How dare you be female and ask to be treated with dignity?
September 16th, 2006Okay, I normally avoid jumping on the feminist blogosphere drama bandwagon, but seriously. It’s so “nice” to know that no matter what kind of work you’ve done, how intelligent you are, or how well-respected, if you are female, you are not allowed to be taken seriously or treated with any amount of dignity:
You know, I was psyched to be invited to this lunch and was feeling pretty honored. But then things like this remind me that no matter what I do or accomplish, because I’m a young woman all I’m good for is fodder for tacky intern jokes and comments that I don’t “represent feminist values” because of the way I posed in a picture.
Pretty much. Unfortunately, it’s worse than that. If you’re an attractive young feminist you can’t be taken seriously because you’re attractive and young. But if you aren’t attractive you also can’t be taken seriously since you’re an ugly man-hating feminist, and you must only care about women’s rights because you’re not pretty and assumed to be insecure. If you’re not pretty enough you’ll get flack for not being good eyecandy no matter how thought-provoking your ideas, and if you’re too pretty you must not have anything valuable to say since we all know intelligent women are never attractive. And so on and so on.
I think someone must really have to hate women in order to think like that. I do.
PS: Since it’s my area of concern at the moment, I think I’ll post some stuff about feminism and fiction writing soon, okay?
September 18th, 2006 at 11:43 pm
I have to say: I don’t even get it. What’s allegedly objectionable about the way she posed?
And OF COURSE it doesn’t matter! I too come across this sort of thing all the time.
October 3rd, 2006 at 2:06 pm
Well I am an old feminist I guess in a way although always loved the male gender too (wink) … worked for the rights of women in a quiet way. Sometimes would be disappointed when women could not stand up for their rights. So now I have a project underway that calls for women to change the tone of politics - to establish a new world order. (Might as well think big eh?)I am coming back to read more and will bookmark this site. Keep going. It’s good to have conversation about all this - especially among younger women.
October 8th, 2006 at 7:44 am
Don’t you realize that because you’re attractive and young you don’t NEED to be a feminist? Everything will be handed to you on a platter! Isn’t it great to know that as long as you’re hot you can sit at home and be unfufilled and financially dependent on someone who doesn’t appreciate your personality?
October 17th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
I’m seeing this as a complete innocent–I don’t know which of the people in the picture is the one who’s been criticized. I’ll make a guess that it’s the young woman in the front row with bare arms and dark hair. She is in a kind of “glamor” stance which nobody else is using, full-face to the camera but body in partial profile, and she’s showing plenty of teeth. But what the hell, has she got something to say? If so, she’s got as much right to be listened to as anyone. Most of the time on the Internet we don’t know what anyone looks like anyway. For one thing I’m most likely totally wrong about who’s involved, but also if someone knows they look good and exploit it a bit, I wouldn’t let them get any extra credit for it–I’d just roll my eyes and say “Yeah, yeah” and hope to move on to something that matters. If it’s completely pathological and they let showing off become a major part of their personality, then it’s a problem. Otherwise, try to ignore it. It’s this exaggerated importance that everyone gives to women’s appearance that poisons things, and it’s so hard to get between either too good or not good enough, being exploited or not acknowledged at all.