stop giving me a complex, world!

[keryx]

Whenever I say something about the whole "women are supposed to be pretty and valued for their bodies" thing, at least one person has to respond in all positive, sweet & loving intent...

"Don't worry! You are pretty!"

Gah. Okay, I admit I am. Shut up, okay? That is almost never my point. I mean that we need to stop valuing women so much as pretty physical objects - versus all our other fine qualities, for which men are often valued more (not that they aren't also evaluated on appearance; it's just not as central). And, in fact, the need to reassure me of my value attractiveness kinda proves the point, doesn't it?

Also, when people insist on reassuring me that I'm pretty when that's not what I'm talking about, I assume that they also kinda mean I'm not - since they jump so quickly to that assumption.

Ahem. So, really, what I mean is never tell a feminist she's pretty. We're all such sourpusses and incapable of lightening up, you know. I know cause people on Big Fat Blog told me so. Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Comments

[libskrat]

*big sloppy hugs*

[mermeydele.livejournal.com]

hear hear! i also would love to know more about the bfb gossip - just because i have been in similar positions elsewhere.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

I was a big fat loser (tee hee) and didn't even post in the BFB forum - Paul posted my comments for me, and a few people pounced on how feminists need to "lighten up". Thinking I was pretty light in tone in the first place, I figured my sense of humor only counted if I agreed with them that in fact that funny little video was an utterly unproblematic blow for fat liberation. No real gossip. :)

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

Hear, here!

And it doesn't matter what one looks like, when a woman suggests that appearance shouldn't matter so much -- the listener viewer can either go "That's easy for her to say -- she's pretty!" or "She's just bitter because she isn't pretty!"

Some days, it is enough to make my head explode.

Which is not a pretty sight. ;-)

[fierceawakening.livejournal.com]

And it doesn't matter what one looks like, when a woman suggests that appearance shouldn't matter so much -- the listener viewer can either go "That's easy for her to say -- she's pretty!" or "She's just bitter because she isn't pretty!"

Exactly.

[dragonchildz.livejournal.com]

Alrighty then o:

But I can't promise not to compliment you in the future, I'm afraid.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

Oh, it wasn't just you... actually, I think I didn't even read your last comment until after I'd written this post. :)

[gypsyriver.livejournal.com]

I often get the feeling that's one of two things going on... they are the type of people who fish for compliments and thus, think I'm fishing for one. Or two, it's an easy way to dismiss the conversation so they don't have to think about it.

Then again, I may just be a sourpuss. ;D

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

The original discussion infuriated me, so I stopped reading that thread. It bugs me that I have to buy the academic feminist dogma on beauty and sexual objectification hook-line-and-sinker or people think I'm naive about feminist theory. Um, no. As a woman who was extremely active in several feminist organizations in college and who hasn't shaved her legs in 14 years and once went 2.5 years without shaving my very hairy pits, I think I know something about societal expectations about beauty and objectification.

I also hate it that most academic feminist discussions of objectification are so pie-in-the-sky; how often have these women with these theories actually talked with prostitutes, strippers, porn stars, and web cam girls?

Anyway, you and I aren't going to agree on this, so I'll just shut up now.

[keryx.livejournal.com]

The original discussion on BFB (where I think you may have joined the "oh, all feminists now are a buncha humorless hags" conversation)? Or here? I am bothered when no one even brings up the possibiity that a funny little video is also less-than-ideal. But all I said, and I believe all the other folk who sorta agreed with me said, was that it felt less-than-ideal. Why does it make us unrealistic and radical to point out that THERE ARE GOOD AND BAD THINGS ABOUT SOMETHING?

Of course I'm not going to agree with you when you make such a blanket statement, by the way. You insult everyone who commented on that thread when you make assumptions about their feminism and their beliefs. Most of us are plenty naive about theory ourselves, and are responding to what squicks us.

Sorry you're getting the full force of my rantyness on this, but something about the "I'll just shut up now... now that I've taken a couple of digs at the opposing viewpoint without stating mine in the first place" thing just really got me. If you want balanced discussion on something, enter the discussion (which is exactly what I did not do on BFB, by the way, so I have no right to complain on that front).

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I didn't call feminists a bunch of humorless hags on BFB, I called them sex-hating humorless hags on my own journal. :)

I did try to make some of my own points on BFB, but it just devolved into the same discussions I have about feminism and objectification every freaking time something sex-related comes up. I stopped posting because it was just pushing my buttons too much, and I was reacting largely based on my frustration with past conversations that went much the same way rather than to the current conversation.

I have done this conversation, and I'm TIRED of having to have it. I understand academic feminist theory (and it IS academic feminist theory because I don't think the average feminist-on-the-street cares about most elitist feminist discussion of objecdtification) but I disagree with it, don't buy it, etc.

My stance? People are curious about bodies and sex. WOMEN also like bodies and sex. They're going to want to watch saucy ladies dancing and being sexy, they're going to enjoy being sexy and objecdtified, and nobody owns the Sisterhood a damn thing.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

*owes*

[fierceawakening.livejournal.com]

I don't know the discussion where this started... but I can tell you that I'm not at all anti-porn and am someone who definitely thinks that some feminists cubbyhole themselves away in very abstract issues related to sexual objectification because they don't want to think about the much more complicated realities of the lives of sex-workers, or the complicated ways in which being objectified can, as you say, be sexy sometimes. Sometimes very sexy. Heck, I'm into BDSM -- I'm VERY glad some people, men and women, enjoy consensual objectification games.

I can also tell you that I'd be stunned to find keryx ignoring all of this. I sure don't see that in this post anywhere.

[revolution724.livejournal.com]

An excellent point. Also, I was reading the comments on the BFB entry you linked, and I'm still blinking over the one that says "it doesn't objectify women - okay, maybe it does, but not any more than all media we have now does." Um, that makes it okay? When did I miss THAT memo?