10 posts tagged “stupid”

It's things like this that make me hate women, especially the ones who think they're "feminists."  Oh, not the column itself--the comments.

Stay-at-home moms are "cute."  They're obviously intellectually inferior to working women, too, because, DUH, obviously being at home with kids and chores offers nothing in the way of intellectual stimulation (and, DUH, obviously that's all stay-at-home moms do with their days!).  It follows that stay-at-home moms are women without goals, without a life, obsequious and socially retarded.  It is equally obvious that women who become stay-at-home moms are "rich" (not moms who, as the column itself makes reference to literally can't "afford" to go back to work, even if they wanted to, due to the exorbitant prices of childcare and so forth--for some of us in more rural areas, the cost of transportation is itself prohibitive, and not everyone [yet] has the luxury of working online, as I do--my job effectively makes me a working-stay-at-home mom, which is really ideal for me). 

Oh, and I love the woman who writes that none of the well-educated women she knows don't work.  Where the hell does this woman live? 

God, women like this just do so much to advance opportunity and freedom for all women.  There is nothing that makes me, as a woman, feel more liberated and empowered than being told that I'm "cute" or intellectually inferior and poorly educated because I decided to be a stay-at-home mom. 

The ironic thing about it is that I was just helping a student, right before I read this, with his essay on The Awakening.  I've read that book about 5 times, and personally I've always thought it was stupid.  I don't think Edna Pontellier is notably oppressed by anything other than her own uselessness and incompetence (I understand that is not the generally accepted reading of the novel, and believe me, I caught hell in lit classes more than once for my opinion about it--in general, though, whining about how hard it is to break society's rules doesn't get anyone much mileage with me, although it does make me think of Devo...), but let's say she is.  Let's say Edna's real problem is being held down by all the sexist bastard men in her society.  She, because of her (flighty and weak) personality might be better off today, being told what to do by the female commenters of the International Herald-Tribune, but are we really to pretend that she would have fewer choices?  Or that the prescriptions and judgments laid down by today's society are actually less harsh and confining than what poor old Edna faced?  There is no real difference between being told you're intellectually inferior just because you're a woman and being told you're intellectually infererior because you're a woman who has decided, after surveying all your options, to stay home and take care of your kids.

I think, actually, the thing that infuriates me most about this (because in reality I am reasonably confident in both my intellectual abilities and my education) is that I still hear so many women talk about how "men" and/or the "patriarchal society" judge women's choices.  It's true that they do sometimes.  But no man of my acquaintance has ever believed that I suddenly became illiterate when I decided to stop working for pay.  Of course, no man of my acquaintance would dare.

And why, pray tell, does receiving pay make something worth doing?  I mean, if I was doing a boring, repetitive job that I hated for pay, these women would be so OK with that.  If I'm doing a sometimes boring and repetitive but oftentimes amazing and quite stimulating job that I love for no pay, then I'm like something they have to scrape off their shoe.   This just doesn't make sense to me, except by some standard societal notion that people are only worth their salaries, but I utterly reject that notion and always have. 

Feh.  I've had the satellite TV shut off, so that I don't watch the news anymore, and usually the IHT just doesn't upset me all that much, so things in my life have been relatively calm and happy.  I watch the chard grow.  I read, especially because I'm trying to get as much reading in as possible before the new baby interrupts that.  I walk down to the river--a river that will be dry in just a few weeks since it only has water in it during the runoff.  You know.  That kind of thing.  A nice, peaceable life, in which I get along with people.  And then this.  Damn. 

I will now go back to sticking my head in the sand and teaching my son about evolution, our current lessons revolving around his obsession with prehistoric life.  I take a great deal of pride in the fact that today, when two Mormon missionaries came to visit us, my son offered them each a piece of his Easter chocolate--the last two pieces of it.  I thought that was pretty cool for a 4-year-old.  He loves people and is so generous and kind to people.  The bloody remarkable thing about it is that somehow, despite my own misanthropy, I've taught him that.  I guess other stay-at-home moms, being braindead, don't teach their kids anything at all.  I guess it's just by virtue of the fact that I do work for pay, albeit very part-time, that I'm able to teach him these things.  Stupid people.  I'm done.

I think the Democrats just might lose this election, at least the Presidential one.  That will be a shame, but Democrats have only themselves to blame.  This year it should have been a cakewalk.  And I do realize that if Obama loses, the Internet will light up with a thousand reasons why it happened, and all of them will blame those goddamned Christian right-wing redneck motherfuckers who live in the flyover wasteland that constitutes most of America.

Because that's what they're already doing and have been doing for 8 years, and yet somehow they think those rednecks don't notice.

The belief, taken very much as an act of faith and declaimed shrilly and passionately without much in the way of evidence, that Christians are stupider people or incapable of grasping the complexities of scientific thought is ignorant, obnoxious, and assholish.  Also, it's costing Democrats votes.

The statistic that "80% of Americans are urban" which is frequently bandied about to make it look as though America were being entirely ruled by rural minorities who have somehow, despite a lack of numerical or economic strength, managed to wrest power from the majority is ridiculous.  Yes, according to the Census, 80% of Americans do live in urban areas.  But the Census defines "urban" as having a population of greater than 2500.  Not exactly Manhattan.  (On a related note, the fun set of numbers we sometimes see proclaiming urbanites to be the true green people because they are said to consume less energy, primarily because they have smaller living spaces and drive less often, are idiot numbers.  They fail to take into account so many things:  airports, which are usually outside of the city limits; food production, which usually takes place well away from the city; the fact that people with a higher income almost invariably have a bigger "carbon footprint" simply because they consume much more, and people in urban areas are wealthier than those in rural areas, overall; that the energy itself is being produced, which requires some energy, outside of the city.  And so on.  Idiot numbers.  This from Democrats who accuse rednecks of being too stupid to care about facts and evidence; if we are to believe in the supremacy of the goddamned numbers, then let's make sure our numbers mean what we're trying to make them mean, OK?  Fuckers.)

Democrats these days remind me of one of the moms on...what's that show?  "Trading Spouses" I think.  Weird show.  Anyway, I saw once this episode where one of the moms is a California vegan, and the other mom lives in the Louisiana bayou and hunts 'gators and shit.  This was brilliant programming, because the culture clash was immediate and severe.  I can almost guarantee as well that the vegan family votes D and the bayou family votes R if they can be assed to vote at all.  Here comes the vegan who tries, unsuccessfully, to make all the bayou people become vegans.  Here comes the redneck who goes out of her way to cook vegan food for her Cali "family" including a vegan jambalaya (which...I can't imagine) which they won't eat because it's too spicy.  Her feelings are visibly hurt by the fact that this family is entirely certain of their moral righteousness and will not consider that a person might still be a good person even if she eats cute little chickens.  The vegan mom is caught on camera abusing the pet dog of the bayou family; when he pees in the house, she chokes him so hard he's whimpering and wheezing.  It was terrible.  But, then!  The shocker!  We get to know more of her family back in Cali, and she's a regular fascist, this one.  She is in total control of the family.  She made her husband turn vegan.  Well, entirely aside from just making him vegan, she seems to have completely castrated the poor fella so that now if he has any kind of thought or dream of his own, it meets with ridicule and disapproval from her.  Her kids, much the same.  She instructs them that they can't cry if they don't like the way the $50,000 is distributed at the end, but then she's the one who starts crying because the bayou lady had the temerity to give some of the money to the long-suffering husband and kids.  The bayou folks, on the other hand, really not fascist.  More like, well, if you want to be vegan, that's cool, but we eat meat.  Live and let live. 

So, on the one hand, the Democrats usually do better at managing the economy.  Also, there is the abortion thing; certainly I'm pro-choice, although I really rather think many people who call themselves "pro-choice" are actually pro-abortion, which is a different thing.  To me, being pro-choice means that women have a choice, which means they might also choose NOT to abort, but this is anathema in some circles these days.  And, seriously, Democrats who suggest that Palin should have had an abortion instead of having a Down's baby--you can go fuck off.  You do not have the moral right to tell someone that their baby would be better off dead.  Not ever, not for any reason. 

But the Democrats hate my lifestyle, hate the town where I live, hate my friends and most of my family, hate the fact that while I am not Christian I also don't hate Christians, hate hate hate and seem pretty filled with fascist rage that the entire nation does not want or value the exact same things that they do.  So why should I vote for them?   And when, exactly, did the left become so hateful? 

The even sorrier thing about this whole situation is that a lot of Republicans out here in Redneck-Shitsville are impressed with Obama as far as personal character and integrity.  This election is likely not going to come down to that.  I think this is going to come down, not to the fabled "culture wars" of past, but to simple matters of lifestyle.  For the most part, people are not going to vote for people who adamantly hate everything about them and their lifestyle.  If Obama wasn't associated by party with hateful people, he would have a really good chance out here.

Just as Democrats tend to associate Republicans with only their most extreme elements (Democrats for some reason tend to think that all Republicans are Christian extremists, and that is simply not true--they are a very vocal fringe element), Republicans tend to do the same with Democrats.  Honestly, both extremes are hateful and frightening and loathsome and fascist, the left extreme and the right extreme.  It's as if the Republicans are rubber and the Democrats are glue and everything the Dems accuse the Reps of bounces off of them and sticks on you and then you become that thing you hated.  Doesn't anyone realize that extremists and idiots get more airtime than normal people because they're sensational?

America has complex and sometimes infuriating issues with religion but what kind of idiot do you take me for if you hold up France as a moral exemplar on this point?  I follow the news, man.  What France has going on is religious suppression.  America is trying--usually successfully--a different model wherein we are all free to wear our personal beliefs on our sleeves...or license plates...or heads...and learn to live with each other that way.  America has complex and often infuriating issues with race, but, again, I don't see where France or Germany is the moral example we're meant to be following, and sure the hell not Japan.  And, believe me, a lot of Americans like myself are kind of isolationists--we no more want to be meddling about in the world's business than you apparently want us to (although, when push comes to shove, a lot more countries want us meddling with them than will admit it, because at the very least they like to know they can depend on our military to come and get them out of a scrape *sigh*).

Man, I'm just so sick of all the hate and rage that seems to consume people anymore.  I used to be consumed by the same hate and rage.  It's so toxic, though, physically and emotionally and on a social level.  Nothing kills civil society like hate and rage.  I hate to lose my old punk-rock edge, but I'm just not that angry anymore.  Most people, all the world 'round, are not especially bad people and maybe not especially good people, either.  This isn't just Americans--it's everyone.  There are some really good people in every country, including America, and some really terrible ones, but most people are neither.  And it isn't a bad thing that different people have different values, but we have to learn to listen well enough to negotiate how to live with those different values in a common space, for a common good.  I don't expect everyone in America to value the exact same things I do.  What I expect is that I'm not called an idiot or a redneck because of them. 

Besides, we've had a D-controlled Congress for two years now, and the best they've managed to do is rename a bunch of post offices.  Silly Democrats.  This election should have been yours, all yours, but I don't know anymore.  And don't come crying to me about it.

*sigh*

I've written before that I don't consider myself an "environmentalist."  I do care tremendously about the environment--keeping our air and water clean, preserving our vast and breathtaking national forests, stopping the destruction of the oceans, all of it.  I love and respect the world of nature more than the world of humans, really, although I harbor the silly and admittedly outdated notion that, ideally, the world of nature and that of humans are not separate and distinct, but intertwined and connected and part of the same great circle and cycle.  Actually, they are not separate and distinct, but some people like to pretend that they are.

But the rhetoric of environmentalists and animal rights activists (I will do some lumping of the two here, even though they are not always the same) loses me a lot.  Not just the rhetoric, really, but also some of the proposals and actions.  Let's start with the rhetoric, helpfully presented to us in this Sunday's newspaper.

There was an article about the problematic deer population in New Jersey.  I am given to understand that back there, deer no longer have natural predators.  Well, anyone with even a half-assed understanding of these things knows that, in the absence of predators, prey populations will escalate and start to invade suburban lawns and eat people's well-manicured grass (I love how the governor of New Jersey said there are too many deer on "our property."  Right, dude.  Your property, not the deer's.)  So, the governor has made some special 10-day hunt to reduce the populations, and apparently hunters are specifically being encouraged to kill the young ones.

In a meeting about this, some protestor shouted, I guess about the young ones, "We call them Bambi!"

Oh, OK, see.  You're just not even a serious person.  I cannot take your point-of-view seriously when your knowledge of wildlife is derived from a fucking Disney movie aimed at 5-year-olds.  For one thing, deer don't speak English.  Also, their eyes are not that disproportionately large.  I have to admit that when I was young and we often ate venison that my stepdad hunted, we used the term "Bambi burgers" rather a lot, mostly to irritate my vegetarian mom.  So, maybe I'm just coldhearted towards anthropomorphized forest creatures that giggle.

Then the protesters suggested birth control as an alternative, nonviolent means of controlling the deer population.  I can already feel the headache coming on.  Because so far man's intervention into the natural world has been so completely successful, let's try injecting pig proteins or gonadotropin-releasing hormones into deer to fuck about with their reproductive cycles.  Not to mention that, unlike predation (even human, gun-powered predation, albeit to a lesser extent), contraception is not going to select for the smartest and healthiest animals to reproduce or to get the greatest mixing of the gene pool to keep the herd strong.  It is more or less random.  And do we have any idea at all what the long-term effects on individual deer and the health of the herd are from this?  Not yet, not really. 

And let's not even forget that the deer contraception will not eliminate the need for predation and hunting to control the deer population in most places.  Hurrah! 

Who are these people?  How can they have so little understanding of or respect for nature?  I assume you know what I mean when I say they don't understand nature.  By "respect" for nature, I mean respect for animals for what they are and their animal-ness (and the animal-ness of humans, too.  Why do liberals, who typically advocate Darwinism or something like it, think it is reasonable and healthy to deny the primal animality of humankind?  I'm getting all hot under the collar just thinking about it). 

I wouldn't personally say that a deer's life is "sacred"--then again, I wouldn't say that about a human life, either.  I'm not much into that word.  I don't think a deer's life is worth less than mine.  What I think is that we exist in a natural relationship of predator and prey and that this relationship is healthy, efficient, and good.  As Michael Pollan pointed out so very many times in Omnivore's Dilemma, this relationship slowly but surely converts sunlight into sustenance.  The sun feeds the grass and plants that feed the deer; the deer feeds the predator; the predator eventually dies and becomes fertilizer for the grass which feeds ...  You get the idea.  To me, this is a beautiful and elegant cycle, and very energy efficient.  Every part of it relies on the other part--including predators.  In many cases, as we have eliminated so many natural predators, humans are the only real predator left.  To me, it is our duty to fill that role, and it is right when we do.  If you want to try to convince me that wolves would be better at it than us and that New Jersey inhabitants will stand for the introduction of large predators to their ecosystem, you can go ahead and try but you're probably not going to get far.

That being said, humans do need to exercise more restraint in how many animals they eat.  The industrial feedlot system is grossly inhumane and unsustainable, and we are decimating our ocean fish populations.  Both of these things are short-sighted.  Joel Salatin likes to talk about the "pigness of the pig"--if you really respect the pig as you do a human, then treat it like a pig and not like a human.  That doesn't mean you treat it badly or abuse it, but you respect the fact that pigs exist in their currently large numbers (and chickens, and cows, and dogs, etc) because at some time long ago, they struck a bargain with us that allowed them protection from natural predation and the elements and the ability to reproduce in great numbers.  In return, they provide us with things--milk, meat, hides, eggs, and in the case of many of them (not just dogs) a kind of companionship.  It's symbiosis.  Or it should be.  That symbiosis is now being greatly abused by our industrial food system and our great greed for humongous hunks of meat, but it doesn't have to be that way.

As for other environmentalists, those who would not advocate deer birth control or refer to deer as "Bambi," I'm mostly sympathetic, except in extreme cases.  Back when I lived in a little logging town in New Mexico, Earth First! was going around putting spikes in trees and, I'm sorry, but again you lose me.  I can't support that, no matter how much I love the forests.  And I'm not going to support ceasing logging on national forests when it often just means that wood is then imported from other countries that may have less oversight of the harvesting process than we do here.  I would gladly support the cessation of timber harvest on national forests if, say, people would stop buying second homes that required lumber to build.  I hate that kind of waste--you don't need a second home, but if you're going to have one, the materials to build it are going to come from somewhere.  You want to stop logging (or oil drilling, or mining, etc.)?  Try doing something about the avaricious, consumerist lifestyles Americans lead.

I also get hostile at enviros who blame the Forest Service for everything.  They make big, bold statement about how the Forest Service is failing to deal properly with the forest-fire situation (by, for example, failing to do prescribed burns) which are often outright false.  The Forest Service does, in fact, do prescribed burns.  It was funny--one time Redzilla wrote about this particular issue and earlier that same day I had been in my stepdad's office (he is the ranger on this district of the Caribou-Targhee National Forest) and he had been discussing a prescribed burn they were about to do with his staff, the impacts it would have on the flora and fauna in the area, and blah blah blah.  I don't know--I certainly don't know all there is to know about it, but I do know that those people who work there care about and know more about it than most of the environmentalists I've met.  (On the other hand, the Forest Service as it is a public agency has to also deal with other parts of the public, including ranchers and loggers and campers and fisherpeople and the people who build houses near forests and then fail to take their own preventive measures against forest fires and then can sue the Forest Service if their houses burn down.  Dummies.) 

Also, environmentalists and animal rights people tend to think that hunters and fisherpeople only destroy rather than conserve.  But that is silly.  It is silly because even if we assume the worst about hunters, that they are only acting selfishly, it is in their best interests to preserve the habitat of the species they hunt and also to protect the strength of those populations.  "User fees" including those paid for hunting and fishing licenses make up a great deal of state conservation departments' budgets.  Hunters and fisherpeople also support habitat-preservation and conservation groups such as Ducks Unlimited and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation in a big way.  Many hunters and fisherpeople go out and do the things they do because they love the outdoors and want to see the forests protected and preserved, even if they don't always bring home meat.  Not all of them, of course.  As with anything humans do, some of them are going to be assholes.

Now, if we're talking environmentalism such as that you get from Wendell Berry, Joel Salatin, Aldo Leopold, Teddy Roosevelt, that kind of thing.  Sure, I'm all for it.  But if we're talking about reducing the glory and grandeur of nature to the status of a museum in which the objects are untouchable--or, worse, to an animated kids' film--no, thanks. 

I'm purdy sure y'all are getting tired of me writing (read: bitching) about things like this, but damn!  Damn it all to hell!  I'm angrrrry.

I had thought that maybe I could read Jezebel if I stopped giving the comments too much attention.  But nooooo!

Today there was this nonsense.

First, this beauty pageant winner (Kate Michael) is accused of complaining that she's oppressed because she's white.  The quote that is based on is this, that she wrote on a friend's Facebook page:  "I got 2nd runner up, which is incredible, since they were never going to pick a girl as 'pale' as me anyway."  When the Washington Post (?  WTF?  Are Facebook posts considered hard journalism these days?  fuckin a, man) questioned the racial implications in the comment, she denied them and said it had to do with her not having a good tan.  From the wording of the comment, that could be what she meant, if we're going to give her some benefit of the doubt here instead of just looking for evil racists lurking in our pudding.

So, then Jezebel researches the matter further and finds that she has "opaquely referenced her oppressed-minority status" before.  To wit, they find this quote:

"[Kate] Michael says the win was thrilling. She says it surprised her, considering all the talk she heard about the importance of diversity in the district."Because D.C. has a more diverse population, people hoped for a more diverse winner, but when you look at diversity, it is a diversity of experience, a diversity of thought," she says. "I thought they might choose an African-American Miss D.C."

Um, yeah...so the reference to race is more explicit but any references to her "oppressed-minority status" would seem pretty fucking opaque to me.  Let's see.  The gist of this quote is that she is happy and surprised that she won because she expected, in keeping with the city's racial makeup, that they would choose an African-American to represent.  She figures that that would be diversity.  Then again, maybe "diversity" includes "diversity of experience and thought" and so maybe that's why they chose her over an African-American.  Am I missing something?  Where does she mention being oppressed?  Where does she mention thinking that (outside of her own personal motivation to win, obviously) an African-American shouldn't have won? 

There might be some implied racism in this if it weren't for that "Because D.C. has a more diverse population" bit.  She thought an African-American probably would win because they constitute a majority of the population and the judges would choose someone to reflect that.  Um.  That's racist? 

However.  Excoriating her for being racist isn't enough.  No, why stop there?  This is the Internet--loosen up and just let hellfire blow.  So, the post then calls her stupid (when, actually, both quotes are pretty articulate, I think).  Then they make fun of her for studying in the Johns Hopkins University's graduate program in international relations and planning a career in that field.

So, what the hell am I missing here?  She is in graduate school at Johns Hopkins, so I'm thinking maybe she isn't so stupid.  But, Jezebel has the answer! 

"Or did she just bone one of the deans."  [Hey, Jez, note the improper punctuation.  Maybe you're the one who's stupid.]  Jez thinks she boned the dean.

Gee, I'm glad they figured that out for me.  Of course, she is white, and she is in beauty pageants, so that must be it, right?  A woman who is pretty (I guess--she isn't really my type) and parades around in absurd swimsuit configurations is obviously too stupid to study in a graduate school or have a career.  I'm thinking the only reasonable thing for a woman like that to do is get all barefoot and pregnant and ...yeah.  Great job, Jezebel.

The comments just get worse obviously.  The woman is stupid beyond belief, apparently, not to mention totally ugly, a bad dresser, screwing her way to the top, and, of course, a white supremacist jerkwad.  Alright, I think they don't use "white supremacist," opting for "fascist" instead.  Because she's just like Mussolini, only with boobs. 

So, I dunno.  I don't buy that this lady is a racist or stupid (or fascist, for that matter).  I don't really care about her looks.  And I *seriously* doubt that her studies at Johns Hopkins amount to boning the dean.  And, you know, I just can't really get behind this, "Oh, she's successful so she must be fucking someone!" thing.  Dudes, I think that's one of the attitudes that feminism--at least in most of its incarnations--is trying to move past.  Like, maybe, this chick kicks major international relations ass.  How would I know?  Why would I care? 

You know, people.  If you have a theory that you believe in strongly enough, you can go and find evidence to support it.  You can dredge up "opaque" references that seem to support your theory all over the place.  That don't make it so.  It might be better, or at least more reasonable, to start by reading with an open mind, without a theory in place.  Let the evidence drive the theory, not vice versa. 

Alright, now someone slap me if I ever go read Jezebel again.  A few more posts like that, and I'm going to herniate my carotid.  Or something.

UPDATE:  Waaaiiiit.  I found the indisputable proof of her racism.  Look at these pictures and tell me she isn't the second coming of Hitler himself.  Look at the way she is hugging these kids and reading to them.  It's sickening.  Actually reading her blog a bit convinced that she might be a bit banal, but she is not stupid. 

I need to vent for a moment.

See, my son is 2.  Well, 2-and-a-half.  Lately he has taken to wearing hair ornaments, necklaces, and the occasional bit of lip gloss.  I think this is a perfectly normal phase, and he actually looks pretty good with a little barrette in his hair.

And I don't want anyone else asking me if this doesn't worry me that maybe my son is going to be homosexual.

First and foremost, I sincerely doubt that there is any connection between wearing hair ornaments in your toddler years and homosexuality.  I find the fact that some people do believe there is a connection utterly confounding.  I know a whole covey of grown men who wear strange hair ornaments, necklaces, earrings--and even a few who paint their nails sometimes--and most of them are a) healthy and b) heterosexual (and also kind of hot). 

Second, if he's gay, he's gay.  I cannot see that banning him from wearing necklaces and lip gloss is going to change that.

Third, if he is homosexual, I DON'T FUCKING CARE. 

That's not quite true.  I guess I do care.  I care that he would trust us, his parents and grandparents, enough to tell us even if he's not ready to come out to the rest of the world.  I care in that I would hope he not be the subject of discrimination and harassment because of whom he wants to sleep with, and I would care about helping him get through it all in whatever ways I could. 

But, otherwise, I don't care.  He's my son.  I care that he is happy.  I care that he is healthy.  I care that he feels loved.  I care that he challenges himself and cares about the world around him.  I care that he remain curious and imaginative.

I also care that, whatever his sexual orientation, he learns the value of a well-placed condom.

I don't care if he's a homosexual.  I don't care if he wears lip gloss.  If I banned him from doing those things and lectured him about how men don't do those things and he's going to be a sissyboy if he keeps painting his lips, I'm pretty sure he would stop trusting me, and I would much rather that he trusts me (and his father and grandparents, none of whom would be upset if he's gay) than that he fits your idea of what men are supposed to do.  Fuck you and your gender roles. 

Also, he's 2. 

You know, a while back I started occasionally reading Jezebel.  I have become extremely wary of reading feminist web sites and blogs, because they usually make me want to rip my hair out and scream obscenities.  I believe I have shouted many of those obscenities right here on this blog, but at some point, you have to wonder if it's worth it.  That is to say, is it worth the stress and hair loss just to keep up on what wimmyn are doing these days? 

But, anyway, I started warily reading Jezebel and gradually I started to think that maybe this was not going to be full of dogmatic, ideological extremists who get very shrill about every little slight they imagine wymmyn have to endure.  I started thinking that here were women with a sense of humor, women who could talk openly about sex and enjoy sex, women who didn't have to fall back on ugly and embarrassing stereotypes of men, etc.  For the first few weeks, my love affair with Jez went well.  I even unlurked, which is something I've never done on a feminist site before. 

 Slowly, slowly, the rose-colored glasses de-pinked.

Shit.

At first it was little things.  There was a post about a guy, a really built, weightlifter type who was saying insulting things about women's weight.  The Jezebel commenters immediately started going on and on about how he surely has a small dick to feel compelled to build muscles like that and then also insult teh wimminfolk.  One guy pointed out how this was, oh, maybe just a bit sexist, and would they put up with this sort of insult every time a woman said something a man didn't like?  The reaction was swift and loud.  It ranged from "Oh, but I've slept with men like this before, and believe me, they have small dicks!" (to which I can only say doooooode, wtff?) to "But women do get insults like this all the time" (to which the natural response is apparently:  so, what's good for the goose must be good for the gander, eh?  that's the way to advance civil society and all that, yeah) and, of course, outright denial that equating a man's general assholishness with his penis size is sexist.  Nope, not sexist, move along.

Now, don't get me wrong, we're all entitled to the occasional small penis joke, and I personally find those Australian ads suggesting that men who are reckless drivers have small penises (which is cutely and succinctly demonstrated by the waving of the pinky finger!  those adorable Australians!) to be quite funny.  If only more commenters had copped to being sexist.  Or maybe it was just the context of fighting fucktarded sexism with more sexism that niggled (especially when Jezebel has often complained about the "sexism" on The Superficial and Two and a Half Men, both of which seem to me at least to make fun of the men doing the "sexist" joking as they do of the wymmin). 

Then the discussion about circumcision kind of bugged me.  It seems to me both ethnocentric and sexist to suggest that female circumcision is wrong in every case and male circumcision is perfectly permissible and even desirable.  I don't want to suggest that male circumcision is always wrong either or undesirable either, although I personally find it somewhat unnecessary and barbaric.  It is also true that some forms of female genital mutilation are much more severe than foreskin removal; however, the male foreskin is homologous with the clitoral hood, and thus removal of the foreskin is essentially the same as removal of the clitoral hood.  True, in men who don't regularly practice safe sex, being circumcised apparently reduces the risk of contracting HIV, while I doubt the clitoral hood would have any similar connection to STDs in women.  But a condom reduces the risk of contracting HIV much more than circumcision does.

Anyway, the point is, why can't we be woman enough to admit that we might have some cultural and gender biases here.  Most of the commenters are apparently American, and we are quite used to the idea that most men are circumcised.  Though this is changing somewhat, it is more normal for men to be circumcised here.  Women, of course, are never circumcised here, at least not that I've ever heard of (and I actually think victims or potential victims of female circumcision and genital mutilation can seek asylum here on those grounds, though I couldn't swear to it--and YES I do realize that many types of the female operations remove much more than just the clitoral hood and pose horrible dangers to women).  Admitting that you might have a bias toward something that is totally normal in your own culture and against something that is utterly foreign to it does not mean that your culture is necessarily wrong or anything like that.  It's just honest.  It's also the only possible beginning for a real dialogue; if you can't admit your biases (and, indeed, cannot even see them) then you're not really ready to consider an alternative.

Sigh.

Then there was the whole "white privilege" thing that really, really irritated me.  But I already went on about that at length.

And then there have been little comments that got on my nerves about women who choose! to marry! a man! and then! as if that weren't bad enough! procreate!  Oh my God!!!  What could such a woman be thinking?

Yeah, I know, there are a few marrieds and a few with children commenting over there.  However, it always seems that they are outnumbered by the "why would anyone get married? and worse, have kids?  having kids sucks!" crowd.  And today I think I reached my breaking point.

Listen up, bitches.  I don't really give a fat fuck if you ever get married or have kids or if you are a lesbian with or without kids or just whatever.  I don't care. I don't make comments about single people that imply that they just can't hack the married life or that they aren't mature or responsible enough or that they are selfish fuckwads who just can't get their shit together.  At least, I don't think I do.  I have single friends who are committed to being single, and I don't think I have ever suggested to them that, gee, maybe marriage and kids would be better for them. 

And I ask the same in return.  In one comment thread, the Jezebel commenters have managed to imply that married women:

• "need a man" or are using the man and/or the marriage as a "crutch"
• have less and/or worse sex than single women (when, actually, studies have shown the opposite, just sayin')
• are jealous of single women
• are avoiding responsibility and the "real world" and their "issues"
• don't get to travel, etc.  (right, because airlines are now only allowing single people on board...)
• are never happy and fulfilled by marriage (although, that's a bit of a sticky one--it's not really the responsibility of a husband or a marriage to make you happy and fulfilled, and I would submit that if that's why you got married you probably aren't either happy or fulfilled--similarly, if that's what you think marriage is all about, you're better off staying single)

Yeah, so, thanks for the assumptions, ladeez.  I can kind of do without them, and I kind of was looking for a place with commenters who were maybe free of this kind of thing.  I like being married to T.  And I'm really in love with my son, despite the fact that it means I can't just drink a beer whenever I want to, I guess. 

Does this mean I've failed yet another feminist test?  Feh.  Whatever.  I do seem to have failed at another feminist website, though. 

But you know what?  There is a nice, warm man waiting up in bed for me.  He loves me when I'm at my worst and brings me doughnuts in bed.  Take that!

UPDATE:  So, like a dog to his vomit, right?  I keep reading Jezebel and soon encounter a post about how Japanese men are starving themselves to get increasingly thin and want to be smaller and weaker than their girlfriends.  Many Jezebels respond with how much they DO. NOT. WANT. such a skinny, weakling boyfriend.  Only one says that maybe "I don't do skinny guys" is equivalent to "I don't do fat chicks."  That commenter, of course, is scorned.  It's not the same thing at all!  Judging the worthiness of men based on their body weight is not the same thing at all as judging the worthiness of a woman based on hers!  NOT AT ALL. 

OK, I think we're finished here.

So, I just read this on The Superficial:

Anthony Kiedis (the lead singer for the Red Hot Chili Peppers) and his girlfriend Heather Christie gave birth to their son last week. The child’s name is Everly Bear. He was named after Anthony’s favorite band the Everly Brothers. As for the bear part, it was a little part mom and a little part, well, crazy. People has the details:

"The mama came up with Bear," Kiedis says. "That made sense to me because he's from me and I feel like I'm part of the bear clan, and I think it's nice to have a little bit of earth in your name."

Whoa, whoa, whoa. If the ground rules for naming your kid are using your favorite band and what animal you think you are, I am so on board. As soon as I find an Amazon woman whose womb is capable of nurturing my super-child, I’ve got the perfect name: Dethklok Triceratops. Best name ever, I know. It works on so many levels because I’m part giant, horned thunder-lizard and Dethklok rules. The only way this could backfire is if my son wants to play the oboe instead of doing something awesome like drive a tank - at age six. You're damn right I'm going to let him. I can't drive and work the cannon. Didn't your father teach you how to operate a tank? No? He was sober? Fair enough.

This certainly makes naming a child easier.  Our next child will therefore be Morphine Tiger.  I think this works equally well for a boy or a girl, but my husband thinks SMAP* Dragon would sound better for a boy...or possibly a breakfast cereal.

This is fun to think about.  How about Sonic Youth Monkey?  Or Nirvana Catfish?

Then again, there's always Cream Kitty.  Ewwwww.

*No, neither of us actually likes SMAP.  He just thought, you know, it would help the kid be in touch with his J-Pop heritage.

Show us one of the world's great mysteries that you're dying to hear the explanation for.

How did this asswad get elected? 

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

If science can ever explain this level of dumbassery, I will be so very grateful.

I've been pondering this for a while, wondering if I should bother responding to it.  So far I haven't been very satisfied with any of the responses I've seen, so I decided to go ahead--not that it matters a bit, I know, but just for my own satisfaction.

Some woman in Belgium, a mother of two!, wrote a book about why you shouldn't have kids.  Apparently it's raising some ruckus over in France, a nation that maintains a high birthrate.  I don't see why it has to raise quite so much fury, except that the French are somewhat excitable, but I also, obviously, don't agree with her that kids aren't worth having.  I thought I would take some of her "arguments" and just respond directly to them, instead of giving you my warm, fuzzy reasons why I'm glad I'm a mother.  The article I'm quoting from is here.

"Let's start at the beginning with my first reason for being anti-children: labour is torture."  Well, let's not kid ourselves--labor isn't fun.  It's uncomfortable and painful and somewhat humiliating, what with all the random people peeking and poking at your vagina whenever they want to.  For some women, especially those who do deliver vaginally and have tearing or other problems, it can be super painful, I'm aware.  For me, the labor pains were not the worst pain I have ever experienced (cluster headaches beat labor pains by a fucking mile, man), but I didn't deliver vaginally, so I don't know what that feels like.  I do know that many otherwise reasonable women (including the author) go on to do it more than once, so apparently it isn't quite so tortuous as to outweigh the desire for multiple children.  Judging by the fact that, say, survivors of actual torture in POW camps and so forth frequently never forget their pain and would never voluntarily subject themselves to it again, I think saying "labor is torture" is literally false and a bit overwrought.

"Get over these early hurdles and you hit the big one: how to keep your child amused and happy.  This will fast become one of your most hated jobs. The moment you give birth you can forget leisurely lie-ins, last-minute trips or a spontaneous roll in the hay with your partner. Instead, your weekends revolve around being woken at the crack of dawn to traipse around the zoo or watch minimum wage actors cavort in cartoon costumes at Disneyland; sitting through stupid kids' films and eating in "child friendly" restaurants. In my opinion this alone is reason enough not to have a child."  Taking it from the top:  In our house, we think that it's our job to show our son how to amuse himself.  I drag his toys out and let him play by himself while I read a book, for example.  Not all the time, of course--I do play with him, but I also think it's important that he realizes that mommy needs time to herself and that he is fully capable of entertaining himself.  And, perhaps surprisingly, he's getting good at doing so.  Mostly he builds Lego robots and hammers things.  As for the lie-ins, my husband and I take turns letting the other sleep in, which isn't as nice as sleeping in with your hot husband, but it's not unbearable, either.  My husband and I, defying the conventional wisdom, also continue to have spontaneous sex.  Occasionally it gets awkwardly interrupted, sure, but this is also not unbearable; in fact, we sometimes get a laugh out of it.  Especially when we're interrupted by my son yelling something like, "Papa, drive safe!" while we are having our spontaneous sex.  That's funny, man.  Anyway, as for the rest of that nonsense, those sound to me like choices you make about how to entertain your child.  We spend much more time hiking in the forest or playing in the garden than we do traipsing him around anywhere, but those are the things that we want to be doing, and he enjoys them as well.  In other words, lady, those are your problem, not a problem with having kids per se.

"I stayed for years in a job that bored me - as an economist - just so I could get out early to pick my children up. I worked all day, and then came home to shopping, cooking, cleaning and hours of homework, and all so my kids could treat me like a maid. It was so boring."  Essentially I think these amount to your problems again, lady.  Why did you let your kids treat you like a maid?  Does your male partner treat you that way, so that your children think it is acceptable?  And, more importantly, when you were a working childless person, did you not have to shop, cook, and clean?  Did you only learn to resent doing those things once you were doing them for someone else?  Sure, there is more cleaning to be done (and more cooking) once you have little demon spawn running around, but you still had to do it.  It's life.  It is the work that has to be done to get our dirty human selves through life.  I'm getting the idea, from this and from what you said about how difficult it is to entertain your children, that you yourself are a very boring person.  In my experience, only boring people get bored this much and have such excruciating difficulty playing with their children.  Admittedly, though, there is a bitter truth in that first sentence--women do often have a hard time finding a job that lets them have the family time they need and also a fulfilling career.  It's not a death sentence, though; it's more a call to be creative.  Women are finding all kinds of ways to handle it, from starting their own businesses to job sharing.  It's not easy, and we do need to structure it so that men can and do take the same time off for family matters, but it's not really a reason to avoid having children.  It's more a reason to work for societal change.  But, again, perhaps since you are a boring person, you cannot imagine either a more creative work situation or creative social solutions.  Get yourself an imagination, lady.

"I found the hardest thing to give up when I had my children was my personal freedom.  There is no time left to be you any more."  This is, of course, a common enough complaint from parents.  I would think that it gets better as your children grow up, but even now I'm the mother of a toddler, and I still have time for myself.  Not as much as I used to, and I can't blow all my money on handbags, beer, and trips to Taiwan, sure.  And that fails to convince me.  I was never under the impression that my complete irresponsibility (er, freedom) could or would last forever.  I still come down here and shiver in my basement and write and chat with friends and maintain a life.  I also, as noted above, let my son see that at times, mama has her own thing to do, and at those times he needs to scarper and let me do them, and he's pretty good about it now.  So, I'm still me.  Only I'm me who has a savings account, fewer cute handbags, and a toddler nipping at my be-sneakered heels.  But I hate this persistent myth that becoming a mom makes you no longer a person or no longer a woman--oh, now you're just someone's mom.  Becoming a mom does change you, sometimes in unpredictable ways, but it doesn't negate you (or, at least, it doesn't have to--I guess some moms do seem to lose themselves, but that's not a necessary condition of child-rearing). 

"Once you have children, there is no space for spontaneity any more. We tried to go to an art exhibition last weekend which we'd been looking forward to for ages, but we had to take the kids along and they hate art.  They whined so much that we gave up and left without seeing anything."  Huh.  Your kids sure sound like nasty little buggers.  Wonder where they get that from?  Perhaps your example of whining when you have to do something "boring" has rubbed off on them.  Perhaps you should have got a babysitter or something and gone without them.  Perhaps you should have just laid down the law, as was done in my family, told them to deal with it, and dragged them through the exhibit with you.  I don't know.  I can imagine a lot of solutions here, none of which involve not having kids at all.

"What hope is there of a fulfilling sex life when a woman is forced to turn into a fat, deformed animal decked out in sack-like dresses?"  Dude.  Maybe that happened to you, although you don't look fat.  Deformed?  Good heavens.  I sense some serious self-loathing here.  Sack-like dresses?  Not in my closet.  And, actually, our sex life is good. Better than good, but we don't need to go into a lot of details here.  I suppose it's just because I'm so preternaturally gorgeous, but still.  Again, this doesn't make a good argument against child-bearing; it only makes the case that you are ugly, have no libido or fashion sense, and a partner who is probably homosexual.

Then she starts talking about how kids are savages--I'm not going to quote this part, because it's long--and how these days you can't do anything to control them because smacking them around is socially frowned upon, and so you can do nothing to discourage their savagery.  Well, sure--everyone knows kids are savages.  There's a reason why the words 'feral,' 'uncouth,' and 'barbarian' are all in my son's vocabulary.  The idea is that you teach them how to not be savages.  The idea here is that they learn, both from your word and, ideally, your deed.  You actually can teach them this without smacking them around at all; my parents never smacked me, not even just to get my attention, and I am no longer a barbarian.  There are a lot of things besides not being able to hit your children lest someone call Child Protective Services that can cause your children to be spoiled, whiny brats.  Being a spoiled, whiny brat yourself is problem number one.  Being inconsistent with discipline, giving into all of their demands or alternately giving in and denying without any sense of reason or order to your decisions, or smacking them around without explaining why what they're doing is bad can all lead to these discipline problems--and obviously every kid has their own temperament, too.  I was a moody teenager, though not overly prone to bad behavior, and I know it caused my parents no end of frustration.  Somehow, they survived.

And the last bit is about how expensive they are.  They can be.  I find that a lot of the expenses that parents like her are bitching about, though, are not expenses that are inherent in raising a child.  Rather, they are expenses that the parents incur because of their lifestyle choices.  We don't haul our kid around to expensive activities; we don't live in a high-rent area.  We use cloth diapers and hang them out to dry.  We don't drive a fancy new SUV.  Some of this is of necessity.  When we decided that we believe children should be raised primarily by their parents and thus one of us would not work until the kids get into school, we made a decision to be poor.  Being poor means we have cut back on our expenses.  Yet, still, we manage to raise the child.  He is clothed and fed; he has toys.  He is, indeed, completely ignorant of our poverty.  This "kids are expensive" argument always seems silly to me because the poor of the world, and even the poor in developed nations, reproduce at higher rates than the rich.  If the poor can afford a kid, lady, then so could the rich.

Listen, I don't want to make it seem that I think every single person on earth needs to go out and start churning out babies.  Every person and every couple has to decide that for themselves.  It's a big commitment, and there are many unpleasant aspects to it.  You can't really have kids and do right by them and still live the life of a 20-year-old party girl.  And you will end up spending some of your money and time on things you do not especially like.  So, I can completely understand why some people decide not to have children, and I think that's great.

On the other hand, none of her arguments are really very persuasive.  These points she lists seem to apply mainly to her and her situation.  It's too late to convince me to forgo having children, of course, but her arguments don't even persuade me to forgo having a second child.  Apparently I'm getting something out of it if I want to put myself through all this again.

Man, I've been away a while, and this isn't how I planned my big return to GinBaby, but...fuck!!  I'm enraged!!  I think that needs more exclamation points--!!!!!!!!!!!!! RAGE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

See, it's another article on Salon, right?  This bitch is talking about how she wants to be under the "trendy tent" [sic] and offset her carbon footprint by buying those credits--credits that allegedly support alternative sources of energy, saving Amazon forests, and so forth.  She points out, smugly, that she mostly telecommutes (which presumably uses electricity?), and her husband drives a Prius.  Swell. 

Or it might be swell, except she mentions a rechargeable latte frother.  Is that for real?  She's pretending to be concerned about the electricity used by her latte frother?  IT'S A FUCKING LATTE FROTHER, YOU BITCH. 

She notes that there are changes her family is simply not willing to make to reduce carbon emissions in the United States.  Everyone knows that we are the #1 nation for almost everything that is not good, including carbon emissions and usage of fossil fuels.  Excellent--so happy we excel.

BUT IT'S A FUCKING LATTE FROTHER.  You cannot live with unfrothed milk?  I mean...YOU CANNOT LIVE WITH UNFROTHED FUCKING MILK IN YOUR FUCKING COFFEE, YOU BOURGEOIS NINNY? 

She also notes that on rainy days she drives her son to school (she fails to note whether she uses the Prius or the latte frother for transport)--and his school is a very far 4 blocks away from home.  FOUR MOTHERFUCKING BLOCKS????  This can't even be for real.  THEY ARE CALLED "UMBRELLAS", LADY--FIND ONE AND USE IT AND TEACH YOUR SON HOW TO USE IT, TOO. 

I could get all, "Why in my day, I had to walk 5 miles uphill both ways..." and all that, but I won't.  The truth is that it was only half a mile, but the truth is also that my parents did not drive me, no matter the weather.  And I managed--I pulled through.  Times were tough, but we coped.

And then, OK, then, in the end, she decides not to purchase the carbon credits at all (because all the outfits offering them are dubious, she thinks).  Instead, she tells us, all smug and chipper, that she's going to take the $4 or so she would have spent on those credits and contribute it instead to federal electoral reform to beat the petro-lobby on its own turf.  (Have I mentioned the smugness?)

Yeah, fat fucking lot of good that will do, bitch.  You think your piddly little $4 a month (wooooo--that's a whole $48 a year, stop the fucking presses!) is going to defeat the petroleum lobby?  I THINK THE LATTE FROTHER HAS FROTHED YOUR FUCKING BRAIN, MA'AM.

Just let's stop pretending, OK?  If you don't give a fat fuck about climate change and carbon emissions, own up to it.  You're in good company, of course, since the vast majority of people in this country share your view.  It's your right as an American, just like it's your right as an American to eat nothing but Pringles or drive an SUV even though you never, ever leave pavement.  Sure--go ahead, but be honest about it.  Your $4 a month would be much better spent buying bumper stickers that read, "If you care about climate change, call 1-800-EAT-SHIT."

So, what am I doing about climate change, you might ask?  Well, I sure as hell don't have a latte frother. 

I have even taken the drastic step of DRINKING MY COFFEE BLACK.  That's right.  It's radical, I know, and someday my children will be impressed with my moxie, but dammit someone has to do something.

Goddamned fucking spoiled bourgeois fuckers. 

Now I'm about to go upstairs and mix up a gin and tonic the old-fashioned, low carbon way--WITH MY MIDDLE FINGER.