If a woman be right, she is still wrong unless men agree with her…
I seem to be hitting on a kick of complaints lately, but whether it’s exhaustion, or just me getting sick of seeing the same comments over and over online and finally deciding to bitch, I dunno. This time around, I started thinking how someone complained that their biggest problem with Twilight was with the overzealous fans who defend it. It’s okay to bash the same series for a decade, and the fandom should just shut up and take it?
That’s my standard rebuttal, but lately, as I watch Doctor Who fans on Facebook, I’ve started to ask, “No, wait, y’all male-dominated fandoms can insert your shit everywhere, and praise your beloved show all the time, and that’s okay. Star Wars fans can dress as Storm Troopers at every con, and that’s okay. But if a chick goes for a moon tan and body glitter, she’s “taking her fantasies too far”?
Women and girls really can’t win on this. Their favorite music is accused of being empty and meaningless. As if “Wop bop a loo bop, a womp bam boom” was some deeply meaningful observation on the human condition. As if Ozzy Osbourne’s many songs about drugs were so philosophical. No, pop music is empty, and heavy metal and hard rock are the pillars of moral posturing. Why just look at Ted Nugent and his love of little girls. That’s such deep and insightful music, man.
Women can’t catch a break. Men run the porn industry, and they degrade women in porn as a checklist of holes to violate. But they also use the term porn to strip legitimacy from anything women consume. What do they call a romantic book series with no sex? Abstinence porn. And what do they call a romantic book with visual sex? Mommy porn. What do they call erotica? Porn for women. Men’s porn can feature women shaving their pubes and portray young girls who get molested by uncles, and that’s not attacked with the vigor of romance books. No man talks up the problematic nature of the porn industry, but the characters of romance book are psychoanalyzed like they’re real people. They’re all found lacking, derided as useless fantasies and empty emotions, and the fact that they’re the most popular fiction market on the planet is just a sign of how bad the “problem” is. But even the most degrading porn slips right under the public radar. You try applying the same psychoanalysis to horror writing and call it torture porn, and watch the explosions about who’s being “persecuted.” The lesson is clear. It’s okay to persecute women, but don’t you dare question a man over what he writes.
Women can’t make up realistic female characters in fiction. Meek women set a bad example. Women who abstain from sex set a bad example. Women in abusive relationships set a bad example. Women who have sex with only one person, who have sex with two people, or who have polyamorous relationships…it’s all the same thing. ALL depictions of women are wrong, EXCEPT those created by men. A Facebook meme calls out all kinds of women, fictional or not, as bad, and then foists up a set of sci-fi women, most of them dressed in skin-tight bodysuits, and most of them written by men, and that meme says, “These are REAL role models.” Yes, the fake women supported by men, the women who are paid to act the way men want them to.
“But Zoe,” you say, “some of these male-created fandoms have women fans too.” Yes, they do, and you only use those token women when it suits your argument. You otherwise outright ignore those women fans when they have complaints about problematic moments in the series they like. Doctor Who’s depictions of women in the modern shows is highly sexist, but I have yet to meet a male Who fan who didn’t act like all that sexism was okay, because the Doctor is just so awesome.
Even worse is how when a woman reveals she’s a fan, she’s questioned on her knowledge to determine if she’s a “real fan” or an attention whore. If a girl claims to be a comics fan, but only reads girl’s comics, she’s also not a real fan. Who decides which women are in the club? Men. They police their border like women are an enemy, and not one half of their fandom.
I’m a gamer, and yet, I hate being a part of this fandom because women in games get even less respect than they do in TV shows, movies, comics, or books. Our places in most games is as an object to be won or fought over by men. When the new Tomb Raider came out, the male game makers said gamers couldn’t identify with a women unless she was beaten and in need of protection. This was said despite Lara Croft having a series of games going back into the 90s, and never once did she have to be treated this way to be popular. But now she does? Samus Aran of Metroid was a great heroine going back to the NES days, but when Ninja Theory got a hold of the character, they made her meek and subservient to men. Why? Because this is how men want women depicted. Even more recently, God of War’s latest game caused outrage among women gamers because there is a trophy for killing a female character called “Bros before Hos.” The apology is bullshit and says the company listens to the community. But the fact is, the trophy was put in because some men thought the insult was funny. It isn’t until they got called on their sexism that they cared about what the community thought.
Women who complain about the way they get depicted in games are also treated like shit, like newcomers who are intruding on an all-boys club, and the dudes can’t even be bothered to note that women gamers grew up in this club with them. When Anita Sarkeesian decided to do a video series looking into this problem, just her proposal alone was met with threats of rape and assault, and men photoshopped her image into sexual positions to degrade and demean her. When women gamers reacted with horror, MORE males gamers got insulted that women were blaming them for not policing their own club. Women gamers got hit constantly with “But that’s just a minority, and we’re not all like that.” Yes, it’s just a small minority who use comments like “rape that bitch,” in fighting games. But if it is such a small minority, shouldn’t it be easy to educate these few and stamp out the behavior? Of course it is not, because this is not a minority. It’s the mindset of far too many males in the club, and not a one of them wants to admit they’rr really bullies who harass HALF the members of their hobby with impunity.
And the thing is, it’s socially acceptable to bash women for any reason. Too slutty, too prudish, too talkative, too smart, too angry, too happy, doesn’t smile enough, too stupid, too shallow, not concerned enough about…there’s never a woman who can please the men, and then when women lose their shit about how rough they’ve got it, men bitch, “Hey, we’ve got it rough too, you know.”
Men, your gender owns 98% of the land worldwide, and runs 98% percent of all businesses. You have 89% of all writing positions in TV, and even when a news story should be all about women and their opinions, the media asks men how they feel about it instead. Male artists receive more reviews and awards than women, and women’s reviews are not represented equally in most media venues. Women earn less than men, receive less recognition than men for their contributions, and through all of this, they are expected to watch their tone, or be labeled “shrill.”
They suffer from constant threats to their personal safety; assault, rape and murder. If they become a victim under any circumstances, men look for reasons to excuse the men who attacked them by blaming the victim for her behavior. Girls who aren’t even out of puberty know all about that creepy as fuck male gaze, but should we bring it up, we’re rocking the boat, or we’re being sexist for pointing out how men treat women like meat to be consumed. Men complain about being labeled as creeps, and they complain that they’re really nice guys. But most of the nice act is simply to get a chance to fuck women, and once you have what you want, the nice act is over. Don’t like it? “Hate the game, not the playa.”
Men come up with bullshit complaints about reverse sexism like, “I opened a door for a woman, and she yelled at me!” So fucking what? My best friend told me I could trust him with my secrets, and then he blackmailed me and sexually assaulted me. Boys and men have cornered and beaten me until I was trained to be afraid of all men. I’m supposedly sexist for being afraid of being hit again, but men who have never been hit or hurt can insult me as a bitch. I’m just one of thousands of victims who were sent to therapy to be told to stop thinking about what happened to us, while the males who attacked us NEVER get punished.
There is a saying: “Men fear being ridiculed by women. Women fear being killed by men.” This is God’s honest truth, and women are killed more often in gun violence than men. Men abuse women day in and day out, and the ones who don’t resort to physical violence resort to intimidation or to insults about how us bitches are too sexist. We put up with sexual harassment in the workplace, or even just walking down the street. Those who don’t do that STILL find ways to be derogatory, like the never-ending Twilight jokes, the hate on pop singers, or the comments on the behavior of young women in the media. And there is never any accountability for this. Bring it up, and guys say, “That doesn’t apply to me, because I’ve got a valid complaint about ___.” Of course you’ve got a valid complaint about something women do, or something they enjoy. You’re a man, and your opinion is all that matters.
Men, dudes. I want to cut you some slack, and there are some male feminists out there who I feel are trying to be better. But the vast majority of men have yet to give up policing womanhood to tell us how to act, and there’s no two-way street here. You act like assholes, and you’re unapologetic about it. I’ve even seen some men say that they can’t think about women’s problems because that would make them a pussy. Even as they defend their macho ignorance, they insult womanhood.
Some of you may be thinking, “Lady, we don’t owe you bitches nothing.” Go tell your mother, the woman who carried your ignorant ass for nine months, that you don’t owe her gender any respect. Go tell your mother that you can’t work to be better because men don’t owe women anything. Every single man owes his life to a woman who bore him, who suffered pain and nine months of discomfort for him. And for her ability to bring new life into the world, the companies owned by men cut her salary. For her ability to be a mother, she is attacked, ridiculed, and judged as unfit for the man’s world.
So dudes, before you make another joke about women, or something women like, think about your mother. Before you excuse the actions of a rapist, think about your mother being the victim. Before you accuse women of being sexist, try walking in the painful high-heeled shoes of your mother for just one fucking block.
Think before you speak. And if one of your guy friends says something sexist, don’t just nod and let it go. Police your own gender and work to turn this shit around. Women don’t need men’s help with policing their gender. There’s plenty of women willing to slut-shame and victim blame in you absence. But there’s no accountability on your side for the rampant bad behavior of men, and that’s why shrill women like me have such a hard time being nice to you bastards.
