Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown fame has a great piece up at In These Times on the ways in which the Internet has helped to highlight virulent and violent misogyny — and inspire effective feminist pushback. It’s actually kind of … inspiring? (That’s a word I don’t use often!) Here’s the opening:
When a history of 21st-century feminist activism is someday written, 2011 may be labeled Year Rape Broke. Sexual assault and harassment have, of course, always been key feminist concerns. But in 2011, sexual violence, exploitation, or intimidation were part of nearly every major story that fell under the heading of “women’s issues”–and the activism against it has been particularly widespread, focused and effective.
As we enter this renaissance of sexual assault awareness, it’s worth considering the ways in which new media has informed it–and, indeed, perhaps even made it possible. …
You can read the rest on the In These Times website.
Full disclosure: I worked at ITT for a couple of years in the 90s (yes, I’m old), and Sady says some nice things about Man Boobz in the piece.
I really wish this were the case. But it seems like the (somewhat) anonymous cover of the Internet is also the perfect method for people to spout all sorts of racist and misogynist bullshit that they wouldn’t dare utter in public. There are only one or two websites (this beinf one of them) whose comment pages I can read enjoyably without flying into rage.
People might be more aware of these issues, but it seems to make everyone else just push back harder. I have never heard more “get back in the kitchen” jokes in any other year before this. Then everyone bitches when girls don’t like it because they’re being ~*sensitive*~ or whatever.
Then other girls make the same jokes without a trace of irony and we get set back a few days in the feminist movement with each one.
Common Nonsense – It definitely seems like the backlash has been lashier lately.
I feel the worst about girls who are all “you don’t have to be PC around me, I’m cool, I’ve got a sense of humor,” because I’ve been there and I suspect a lot of us have. It’s the path of least resistance, the path of immediate approval and acceptance as “one of the good ones,” and sometimes you don’t feel like you can afford to alienate people.
At the same time, it just makes things even harder for those of us humorless shrews who aren’t cool with it.
My only hope that the backlash is the fight you part of “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”
Seriously? My friend (and then-neighbor) interned there for a couple of years in the ’90s. Small world.
(I’m totally not old, though!)
I think it will be some time before rape isn’t prevalent in the culture, but this may be the tipping point. If there is a steady diminuition, then yes, this is probably the year it broke.
But it will take time to before we know.
I’m actually not that worried about the backlash in the grand scheme of things. Of course there is going to be backlash when the cultural treatment of rape and female sexuality is discussed in a big way. It’s going to be a messy fight and the opposition is going to be loud. I don’t know that there is any way to change that. I don’t know that there’s any way to change the conversation about consent that isn’t loud, and messy, and full of controversy.
But I think that’s okay. Just the act of having the conversation is a step forward – a step beyond “it’s not a problem, this is just the way it is, there’s nothing to talk about.”
I have a friend who sometimes seems to miss the point of not liking sexist jokes. Ironically is one thing, but I think she does it in part because she’s not a big fan of “excessive PCness” or whatever I should call it. That, and usually these ironic jokes turn around and start lacking irony again.
At least it’s an issue, I guess, instead of nothing at all, like people mentioned. I just wish it would hurry up and be solved. I’m not patient. >:I
“Then other girls make the same jokes without a trace of irony and we get set back a few days in the feminist movement with each one.”
I don’t know, I consider feminism is no more mandatory on account of being a woman than being a man. True I subscribe to the general notion of feminism pretty hard, but I’d like to think of it an an equal opportunity philosophy not a men VS women dynamic.
I think I see where you’re coming from, that people with so much to lose shoot themselves in the foot, but I’m pretty sure male identifying people win with feminism too.
a note on “excessive PC-ness.” I can’t even begin to explain how much that phrase pisses me off, since it implies that you can’t be humorous, or crasss, or playful without curbstomping marginalized populations. That is, SO not true. It is totally possible to be hilarious and thought provoking without buying into oppression.
MRA’s hypocrisy is highlighted when they promote false rape society propaganda while at the same time “promote and direct the rape and violence against women and children”. How can you cry that men get falsely accused of rape and in the same breath tell guys to go forward and rape women and children. The mra’s “false rape society” doth protest too much because they want to cover up their crimes. Folks just don’t take these ghetto hoodlum rats with an ounce of respect. And for good reason pal.
“a note on “excessive PC-ness.” I can’t even begin to explain how much that phrase pisses me off, since it implies that you can’t be humorous, or crasss, or playful without curbstomping marginalized populations. That is, SO not true. It is totally possible to be hilarious and thought provoking without buying into oppression.”
There was a time when I was very intentionally one of those “cool, un-PC” girls. Then I grew up and realized that my own personal experiences were not in fact the definitive narratives of everybody, and that maybe hearing a “non-PC joke” targeting a marginalized group as a member of that group was, in fact, a drastically different experience than it was for me.
So, yeah. The whole way the discussion on “PC-ness” is usually framed really bothers me. I don’t believe the government generally should play a role in policing language*, but I believe very strongly in calling out people for being assholes.
*complicated issue that I do not have the energy to get into the nuances of now.
Feminism is about evening the leveling field so that women get the same freedoms. Y’all still earn less than men and with finances being everyone’s number one ticket to happiness y’all best keep up the fight till the good ole boys learn how to share the wealth. Look, I’ll tell you this, us men we have a lot of competition now. A lot of competition ever since you ladies started leaving the kitchen to make room for intellectual advancement. You’re gonna run across some dudes who don’t want the female competition for jobs and schooling. These scared boys never learned how to share on the playground. They want you to stay uneducated and jobless yet they bitch and moan that they have to pay for dinner dates. I’m glad you women are leading productive lives in medicine, research, technology, art, etc.. Good for ya’ll. These mra dudes who never leave the computer because they ain’t got no social lives are gonna be in for a big surprise when they finally step away from their computer screen to look at how much the world changed around them. I just went to a specialist today for my colonoscopy. Guess what. My doctor was a woman. A happy woman. Shhh, don’t let the mra dudes know because that’ll send the poor boys over the edge. Jealousy is ugly.
the first comment on that article is from an MRA talking about how not misogynist the MRM and general boohooing about how men have no rights. Funny how they ALWAYS seem to come out on articles about speaking out against sexual harassment and other BS that women generally have to deal with.
Yea. We have a long way to go.
@LapLace: point totally well taken. But even more basic than that, it is possible to be gut wrenchingly “un PC” while still standing up for marginalized populations (see: everything Margaret Cho has ever done). I’m offended as a funny person as well as a person belonging to some historically marginalized groups.
M Dubz – oh, totally. I wasn’t disagreeing with you so much as throwing my perspective into the mix.
Yay for general agreement that PC is generally awesome!
I used to be a typical Privileged White Male (well, I actually am still all three of those things, but that’s besides the point) who would whine about how things were too politically correct, until I wisely realized that complaining about PC is just something people do when they feel their privileges being threatened. I’ve hardly ever someone who actually belongs in some way to an oppressed group say, “Things are too politically correct!”
There’s a weird tendency to think that being PC is bad or makes you a sheep or . . . something. Taking away free speech, maybe. I’unno, I just think that making a half-assed effort to not offend everybody shouldn’t be that difficult.
Political Correctness has several meanings, in my opinion. There is a base level whereby PC objects to crude racist or otherwise bigoted language. For example, I would never use the term “manflu” because, whilst I view it as essentially harmless, it isn’t consistent. And I wouldn’t call a woman a slut – there’s no male equivalent. To me, that’s being fair; not PC.
What MRAs mean by PC is “Cultural Marxism”. They demonstrate a level of incredible hypocrisy and stupidity in this that it’s really surprising that David, or others, haven’t written about it.
MRAs hold that we live in a society dominated by “Cultural Marxism”. Society, according to them, has decreed white, hetero males as a cultural equivalent to the owners of production and all others as the cultural equivalent to the workers/proles. Because of this, laws have been enacted and a war (a “cultural Marxist” war) is being waged on men. To accept this MRA theory you would have to accept that every US Govt. of the last 50 years contained “Cultural Marxists” Sec. of States and that they held sway at all levels of Govt.
So far, so deluded. But here is the borderline insane punch line to the whole crazy thought process…
MRAs flip this right on its head, state loudly and proudly that males are actually the oppressed and that women are the privileged classes oppressing them. So what they are doing is essentially using the methodology they accuse others of using but claim they aren’t. So we get to a lunatic position where MRAs say feminists are “Cultural Marxists” and use “Cultural Marxist” doctrines (reversed) to prove this.
It’s absurd. Basically, MRAs are inventing things that they would like feminists to believe, the repeating it back to them but replacing female with male.
They are cultural, intellectual and ethical untermenschen..
I’m not sure they actually have a clue what ‘political correctness’ is/was – how the concept started, what it was in response to, etc. When they whine about ‘PC gone mad’ you can usually read it as ‘baww people get annoyed when I insult them, I’m so oppressed’
I first started noticing this among BNP supporters (UK’s white supremacists pretending to be a nice little working-class party who are just concerned about excessive immigration, honest) but when they start using the ‘PC’ card it’s basically an excuse to not have to defend any of their crap: ‘I’m un-PC therefore I’m right and you’re *censoring* me.’ They’re just casting themselves as the underdog and giving themselves a nice excuse to get out of any actual debate.
*hands out mince pies*
Oh… and sadly I agree with Crumbelievable’s 1st post. New years resolution: don’t read the comments section.
@bobbyjo “promote and direct the rape and violence against women and children” Who are you quoting?
‘How can you cry that men get falsely accused of rape and in the same breath tell guys to go forward and rape women and children’
Again who does this?
‘The mra’s “false rape society” doth protest too much because they want to cover up their crimes’
Ah so by all means protest about false rape accusations, but not too much… or your a rapist.
Part of the PC thing in my country is to say there are certain things that simply cannot be joked about, or even discussed. It closes down debate, closes down trains of thought and makes things bland.
For example banning nativety scenes in case it offends any non christians, not saying merry Christmas and instead saying seasons greetings.
Hey kids! “It’s not PC” is the new “it’s hateful and hurtful but I want to say it anyway, can we get a phrase that makes me seem like the victim here?”
I know a lot of people suffering from terrible PTSD after not being allowed to tell a rape joke, so you know, totally justified.
Fuck you, it’s Chanukah right now.
It’s Chanukah and Christmas and Kwanzaa and Yule and Winter Solstice and the New Year. It’s all those things. It’s not “season’s greetings” because we’re afraid to say Christmas, it’s “season’s greetings” because there’s more to this season than just Christmas.
It’s not anti-Christmas. It’s pro-realizing-Christmas-isn’t-the-only-holiday.