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

[such_heights]

God, Ave. SO MAD. And it makes me doubly upset when it's aimed at young women still in education - what a crappy way to keep the same old stuff going round and round.

And maybe I'm willing to wait for that, rather than dating the first guy who expresses any interest in me.

You frigid heartbreaker! Bloody ridiculous.

So much yes to all of your points - the idea of going on to higher education just so you can get married, certain subjects not being feminine enough, the very concept that you can act "too much" like one gender or the other. The hell? I get shtick about that in both directions depending on the situation, which is alarming and so very stupid.

I hate how women's physical attractiveness is placed at the forefront of their value, how men can be 'distinctive' or 'interesting' or any number of other variants of conventional good looks, or even not be lookers at all and still be idolised for their minds or their talents; we must be smart *and* hot in that oh-so-narrow, traditional sense. And we can only achieve the latter through extensive application of make-up and expensive shoes and fashionable clothes, clearly. The double standard, it burns!

I do science and math. I hang out with guys. I'm sarcastic and not exactly friendly. I talk cars and computers. I refuse to eat salads; I'll take a salad any day. I also like going shopping with friends, gossiping, and sometimes want to dress up for no reason at all. You know what? None of this has a thing to do with my physical gender. It's me, as an indivdual. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Oh, how I entirely adore you. Yes. THIS. ♥!

[avendya.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's a bitch and it's horrible, but the only good thing is that it is changing. Women hold positions of power, women can own their sexuality (or at least more than they did), gay marriage is on the political agenda in the States. There are other people on our side, and we'll change the world.

No, seriously. One of my classmates in Speech asked me if I'd go to Homecoming with another classmate I've spoken to all once. I said that I'd say no. He was very confused about this, and didn't get why I'd turn Chris down if he asked. I don't know, because I don't know anything more about him than his name?

You might talk to Noldo. She's on her way home (California, that is), now, I think, but she's been in a socially far more conservative culture for a month. The limitation on good Indian girls - because it is about girls, not women, who are in control of their own lives - are extremely scary.

[such_heights]

There are other people on our side, and we'll change the world.

Yes, yes we will! \o/

One of the best things about an all-girls' school, I think, is the reduction in pressure of having A Date for those kinds of events - I can remember being really stressed by that whole concept at my primary school, when I was all of ten years old, sweet Rassilon help us.

Argh, yes, I have heard as much - loneraven has been talking about that as well, actually. Horrible!

[wanderlight.livejournal.com]

we must be smart *and* hot in that oh-so-narrow, traditional sense

*nods* That's one thing that really drives me crazy. I think that in a lot of areas, society IS making progress, largely because of people like you who speak up. :) But North American culture seems stuck at a point where, okay, yes, smart women are finally respected -- but they still have to be hot. And be able to juggle their "family life". And be suitably feminine. To which my response is, um, hello, THAT IS STILL A DOUBLE STANDARD.

[such_heights]

EXACTLY. Really, wow. And so often women have to be exceptional in their careers and do things twice as well as men just to get the same amount of respect. I'd be happy being reasonably well respected and just reasonably good at my job, you know?