I follow a lot of truly terrible people on Twitter — Manosphere bloggers, white supremacists, Fidelbogen — so it took me a moment to realize that this dopey, backwards tweet didn’t come from some obscure reactionary bigot but from none other than antifeminist celebrity academic Christina Hoff Sommers, inventor of “equity feminism” and the author of the bestselling The War Against Boys.
If "bossy" has to go because it is sexist, then shouldn't we stop using male-vilifying terms like "mansplaining" & "rape culture"? @banbossy
— Christina Hoff Sommers (@CHSommers) March 12, 2014
Oy.
Also, I think she meant to end that with #BanBossy, not @BanBossy.
Interesting that she doesn’t seem to understand hashtags any more than she understands rape culture.
Truth! It’s so devastating I used it for our Manboobz Ravelry group.
/advert
Funny how SPINSTER felt more like a pinheaded prick than a pin prick.
There was an earthquake centered in Virginia about 3 years ago that was felt all the way up here in northern New England. I was pregnant with the twins and browsing on Amazon, looking at bouncy seats for babies, when all of a sudden my chair started swaying back and forth. My first thought was “Wow! They’re really making the internet realistic nowadays.”
I was a little disappointed when I found out later it was just an earthquake.
I didn’t need to sleep tonight anyway…
::mops coffee off monitor::
@sparky – thank you for taking time to respond without any veiled digs at my disorder, for starters. That is much appreciated.
I’m sorry you had the experience as a kid of bossy being used exclusively for girls. I do definitely think that should be challenged. I agree with you that people having different experiences does not negate the experience of either person. I think you maybe hit the crux of the disagreement when you wrote:
Maybe that’s part of the disagreement? “Bossy” the word does not specifically refer to women and girls (like a word like “b*tch” refers pretty directly to) but “can be” gender neutral. However, it is used more often as a perjorative for girls. So, to me, that would make the term very problematic, not because of the definition of the term but the way it is most often used.
This sums up both sides of the argument, that while it can be gender-neutral, very often it’s not used that way. Maybe I was overly focused on “teach people not to use it incorrectly” without being aware of the impact it has made all the times it has been used incorrectly. Maybe it would be good to teach kids not only that girls being assertive or leaders doesn’t make them bossy, but also to talk to them about why people may come at you with certain words that are unfair, that it can have more to do with them than you. That could be another way of helping them develop a stronger sense of self, to not get into defining themselves as others define them. As you said, there doesn’t only need to be one strategy for tackling this stuff.
I’d also think it could be good for children who are maybe questioning their gender at an early age, as some do, to not constantly hear reinforcements of “this gender is this, that gender is that”.
I never claimed that it was impossible to use respectfully, just that often it is used as a gendered slur.
@kim – ok. Then why is hard to accept that I know people who are using “diva” respectfully, when I’ve said they are in music or performing circles, where the word originated?
This sounds an awful lot like asking the oppressed group being asked to cut their oppressors some slack. It can work up to a point, but it really doesn’t fix the issue.
I don’t know who made veiled digs at your disorder, WTF is this now?
@titianblue – I think someone said it doesn’t play for people outside of the UK? But I will gladly read the transcript.
This is you not following the conversation. People previously said:
But, much like “‘ban bossy’ doesn’t mean ‘make it illegal to say the word ‘bossy'”, it appears that no matter how many times it is said, you will never notice it.
Seconded.
*is just watching this whole conversation unfold, since he has nothing to add but is kind of fascinated anyway because how the hell did this start again?*
@hellkell – No I don’t want them to cut oppressors any slack. I thought it might be good to explain that this is something people may do, and not let it define their sense of self, to build them up, so that they feel stronger and safer challenging things if they need to.
I’ve mentioned here in the past, about having mental health issues and earlier in this thread mentioned to someone (can’t remember who) that I live on disability. In full disclosure, my diagnosis is schizoaffective disorder with depressive features. Yes, sometimes it creates psychotic breaks in which it becomes painful or paralyzing to communicate, either verbally or through writing. So yes, I start hearing cracks about incoherence or poor typing and I go into times people have used this against me. However, to be clear, I’m not saying that sza is behind anything here…just a huge disagreement and a computer in bad need of an upgrade.
LBT: It started when jenny posted a rebuttal of sorts.
I was also in Seattle for the Nisqually quake. I worked in a building on the edge of Lake Union, and when the shaking didn’t stop and didn’t stop all I could think of was the ground was going to liquefy and we’d all die. And I really hated that job.
We lived. 🙂 Of course, the earthquake did shake loose all the asbestos in the building, but we weren’t supposed to know that.
Hippodameia: I was in a building on Broadway and Pine, at first I thought a semi was coming up Pine. Then I saw the light poles swaying.
Well, jennydevildoll, you haven’t exactly shown familiarity with anyone else here despite having read for quite a while, so why would you expect us to remember you’ve mentioned previously that you have mental issues? For that matter, surely you know this place well enough to know that ableism doesn’t fly here.
“Living on disability” doesn’t automatically imply mental issues.
I understand the people up in the Space Needle had an exciting time . . .
My mother told me that one of the dogs freaked out and had to be sat upon. The other simply barked her disapproval until the shaking stopped.
I don’t even know what to say to you if you truly believe that someone HERE would dig at you about mental health issues.
I was on the Eastside, so the Nisqually Earthquake was a lot milder for us. There really wasn’t any damage where we were.
Argh, liquification. That’s the reason why I would never live in the Marina even if I could afford to do so.
::hides under desk at the very idea::
Aaaaand there’s tomorrow night’s nightmare. At this rate I’ll have the whole week booked by the end of the night (but it’ll be a nice change from the usual volcanoes, zombies and giant robots).
I’ve been dreaming about kitties all week. Every night it’s been a different New Kitty. The timing’s crap, given the $$$ are going down, but I would love love love to have another kitty.
Good bit of news today: we just got our lease to sign for the next year and our rent hasn’t gone up!
Sorry! If it helps at all, the Space Needle is actually a safe place to be during an earthquake. It was built to withstand up to a 9.1 quake.
The words Space Needle imply height to me, and that’s nightmare material even without an earthquake!