say they like women, but if they don’t like feminism, then they don’t respect women or consider them worthy as human beings, whether they realize it or not.”
I wonder if I’m just in a contrarian mood, because this gets my goat as well.
1. Plenty of straight men will up and admit they fucking hate women. (A nit pick, but still… )
2. I’m glad to know you can just declare some word the embodiment of all good and happiness and everyone who opposes such term and its proponents is therefore Satan spawn. I don’t even think I’ve done that with “Anarchism” when I’ve been ready to brawl with asshole socialists.
Honestly. The vast majority of the US doesn’t agree with the flowers-and-equality definition of “Feminism.” (And with many good, man-hating, reasons) You can fight a bitter war to rehabilitate the term, but even if I thought you had a shot in hell of winning, I’d still refuse to use such a fundamentally flawed and sexist word.
How bout I say this: many women may claim to like men, but if they don’t like equalism, then they don’t respect men or consider them worthy as human beings, whether they realize it or not.
asfo_del said,
January 26, 2005 @ 1:44 am
Hey William,
I wasn’t trying to piss you off.
I think I agree with you, in fact. People are always falling all over themselves to tag statements that could simply be taken at face value and argued on their own merits as -ist (enter the -ism of your choice), and therefore not worhty of being discussed.
On the other hand, some statements have a long history of being “code” for racist beliefs. The Nazis argued that Jews had too much influence, and bandied around that canard as a rationale for exterminating them. They weren’t actually trying to make a valid argument, just using veiled terminology to incite hate. It would be disningenous to ignore the history behind that statement.
“Feminism” is a term that has taken quite a beating, and you may be right that it cannot be rehabilitated, but it does still mean simply that women are as worthy as men and deserving of equal treatment, so if someone says they are against it, I can wonder whether they just misunderstand the term or if they really mean what they are saying.
But, yeah, labels and -isms and jumping to conclusions about someone’s meaning is generally to be avoided. As long as it isn’t to give their bigotry a free pass.
William said,
January 26, 2005 @ 4:02 pm
Yeah. We agree.
I guess I just wanted something to be mad about. I feel strongly about “femin”ism being a horrid word primed for subversion by female chauvinists. Meh.
By the way, this running into one another on an apparently commonly read blog is soo cool.