Well, so far this is my favorite response to Jaclyn Friedman’s American Prospect piece on the Men’s Rightsers and that woman-hating problem of theirs. Because what better way to refute charges of misogyny than by declaring derisively that you “can usually spot whether or not a woman wrote a piece by the first few sentences?”
Let’s let rjworks13 explain just why Friedman lacks the intellectual heft to be taken seriously by serious men with credentials — sorry, CREDENTIALS — like him:
Oh boy.
I have to say that very favorite sentence of all in this wondrous bit of HeManWomanHatersplaining is this one, if it can even be called a sentence:
CREDENTIALS: I’m a long-time trained technical and creative writer from male-based military training and put to use over 20 years.
Oy. I can only assume from the evidence of this, er, sentence, that as a technical writer his job is to make sure that instruction manuals are as unreadable as possible. And that his “creative” writing most likely consists of many volumes of self-published Gorean porn.
If you want to compare Jaclyn Friedman’s CREDENTIALS with his, you can always go to her Wikipedia entry. I looked around a bit for rjworks13’s Wikipedia entry, but he doesn’t seem to have one.
rjworks13 was evidently so proud of this bit of writing of his that he deleted it. Luckily, I grabbed a screenshot beforehand. ABS: Always Be Screenshotting.
PS What’s “indifference propaganda?”
LBT, hope you’re feeling better. 🙂
It would be great to break it down into sections, like you say, women in history, world feminism etc.
Enh, weaker today than I was yesterday. It bites. Crutches make things easier, but I suspect this crash will continue until the housing situation improves. (Too bad looking at apartments requires MOBILITY.)
I think I might be moving to Ohio when I can, guys. Living on $600 a month in a state where I WILL NOT find a room for less than $400 is cutting it close, even for me.
Thanks, Athywren. I appreciate it. I’ve just been seeing cissexist nonsense all over the place these days, and I would prefer if no one had to see that stuff in a space like this.
@Wetherby – I didn’t know that about Booth! Priceless! 😀
@athywren – “I think I will. Ze’s becoming really easy to use. Plus, it puts funny sentences in my head. “Ze zaid ze zauzage zandwichez zmelled zavoury.””
Don’t mention the war!
Also, your preferred pronouns noted. 🙂
@LBT – oh good, I’m not the only person around who finds “very youthful” a turn-off and “why aren’t you in school?” as well.
I don’t think anyone in my age range is online at present, but has anyone who is and uses a cane suddenly found they feel like an Officially Old Person? I’m getting that feeling, not least when I get offered a seat on the tram. 😛
Hey Ophelia, you’ve got me using smileys all over the place! :cat:
Random etiquette question! So, not long ago I was on the bus and this woman got on at a very busy stop and proceeded to hum and haw about young people these days being so rude and not offering their seats to older people and so on, while glaring at me. Thing is, during this rant she mentioned her age and she’s less than 10 years older than I am. What would other people have done? Since she was wearing flat, comfy-looking shoes and I was not I did not offer her my seat.
(Nor did anyone else, including people who were noticeably younger, so I’m not quite sure why I was the target for her ire.)
I looked up ‘scouse’. Now I want to try lobscouse, which means I’ll have to make it myself. Wonder what to call it so my sons will eat it? Liverpool stew is right out.
Also, the Wikipedia article on the accent goes into amazing detail on the linguistic particularity. I can remember when you would have had to go to the library for that kind of information.
“Beatles Delight”?
Cassandra – hmm, an interesting conundrum.
“You’re X years old? Here, have my seat. I’m only X – Y years old.” (Said loudly, maybe with “I know, I don’t look it” added smugly at the end if you’re feeling really snarky.)
“What are you staring at me for? I’m X years old.”
“Y’know snarking at the world in general isn’t going to get you a seat. Especially when you aim your ‘young people’ rant at someone your own age.”
I dunno, nothing helpful comes to mind, only the “Damn why didn’t I say that at the time?” comments I usually think of after these situations.
There was a woman doing a lot of staring and huffing on the tram a while back – she’d have been around a decade of my age, I reckon. I was thinking “Don’t even suggest I get up for you, lady. What part of This Is A Walking Stick do you not understand?”
Oooh, another one: “Well, a nice young person offered me this seat.”
I think the last one would be the winner if I’d bothered to respond. Mostly I was just going – I’m tired too, you’re very rude, I’m no spring chicken either and you’re wearing more sensible shoes than I am so piss off.
(If it had been a person who actually was elderly or who had some sort of mobility aid with them of course I’d have given them my seat.)
Yeah, she sounds like a vocal version of Huffing Tram Person. Not the Dale Carnegie recommended method of how to get a seat.
Or those people who huff in outrage because there are kids on the bus/train and they’re talking. I mean, how dare they?
OT again I had the funniest moment last night. Mads was standing on my bed, having a nice punch-up on the furry bedspread, when she looked up and saw …
A GIANT CAT LOOKING AT HER
She went all goosey-necked and goggle-eyed and bristle-furred. BUT she bravely stood her ground, then went and had a sniff (I hang my Aston coat from the kitty hanger). I think she’s figured out that it’s not a real cat. Just as well, that would be one big feline.
Pittsburgh busses have the inverse problem — like, hey, college kids, take off your backpacks, move to the back of the bus, and stop blocking the bloodly fucking aisles.
Also, learn your ABCs (this was the actual campaign name, because yes, they had to run an actual campaign) the 71A, 71B and 71C all run down Murray, please stop clogging the A!
Note, I was, at most, a decade older than them, and that I would’ve been the really young freshman — usually within a five year age range. So I’m not even being a That Person but having a case of “you can get into CMU, but not handle bus etiquette?”
I don’t take public transport much (lived too long in the ‘burbs/rural Northwest) but I really liked taking the subway in NYC. We had my Grandmother with us, and she only had to stand once–and that was when the train was too packed to move in.
The funniest thing was when I was driving a couple of foreign students back to college after a short break (there were five of us in my 95 honda Civic…) and I mentioned that before I got the car I’d take Greyhound/Amtrak back home (a roughly six hour trip) and I’d liked it. The two international students–one Chinese, one Spanish–mentioned that our college had warned them against taking public transportation. I was like WTF? The worst thing that happened to me was getting stuck behind a crying baby. And I’d been taking public transportation into the city alone since I was around 15.
Though apparently the State Pen dropped prisoners off at the local greyhound station, which might have explained the fear… but still…
My pet peeve when it comes to trains is having to hold onto those hand-loops. I can barely reach them, and stretching to do so puts me off-balance and isn’t comfortable for more than five seconds. I’m really short.
RE: wordsp1nner
our college had warned them against taking public transportation. I was like WTF?
WTF? My brother was the same way. I don’t get it. I freakin’ MOVED from Texas to Massachusetts via Amtrak, and I dare say it was a very smart decision! I’ve used plenty of buses, subways, and a couple trains now, and I’ve never had anything bad happen to me except some REALLY obnoxious dudebro Yankees fans going “WOOO YANKEES” constantly. (Much to the icy silence of the Red Sox fans around them.)
I do not like the busses here, for reasons mostly summing to lots of people, lots of loud people. Amtrak? Fucking love it. Never minded Greyhound, but Amtrak usually has power outlets which is a nice perk. Flying? No, no, noptopus. I’m not dealing with the TSA so I can get motion sick and have my ears all wonky for 3 days.
Of course, I ride the train, so I can totally handle public transit, for a normal workday and a normal workweek…my fucking psych seriously put that my mental state has no significant affect on my ability to handle unfamiliar places and public transit…because I visited pecunium. Livid doesn’t begin to cover it.
Your psych is a fucking idiot (this is called “duh, tell us something we don’t know”). Psych (med psych, I presume) shouldn’t be practising, since zie seems to have failed Psychology 101. If someone presented to zir with agoraphobia, would she say it had no bearing on their ablility to handle spaces and crowds? If it were claustrophobia, would zie say it had no bearing on their ability to handle working in confined spaces? Zie really is a fuckwit, this one.
wordsp1nner – I am SO with you on hand loops. Some of our trains here don’t even have them; they have horizontal bars about six inches (at most) from the roof, which are difficult for tall people to hold, let alone anyone under 6′. I always travel into town from work to get the train at the terminus and make sure I’ve got a good seat. It adds time to the journey but standing up in a crowd (especially since at that time of day it’s kids with huge backpacks and nowhere to store them except the floor – there are no luggage racks on our suburban trains – is just not something I’m prepared to do.
It seems like the main consideration for this psych (and the earlier ones, honestly) is figuring out which diagnosis will cost the government the least amount of money. Zie is trying to find a way to limit the benefits for which Argenti is eligible, imo.
My dad (in his sixties at the time) told me about the first time he was on public transit and a younger man got up and offered him a seat. ” I was so mad, I wanted to hit him – then I sat down and thought ‘oh, this feels good’ ” I haven’t had anyone offer me a seat yet, but I have been offered the senior discount at the dispensary. Almost time for wearing purple and a red hat that doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me.
Be sure to post pics when you do! 🙂
I’m a WP designer/dev – anyone wants to start an online Manboobzer mag, I am totally game. May be able to donate server space as well 🙂 I do have lots of client projects on the go, but this would be a fun weekend project!
Well someone can be misogynistic and also right, so this argument doesn’t really matter. If anything, misogynists are often right compared to their feminist counterparts.