“The low-maintenance woman, the ideal woman, has no appetite. This is not to say that she refuses food, sex, romance, emotional effort; to refuse is petulant, which is ironically more demanding. The woman without appetite politely finishes what’s on her plate, and declines seconds. She is satisfied and satisfiable.
A man’s appetite can be hearty, but a woman with an appetite is always voracious: her hunger always overreaches, because it is not supposed to exist. If she wants food, she is a glutton. If she wants sex, she is a slut. If she wants emotional care-taking, she is a high-maintenance bitch or, worse, an “attention whore”: an amalgam of sex-hunger and care-hunger, greedy not only to be fucked and paid but, most unforgivably of all, to be noticed.”
Christ, this article made me legit well up in tears at work…
“Women talk ourselves into needing less, because we’re not supposed to want more—or because we know we won’t get more, and we don’t want to feel unsatisfied. We reduce our needs for food, for space, for respect, for help, for love and affection, for being noticed, according to what we think we’re allowed to have. Sometimes we tell ourselves that we can live without it, even that we don’t want it. But it’s not that we don’t want more. It’s that we don’t want to be seen asking for it. And when it comes to romance, women always, always need to ask.”
One of my least favourite dialogue tropes is when a man tells a woman, “You can’t do that” or “I wouldn’t do that if I were you” and she says, “Why? Because I’m a woman and therefore too weak to handle this/can’t take care of myself?” or something to that effect and the guy replies with, “No, because everyone who tried that ended up with a bullet in their brain” or something equally reasonable and not gender-specific that paints him as the rational not sexist guy and the woman as an irrational paranoid feminist who searches for sexism in everything. This whole scenario is built on the idea that sexism is over and women’s fears and suspicions don’t have a leg to stand on. It’s also self-congratulatory pseudofeminism bc it’s supposed to make the viewer/reader/listener feel that in this specific work of fiction women are treated respectfully and as equal with men.
huh.. never thought of it like that
But, what if the male character isn’t sexist? I meam…their fictional sure but…I’m not sure how to phrase this
Its not a question of the character themselves- its how the writers are portraying them. The way this trope plays out, the whole moment revolves around the woman looking foolish for assuming that there is sexism happening. She is characterized as being irrational, jumping to conclusions, even insecure. While the dude is characterized as the calm, rational one.
It is a trope that specifically works by taking a woman standing up to sexism and saying “haha it wasnt actually sexist at all! Isnt calling out sexism foolish and silly. Thats what you get for assuming that men are sexist!”
> The college I attended was small and very LGBT friendly. One day someone came to visit and used the word “gay” as a pejorative, as was common in the early 2000s. A current student looked at the visitor and flatly said, “we don’t do that here.” The guest started getting defensive and explaining that they weren’t homophobic and didn’t mean anything by it. The student replied, “I’m sure that’s true, but all you need to know is we don’t do that here.” The interaction ended at that point, and everyone moved on to different topics. “We don’t do that here” was a polite but firm way to educate the newcomer about our culture. […]
> It turns out talking about diversity, inclusion, and even just basic civil behavior can be controversial in technical spaces. I don’t think it should be, but I don’t get to make the rules. When I’m able I’d much rather spend the time to educate someone about diversity and inclusion issues and see if I can change how they see the world a bit. But I don’t always have the time and energy to do that. And sometimes, even if I did have the time, the person involved doesn’t want to be educated.
> This is when I pull out “we don’t do that here.” It is a conversation ender. If you are the newcomer and someone who has been around a long time says “we don’t do that here”, it is hard to argue. This sentence doesn’t push my morality on anyone. If they want to do whatever it is elsewhere, I’m not telling them not to. I’m just cluing them into the local culture and values. If I deliver this sentence well it carries no more emotional weight than saying, “in Japan, people drive on the left.” “We don’t do that here” should be a statement of fact and nothing more. It clearly and concisely sets a boundary, and also makes it easy to disengage with any possible rebuttals.
> Me: “You are standing in that person’s personal space. We don’t do that here.”
> Them: “But I was trying to be nice.”
> Me: “Awesome, but we don’t stand so close to people here.”
> Them: Tells an off-color joke.
> Me: “We don’t do that here.”
> Them: “But I was trying to be funny.”
> Me (shrugging): “That isn’t relevant. We don’t do that here.”
I really really do want to endorse this. Making a person’s behavior about capital-M Morality is a great way to get people to dig in their feet and escalate situations. By going “Hey, that behavior doesn’t fit in this context.” it removes a ton of the resentment and toxicity on both sides of the interaction.
You’ve likely heard the saying, “Prostitution is the world’s oldest profession.” And yet, despite this truth, our society has always looked down on sex workers and many still assume that all sex workers do their jobs out of desperation or because they were forced into it.
Unfortunately, the #MeToo movement is fueling new misconceptions about sex workers. Some uninformed social media users have suggested that the solution to stopping sexual predators is for them to hire a sex worker when they want to abuse.
This so-called solution is not only dehumanizing, it is false; sex workers are not target practices for sexual abusers.
In fact, sex workers are more likely to experience sexual violence on the job than those engaging in other types of work. However, I’ve seen very little in the media about how they are being impacted by #MeToo.
As a survivor, I deeply appreciate how #MeToo has empowered fellow survivors to publicly share their stories. However, the glaring absence of sex workers’ #MeToo narratives in the spotlight troubles me, especially as an on and off burlesque performer.
Burlesque is a type of sex work, which is defined by the Sex Workers Outreach Project-USA(SWOP) as “any type of labor where the explicit goal is to produce a sexual or erotic response in the client.” I don’t consider it my profession, but I’ve unapologetically participated in sex work.
Sex workers use their bodies to make money like any other worker but aren’t afforded the same rights and protections. I believe the first step to ending sexual violence against sex workers is acknowledging their labor as valuable.
Briq House, communications director at SWOP-USA, does sex work because she enjoys it and thinks of her labor as sacred. Based in Seattle, she’s a Black bisexual queer sex worker, intimacy coach, burlesque performer/producer, teacher, and artist.
Sex workers are murdered just for doing their job, yet our society lacks empathy for them. They’re the punchline of vulgar jokes, and “prostitute” is the preferred insult of misogynist men towards women.
Briq House explains that sex workers have boundaries like everybody else. They come to a mutual agreement with patrons about what type of interaction both parties are interested in having.
“Every sex worker has boundaries they operate within and communicate to their client. If a client deliberately tries to or succeeds in going past the boundaries that were set by the provider, that is assault,” she says.
Joking about sex workers and diminishing their humanity makes it less safe for them. Queer and trans women of color doing sex work are more likely to be violated than their white counterparts simply because of their identities.
Our culture requires a drastic shift for queer, trans, and People of Color sex workers to feel safe and respected. I’m personally committed to building a world where sex workers are free from all forms of violence.
We must counter their absence within the #MeToo movement by lifting up their stories and supporting them whenever we can. If you are an aspiring ally to sex workers, here are three ways to be in solidarity with them during the #MeToo era
I want men to try and imagine going about your day–working, running, hiking, whatever–and not being allowed to wear pants under threats of violence or total social and economic exclusion.
That’s the kind of irrationally violent and controlling behaviour women have been up against.
Also for anyone who thinks it’s easy for women to be gender non conforming because we can wear pants.
The only reason we can is because we fought tooth and nail for the right to! Any rights we take for granted today we’re the result of a prolonged, bitter battle fought by our predecessors for every inch of territory gained. Never forget that.
Title IX (1972) declared that girls could not be required to wear skirts to school.
Women who were United States senators were not allowed to wear trousers on the Senate floor until 1993, after senators Barbara Mikulski and Carol Moseley Braun wore them in protest, which encouraged female staff members to do likewise.
This was never given to us. Women have had to fight just to be able to wear pants. Women who are still alive remember having to wear skirts to school, even in the dead of winter, when it was so cold that just having a layer of tights between them and the elements was downright dangerous. Women who remember not even being allowed to wear pants under their skirts, for no other reason than they were female.
So don’t talk about women wearing pants being gender nonconforming like it’s easy. It’s only less difficult now because your foremothers refused to comply.
My mother spent her entire school career up until high school having to wear skirts, no matter how horrible the New England winters got, because she was forbidden to do otherwise. There were times when the weather was bad where my grandmother kept her home rather than make her walk to and from the bus in a skirt.
They rebroadcast a few old interviews with Mary Tyler Moore, and in them she addressed the pants issue. There was a strict limit on what kind of pants she could wear (hence, always Capri pants, nothing masculine), and to use her words, how much cupping the pants could show. A censor would look at every outfit when she came out on stage, and if the pants cupped her buttocks too much, defining them rather than hiding them, then she had to get another pair.
A prime example of how gender is socially enforced.
“My body, my choice” only makes sense when someone else’s life isn’t at stake.
Fun fact: If my younger sister was in a car accident and desperately needed a blood transfusion to live, and I was the only person on Earth who could donate blood to save her, and even though donating blood is a relatively easy, safe, and quick procedure no one can force me to give blood. Yes, even to save the life of a fully grown person, it would be ILLEGAL to FORCE me to donate blood if I didn’t want to.
See, we have this concept called “bodily autonomy.” It’s this….cultural notion that a person’s control over their own body is above all important and must not be infringed upon.
Like, we can’t even take LIFE SAVING organs from CORPSES unless the person whose corpse it is gave consent before their death. Even corpses get bodily autonomy.
To tell people that they MUST sacrifice their bodily autonomy for 9 months against their will in an incredibly expensive, invasive, difficult process to save what YOU view as another human life (a debatable claim in the early stages of pregnancy when the VAST majority of abortions are performed) is desperately unethical. You can’t even ask people to sacrifice bodily autonomy to give up organs they aren’t using anymore after they have died.
You’re asking people who can become pregnant to accept less bodily autonomy than we grant to dead bodies.
reblogging for commentary
But, assuming the mother wasn’t raped, the choice to HAVE a baby and risk sacrificing their “bodily autonomy” is a choice that the mother made. YOu don’t have to have sex with someone. Cases of rape aside, it isn’t ethical to say abortion is justified. The unborn baby has rights, too.
First point: Bodily autonomy can be preserved, even if another life is dependent on it. See again the example about the blood donation.
And here’s another point: When you say that “rape is the exception” you betray something FUNDAMENTALLY BROKEN about your own argument.
Because a fetus produced from sexual assault is biologically NO DIFFERENT than a fetus produced from consensual sex. No difference at all.
If one is alive, so is the other. If one is a person, so is the other. If one has a soul, then so does the other. If one is a little blessing that happened for a reason and must be protected, then so is the other.
When you say that “Rape is the exception” what you betray is this: It isn’t about a life. This isn’t about the little soul sitting inside some person’s womb, because if it was you wouldn’t care about HOW it got there, only that it is a little life that needs protecting.
When you say “rape is the exception” what you say is this: You are treating pregnancy as a punishment. You are PUNISHING people who have had CONSENSUAL SEX but don’t want to go through a pregnancy. People who DARED to have consensual sex without the goal of procreation in mind, and this is their “consequence.”
And that is gross.
^ THIS. This is this this THIS THIS THIS. THIS!!!!!
This is probably the strongest and well worded/supported argument for abortion that I have ever read.
i’m so done with the way girls in twenties are treated. i’m so done with people who literally create timetable for us. 20- 24 find a guy, 24-26 make him propose to you, 27-29 get married. i’m so done. i’m do not want to get 2 a.m texts from my best friend who is freaking out that she is gonna die alone. i do not want see my 20 years old friend wasting her time on some guys who are not even interested in her. i do not want see us falling for every nice guy who does not look creepy. i do not want to see girls get sad or paranoid just bcos they do not fill in the schedule. you are ok. you should enjoy your life at its fullest and one day you will find 10/10 so do not pursue 6 just because you do not want to be single. it is ok and one day you will find someone. do not split your love with people who does not deserve it. keep it for yourself and when time will come you will know. i know it hurts. i know you wish u could just open part of yourself and release the buzzing love. but not every kind of love is romantic. show it to your family, friends, plants, yourself.
Not a real criticism, just an expansion really, but … it’s not just the timetables we need to get away from, but the goal itself, I think. “One day you will find someone,” sounds comforting, but the reason it doesn’t lay fears to rest is because we are all smart enough to know it’s not necessarily true.
My aunt is over sixty, never married, and never, so far as I am aware, ever even had a great romance. She dated a lot, but never clicked and now seems to have given up. My mentor is over seventy, divorced her asshole husband more than half her life ago and has never found anyone since.
We all know women (and men) like these. And because we know them, we know that “one day you will find someone,” is just … hogwash. Because sometimes you just … don’t. Or sometimes you do, but he turns out to be a cad. Or you do and the universe rips you apart in the most unfair way possible. And because society has us so fixated on finding “our other half” or whatever, we view these women as cautionary tales.
But …
My aunt trains dogs. Her schipperke is the national champion for his breed. She spent so much of her life as a librarian, nurturing the love of books in kids, myself among them. I ride horses because of her, and it’s one of the very few things I do that makes my soul feel at peace.
My mentor is one of the best criminal defense attorneys in her state. She has devoted her life to fighting to ensure that everyone gets a vigorous defense. Because of her countless people have had the opportunity to turn their lives around. Because of her, they’ve had a life to turn around. Because of her, the prosecution and the police in her jurisdiction are forced to behave ethically and adhere to the rule of law. She’s still, even now fighting to abolish the death penalty. It’s because of her that I am pursuing the life I am.
These women’s lives are not nothing. In fact they are a whole lot of something, and it makes my heart hurt that I ever, in my dark 3 am’s, thought of their lives as something to be avoided at all costs.
So love your family, your friends, your pets, your gardens. Love your job or your hobby or your raison d’ etre, whatever it is. Love sunsets and the smell of rain and yourself, and don’t love these as something to do as a placeholder until the buzzing, romantic love comes, but love these as things worth loving all in themselves.
It’s fucking hard some days. The dark 3 am’s still come sometimes. But most days, I am so much more at peace knowing that I am not incomplete or waiting, but that my life, if it ended today, is worth it because of the platonic, familial, friendship love I have shared. And if the other kind does come someday, that’ll be nice, but it won’t make any of the others less. It’ll just be caramel sauce on a sundae–tasty and wonderful, but the sundae was perfect without it too.
“At every turn, women are taught that how someone reacts to them does more to establish their goodness and worth than anything they themselves might feel.”
“But next time we’re inclined to wonder why a woman didn’t immediately register and fix her own discomfort, we might wonder why we spent the preceding decades instructing her to override the signals we now blame her for not recognizing.”
Queer Fiction Writer 