So I was doing some web surfing which I tend to do nightly, or at least when the kidlets and life in general allows for it. Some masochistic part of liberal me keeps surfing on over to DailyKOS, which I’ve done for several years now, and it never ceases to amaze me how often sexism finds its way into the subtext of the blogging that goes on there.
So yeah, we’re all pretty much aware that conservatives don’t have the market cornered when it comes to sexism, but it still rankles when I come across the more blatantly sexist remarks that are left completely unchallenged at DailyKOS. At this point, I’ll explain what it was I saw, and let you all be the judge as to whether I’m being perceptive or judging too harshly.
Ever since last years repeated snarks against women and women’s issues on KOS, I’ve taken the time every now and again to search for keywords to see if the tone has improved any. Suffice it to say I’ve rarely been pleasantly surprised; however I did find a little gem tonight that I had to share.
In a nutshell; a Kossack named Arion (I wasn’t sure at this point of whether they were a man or a woman) decided to analyze the decision to use ‘choice’ as the tag name for abortion. They felt that we should address the issue more honestly and call it the ‘freedom of abortion’ movement, since the real question was one of liberty. Well, the argument wasn’t that strong, and I found myself kind of bewildered at some of the comments, but they weren’t all in left-field. One person (woman I think) replied with ‘I’ll stick with choice thanks’, and another explained that the word ‘choice’ is hard to twist. Another person felt that the term had been tarnished because choice wasn’t implying enough seriousness to the issue ““ they suggested ‘motherhood choice’. About here I went from kind of bored browsing to furrowing my brow and muttering at my screen ‘wtf?’ Are feminist blogs so secret and rare that our fancy-schmancy terminology of ‘reproductive choice and freedom’ is just our well kept little secret?
At this point is where I started reading with a lot less charity. So the thread continues on to claim that really ‘we’ need a new frame for the issue that will work. It was then suggested that perhaps we ought to make inroads through pointing out gun control as being a potential ‘next’ on the chopping block with regards to personal liberties and rights, since the government cared that much about what wives are doing with gynecologists. That seemed a reasonable enough reminder when taking on the issue of abortion. Next came the part where I began to cringe as the fog was lifted and I was faced with some commentary that was absolutely idiotic, sexist and patronizing. Bottom line, we’re totally screwed if this is the average representative of the moderate democrats that should be our allies on these issues. Why, oh why, do the big name networks and politicians think that DailyKOS is all that.
…I mean really. Thanks, chum, for giving us women a place of pride on this issue. WTF???
So here’s the question, am I just being a judgmental meanie, or does this sort of commentary come off as chalkboard torture to anyone else? Or am I simply spoiled at the level of intelligence and freedom from sexism that feminist blogs offer compared to our generic liberal contemporaries.
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Well to me it comes across as dangerous, arrogant, sexism, that shouldn’t be tolerated whatever political labels those uttering them claim. But then my position on these issues is fairly low tolerance.
What I’m not convinced is that moderate Democrats should be your allies on these issues. ‘Moderate’ Democrats are really right-wing.
During the New Zealand abortion debate Tom Scott, a cartoonist and columnist said “A liberal is someone who when people suggest amputating someone above the knee, call it a victory if the person is amputated below the ankle.”
There is some point to actual left-wing Democrats (I guess), I don’t think moderate Democrats have any purpose as allies at all.
Yep, true enough! It’s just so hard to give up the ghost. Liberals in the US are not only conflicted, they are standing on a rather vast chasm that the moderates keep selling out as they chip away at the rights of the people they like to refer to as ‘fringe’ in attempt to dismiss the importance of their actions.
Challenging sexism on the left is frequently met with angry and stereotypical jabs at feminism.
Challenging those who sell away reproductive rights is frequently met with shaming via the ‘one topic pony’ flogger, regardless of the fact that these particular sales are selling away a principle of liberty that goes well beyond Roe v. Wade.
Ahh, and just as a clarification, at this point I’m pretty much a non-partisan, with a liberal / social agenda.
There’s some good writing at dKos, and a lot of cluelessness.
“The real concern is not choice but liberty” Wha??? Does this man own a dictionary? … choice: the power, right, or liberty to choose.
But giving the little woman equal billing with the firearm? Sadly clueless.
I’ve been spending time over the past few months at feminist blogs to try to purge some of my own cluelessness. Doing so, I find perspectives and voices that I don’t find at generic lefty blogs.
Oh I didn’t mean as leftier than thou. I’ve really like your analysis.
I imagine I’d be having the same problem if Labour was in opposition right now. I hate those fuckers, but the other lizards are worse. I have found that grass roots Labour members can be useful, when we have a common goal.
Although I’m not convinced that radical men have any better analysis (and one day I’m going to write a very long post about campaigns that challenge bastions of masculinity, and how the men involved create their own creepy version of masculinity, which tends to be as bad or worse than the masculinity they’re challenging). You can do worse than a social democrat when it comes to treating women respect (although how many social democrats there might be in your Democrat party you’d know better than me).
There’s a certain kind of sexist language that men use that they absolutely believe is woman-positive, and “not my rifle or my wife” is a perfect example of it. They think they’re being so great, because they’re protecting their wives, thinking of her dammit, being the Good Family Man not the deadbeat dad, and why do those mean old feminists think that’s a problem?
And in truth, many such men are pretty damn good feminists. I mean, livable. Functioning with core sexist assumptions but trying to live with grace and decency. Educable. Hell, I’m a woman and a feminist and I’m still learning to understand the impact of the male gaze and other such things, so it’s possible that someone who is a man and a feminist just needs to learn that ownership and objectification does not a feminist make.
But in this case, with this particular man and his rifles, I think not.
I suppose this man might just consider his rifle a thinking, reasoning being with its own agency capable of making decisions?
[delurks]
“Not my wife and not my rifle” dude’s seems to post a lot on abortion issues and is involved in some part of the process (“Having followed many women through the process of abortion”) so he might deserve the benefit of the doubt.
It may just be clumsy phrasing. After all, guys can’t really say “not my rifle and not my womb”, seeing as they don’t have one of the latter. “Not my rifle and not my wife’s womb” is even less catchy than his version (which I can’t exactly see making a good chant tbh).
He isn’t exactly smooth with words in that story or elsewhere elsewhere.
I think that there are also a lot of people who’ve got too into the whole “framing” thing. Trying to win the debate by altering the terms. Not all that great when you’re not good with words to start with. Hell, if I tried that you’d get a paragraph instead of a catchphrase :)
[/delurks]
I think some of the seeming sexism on the Daily Kos–including remarks like this “rifle” thing–can be attributed to ignorance, since the Kossacks don’t spend much time in the feminist blogosphere.
But not all. The dismissal of feminists as a “special-interest group” by Kos and others bugs the hell out of me. And I think the emphasis on presidential and national electoral politics, including supporting “moderate” Dems who are anti-choice or nearly there, ends up being effectively anti-feminist (as well as a whole host of other bad things).
Morph,
I do give him the benefit of the doubt that he’s pro-choice and active in fighting for that liberty, but I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t think that such a stance should be cookie-worthy simply because he’s a man. Subtle sexism being allowed to fester even in these discussions makes it all the more glaringly apparent how far behind we are with regards to sexism being a thing of the past.
Lanoire,
That’s part of it sure, but for me it really isn’t an okay thing. I mean, these are folks who have referred to liberal women as ‘fringe’. Ehhhhh? The whole Casey Jr. endorsement notion is enough to make me rage, and yet it has been all but embraced by so many Democrats. The level of ignorance that is making people think that this is an effective or good strategy is mind-numbing. It is classic ‘can’t beat em, so might as well join em’ rhetoric.
Total geek reference here, but everytime I read stuff like this, I feel the urge to start breaking out in garble that sounds like the alien language from Galaxy Quest. It leaves me feeling that horrifically bewildered as to how people are able to nurture such mentalities.
Oh, it’s not an “okay thing” for me either. The whole “fringe” thing is what made me stop reading Kos, because I felt my time could be spent doing things more productive and pleasant, like clawing out my own eyeballs. The Casey Jr. endorsement strikes me as emblematic of why the “netroots” aren’t really going to change the Democratic Party or our electoral system at all.
Don’t ask me what will, mind. But it won’t be Kos.
My 1.7 cents in IMF funny money:
we should use the phrase “Reproductive Rights” which is a term women in the women’s liberation movement used before and right after Roe. And, they used this precisely because of the following pamphlet.
http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/wlm/abortion/abortion-p07-72.jpeg
Reprorudctive Rights because:
1. It encompaases our health more broadly in terms of access to and affordability of birth control in all forms: from condoms to abortion to Plan B (which, by the way, if you’re uninsured costs $89 around here and they’re making you pay for a pregnancy test, too. because they’re greedy bastics. that’s why.)
2. it encompasses our rights to give birth and reminds us that the only issue involved isn’t what concerns us as white women, but that we must fight against attempts to force women to have abortions as well, an issue that women of color and disabled women have had to deal with.
There was a huge blow out over this back in the early 70s, when some feminists refused to work against for birth control, sterilization, and abortions.
Digest version here, http://blog.pulpculture.org/2006/01/30/forward-rewind/
So, let’s call it reproductive rights since choice is so narrowly focused, historically, on the choice to have an abortion.
As for “wife” — maybe he could have at least said, “sisters”.
I’m interested in hearing (or, reading, I guess, unless you’d like to start a Webmeeting session? – no, didn’t think so) the subtle sexism pinpointed. It isn’t as clear to me as it is to the rest of you. I guess I mean the particular quote about rifles and wives and so on.
I think I do I understand the why “I’m happy to give pride of place” would irk women. It’s not really a pride of place thing, maybe not a pride thing, and I guess he errs on giving it (though he is happy to give it, which at least means he doesn’t have it long); but to me that is mainly just the way someone who doesn’t think too hard, or perhaps who thinks hard but not well, phrases it. No offense intended to the man, I often don’t think well, thinking well is hard after all, and thinking hard is tiring. And usually blog comments are made too quickly to think either way – as I think most spoken statements are, too.
Anyway, despite my silliness, I mean the question seriously.
Bitch | Lab++
To me it is about choice, but choice about health, so, really health I could say. I mean, if abortion is outlawed except in certain circumstances, the woman by definition has to get approval for matters affecting her health. That’s just backwards.
This makes me wonder if men would get it more if they were forced to visit, acknowledge that they must visit, the doctor once in a while. Not that I’ve been a model citizen in that regard, but I’ve heard we don’t see the doctor often enough.
Perhaps “health” is too broad a term, though I don’t mean it as a standard to gather under.
Wife vs. Sisters: not sure about that one, me. Encouraged a bit of an unsavory interpretation, mightn’t it’ve?
It is kinda subtle. One he shoots, the other he shoots into.
Er, rather, the dude can’t seem to tell the difference between an inanimate object and a adult female (emancipated at that!). He seems to think that his relationship with his gun is equivalent to his wife’s relationship with her own body. And all that schmarminess he writes before that about granting us “pride of place.” Yeah Dude, try not to control the womenfolk too much, ‘kay. He also seems to think that if we were just a teensy, weensy bit more civil, then we could be granted the full bodily autonomy that male citizens enjoy.
I’m a Kos member. I think they are doing important work funneling money and support to winable local elections.
As to the sexism from men – hasn’t changed a whit in 30 years.
All I know to do is stay focused on women and keep trying.
Q Grrl:
“It is kinda subtle. One he shoots, the other he shoots into.”
Ah. A sort of one is for killing, the other for fun kinda thing?
I almost left the comma out of the middle of that sentence. Now that would have been my kind of subtle.
Well, Q, let me ask this: is there a difference – no, rather, what is the difference between those two things, in terms of governmental control?
I think I see the sore spot in the language though – and it seems to me it isn’t the nouns, it’s the verb. “Take over.” Yes, that clearly is, mm, an inpropitious use of the term. (Ironically, googling define: propitious yields “Favorable, kind; applied to men”, in the third definition.) (I now test google with all my big words, since it _failed_ to find the word “langorous”, the other day.) Well, verb vs. noun, that’s a nit picked I guess. Same difference, as My Famous Aunt Petunia always said.
So, I guess scratch that governmental control question, unless you’d rather not, then feel free.
Revisiting that quote. Actually I think my own favorite part isn’t the shooting part, but the part about being included. “.. somehow women really ought to be much more welcoming. [..] there are lots of men who want to get on board. They need to be made more welcome than in the past.”
That to me is rather an odd thing to say. Do you think so too? I mean, I think I know how he feels; but what is he thinking? What it really means is that he doesn’t know how to get on board. There are lots of men, apparently, who want to take this little cruise, and apparently have tickets, but they can’t find the gangplank. – Or I guess, they want to be shown to it, rather a prima donna thing to want, eh?
I apologize for a laugh at his expense; but isn’t it really the easiest thing to get on board this ship?
There’s something of a cart before the horse thing going on here, isn’t there? He says women should “somehow” be more welcoming. That’s one of those vague moments which actually bring so much clarity. He wants to be welcomed but he doesn’t want to think enough about how it is to be done to name what it is that would welcome him. He likely wouldn’t put it that way, but that’s likely because he imagines that he’s not in control of being welcomed. But he really is, isn’t he?
I have to say, if I identify myself with any cause moniker, it’s Feminist. To me though, underneath all the political goals of feminism, there’s a fundamental human goal. Of just not being such a dick to someone else. Like in that discussion of Maia’s about Jen Creed’s husband. Christ, what an asshole. To me that kind of behavior goes beyond sexism; the man was just an incorrigible prick, I mean, congrats to Jen, congrats to any woman getting away from someone who clearly sprinkles sulfur in his shorts for talcum. If fellows like the one quoted would realize that if they would start out by being nice, being a person, which it sounds like this guy basically has, that is really the beginning, it seems to me. Congratulations, Midshipman! Or maybe one should say: Hello, Sailor! (It was there, I had to go for it.)
(I guess it can be hard to be a person, though. My pet rock has given up. Then again, she’s an excellent feminist. Did I say pet? Oops. Well, truthfully, she’s free to come and go as she pleases. I set her free, and she came back – it’s lorve.) (Gee, I really hope somebody laughs at this.)
Anyway, all I’m saying is that the whole women-controlling-the-boat thing, I can sympathize, but how accurate is it? To me it sounds more like the poor man is having trouble – understandable, I guess – accepting the fact that he’s a feminist. His trousers are damp, his shoes are soggy, he may not be that great at the sidestroke, but that’s why they made the crawl. Or am I barking up the wrong shingle?
Yeah. One of the two isn’t a thing.
It’s one thing for the state to tell a man what he can and cannot do with his firearms.
It’s another matter altogether when the state tells a woman what she can do with her own body.
(and yet another matter for a man to assume his wife is the legal equivalent of his gun.)
I know. Still kinda subtle. But. There you have it.
*slaps own face*
Ok, just for the record, my “difference between two things” phrasing was an error on my part. I didn’t enjoy the snark (“I know. Still kinda subtle”), but I guess I asked for it.
So I’ll try to explain what I was going after there.
I can see where you object to a comparison between guns and women’s bodies. My understanding of the man’s “No way big govt. is going to take over my rifles or my wife” is simply that he objects both to legislation that restricts his use of firearms, and to legislation that restricts his wife’s rights. Granted, his phrasing is clumsy. Maybe I’m being too charitable, but I don’t believe that the man believes “his wife is the legal equivalent of his gun”. Is there any reason beyond this clumsy, insulting phrasing that justifies the characterization that he can’t tell the difference?
Again, granted, that phrase, and the whole rest of the quote is, at best, poorly executed. But I have to say I feel sympathy for the guy (knowing nothing more about him than the quote Kim included, not even his other comments), because he clearly wants to do good. I mean, how deep is the criticism here of this quote (including my own)? Are we only whipping the boy for no other reason than that he can’t write, that he’s dumb? But we pillory him. And ironically we do so for his statement that he wants to be accepted. Yes, it’s a clumsy and backwards way to put it, and maybe I shouldn’t feel sorry for him, but I do; to me (and judging by Morph’s comment, there’s justification for this) he’s nothing worse than a Foot-in-mouth Feminist. Frankly, based on the quote alone, I don’t even think he deserves the term sexist. The quote is chauvanist, yes. But I hestiate to apply the label ‘sexist’ because of the sentiment of what he says.
I’m not saying that he deserves a cookie because he’s a man. I’m not giving him a cookie. But I don’t see the scorn for the mistake as rising to a much higher level of discourse than the mistake that prompted it.
He’s asking women to make the politics of abortion more palatable for him, as a man. Specifically, as a man, he is asking women to either sugar coat their politics, or spoon feed them to him. And that’s just repugnant. Because it’s not like women don’t have real concerns; we do. Babysitting men just doesn’t happen to be one of them.
This man gets no sympathy from me due to his laziness and his sense of privilege.
Q, really just commenting again to tell you that your last comment has made me think quite a bit, and I’m continuing to think about it. Not sure why this particular one is making me think so much more about a variety of things.
I still don’t feel as strongly as you do – I wouldn’t use the word “repugnant” to describe this particular quote, still – mainly because I don’t see him as making a request vis a vis “the politics of abortion”. I don’t actually know what is intended by or included under that expression, but it seemed to me that he wasn’t making a request that grand – if pressed to explain what he means by “[Men] need to be made more welcome [by women feminists]”, I suspect it would be something as benign (and absurd) as “Women feminists should be nicer to us”. (And again, I have not read the rest of the comment from which the quote came; are you reacting also to parts of the comment that were not quoted?)
I couldn’t agree more with the idea that it isn’t women’s responsibility to babysit male feminists. For some reason your calling him lazy in your last comment really hit home, perhaps because I feel less nervous in this thread now, perhaps also because I’ve been reading around a bit and it gelled with other instances of lazy and privilege. I’m starting to understand privilege in these discussions as basically laziness, moral or ethical laziness.
I also have to say that, although a male feminist can’t expect babysitting, still it seems to me that if a man says he’s on the feminists’ side, wants to be on the feminists’ side, and yet still says absurdly un-feminist things, isn’t that person worth some babysitting? I mean, do you not agree that that person requires a little supervision of a nurturing kind? Not that this has to come from a woman, and, getting back to laziness, not that this is an excuse to be lazy – I don’t mean coddling. It seems to me such a person is the responsibility of all feminists, anywhere. If you think about it, that person could be very dangerous. They’re like a swing voter. They may want to go one way but, not through the fault of any particular person, they become frustrated by being “unwelcome”, or for some other, equally shallow reason – and they stop being feminists. Fuck ’em, they say.
I hope you will respond to this, I’m very interested in what you have to say about it. (Or what others have to say, for that matter.) If you can tell me more how you bring the “politics of abortion” into it, that would also be interesting. If you have (or anyone else has) any suggestions for reading that would clue me in to what that means, I’m glad to have them.
Perhaps the only reason I don’t see it your way completely is a difference in experience. Which could change over time.
PS Oh yes, also I learned how to spell chavinist correctly.