"The Shrill Squeals Of Stuck Male Chauvinist Pigs"
Bellatrys sent me this message the other day, wanting to comment on one of my MJ threads but being unable to because she wasn't signed up on Blogger:
"Sigh. You're still trying to Please Men, girl. You haven't thrown off the shackles of the patriarchy, no matter how they tore you up, body AND soul.
That's why you still guiltily feel that the antifeminist concern trolls who say "You're scaring us^h^h^h^h being too SHRILL and BITCHY" are right, and if only we were just *nice* and *giving* and meek and patient and Good Girls, they'd eventually stop treating us like domestic servants and cum dumpsters - both aspects of Traditional Femininity embodied in that statue, btw.
Guess what, being nice and backing off and not mobbing them won't get them to Like Us. Being big meanies and forcing them to pay attention to our roars - well, the SHRILL SQUEALS of stuck Male Chauvinist Pigs shows that it does work. Of course they want us to stop! "
Mmmmm. "Shrill squeals of stuck Male Chauvinist Pigs." Yes, I think that will change a lot. I think that's really gotten us far, and, if we really push, we may even get two female writers on the Wizard Top 10 at the same time. We may even produce more than a tiny handful of superstar mainstream superhero comic writers and artists. We may even "shrill and bitch" our way into an executive position at a comic book company.
I wonder if women like Karen Berger and Jeanette Kahn shrilled and bitched their way to the top. And if they didn't, were they sell-outs? Were they "kow-towing to the Man?" If instead of being shrill & bitchy they were, to a degree, gracious & pleasant to their male coworkers -- is that a sad commentary on the way women are bound by the "shackles of patriarchy?"
Certainly I could have been more assertive in dealing with some of the idiots I've encountered in my comic book travels. But if I had gone in the extreme opposite direction I don't think that would have done jack.
Maybe we can make small gains by being "shrill and bitchy." We could force all cheesy cheesecake superheroine renditions underground, for instance. Have them banned. DC and Marvel too "scared" to put them out anymore. But we really don't win in that scenario. Because there is going to be a lot of resentment. And it's going to come out in other ways.
It's like Iraq -- America tried to win the hearts and minds of Iraqis by force. It didn't work, it only produced more people shooting and blowing up our troops. The main criticism of Bush is that he doesn't use diplomacy -- he just goes in there, insults people, and uses threats and coercion.
I think we need diplomacy.
WWWWD? (What would Wonder Woman do?)
What would Wonder Woman do?
ReplyDeleteIn her satin tights, she'd be fighting for our rights to save our lives and save the world.
... wait ... that wasn't the answer you were looking for, was it?
Honey, you're breaking my rhythm of self-righteous punditry. ;-)
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. I've never understood what people expect to change with agression. All it generally does is make people who are unlikely to listen definitely not listen, and those who might listen, eventually give up because they get tired of being included in the sweeping attacks. Having said that though I can understand how tiring it is to be told time and time again that your feelings, opinions and beliefs are invalid and people wondering why your mad about being told that.
ReplyDeleteUltimately things have come a long way, but they've still got a long ways to go. Part of that is that in my opinion guys like me need to be more vocal with our fellow male comic fans speaking out against crap that we know is not right.
Also personally I think that people should stop treating the web as if it's a dumping ground. While I value my privacy and do therefore use a net handle, I use just the one. I don't comment anonymously. I treat people in cyberspace the same way I would if I were in a room with them. I think if more people did that rather than figuring they can just blurp bile all over the place maybe there'd be more constructive intercourse.
Peace
And
Long
Life
Toriach
(Where's the love? It's atGeek Love!)