Comments on: Spinster aunt eradicates male viewpoint

By: My first controversy | Georgia On My Mind

My first controversy | Georgia On My Mind — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 22:02:27 +0000

[...] to be respectful and contribute something to the conversation – in other words, as I read somewhere, “speak when you can embiggen the [...]

By: anna

anna — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 06:47:39 +0000

The podcast Girls On Girls on heretv.com picked up that New York Times article about separatism. I was *not* amused with their cursory analysis of radical feminism. Because, you know, wanting things to be equal is such a downer. You know who I blame.

By: Miss Andrist

Miss Andrist — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:16:41 +0000

Dear Twisty,

How I stumbled across this gem of a blog is a long, fascinating story which unfortunately is not wholly relevant to the purpose of this comment – which is to thank you for this post.

Radical feminist? MILITANT. I’m not just a feminazi, I’m an evangelist – a vagina-warrior lioness on a holy mission, filled with verbal confetti and thrilled by any opportunity to dropkick asshats and their faulty paradigms concerning the origin of the species (species, a reference: h. Asshat.)

Summary: this post is utterly splendid. Splendid, as in I’ve been READING IT OUT LOUD to my doodly friends. I’ve also been passing it out to other lionesses; it’s great for time management! No, it is not my job to educate males; rather, it is a hobby of mine as well as a bottomless well of entertainment. What can I say, I like watching a flummoxed asshat fumble, completely dumbfounded, when I inform him point-blank most likely for the first time in his life:

“This is not about you.”

Hits ‘em like a bare-knuckle fist.

By: felicity

felicity — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 00:51:56 +0000

“I once went an entire year without reading a single book or essay by a man. I still read newspaper articles when necessary, but tried to put up a sort of mental firewall when that happened. It was quite life-changing.”

Charles Dickens, I used to love but don’t; most horror films! I wish I could escape into books as I used to when I was a kid. Now I have to pretend I’m not a female to read anything.

Austen’s Persuasion is one of my favourites, it has some really good feminist messages at the end. Then I well up because I just imagine Jane the actual genius growing up in the times she describes, which she describes nicely of course, not so as to upset readers.

By: phiogistic

phiogistic — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 20:26:44 +0000

Last year I read exclusively women sci-fi writers. (I’ll plug the list again: http://phiogistic.blogspot.com/2007/06/women-in-sf.html)
This year I have started reading some male SF writers again. And you know what? It’s painful. To read a book in which the author can envision interstellar and inter-cosmic travel, aliens, colonies on Mars, post-apocalyptic civilizations that live in giant clock towers, and still drop casual references to prostitution and pornography, is painful. Yes, I am looking at you Neal Stephenson. Yes, I am looking at you John Varley. To me, when you drop these comments, and they add nothing to the story at all, do you know what you are telling me? You are telling me that even with your brains as big as planets, you still can’t envision a world without the institutionalized rape of women. You have to assure your male readers, “In the future you will still be on top, big boys! Some women may be space-ship captains, but this heresy will always be made up for – there will always be a caste of women available for you to rape and assuage your tender egos! Things may change in the future, but not -that- much, never fear!”
And this is what you are telling your female readers: “You may have somehow infiltrated this male world of words and rocket ships, but you will never escape the boot in the face. Never.”

By: Twisty

Twisty — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:31:06 +0000

“(Hey! Taking out half the “I” statments takes out most of the softening sentense starters, too – “I think” “I feel”)”

It’s working! It’s working!

By: admirerofemily

admirerofemily — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:30:20 +0000

Kuleana, I share your abhorrence of most male writers and almost never ever bother with them these days.

Usually doesn’t take too long into a book by a male author before we are getting a description of the woman’s shape…etc etc

I too used to be into Heinlen, and all the other sci fi stuff. And even then, age 13,14, something like that, the role of women struck me as being decidedly restricted. blah – give me Marge Piercy anytime.

By: Aunti Disestablishmentarian

Aunti Disestablishmentarian — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 05:31:20 +0000

And of course Lobotomies (ye olde ice pick to the brain) were a great tool of the patriarchy to begin with. Funny they way that works, no?

By: Kuleana

Kuleana — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:27:28 +0000

I have so little body hair that I don’t need to shave my legs,

Bah. And by that I mean that it looks like I shave my legs even though I don’t. Nobody needs to shave their legs. In fact, nobody should. Sometimes I think only a lobotomy will get the patriarchy out of my head.

By: Kuleana

Kuleana — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 02:55:08 +0000

If they were hairless, they would not be yucky.

Except on our heads! Somehow, we must have not a single hair anywhere on our bodies except on our head, where we must have long, thick, silky, straight locks. Of course, anybody with a brain would know this is a biological impossibility — I have so little body hair that I don’t need to shave my legs, which means that the hair on my head is also quite thin and not at all acceptable to Dude Nation. (And oh, do they love telling me about this shortcoming!)

I once went an entire year without reading a single book or essay by a man. I still read newspaper articles when necessary, but tried to put up a sort of mental firewall when that happened. It was quite life-changing.