Grr and argh, excuse me while I get my feminist on

[such_heights]

I've got a few rants that have been building for a while now. This is the more general one that I think I'm going to let blow this evening.

I get angry, you see. I get really bloody angry about the way so many people talk about gender and sexuality - in the news, in fiction, at the table next to me in the student bar.

I get angry that working, professional women are constantly referred to as 'girls'. I'm a nineteen-year-old student, I'm a girl. The 25-year-old woman who was at the reception desk this morning or presenting a TV show or winning a sporting medal or calling you on behalf of a company - yeah, I'm pretty sure she's a proper adult. No, it's not the semantic equivalent of 'guy', it's patronising, doubly so when you're speaking in a professional capacity.

I get angry, because "'women' is not an acceptable generalisation." (Bones, I love you so very much.) 'Gay men', 'lesbians', 'bisexuals' and 'transsexuals' aren't either, please stop it.

I get angry that Bones is a shining beacon of positive and interesting portraits of women in an otherwise bleak mainstream TV world. Every ensemble work of fiction should be able to come up with characters like Brennan and Angela and Cam, who have agency and storyline potential and flaws and general win, and it shouldn't be noteworthy in the slightest.

I get angry every time I watch a film or turn on the TV or pick up a book and women are there solely to be the receptacles of male love, where they don't get given purpose, or where if they have careers then they can't possibly be both effective in them and have romantic feelings of any sort - their pining will affect their job, or they'll chuck in that nasty, high-pressure working environment to go be with their man, whereas men get to be spurred on and inspired to heroics by their own loves.

I get angry that being female and single is a tragedy no matter what the individual wants, but being a bachelor is a-okay.

I get angry that so many women have been sufficiently coded by society to believe the previous point is true.

I get angry that people believe so emphatically that gender is a binary, and that 'women' and 'men' can be lumped together in a big comfy group of similar traits.

I get angry when people are mocked for being 'girly', that women need to be One Of The Boys to be taken seriously and that men must fit into some sort of super-macho paradigm.

I get angry that being gay is innately hi-larious - after all, gay people are all one big homogeneous (and lest we forget, entirely sex-obsessed) group that conform to all your stereotypes, totally!

I get angry that being gay is acceptable as long as you're not 'camp' or 'butch', heaven forbid.

I get angry that the concept of varying degrees of bisexuality is apparently too much for some people.

I get angry that people are viewed so differently once it's revealed they're gay. I get seriously angry when it's used to tar them professionally - gay school teachers, sports coaches, the list goes on and on, and I get really mind-boggingly angry that gay people are so widely assumed to be unable to keep their hands to themselves and are pretty much a step away from paedophilia at any moment.

I get angry that people are so impossibly offensive about anyone who doesn't conform to their own ideas of gender identity. Transgendered folks aren't real people, you know! They certainly didn't go to your school, work in your office, sit next to you on the bus this morning and they're definitely don't get on with their lives like everyone else. ... oh, wait.

I get angry when people don't talk about each other as if they're just that: people.

I get angry about how much crap fandom itself pulls on these sorts of issues. The amount of vitriol directed against female characters (beautifully discussed by lyras here the other day), the way het and femslash are so regularly described as being 'icky' because omg girlparts, the way people throw around the most staggering rude language.

I get angry, because I know I've been guilty of perpetuating some of this myself, maybe still am if I don't watch myself effectively, and I get angry every time I let people talk like this around me and don't say a damn thing.

I get angry that people don't take me seriously when I do talk about this, that I'm accused of taking things too personally or being overly emotional or young or whatever else. After all, I am a man-hating lesbian feminazi (as the icon, that I really should acquire, says, wanting equal rights is just like invading Poland!) who should shut the hell up because I'm making a big deal out of nothing. Ugh ugh ugh.

The list goes on, but I do believe I shall stop now. The point is, I get so mad about all of the above and more, and then I come on here and remind myself that amongst the wank and the nonsense there is all of you, and many more people on LJ besides, who are sane and smart and generally awesome. Thank goodness for that.

Comments

[builtofsorrow.livejournal.com]

-flails all over you- I love you.

There's a bloke at work who asked me one time if I was a feminist (& in the oddest context too! another co-worker has just broken up with her boyfriend and was keeping up this diatribe of hatred against men, and she made some comment about how much men sucked at relationships, and I just said, 'To be honest, I think most people in general aren't great at relationships; it's not something specific to men.' & I'm not totally sure why that necessitated questioning about whether or not I'm a feminist, but apparently it did), and I said yes, and then he made it a running joke for several weeks, and I didn't mind per se, but finally I was just like, 'You know, I think our definitions of feminism are different. I think I'd define myself more as an equalist, when it comes right down to it.' And he hasn't really said anything since.

We also have a police officer who comes in periodically and he's made several sexist comments both to me and other female co-workers (one time he came in when Kate was sweeping the cafe and he said, 'Ah, a woman who knows her place and what she should be doing!'), and I patently refuse to serve him, because I'm not putting up with that, even if this is Texas. (Which is to say: nothing against Texas, honestly, but my Mum and I were just discussing the other night how clearly defined gender roles are here, as opposed to where we grew up in California, and how difficult it is to deal with that, and how some things you just have to let go.)

Also, I really want that icon about wanting equal rights = wanting to invade Poland.

[such_heights]

'You know, I think our definitions of feminism are different. I think I'd define myself more as an equalist, when it comes right down to it.'

Yeah, the idea that those two are even distinct is bizarre to me - and actually, I get terribly angry at some so-called 'feminists' who do horrible things in the name of the cause.

And oh wow, that police officer sounds like a real winner. I'm glad you're not putting up with it! That's interesting what you say about the differences between states, I can well imagine things change a lot. And bleurgh, defined gender roles for the fail like that.

I'm going to keep an eye out for it now!

[wanderlight.livejournal.com]

That is a completely excellent way to put it: equalism.
I find it distressing that when I talk to my female friends, they're often, "Feminism? That's crazy shit." I was like this in junior high, I have to admit, before I realised that feminism wasn't extremism, it was reaching for equality -- because it doesn't exist right now, and to think it does is to put blinkers in.

... *shuts up* :)

[builtofsorrow.livejournal.com]

Yesss. My sister and I have spent a lot of time talking about things like this since moving here because race and gender issues are so much more pronounced than they were for us growing up (honestly? until I was seventeen, I thought racism was entirely eradicated in the US), and we decided that was the term that sort of encompassed all of this for us.

To be honest, I'm not totally pleased with it: I hate that 'feminism' has such a negative connotation, like it's something I should be ashamed of, and I'm not, but describing myself as an 'equalist' both encompasses more and doesn't immediately put me on the defensive.