{"id":3391,"date":"2007-05-20T04:59:30","date_gmt":"2007-05-20T12:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/05\/20\/a-bunch-of-men-who-died-thousands-of-years-ago-made-up-that-rule\/"},"modified":"2007-05-20T04:59:30","modified_gmt":"2007-05-20T12:19:18","slug":"a-bunch-of-men-who-died-thousands-of-years-ago-made-up-that-rule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3391","title":{"rendered":"A bunch of men who died thousands of years ago made up that rule"},"content":{"rendered":"

I try to think how we got here. The theory I developed in college (shared by many I\u2019m sure) is one I have yet to beat: Womb Envy. Biology: women are generally smaller and weaker than men. But they\u2019re also much tougher. Put simply, men are strong enough to overpower a woman and propagate. Women are tough enough to have and nurture children, with or without the aid of a man. Oh, and they\u2019ve also got the equipment to do that, to be part of the life cycle, to create and bond in a way no man ever really will. Somewhere a long time ago a bunch of men got together and said, \u201cIf all we do is hunt and gather, let\u2019s make hunting and gathering the awesomest achievement, and let\u2019s make childbirth kinda weak and shameful.\u201d It\u2019s a rather silly simplification, but I believe on a mass, unconscious level, it\u2019s entirely true. How else to explain the fact that cultures who would die to eradicate each other have always agreed on one issue? That every popular religion puts restrictions on women\u2019s behavior that are practically untenable? That the act of being a free, attractive, self-assertive woman is punishable by torture and death? In the case of this upcoming torture-porn, fictional. In the case of Dua Khalil, mundanely, unthinkably real. And both available for your viewing pleasure.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s safe to say that I\u2019ve snapped. That something broke, like one of those robots you can conquer with a logical conundrum. All my life I\u2019ve looked at this faulty equation, trying to understand, and I\u2019ve shorted out. I don\u2019t pretend to be a great guy; I know really really well about objectification, trust me. And I\u2019m not for a second going down the \u201cwomen are saints\u201d route \u2013 that just leads to more stone-throwing (and occasional Joan-burning). I just think there is the staggering imbalance in the world that we all just take for granted. If we were all told the sky was evil, or at best a little embarrassing, and we ought not look at it, wouldn\u2019t that tradition eventually fall apart? (I was going to use \u2018trees\u2019 as my example, but at the rate we\u2019re getting rid of them I\u2019m pretty sure we really do think they\u2019re evil. See how all rants become one?)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That was written by Joss Whedon, you can find the rest here<\/a>. I’m not even going to make a snarky comment about how well he knows objectification. I’m just going to say I’m feeling pretty good about naming my blog<\/a> after him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I try to think how we got here. The theory I developed in college (shared by many I\u2019m sure) is one I have yet to beat: Womb Envy. Biology: women are generally smaller and weaker than men. But they\u2019re also … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[103,31,40,42,96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-buffy-whedon-etc","category-feminism-sexism-etc","category-international-issues","category-iraq","category-rape-intimate-violence-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}