Allow me to ask something that some others of you may also have been wondering, but are too tactful to bring up:
Did age play a role in it?
Not to downplay any of the other ingredients in the pie, but I don’t believe I’ve seen anyone ask the question that’s been nipping at me:
Was age a factor?
Not “age-ism,” just age.
(More below. First diary. Hope this works)
I’m a 59 year old woman, which probably tells you a lot about my background with feminism. As I read the introductions of other newbies, I think I’m seeing a lot of women of middle age and older. It looks to me as if the exodus included quite a few women who are veterans of earlier gender wars. Personally, I think that played a big role in all this for two reasons:
First, I think we are the canaries in the coal mine of gender discrimination. Our lungs are sensitive to gender pollution, because of earlier scars. In a very real way, I think it is Our Job to be those canaries and squawk real loud when we sense Danger Jill Robinson!! Otherwise, how would younger women know they’re at risk, since some of them have never faced those risks before in their lives? Also, if we don’t squawk, how will some of our less sensitive brothers know there’s a problem in the mines?
Other liberals do other good jobs of alerting us to imminent problems. Our black compatriots let us know when we’re veering off the good path. That’s their job, you might say. Our gay and lesbian friends, likewise. Our labor brothers and sisters, and so forth down the line of honorable warriors in the liberal camp.
Canaries are lovely birds until they start choking. Then they can scare the bejeesus out of people and they can annoy the management who wants everybody to keep working. When they drop over dead or fly away, it’s good to sniff the air.
Second, popular liberal blogs are places where people of all ages come to play. From kids to great-grandmothers and fathers, we’re all there. Those of us who are old enough to be the mothers or grandmothers of some of the rascally crowd usually take a tolerant attitude toward tomfoolery, but at some point–being parents and grandparents–we may put our foot down. Enough. Behave yourselves. This is annoying to the rascals, of course, but probably useful in a mixed society. That, too, may be part of Our Job in the movement.
I’d be willing to bet there are VERY few prudes among the older women on this blog. Hell, we grew up in the sixties or seventies, for god’s sake. You want to talk liberal? Hah. And no, I won’t tell you what I did in the spring of l963. Or l973, for that matter. Hmm, ’83 was pretty good, too. . .
Where was I?
Oh, yes, prudes. Nah. We just want to be able to talk to other people the way you BooTribbers talk to everybody here, which is to say, courteously and respectfully, with the aim of real conversation and learning and not just winning arguments or scoring points off other people.
So what do you think? Do you think I’m right and age had something to do with it? Or do you think that was pretty much irrelevant?
P.S. See what you’ve done? I wasn’t a diarist over there, but you’re all so nice and open that you made me feel like throwing something out there for you to gnaw on if you want to. Chew away, if you’re so inclined!
I thnk you’re right, Kansas. And I’m so glad to get to read your thoughtful, insightful posts AND diaries (!). Woohoo!
You guys set wonderfully high standards and I love knowing that I have to try to live up to them.
speaking of standards, most women have them and a lot of ethics as well. I just think my age might have played as a factor in it. I just thought I was way more mature than to have someone tell me as a woman I do not matter when like you said, we fought that battle already..Yup, burned my bra already..do not need to qualify that to anyone anymore. You are right
beside, I thought we already broke that mold..these youngus out here are our future and to see them act like a bunch of nitwits ruffled my feathers…:o)..as an old hen, I want the young chicks and roosters out here to have a better life than we had and than to struggle like we have had to.
Heh!
Reminds me of a coffe mug I have: “Genuine Antique Person : Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt, can’t remember.” Except I think we remember all too well. Now my feeling is more like: “Are we lost? How many times have we passed this same stupid tree already?”
“Are we lost? How many times have we passed this same stupid tree already?”
Too true.
Having watched the progressive/civil rights/&c movement blow up in the sixties, I am really asking myself if we are going to do that again. Sadly, it looks like it.
Still, if Markos wants to let yahoos trash his own site, who can stop him?
Not that I think the fight is either over, or lost. I am still adding my posts over there from time to time. Some will get it, some won’t, and we will see which way the balance goes.
What has changed, forever: D.Kos is not a home, it is a conflict venue. Go over there when you feel like fighting.
Good luck! Ignore the 1 ratings . . .
I mean, what can they do, take away your Trusted User status? 😉
I think that you are right as well. Me for example, I haven’t had to much experience with gender issues. But I would definitely love to know how it all went down. From any point of view!
Ok I lied, as I hit the post button, my husband reminded of a few incindents that had happened. Guess I blocked it all out. Thank the Gods for men like my hubby. 😉
Witnesses are good.
You know, I realized that I have been insisting to a lot of people that “it wasn’t about the ad.” But I think that maybe to some people it actually was about the ad. There are a LOT of ways to look at what happened. Besides, I find community conflict fascinating and instructive. Like you, I love hearing how it looks from a whole lot of different windows.
For me, it wasn’t about the AD, it was the communities response to all of my favorite posters, male and female alike. Since I moved from my hometown, I had been searching for somewhere where I felt I could belong. I thought that DK was that place. (even though I am registered independent) Turns out I was wrong, though, that led me to the Booman…which is a place I belong. 😉
Maybe for some people it was. But it wasn’t for me. I never saw the ad. Hell, I didn’t even see most of the resulting fracas. I saw Kos’ remarks and un-apology, the attitudes laid bare in the few battles I did see, came here, saw Armando’s strange attempt at … um … whatever it was, and added it all up with various other unpleasant things I’d been noticing at dKos. Then I decided that it was time to stop hanging out there, at least for a while.
It’s been interesting to see how many names over here that I recognize, with pleasure.
I was on vacation during the first of the pie slinging, and lately I’d been reading, not commenting, due to the manner in which diary comments would spiral off topic into really sophomoric (my opinion) snarky comments. Nothing additive, just locker-room B.S.
I have five brothers…I’ve heard it all. I know what guys think, talk about, and fear. I don’t cringe at cursing, towel snapping, or trash talking. I’ve been known to string cuss-words together very creatively.
My issue was the way it was handled by the site owner when addressing the rift. No attempt at peace making, or reining in of abusers (on both sides). I never took a “woman’s studies course” in my life. I’ve lived the inequality for decades. I’m a woman and American Indian. As Judge Judy says “don’t pee on my leg, then tell me it’s raining”.
This week several What the hell do want from us? front page diaries by Armando appeared on dkos. Even one on this site, with the same arrogant tone. Those diaries assured me I had made the right decision. They attempted to enroll us back in, olive branch slightly extended, then allowed others to post comments which kicked at us, and (again) no reining in of outrageous posts.
I’ve never allowed anyone to intimidated me. Not family, friends or co-workers. I treat all with respect and expect it in return. At 58, I don’t have the willingness, patience, or time, to explain such a BASIC concept as respect.
“They attempted to enroll us back in, olive branch slightly extended, then allowed others to post comments which kicked at us, and (again) no reining in of outrageous posts.”
How would you propose those “outrageous posts” be reined? By whom exactly, and by what means? AOL hires a couple thousand hall monitors for their forums and you still get plenty of trash.
Any large net space will have text that offends, but small forums lack a certain kind of diversity, surprise, and external impact.
“The moral of this story, the moral of this song, is simply that one should never be, where one does not belong.” – Dylan – Ballad of Frankee Lee and Judas Priest
The preceding does not reflect the official views of the management.
Ben, I’d hope people like you (whos diaries and comments I’ve always valued) would respond to someone out of line and pull them up short.
There is troll rating, or suggesting they add something which moves the discussion forward. Maybe SYFPH-read and learn.
Posts by high numbered newbies whos entire post reads “Fuckin’ pussies”, and another newbie posting a giant red flashing ambulance with Waaaaaa! written across the side, adds nothing to any attempt to repair the existing rent.
No gnashing of teeth, no bad mouthing of kos or the site, no ill will, I (and many others) elected to leave for various reasons.
I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more. They give you a nickel, they give you a dime, they have the nerve to ask you if you’re havin’ a good time-Dylan-Subterranean Homesick Blues.
for that kind of transformation on so complex a matter as gender politics. There’s some things that don’t work as well online as in person.
Having been thru some of the kind of attitudinal attitudinal changes you’re talking about, I do know that they can’t really be forced, and feeling censored for young men in this culture just turns it into a perceived matter of principle.
The most effective tone is something like “I’ll defend your right to make a fool of yourself, but I like you enough to wish you wouldn’t.’
Great line
via a blog, in person, whenever. Anything that creates a pause before typing/speaking might be just the time required for a mental edit.
As I shared in a comment on dkos- Edit! Not every thought needs to be expressed.
I like your comment very much. Hope you don’t mind if I use it occasionally!
Hi – I’ve been scanning posts to see if anyone verbalized my thoughts about the pie business and yours came close. I’m not a writing afficionado like so many posters, so I thought I’d hit an opinion and say “ditto.” Ditto! I guess I’m not teribly introspective and I certainly am impatient. Life is short and mine’s also at its midpoint. I thought the attitude on Kos was sexist, arrogant, offensive and sophmoric and predictable (Kos-great, Jon Stewart – great, NARAL-bad, Biden-bad, etc). So I quit using it as a community. THIS is a community.The people are so damn fine here! But I still read Kos for news and action alerts. It’s not more complicated for me than that. Maybe it’s an age thing, but I’m awfully clear and centered these days:)
ditto to that five times and more.
I agree Bearpaw! Sophomoric is the key word. I’ve been following a couple of threads over there since the pie wars and the juvenile “me too” and “didja kick her ass, Kos?” attitude was just too much for me. I’m done.
How about this one – “Dean rocks because he has BALLS.” Ironically, I’ll bet the men these posters admire so, like Dean, treat women with much more respect.
I didn’t see the original ad either, because I use FireFox with AdBlock, so had the pictures in the ads turned off because of them blinking and moving which I find extremely annoying. It was the response and previous dissing of things like reproductive rights being important that turned me off.
I do go and lurk some for the links and breaking news, though there are lots of good ones here since so many cross-post.
I am extremely happy to see many of my favorite posters here!
It wasn’t JUST about the ad, though the ad itself was offensive for a number of reasons that have already been discussed, particularaly the deliberately provocative second ad. But it quickly became about the patronizing, mocking, dismissive, juvenile responses.
I honestly hope those folks do not become leaders of the Democratic party, with their ‘I have no respect for those that left, and I hope they don’t come back’ attitude. Not a good way to lure voters.
I think it has for me. With age, I have certainly found myself much more willing, with every year that passes, to demur in these types of arguments.
By the way, apparently the MSM has picked up on the pie wars.
I’m not sure Babaloo…I’m 51 years old and the issue broke open a lot of old scars for me. I think most of what I feel is Why is this issue still around to fight about?
After all these years and all the tears, with Roe v Wade going to be overturned in my lifetime, why would I have to fight this issue at all? “The Feminine Mystique” on the list of 10 most harmful books? And why would the battle have to be fought on dKos of all places?
I have been accused of having no sense of humor about these types of issues for my whole life; for the record, I have a wonderful (even twisted) sense of humor, but some things are just not funny in the year 2005. Somehow, I always thought that after 30+ years, we’d be further along than this.
I guess not.
IR
It’s so many battles that we’ve sagged backward on, so many fights that were “over”, but they aren’t. It’s a deep fundamental malaise, something akin to the outright rejection of the notion of social progress, a notion that has always been such a key to the many wonderful things that have been accomplished in America. I always assumed it would be a slow and unsteady progress, reading history taught me that. But there has never been as extended a period of time of social regression in American history as the one we continue to live, and have been living since the late 70s.
As disparities of wealth grew, it was accompanied by a vanishing of any sense of community and social solidarity. The transience of much of modern life plays into this of course. It was easier to nurture a sense of solidarity with the famiiliarity of rootedness, stable neighborhoods and careers. From the late 70s, with the rise of the “New Right” and the Moral Monopoly, those progressive elements that retained any vitality at all were the ones where the occasion for solidarity is most obvious. The essence of the spirit of solidarity is to recognize the importance of solidarity with the struggles of others when the connection to one’s self isn’t immediate, which the old-time labor movement summed up, “An injury to one is an injury to all.”
I know I don’t have any answers for how we build a culture of solidarity where none exists. I know it is the single greatest challenge we face.
I’m turning 50 this summer. Age does have something to do with it. Either by generational experience at the flashpoint in the early 70s, or simply by having lived and seen enough to have some clues what’s going on around us.
And I love the poll questions and responses:
Yeah, now that’s deep…
Crap. this’ll mean a fresh wave joining the site just to get their licks in. On both sides.
but now that you have mentioned it, I saw some very upsetting comments yesterday at Kos about “women of a certain age.” Here is one about Kos:
“He’s taking a stand against the single-issue griping interests in our party.
We have to work as a unified party, and the reality is we can never be unified until people start learning to have a bit of tolerance and respect for people with differing viewpoints.
The accusations that people who are more tolerant of sexuality are anti-feminist is just patently fucking ridiculous and is a hold over from women studies viewpoints 20 years out of touch with today’s modern world.”
Another comment:
“I promise you that if the Democratic party… (2.33 / 9)
ever becomes anti pornography or anti womens sexuality the party will not win.
The only women that were chased away were the extreme left anti-male party that has been holding down the party and causing the party to loose elections.
There are plenty of women here who have no problem with the add or men and who are willing to build a winning party.
And most egregious:
“The Democratic party needs about… (1.20 / 5)
50% of men and 52% of women to be successful.
In my view you can support a pro-women position that gets you female support without being anti-male.
If the party supports abortion rights, healthcare reform, a balanced foreign policy, workers rights, environmental concerns and individual liberty the party should get emough support.
However, if the party begins to narrowly focus on concerns of women between the ages of 50 – 60 the ONLY demographic that cares about this add then the party will suffer.
If you have not noticed the younger women have noted continuously that they are not concerned about the add and a diary was even written about that.”
Wow! That’s me, between 50 and 60 years old: extremist, out of touch, of no importance to the Democratic party, anti-male (not true)and, did I mention, old.
No wonder we didn’t always feel at home. “More tolerant of sexuality?” That’s pretty funny to somebody who came up in the sixties. Who do they think opened the doors to all that tolerance?
I consider myself pretty tolerant of sexuality, but you know what I’m really intolerant about? Bad spelling. How exactly do you “loose elections” and why should we be concerned by any “add”?
Sorry…spelling is a major pet peeve. I should probably spend less time on the internet.
Oh, I am so glad it isn’t just me 🙂
me either…:o)..I keep forgetting about spell check and I am not a good typist either..Please excuse me for my poor grammer and spelling and the like..but I do think you will get my drift..
Don’tcha just love having spellcheck here?
Unfortunately, spellcheck isn’t any help to people too ignorant of grammar and spelling to know they’re making a mistake. <grump, humph>
wouldn’t it be nice if we also had “smell check.”
Would that I had a filter that could intercept stinky comments and give me a second chance before I push “post.”
A
🙂
And I love your sig line.
It’s the theme of my never-ending novel . . . and a bumpersnicker on the back of my pick up truck!
A
Though it would be nice if you italicized it. Look at the results of the poll and realize how many middle-aged eyes are interpreting your sig line as the last line of your comment and going Huh?.
one of the (few) things I’m having trouble adjusting to at BT is how the signatures don’t automatically stand out as such.
some of it’s a spacing thing, some color
for any who don’t know -you can italicize your sig line-
go into your preferences then you can italicize it by typing
< i> signature here < /i>
take out the spaces in my example and it will look like
signature here
or my sig…
(and THAT ladies and gentleman is about 40% of the HTML I know 🙂
Doncha mean the internets? 😉
But notice — that “most egregious” comment had a rating (at the time you copied it) of (1.20/5). Yes, sexist ageism is an issue (nearly everywhere, no?) — but of all the people who read that comment and were motivated to pass a judgment on it, most disapproved. And the (2.33/9) rating isn’t much better.
(and despite the continual ratings purity discussions, I think a lot of people use 4 = Hell,yes; 3= sort of, but you’re a bit of an idiot; 2= poorly-written and you’re wrong ; 1= poorly-written, wrong, and a jackass; and 0= just plain jackass, stop picking fights, troll.)
So yes, there are generational issues, sexism, a-historicity (huge bugaboo of mine) and the feminazi interpretation of feminism (which I think as much of a problem as any argument over what is sexist) — but that’s a reflection of society. And these posters, assuming they check, will find out that more people on dKos disagreed with them than agreed.
Thanks for pointing that out. In the last couple of days I have read threads over there that were full of thoughtful, mature voices, and where the “egregious” ones stand out like thorns. I think BooMan has demonstrated that what it takes to keep the tone civil is strong leadership that really wants a civil tone. It seems to mean something to him, so he attracts other people to whom it is important, too. I’m sure the “old-timers” here hope that continues as we newbies force its growth. God, I hope so too.
In this thread of comments there were people, a number of them male, objecting to these posts, patiently trying to reason with the guy, losing patience with him, etc. So this point of view is very much a deviation from the norm over there. But I had never seen anything like that on Kos before this point,and I was shook up. Part of it was realizing that I was the person this guy was talking about (although completely mischaracterizing–I am not a prude, extremist, anti-male, etc). It was a shock. I usually live pretty much in my head, and to realize that what some people see when they see me from the outside is THAT. It was a learning experience.
Another thought I had late last night thinking about this was “tin foil hat” material. (Do they also use that expression over here?) I wondered if maybe this guy, Richard something, was deliberately doing this in order to sow dissension in the Democratic party. I mean DailyKos does have a national profile. It came up on Elizabeth Dole’s radar. But then again there are a lot of assholes in the world and some of them ARE in the Democratic party.
Ah, thanks.
I wrote my comment and then was reviewing it while you were answering my question.
Thank you, I appreciate that.
I wondered if maybe this guy, Richard something, was deliberately doing this in order to sow dissension in the Democratic party.
But then again there are a lot of assholes in the world and some of them ARE in the Democratic party.
I wondered and thought about both of these things too. I think a good case could be made for RichardG’s gaming the blog but am frustrated that I really cannot tell the difference sometimes.
But notice — that “most egregious” comment had a rating (at the time you copied it) of (1.20/5)
I must admit to having landed a big fat zero (and I believe the first rating) on that comment just before going to work today. I found it personally so offensive and so utterly, utterly stupid. Bigotry couched as strategy and deliberately hurtful. It pretty much solidified my own startegy which is to actively marginalize stupid white men. we might not win but I wouldn’t have to take so many showers.
this guy’s strategy for the Democratic Party is pretty comic: get rid of all the old bags like me and only allow hot babes in the party and the men will come running in droves to sign up. Maybe they can have Ginger and Maryann give keynote addresses at the next Democratic convention.
First off, very nice diary. I think that age was a factor but I’m not willing to make suppositions about what, I’ll stick to my personal bias. I’ll stick my neck out and say I think it’s a generational thing, somewhat.
I’m responding to this comment, as I feel like you’ve trawled comments that are trollish in nature. I guess we could find some worse ones in the hidden comments at dK and trot them out as examples, but who am I to speak for a lot of people.
I have other quite a few questions on the standards of pornography, “wild” women and the question of image tied to Madison Ave. on my diary over here…
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2005/6/10/9594/59904
Well, I’m in the median age group and this is so depressing to me. I mean in a way I feel like one group of men just wants to replace another group of men at the wheel and neither one could give a toot about ANY issue other than that. I feel very betrayed.
Yeah, the one you label:
…And most egregious:
“The Democratic party needs about… (1.20 / 5)
50% of men and 52% of women to be successful.
In my view you can support a pro-women position that gets you female support without being anti-male…
was a reply to one my posts addressing an earlier one by the same poster. It gives new meaning to the word egregious, doesn’t it? Before he posted the reply you mention I was half-way trying to open his eyes and halfway holding his previous idea up to a little snarkish ridicule. When I read his reply though, I was shocked at the sincerity of his reply. You must have “felt” something along the same lines I felt. He’s completely serious about feeling this way. It took all the air out of my sail. So sad.
I think age definitely played a role. I am approaching 50 (in December) and find that I am just not willing to play along any more. Also, as you said with the canary analogy, we are more aware of how things can be if vigilance is relaxed.
I often wonder how much hormones have to do with it too – I find that I am much harder to intimidate since menopause, and much less willing to shift my position just to appease. That may, of course, be experience; but I can’t help wondering whether the absence of the biological drive to mate has anything to do with it.
maybe also, older women are just more trouble! 😉
Indeed. And not just ours, eh?
maybe also, older women are just more trouble! 😉
Well, that and often a good deal harder to manipulate and less likely to put up with bullshit. Which amounts to the same thing, I suppose.
Re low b.s. tolerance level and the rest . . . plus, I find that I’m just less willing to expend what begins to look like limited time (only a few decades left in us:-) on continuing to explain, explain, explain what is hardly esoteric information anymore — about what feminism is, about what reproductive rights mean to women’s lives, etc.
We never will make progress, as a party or as people, if we are told to keep saying and saying and saying the same things while others talk about “bazooms” . . . and then want to tell us that we don’t know what we’re talking about or they’re tired of hearing about it or . . . and then the next one comes on to tell us to just explain it all again.
Ever figure out what a strategy that is, keeping us at square one — explaining, explaining — while they’ve moved on to another game entirely? C’mon, on an allegedly “liberal” site of at least voting-age others, we have to explain that abortion is an uber-issue? that pregnancy can mean not completing an education, and that lower education levels lead to lower income levels, and that . . . well, you know.
Nope, wise women and men of a certain age already share a foundation of understanding, like a shorthand or lingo, that allows moving forward — which we must, must, must do.
about what feminism is, about what reproductive rights mean to women’s lives, etc.
————————————–
But as you have stopped explaining, people like Rush continue to blather that all feminists are FemiNazis. Who is countering that?
…but in other ways, not explaining and explaining to folks that don’t want to listen or hear….
The ole ‘actions speak louder than wrods’ thing!
Is there anything more mass media though?
I’m not understanding what you mean? Could you explain?
Like the anti-Rush. Oprah? (??)
Can’t speak to your question…I listen to very little talk radio of any ilk. Who would listen to a show that explained feminism/the feminist movement anyway? No $$ in that. They don’t even teach it in schools, except, “and women were given the right to vote” as if someone just up and said ‘hey wait a minute, we should let women vote too!”
Aside from TV or radio, what other kind of mass media might be an option?
when people are willing to listen, and talk civilly, and we can engage in respectful discourse that can educate each other.
That’s one thing that teaching has taught me — meeting not knee-jerk reactionaries but very smart and well-read conservative students and learning together how to have a respectful classroom atmosphere.
(For example, off the reproductive rights topic, if it helps: teaching women’s history in fall 2004 — or anytime — the story of the “century of struggle” for suffrage can only lead to encouraging students to exercise the hard-won right to vote . . . but I was careful to say to just vote, not for a specific candidate or slate — and to simply provide info on how to find out how to register, where the polling places were, etc.).
So I think we also can teach by example. My students know I’m a feminist, and may see me working at events for specific candidates — but not on my worktime, where I have to be “fair and balanced.” But if the atmosphere is poisoned, better to leave and calm down than to lose that ability by “losing it.”
Bottom line is, as I’ve said in a local misuse of the language that cracks me up, saying to students who think having a pulse (i.e., showing up, going to sleep) is enough to get a good grade and say, hey, “learn me that”:
We can only teach them; we can’t “learn them.”
kansas, thanks for the diary, and thanks for turning my thinking around. I originally had the thought that the problem of disrespect was a problem of age – coming from younger people – maybe not as familiar with the issues, etc.
Now I think your take is more likely. The crap is pervasive in society, and some of us have a lot less tolerance to deal with it.
I particularly like your comments about the sixties – calling the generation of sex, drugs and rock and roll prudes? Get out of here!
I’m 23, and my problem with the ad was one of simple prudery- I don’t like to stare at naked genetalia and related regions in what feels like a public place. I have the same reaction to people (men and women) who walk about half naked in ‘real life.’ I can understand the sexism issue, and the dismissal of the sexism complaints made me angrier than the nakedness in the ads… but really, shirts have buttons for a reason, and it’s not so that you can leave them unbottoned and tie the flaps around your ribcage.
I’m not advocating that everyone join me in my judgemental prudery. In fact, I haven’t mentioned it anywhere else; it just seemed relevant to a discussion on ‘old prudes.’
Wondering where in the world you shop for clothes? How do you find modest clothing for someone your age?
Except for the capris, it seems that fashion today takes its cues from my high-school days, times 5.
I wear tee-shirts and jeans, mostly. And I like shopping around for vintage clothing.
After several women signing on, on the other site, to say that younger women saw no problem with what was going on, that it wasn’t sexism, etc.
It is important that there not be TOO many “women of a certain age” here; we need to hear women of all ages . . . especially the wiser younger ones.
(Btw, my daughter is your age and finally has reached your level of fashion wisdom; no more exposing the midriff in freezing wintertime for her. Duh.:-)
I don’t think that you’re a “prude” at all. With the onslaught of reality shows, trash talk shows, etc., there is a real trend in society to make everything public.
Media, mostly TV, has shown to both genders that the more outrageous someone acts, the longer that their 15 minutes of fame can last. Remember Richard, the naked guy from “Survivor”? Of course we do, that was the point.
I wasn’t offended by him, nor the ad. I am more offended by crassness and cliches. The media’s use of sexuality usually has two feet planted firmly in both the crass and cliched camp. There was nothing spiritual or life affirming in that ad, nor in videos with a lot of booty-shakin’.
The human body and all the fun stuff we can do with it are beautiful things, when real meaning is attached to it.
I am, by the way, 37, have done my share of boot-shakin’, and I firmly believe that women’s issues (however that may be defined) must be a front burner issue. We see what religious zealots in other societies do to their women and I will be damned if I give an inch to them here.
I particularly like your comments about the sixties – calling the generation of sex, drugs and rock and roll prudes? Get out of here!
I have been expending a great deal of energy restraining my natural tendency to set the minds of a couple of the more strident younger folks straight on what life was like during the heyday between penicillin and AIDS and at some length. good thing restraint also develops with age.
I think age played more than one role in the whole debacle. Speaking from the younger end of the spectrum, I think that you are absolutely correct about women of my generation being less sensitive to gender pollution (I like that phrase, by the way) because many have not experienced the direct effects of overt sexism. I had a lot of very long conversations with my girlfriends in college about objectification and was quite surprised by the number of smart, sensitive and generally insightful women who just had never even CONSIDERED that sexism was still a problem.
But also, I think that age played a major part in the communication breakdown that followed. For example, I can’t imagine that too many people above the age of, I don’t know 35 maybe?, were making comments about “big ass titties”. There were a lot of incredibly juvenile comments being made by people who I can only assume are too young to know that that sort of behavior is unacceptable, even on the internet. I think, in general, the older posters on DKos were more interested in actual discussion than a lot of the younger and less sensitive posters.
I suspect you’re spot-on with your observation that age played a major part in the communication breakdown. I suppose that’s part of what I meant about the “rascals” and tolerating their “tomfoolery.” Usually, I just scrolled on past all that adolescent stuff. God knows I was once an adolescent, myself, and I shudder to think what I might have written on a l960’s internet. Oh, jeez. But it suddenly seemed much more hostile in the aftermath. It was really only when it got suffocating that the sheer mass of it was too much for many adults to take. I think it actually frightened some people.
I know the last day I busted my gums at kos, I meant every word I said; however, I now wished I had just left holding my nose.
I can respect any man of any age. After all I am a nurse. I have had to do that, to do my job..from the hostile bikers to the priest and all in-between.
I am a mother and a grandmother and I just asked if they would talk to them like they have been talking to us in here. That then brought up the age thing I think. I called it respect and I am willing to respect anyone who earned it from me..I said I am sorry about my cyberjudgment on that standard too. Respect is earnd, not just given for the hell of it. With all that said, I made up my mind right then, no matter how right I feel an any topic, I was not wanted or needed there. I read some of the good diaries and go on..If I have a statement like to conyers or such, I make it and then go onward to the frog pond. I do not deserve or want anything that makes me upset. My job is enough to do that. I was more disappointed in most of them and found I had placed my trust in them and that is not a good thing to do..It really broke my cyber heart to see it happen. My fault. I will never do that again. And I saw some of them from my generation do the same thing..one of them a veteran of the same old war I was in too…I can go to another grip on that one too..but won’t..so just to say yes I think age had a big play in it,,,but I have learned another valuable lesson in life..I now assume they do not need anyone like me to help in the fight coming upon us very soon in changing congress, or to make my neverending phone calls or anything such as that. I started doing that all by myself before I got to kos…
Personally I’m thinkful for the older women who have paved the way.
I may not have lived through the earlier times (only 24) but I know sexism when I see it because I was brought up by women who spent years fighting against it and who are sensitive enough to still point it out to me and other young women when I can’t see it. Things like “Hey- you do realize that you don’t have to put up with that kind of crap don’t you?”
Society tries to sugar coat it and pretend it’s not there to make it more difficult for the younger set to see. So to the “older set” Thank You
Seriously. I want to say “Thank You” also. It’s amazing to have the opportunity to interact with people who spend so much time and energy paving the way for the rest of us. Thank you so much.
I don’t mean to embarrass you, OyBurger, but this is the best typo of the day. . .”I’m thinkful.” You sure are!
thats “thankful” 🙂
Agreed — (btw I am 30, and I, too, am a DKos pie fight refugee (I was mainly a lurker)). I an immensely grateful to the women who have worked so hard to make my life as a woman easier and more secure.
It was the “older set” that blazed a trail for women, including me. You have worked hard to help women achieve so much. You remember what it was like before women had access to abortion and birth control. You remember what it was like before women could choose certain career paths. We don’t. It must be extremely frustrating for you to watch, in this current political climate, those things you fought so hard for being eroded away. Thank you to the “older set.” There are many new battles which need to be waged (for women in the military, women seeking political office, women becoming CEOs and partners in law firms). We thought we could move on to those battles, but we are finding ourselves in a position where we need to re-fight in areas we thought we had already won. And we couldn’t even be treated respectfully by people on our side.
That is why it stings so much.
It must be extremely frustrating for you to watch, in this current political climate, those things you fought so hard for being eroded away.
Thank you for this wonderful comment. I’ve fought for the women of the future all my life as my grandmother fought for me (she was one of the suffragists)
Frustrating isn’t the half of it. What we feel is grief and an enormous sense of betrayal. Honestly, sometimes the news makes me sit and weep with grief and loss. And then there’s the sense of failure…
Sorry this isn’t uplifting at all but I put so much effort into building DKos, years, and watched that work dissolve in 3 days. and it has hit hard.
I’m worried about bringing that crap over here because this seems like a good place. OTOH, I wouldn’t want that successful hostile takeover to become a strategy anywhere else so and personally feel that there is still much to understand about what happened.
I’m 57, I’ve worked around men all my life. That wasn’t normal behavior, ‘healthy sexuality’ or any of what some folks are proclaiming and, what’s more, they know it. Even the young ones.
Yes I definitely would like to add my thanks to the wonderful and powerful and oh so special women that came before me. If it were not for you, who knows where we would all be right now.
I think so! I am a brand new immigrant from Kos. This morning before I got out of bed something dawned on me that may explain this disconnect I feel with many posting there, and it is definitely age related, though in a slightly different sense.
I have a twenty year old niece who goes to a liberal arts college. I went to visit her last fall and was surprised to see many of the kids — male and female — into pornography. Not Anais Nin Eroticism: simple porn, the kind of stuff that I generally consider to be a purely male domain.
Anyway, I was thinking that maybe the younger folks don’t have a sort of gender divide when it comes to porn. And I agree with you, Kansas, its not prudishness. It’s just something my friends and I never thought to be interested in.
The younger Kossacks may be trying to tell us something true in that regard, which only means there are several truths at work here, many jostling for the same space. I’m glad if the younger women are viewing porn along with their male friends, because that means a female perspective is pouring into the field by women viewers, which is bound to change the field in interesting ways.
I know it took me a long time to admit I was interested in porn. I think I always was, but it wasn’t so okay back then for a woman to say she had ever enjoyed watching it, which is amazing given how much else was okay.
Maybe some of our younger BooTribbers can speak to this?
this is supposition on my part. I am trying to explain to myself why there seem to be people of both genders who seem to be unable to appreciate that the pie add could be viewed as inappropriate on the kos cite.
I am happy myself that porn is more readily accessible. But I’d like to see young women demanding something more than equal access to the stuff of male fantasy.
Just because I’m glad that men aren’t the only ones looking at the porn market doesn’t mean I think ads like that belong on the walls of community centers.
One of my very best friends in the world (one of my sons’ goddess-mothers — they’ve got three, aren’t they lucky?? and she just found out that SHE is going to be a mommy yesterday!!) worked her ass off at a porn store here in town for almost three years because it was the only place that she could earn $15/hour. She bought a house and finished college and she did all of those things on HER terms.
She would bring porn home to watch on a fairly regular basis (some on the recommendation of her customers, sometimes out of curiosity — especially with the BSDM and/or fetish stuff), all different kinds, gay porn, “women’s porn” (and there is some, but not much, really good “women’s porn (made by women, of course that actually refelct an understanding of what turns women on, not just “all women have rape fantasies” kind of stuff…)– sometimes we watched in mixed company, other times just us, other times she would give me and/or my husband a video and say “you two should watch this together” — of course, we’d then have to ask when she was coming to watch the kids! What is my point, not sure yet, but I do remember many a time when it would be the MEN in the room who were uncomfortable and my friend and I just laughing our butts off!
I am a woman and I work for an adult ‘internets’ company as a web designer. I deal directly with porn imagery all day long, however, I must say, some of our content regulations are so strict, you’d be better off watching an episode of ‘the Bachelor’ for a thrill! Porn has become quite mainstream these days and the only interesting porn I have seen in the last few years is actually being made by women (and my male co-workers would heartily agree!)Women do enjoy porn – they just want it to be shot in a specific way and devoid of a cheesy plot. There is good porn and bad porn, female-friendly porn and denigrating, plastic porn. I actually noticed the pie ad right away as I usually surf news and political sites to ease the X Rated eye strain. I thought it was serious fromage and for some weird reason it really bothered me that it was up there – mostly because my little piece of porn free pie had been lost – there I was looking at T&A again! Most people get in trouble at work for watching porn – I get busted for cruising political blogs – oh, the irony….
As a younger BooTribber, I’ll speak a little about this. I think it also relates to something Addison said below about the changing “shifting cultural milieu.” I can only speculate about what people’s lives were really like 20, 30 or 40 years ago, but I wonder if there is a greater degree of non-sexual interaction between young men and women today than there was previously. For example, when I was a freshman in college I lived in on a co-ed floor in a co-ed dorm and every morning I showered in a co-ed bathroom. Spending a lot of time around guys, I learned a lot about the way they behave when they’re not on their best behavior. Not to say that they were always assholes or jerks, but just that they didn’t always feel the need to temper their impulses and behave like gentlemen. By the same token, the women in my dorm didn’t always behave like ladies. We each saw at least something of the reality of the other gender, and as a result I think a lot of people my age are less sensitive to some gender related issues. That’s not to say that sexism still didn’t exist even in the dorm, because it certainly certainly did, but things like porn became less taboo and perhaps to a certain extent less about objectification.
Also, when it comes to sexual imagery, such as the infamous pie ad, I think young people today are just so incredibly saturated by it that one more ad, even on a political website where it should seem out of place, just doesn’t even get noticed, much less commented on. For me personally, even though Ginger’s breasts were staring me in the face every day (on many websites, not just DKos) it never even occurred to me what I was looking at until I read Kos’ rant. When I actually looked at the ad at that point I was somewhat shocked, but again, I’m so used to the flashing images on internet sidebars that this one hadn’t even made it into my consciousness.
Also a youngin here (25) I think that definitely explains it. We are definitely saturated with it. You said exactly what I have been thinking this whole time, even better than I could express it. Makes you wonder if this saturation is more harmful than good though.
Oh, I definitely don’t think that the saturation is a good thing. It totally desensitizes us to all sorts of negative images not just sexual but violent as well. Also, they’re freakin’ annoying as hell, and I think they’re giving me ADHD.
The outrageous imagery gets so pervasive that you don’t even think respond any more. I didn’t think to respond to the pie ad for much the same reason. I think you are right — it is really too bad. I would not say the silence really is acceptance. But it sure can be misconstrued that way.
Yes, I didn’t even think to respond to pie ad as well. And that’s what makes me so sad about the whole thing. I didn’t see…
I do think that the media saturation is harmful thing. I think everday about how I am going to have to counteract the lessons my son will recieve from the media. It is a daunting thought. I would very much love for my son to have respect for everyone. Including women. Right now my son is such loving and caring little soul. (only 20 months old) I would hate to think that society can erase all of the good I would like to instill in him.
We raised our son for the first six years of his life without a television. Just music, books, movies and playtime. It was a choice we made. There weren’t even DVD’s or VHS tapes in the late 60’s.
At 37, he’s artistic, an award winning photographer, and magazine editor.
It’s O.K. to blow up your television, cuz being a parent is..eh..well..hard work.
sounds like such a great idea! I am about to become a mom sometime this summer, adopting from China. I don’t want my daughter to have any early ideas that her body isn’t perfect, or doesn’t own enough stuff.
I have even thought about keeping her away from as much pop music as possible – no matter the genre. I would kill me to have to listen to my Clash CDs in private, but I would do it if it also kept her away from the next Brittany Speares.
It’s hard, though. I don’t want her to be considered a freak in her classes either. I enjoy watching sports and some PBS, so I guess that strict monitoring and good modeled behavior is what my husband and I will shoot for.
my ten year old has bypassed the teeniebopper crap and gone right to some really great stuff. He is very into bb king, arrowsmith, and old country and cowboy music. I just bought him a Nirvana CD. Discovering his musical interests has been a pure delight.
So how did we miss the junk stuff? I am not sure. We don’t do too much tv, but he does get a couple hours of nickelodeon and cartoon network on weekends. He goes to a small school, so the pop culture is not too dominant…
Best of luck with your daughter. What an adventure!
I think you two really hit on something. I’m 40, so I don’t know where I fit in this generational debate, but I too glanced at that ad several times and it never even registered with me until I read Ko’s rude reply to those who protested.
I’m starting to feel like we are going backwards and not just in terms of the law: Does anyone out there remember “weather girls”? They were cute, young women who would do the local weather in 2 piece bathing suits. Everyone else would be dressed professionally (the men) and then the Weather Girl would come out in her bikini and “do” the weather.
They went out of favor once the Women’s movement picked up momentum and were eventually replaced with meteorologists (who, by and large, wear professional clothing).
So, are we going backwards or forward culturally? Both?
As to your questions, I think it would depend on who you ask and I’ll ask as well, who is to blame?
Do we blame men for young women flaunting their physiques? Do we blame women for young men doing the same?
Can we see that we’re all here (on Earth) due to sex?
Do we examine Madison Ave and follow the money?
I’ve been thinking all week about the whole range of responses to “the ad,” from “never noticed it & it’s still a complete non-issue” to “hit me between the eyes & made me feel oppressed” and all the ground in between.
And what I’m wondering is, if media saturation is an element in this range of responses, then is it fair to say that false consciousness is alive and well among the women of America?
I read Marx in grad school (cultural anthropology doctoral program), and I always rejected his concept of false consciousness. He says that the main reason the working class doesn’t wake up and violently overthrow their oppressors is that they have internalized the values and beliefs of the system that oppresses them. Unable to recognize their own best interests, they participate in their own and each other’s oppression, typically doing the dirty work of that oppression so the property-owning capitalists can claim that they aren’t keeping anyone down.
I always rejected the whole concept of “false consciousness,” finding it arrogant and condescending. But watching Bush get re-elected really shifted my thinking, and I’ve been wondering ever since if false consciousness isn’t alive and well, and a real factor in American politics.
And now I’m thinking it applies pretty well to understanding some folks’ responses to the pie wars, in terms of gender, not social class. And this makes me sound arrogant and condescending, which I do not want to be, but there I am. Wondering.
OK. I’ll say it. I’m starting to believe that some women cannot see the sexist oppression in such media images because their saturation in such images and the sexist societal context has left them with false consciousness, an inability/refusal to recognize where their own best interests lie as women.
Ugh. I so don’t like the way that sounds. Can someone talk me through this?
I have been thinking about false consciousness too. I always think about false consciousness when I think of breast implants. (which the pie ad certainly brought to the fore, as it were) I had the dubious honor of representing a manufacturer of silicone breast implants in a personal injury trial in the early nineties. The manufacturers used to say — we like women on the jury, because we are giving them a choice that these consumer folks want to take away. I tried to tell them their argument relied on false consciousness: they brainwash women into thinking they have to have big breasts to be complete and then act like they are doing them a favor by offering unsafe foreign objects to implant in their bodies so that they can conform to conventional images of beauty.
this is a tough question, so who is to blame here?
There’s a long list of possibles:
Consumer?
Doctor?
Capitalism?
Ogling men?
Culture?
et al.
And where’s the line drawn? I would encourage someone to get surgery done if it helped with something like a masectomy AND would also help the person’s ego. So in some cases, breast implants might be great for that person and really help their mental state. I don’t want to infringe on others doing what they feel they must.
I can imagine your argument was a tough sell. How’d the litigation go?
this was in the early nineties when plaintiffs attorneys tried to prove the existence of “silicone immune deficiency disorder.” The science really wasn’t there, so we got a defense verdict.
This poor woman had serious complications — her implants hardened, a doctor did this terrible squeezing technique called a closed capsulotomy to relieve the pressure, which caused the silicone to shoot throughout her chest cavity. The body sees silicone as a foreign substance and forms scar tissue around it. And it shows up on a mammogram and docs can’t tell whether its cancer or what so they have to biopsy every mass they find. So this poor woman had surgery after surgery, with no end in sight. Had the plaintiffs just put on that case, we’d have little to say in defense. Instead, they went for the grand prize, and they lost. The poor woman got nothing.
It probably won’t be me, since I’d need the same talking through. That’s Thomas Franks’ thesis, isn’t? In the book What’s the Matter With (sigh) Kansas? It’s a hard thing to say to other people, and hardly anybody takes it well, but I KNOW it has been true of me many times in my life. It’s only later that I look back and thenk, “Hmm, I guess THAT wasn’t in my best interests!” But if anybody had tried to tell me at the time I’d probably have thought they were condescending and arrogant.
Many times I see women–very often young women–acting as “social enforcers” of rules that disadvantage our own sex. I think this has always been so. It’s often done through social ostracism of females who don’t play the role–the “loose woman,” the one perceived as less attractive/attractive, the “brainiac,” etc.
It has always seemed ridiculous to me (and I do consider myself a feminist). But you’ve actually put it in a context that makes me feel more sympathy and compassion for women who do this.
I think the younger set have grown up with MTV and most are wannabes and think that big boobs are the way to make a fortune- I have a 10 year old neice who is dressing like Brittany already- My daughter grew up with Madonna- the clothing is a phase but the way men of all ages look at our daughters and neices makes me crazy.. I often will remind them that they have daughters and how do they like their daughter being a sex-image to all these men. Sometimes that works, but not always.
Once a woman realizes that society unfortunately judges us by our attributes and dress-and mostly negatively unless it’s due to male objectifying women, which makes it ok to most men (of course) or they get raped etc., then they will tone it down. If a woman is fortunate to have never been made to feel ‘awful’ or self-conscious she may feel everything is ok. So much of it is due to one’s personal experiences I think.
I know you don’t mean to be rude, but try not to assume the difference is simply that we young’uns are so brainwashed and ignorant, ok?
As a lot of other 20 somethings have already said, it’s mostly that we are just so “used to it” that it often doesn’t register.
I know that for me, It’s certainly not that that I’ve bought into the idea that women should be fuck toys for men (although many women our age – and yours – have) or that I don’t understand that images like the ad in question help to perpetuate ideas like this (although I do think that experience – and therefore age – does increase the likelihood that a person will be aware of that).
I think it’s more that we are comfortable with and/or desensitized to sexual images (and “coarse” language) in general so they are less likely to shock us. I also think, most of all, that we have learned to “tune out” the insanely large amount of advertising that has been aimed at us since we were toddlers, and have a tendency to dismiss all ads ads evil things and ignore them on general principle. (This is a generational phenomenon that has shown up in studies, btw – and has resulted in advertisers marketing to 13-25 year olds in some off the wall ways.)
In the end, we are less likely to “notice” an ad like the one in question long enough to even start to consider the implications of a particular ad. That doesn’t mean that we are oblivious to them, just that if we aren’t focusing on an ad on purpose, we have the knee jerk reaction to simply try to ignore it as much as possible, and that means not think about it. Which is why (I think) you got a lot more “it wasn’t so much the ad”, or “it wasn’t so much the fact that dKos got money from that ad” and “it was about the complete disregard for women in general” from women my age.
I’d be interested to know the average age of the women who not only didn’t seem to care about the ad, but who didn’t notice or care about the dismissive and outright misongynistic reactions of a lot of posters at dKos – and well, Kos himself.
I’d be interested to know the average age of the women who not only didn’t seem to care about the ad, but who didn’t notice or care about the dismissive and outright misongynistic reactions of a lot of posters at dKos – and well, Kos himself.
I would be interested in this too. and not just the age. I do not understand those women. I can understand being indifferent to the ad but I really knew the blog had jumped the shark when, in the aftermath, one woman posted that the controversy and ad didn’t bother her because it didn’t affect her personally (and she was lauded for this “self centered attitude” and plied with high ratings) and another said that some women were uncomfortable around “red blooded masculinity”. I may continue to read DKos as a lurker just to come to some conclusions and understanding about what that’s about. Any insights would be appreciated because I really do not get it.
Oh, well, I understand them – I just don’t agree with them. They are simply taking what seems to be the easy way out – choosing not to consider the guys they hang out with – and often admire for very valid reasons – as capable of being sexist assholes. I also think that many of them genuinely have a hard time seeing it at first.
In Reviving Ophelia, Dr. Piper talks about how most girls are now taught that they can do anything, but they aren’t taught that sexism still exists, and so when they start running up against it (usually in adolescence), they often do a complete 180 and internalize the criticism. Vying for guys approval is one of the coping skills girls develop – although, in the end, a very unhealthy one.
This is quite O/T but, this thread has made me realize that I’m going to either adore or loathe next season of Gilmore Girls. The last episode of the season confused the hell out of me at first, but after reading this thread and discussing the “pie fights” it finally occured to me that Amy Palladino may be very deliberately addressing The State of Feminism in America.
Rory is pretty close to being the perfect feminist ideal of girlhood: smart, capable, nice, but not a doormat. But she isn’t a feminist; sexism doesn’t really exist in Gilmore Girls land. Except that this season her boyfriend’s family thinks that his future wife should be there to support him, not going off and having her own career. And her boyfriend’s father (who offered her an internship to make up for his wife’s rudeness) just told her she doesn’t have what it takes to continue with the career she choose as a child – but that she would make a great secretary. And Rory takes what he says at face value and goes off the deep end. And her grandparents accept that she needs time off from college (would they if she were a boy?). Hmmm…can’t wait for next season!
I think so. I’m 49, and have been fighting the battle in the workplace and elsewhere for 30 years. More, if you count fighting not to have to wear dresses to school in junior high! At this point, I’m tired of it, and very disappointed that things haven’t moved past this.
And for me, it was the ad! I am bombarded with that crap everywhere, and I ignore it as best I can. When it shows up someplace like Kos, I just figure I can go elsewhere where I don’t have to put up with it. I didn’t say anything, just migrated to someplace I feel more welcome. I don’t hang out at Hooters either.
I’m no prude; I came of age in the 70s and need say no more! The outward expression of sexuality seemed quite different then, though. I am so thankful I grew up when it was considered sexy and cool NOT to wear makeup. Natural was in! Bras were out! Now, it seems like many young women feel pressured to live up to some air-brushed ideal. And many men seem to feel that women who don’t are somehow less valuable. I just don’t like seeing women valued that way.
I also think becoming a parent changes your attitudes. I was a lot more tolerant about stuff like that before I tried raising boys to respect women. The images they get are awful. The 3rd-grader was drawing women that looked like Lara Croft. Then I found one of them looking on the internet for anime porn–at age 11.
How do you teach young men that women aren’t about big boobs when that’s what they see every single day?
I agree that age has something to do with it, and not just because of the generational differences like co-ed dorms and so forth.
I think being a parent makes a huge difference when it comes to this stuff. As much as I’m pro-first amendmentment and anti-censorship, I’m concerned about the level of hyper-sexuality in the culture in a way that never bothered me before having my son.
What it comes down to for me, though, is that the frat boy attitudes just got on my nerves, frankly. I’m too old for that shit and I’m not going to put up with it.
Well, my own strategy isn’t going to be an option in most families … but my pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding experiences have done a lot, I think, to teach my stepson that women’s bodies don’t exist to assume a certain impossible form for men’s titillation. I’m nursing a 3yo, and until just recently I nursed him pretty much anywhere, anytime. So my stepson (who was 12 when his brother was born and is now almost 16), although he is in no way sheltered from the media images we all decry, is pretty well rooted in the real facts of life: women can do pretty much anything, and their breasts, fundamentally, are for feeding babies.
Of course, I’ve also spent years teaching my stepson to deconstruct and analyze media messages, especially for gender bias but also for the even more typical exhortations to overconsume and to subsume all other values to consumption. He always rolls his eyes when I start up, but I’ve caught him doing the same thing himself many times. So I recommend that parents who want to counteract media messages they deem harmful to speak up, early and often, and discuss frankly and regularly with their children what they are seeing, why it is objectionable, and how it could be corrected.
And I guess one last thing I would add is that you want to be careful that you don’t read too much into a child’s “output.” If your 3rd grader draws a picture of Lara Croft, he may be thinking about what a strong, tough, heroine she is, and not thinking at all about what those huge breasts signify in cultural code. Or he might in fact be into the large-breasted images, but not in a way that is remotely demeaning or degrading. I remember when my stepson was young and got off the school bus one day using the word “bitch.” When I immediately got in his face about the word, I soon learned that he had NO IDEA what it meant, that it was at all connected to females, or how it is used to insult women. In fact, he was clearly horrified when I explained it. I think I may have damaged his innocence more with my pro-active teaching than the idiotic older kids on the school bus had done by using that word in his hearing.
That is the question though, isn’t it? My friend that I was talking about above has always said that she wants to have 5 boys, so that she can raise up some good men…
As mothers of sons, I think we teach them by example through our relationship to them and other men. My husband (the meal cooker, the grocery shopper, the dishwasher in our house) helps with this immensely.
songbh — I do exactly what you to in countering the media messages…my son’s only six, so it takes the form of “what are they trying to get you to do?” “If you had that, what would you do with it?” and the like. This, combined with teaching him about the “costs” of things (consequences of desires, I suppose would be a better way of putting it…) seems to be working out quite well.
btw, i was deepingtheheartoftx in another life! 😉
I know that in certain African clan communities, educating the young men about women is given to women elders, so that they know how to respect their wives and daughters and those of other men.
I remember reading about Ninon de l’Enclos of France who got out of being a high class courtesan and went on to educate young nobles about how to make pay court to and make love to women.
I think this is a lost art. I just wonder what Ninon or Veronica Franco would think about this shyt right now. It deadens the senses, in my view.
Regarding porn: I’ve liked a bit of it myself.
But there is a point at which porn becomes brain rot.
It inures people to sameness and predicatability. Instead of running fantasies in your mind about your beloved or your (ahem!) fuck buddy, the porn sometimes becomes the only fantasy worth calling up. This generation, unfortunately, doesn’t appear to critique what constitutes the erotic for them. Porn simply runs on for them like a relentless loop.
I see we older sistas (white and black or women of color) basically critiquing what we feel was erotic and what was trash about certain porn films.
I think you have hit on a very important point — our acceptance of porn DOES produce a brain rot of a kind AND a libido rot as well (I speak from personal experience here) — The real sexual “repression” comes not from caring one way or another about what the mass media does with sexual imagery, it comes from what we do, and CAN do with our own partners….
There is an over-saturation point to EVERYthing too much porn or even too much RL sex rots the brain …. (dulls the orgasms too!!)
😉
Look, I’ve read The Handmaid’s Tale. I have no wish to join hands with the oppressors in order to stamp out porn or to keep guys from what makes them happy. Whatever that is.
Nor am I a prude. I went through the Seventies…been there, done almost everything.
But…hell, there’s a limit. Maybe it’s because I am a writer. All my characters have no access to TV; movies and radio are in their infancy or about to be created at this point. Bellocq’s ‘dirty’ photos of whores in New Orleans bordellos, for example, seem rather tame today. Attraction, fantasy and coupling were certainly different then. So were societal mores. I could see these kinds of pictures in someone’s trunk in a cigar box.
There were also very few photographs going around of black women that were not highly sexualized and exploitative. They were out there, but you’ll find them in European or European American homes or collections. And if a black man even kept a white woman’s picture, scantily-clad or wearing nothing, if he could afford the cards, lord help them. I’ve read of blacks in the service being forced to take down photos of white actresses or showgirls in their lockers before Jim Crow and after Vietnam for fear of being beat up, manhandled or brought up on trumped up charges or infractions.
But that was about the size of men’s titillation at that time. Things are sure different now, although I wouldn’t like to see the porn that Japan puts on its late night TV. Porn to me is just a side dish, a change in the menu, not meant to be overused. It’s not breakfast, lunch and dinner. That’s what scares me. Is it supposed to be everywhere?
Just my two cents.
…scuze me…I mean to say this above:
There were also very few photographs going around of black women that were highly sexualized and exploitative.
and
And if a black man even kept a white woman’s picture, scantily-clad or wearing nothing, if he could afford the cards, lord help him.
I’ve seen a number of posts theorizing this, though I haven’t really been convinced as to the actual reason the most vehement objectors were women in their 50’s. I guess there could be a number of reasons for that, right, and not just that they’d had more experience in “gender wars.” Shifting cultural milieu is also plausible, as is an ingrained sensitivity to frat boy talk that’s greater than in younger women. It’s a really interesting question and I’d like to know whether it was more experience or more personality, but I think the exact reason for the demographic makeup is destined to remain a mystery. How would it ever be studied without error prone self-reporting?
And just a quibbling point about canaries in coal mines. They didn’t squawk! It was precisely them NOT squawking that indicated danger. When they left this world quite quietly and without fuss, that was the warning.
Ha! You are so right. And actually, I think a lot of the people who left were pretty squawkless about it. I know it seems noisy over there, and there’s some squawking about it here and elsewhere, but there weren’t many GBCW diaries on it, were there? (Goodbye Cruel World, for those of you who haven’t seen them before. They pop up when somebody leaves a blog and wants to make the goodbye public.) I slipped away silently and I think most others who left, did too. That doesn’t mean we’re not talking elsewhere, but we flew out of that mine quietly.
Not that I was known enough. But forget the GBCW … not worth the effort.
Not a grandmother yet (I’m only 47, please God, not yet!) but long, long before the pie ad I wearied of so many pups who thought they needed to teach me how to suck eggs.
It’s never that simple. There will be many reasons, with differing levels of importance for different people.
In my case, I truly just wanted to find a sandbox where people were building something new, and where sand-kickers got put out of the park until they were ready to play nicely.
I want to work on building a better future. Part of that will be better understanding between men and women, but I’d much rather work on the current cultural crises. The thing is, of course, that who can get anything done if they’re always brushing sand out of their eyes?
There’s enough information in the Verbal Self-Defense books to enable men and women of good will to handle the cultural/verbal differences that inevitably crop up. That is IF the parties involved have developed sufficient humility to be willing to adjust their personal belief systems when evidence to the contrary shows up. So far, the frog pond looks promising.
I’ve heard from a fair number of older people who have actually learned from their youthful mistakes. There are a bunch of theory-wonks who want to test out and refine ideas. And there’s a third group of younger apprentices, who see something to be learned from the others.
I truly hope at least 20% of us will spend enough time on dKos to monitor the action. Since kos doesn’t care what ideas we steal, we should bring the best comments and diarists here as well–not necessarily to do their main work here, but to know and learn what we can do and offer, so that when the time comes, they can work effectively with us toward the common short-term goal of returning democracy to the US.
One thing worth considering–the chances are pretty good that kos and Armando won’t be voting for Republicans any time soon. Our leaving won’t change their votes. It’s even possible that, without us to bash around, some of the more juvenile kossaks may actually get back to work on electing Democrats.
Once Democrats are back in charge, I think we will need to deal with the sexist remnants of the old patriarchy. But since the patriarchy itself is much of our problem anyway, we may as well just subsume sexism under it. Not EVER to be negotiated away, but no more and no less important than other things.
Me, I straddle both of the first groups. Heck, I’m a grandma who majored in physics and math. With a masters in gifted education. Because I read voraciously, and because I had to learn better interpersonal and parenting skills than I had managed to pick up in my school career, I’m extremely well-read in a lot of other areas that relate to people just learning how to get along with each other.
The kind of thinking I want to do wasn’t happening much at dKos. My VSD series pulled some really thoughtful and supportive comments, but never really attracted enough attention to get aloft.
With all of the attention on Lakoff, that seems odd–and then, maybe it isn’t. Lakoff is a man. Elgin and I are women. Considering the complementarities of the two linguists, you’d expect that every Lakoff fan would want to learn about Elgin, and vice versa. But it didn’t happen.
I’m not kidding about strategy and tactics. It doesn’t do much good to position your troops wisely when half of them don’t know how to use their weapons effectively! OTOH, there are lots of situations where there isn’t even time for strategy–but if you handle your weapons well, you’ll still be OK.
In this case, the weapons are language–and it is evident that some kossaks don’t know when to sheath their swords and quiver their arrows. Much better to pull away from the fight and regroup–and be sure we have a way to train and control the inexperienced troops before we allow them further opportunities to unleash firepower.
Hi,
In your post you refer to monitoring DKos. I’m doing that. In fact I posted a complaint the other evening right below a similar complaint you made, in which the male diarist was using a sexually innapropriate derogatory word as a putdown in his diary title. I believe your post contained a “pie in his face” wish and he replied to you with a somewhat insulting “your so PC” comment. I also called him on his misusage as you and one other did, told him I was the third member upset with his use, asked him please to change it and then rated him a two, with explanation of why. I think the three of us must have had an effect because he posted to my reply and removed the offending word. If I am online doing nothing, which I can be sometimes at work, if I am free for a few seconds I’m going to be watching for easily noticable sexist posts like I’ve just mentioned above.
Anyway, I’m no longer part of the community there, the feelings I had are gone, but I feel I am within my rights as a community member in doing something along these lines if I maintain control, refuse to be drawn into argument on their terms, and simply state what and why I am offended and ask politely in a distant manner for a correction. And I think I can now. The last 24 hours I was there, I was called a liar once (I proved that wrong), I was called something more insulting than that (also untrue), and armando troll rated me with 0s five times in one late night thread in his most infamous “hypocrisy” diary. After that? I suppose I don’t mind much of anything. So there are a few of us. Sounds like some of us are working on things we can do too. Enjoy
I think age had a lot to do with it, but I know that, for me, I began feeling sick when I was reading some of the front page stuff a long time ago. I decided that I get enough of that in real life, why bother searching it out on the’net, and started spending more time here.
I’m in my 30s, so I don’t remember the 60s and 70s in the same way as some others here do. I DO remember my single mother and the crap she had to deal with working in office environments while I was growing up.
Thanks for posting this-it’s so nice to hear new voices alongside the familiar ones!
I HATE hearing that the dems will get around to “women’s issues” when the important issues have been dealt with. I heard that in the 60’s and I’m not buying it this time. I put a lot of time into the 2004 election and if they want me to do it again they had better start listening to me.
Their mom’s issues, their wives’ issues and soon to be (very obviously) their daughters’ issues.
Yeah, these people have no clue how hard-faught the battles were!
I’m much more comfortable in my own skin now, as a nearly-50 fat lady, than I ever was as a slender 20-something. These days I love to hang out (and I do mean that literally) at clothing-optional hot springs.
But the twerps (of all ages) who show up at the hot springs just to ogle boobies and get a stiffy, well, they piss me off. It’s childish, disrespectful, and creates discord and discomfort.
I think many of us who have been around for a few decades are just sick of waiting for the twerps to get out of the pool. And when someone features an ad that is calculated to appeal to the twerps, well, I’m gonna find another place to splash around in.
Geez, I do get wrapped up in metaphors sometimes. 🙂
I’ve been thinking about this too and — I’m “freshly 39” — iit’s less about age than it is maturity (which, of course age is often a good indicator of…) but maturity is a tricky beast and is not always proportional to year lived.
Another thing that makes a difference, I think, is that we (meaning people around my age) are gererally tending to have children later (at least among the white, “educated” and affluent set) — my mom had her two kids at 25 and 29, I had mine at 33 and 37, that decade can make a lot of difference.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that having children (at ANY point in time) MAKES you more mature, but it certainly gives you a different perspective….
Also, speaking of maturity, I think that some people can “count to 10” before they spew off whatever volitile thoughts come to mind, others, well, not so much. Then there are those that work really hard to make what they say as inflmatory as possible.
Maybe the post button needs to have a 2 minute delay…are you SURE you want to post this? With an edit button, of course! 😉
I am REALLY glad you brought this up. Maturity, yes.
from kos when the only thought in mind was that I wanted to rip one poster a new one. rip a new one? I don’t think that way!
Sure it does. I wouldn’t back away from that statement at all. A crucial element in maturity is the ability to delay gratification and to de-center one’s own perspective and needs. Becoming a parent forces this capacity on a person.
There are other ways to become mature, too — but few are as efficient as caring for a baby, IME.
Becoming a parent does bring maturity, but when we become a grandparent, we find wisdom. We can look back on the days of trial and error and use only the good things that worked on our children. I can keep all 5 grandkids for the weekend without any fights or crying fits. My kids are amazed. They want to know how I can make the little devils into angels. I keep telling them that grandchildren are a reward for all the struggles of being a parent.
Being a parent doesn’t do this, acting like a parent does. Most parents act like parents, but there are plenty that don’t, so its not a default characteristic, just a very common one.
And, from my experience, being a parent also makes people more territorial. Parents (very understandably) work very hard to protect their children, but, as in the case of the extreme differences in public schools within a single state, this doesn’t always mean that all children get the same amount of protection or support. When parents with different amounts of power work against each other to protect their children, all kinds of inequities spring up.
She wrote an essay that included this (non-verbatim): Some day an army of gray-haired women will rise up and take over the earth.
She was explaining why it is easier (children, jobs, experience) for older women to see and stand up to the offenders.
This is such a great thread! I’ve wanted to respond to every post, but just dished out 4s instead.
Those of us who worked in the women’s movement in the late ’60s / early ’70s knew we were building on the work of courageous women before us. It’s especially great to see you younger women here. Your lives are so busy, I’m glad you’re thinking about what it means to you. As another woman in the movement wrote me back in the late ’60s: “Continue to raise hell!”
Sorry I can’t “rise up” right now, but I’m busy taking care of a strong woman who taught me to be independent, my mom.
Best wishes to your mom.
And to all mothers everywhere!
Excellent question to raise, and I think you’ve hit on something — a lot of somethings as indicated in the comments above.
I’ll expand on brinnaine’s post about maturity — with maturity comes the knowledge about trade-offs. Too many people at dKos don’t seem to accept the idea that sometimes you can’t have everything you want.
You can’t have a seriously-taken site with major political clout that features trashy ads or a series of ranting diaries titled FUCK this, FUCK soandso, FUCK the Pope, etc. You simply can’t.
Kos and others at some level have demonstrated that they understand and are willing to make the trade-off — witness the quashing of the “fraudsters” and the complaints about “dumb” dKos — but they have major blind spots about other trade-offs which will need to occur if Kos really wants to be a player.
Mary, I think some would argue that Kos already is a site that’s taken seriously and that he is a player. In other words, that he can do that stuff, as evidenced by the fact that he already does it and still goes on to get bigger. Since I don’t know any big players I have no way of knowing if that’s true, or not.
It seems to me, now that I’ve stepped away from that site, that it’s not nearly as important as I thought it was when I was steeped in it, but I really don’t know.
I think some would argue that Kos already is a site that’s taken seriously and that he is a player.
I think they’d be wrong.
Is he consulting? No. Is he making policy? No. Is he contributing original thought? No. Is he delivering warm bodies to rallies or GOTV? No, not in any significant number because the readership is so scattered. Is he delivering cash? He’s trying to get there by bundling, but not yet.
It seems to me, now that I’ve stepped away from that site, that it’s not nearly as important as I thought it was when I was steeped in it,
Oh, it’s important for people to be able to keep up with the news and connect with fellow-travelers and a number of other reasons which differ for different people, IMO. Just not in the big scheme of the Dem party.
Kansas,
I see it all the time. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had with women in their early 20s who insist on telling me they’re not feminists. They’re usually college students, so I ask them what it is exactly they object to having equal rights with men. The then proceed to tell me they can’t be feminists because they shave their legs and like boys. At which point I roll my eyes, tell them they’ve bought into right-wing propaganda, and need to start thinking for themselves. I’ve been really, really heartened this year by my exposure to women on campus who proudly proclaim themselves feminists, defend their use of the term, and thought acting in the Vagina Monologues this year was an incredibly cool experience.
I suppose it may be similar to ethnic people who think that they don’t need any kind of anti-discrimination laws because that was yesterday.
It IS disheartening to think we have to fight these battles over again. It makes me want to cry. But I have two daughters, and I’ll be damned if they’re going back to the bad, old days.
As for me, at 42, I revel in my heterosexuality, am very frank about it, but at the same time, will not allow someone to treat me like an object. Surprisingly, when I’ve dated younger men, they actually seem to get it on a level that older men do not. So, I don’t know if it’s an age thing. I just know it was ugly, and I’m glad to be away from it.
Oh, and by the way, my post on CultureKitchen about the situation got picked up by a right-wing blog. I checked the comments, and they’re abominable. So funnily enough, on certain issues, certain men on the left and right would be perfectly happy together in a room ranking on women.
Lucky you! Attacked from both sides.
I know that one of the things a lot of women tried to get across was that for a while there we felt as if we had clicked onto a right-wing blog by mistake.
Absolutely. The fifty and fed up thread shed light upon that lil’ ditty.
I turn fifty in late August, and have various “battle scars” (collectively speaking) to prove that feminism in the so-called trenches of real life is downright dirty work.
It sucks…it’s exhausting in every respect, and misogny needs to be called on the carpet for what it is (sans any “apologies” from the recipients of such virtiol.
If I knew how to post a poll, I would add : are you divorced, if yes–how many times (two for me).
Women do not file for divorce and risk losing everything because they’re bored (same w/obtaining an abortion, BTW).
Everyone has their breaking point, and the “pie” situation exemplified a pustule which needed to be lanced (exposed for what it is)–it has been festering for months/years.
…and we older women took charge (so much for stereotypes of young tech-savvy Gen X-er white males of upper SES persuasion controlling the netroots).
Heh.
“Control” is all in ‘yer heads (and I won’t mention other locales).
<g>
Not a chance!
I can smell a batterer/bully through a screen, or in the brick-n-mortar world at fifty paces!
That’s why “the personal is political” is ‘da truth.
Older woman who’ve been on the receiving end of gender/sex discrimination throughout their lives “get it.”
We have internalized sonar (along w/the intellectual awareness).
They have experienced it in their personal familial relationships (from childhood>present), in public school systems/collegiate stints, the workplace, throughout various political campaigns (i.e., sit down, shut the hell up, and be grateful for crumbs), and in intimate relationships, etc.
Enough is enough, already!
Cheers to the warriors (and thank you to those who possessed the “steelies” to support us).
Onward.
It really took some for the men who got our backs. And boy, did they! There are some great ones who got in their brothers’ faces with righteous anger or good humor or knowledge. I’d love to name them but I will feel awful when I forget somebody. I hope they know who they are.
Smith has up a terrific new diary that follows up on this one.
Absolutely. Yes. Uh-huh. You betcha. Yup.
We have a kind of national amnesia in which anything older than a few years ago is ancient history and of no interest or use to with-it folks. Unfortunately, the time range on that has been decreasing recently, to the point where it seems as if it’s no longer “a few years ago” but what happened last week, or even yesterday, that is passe and outmoded. It’s applicable to people as well as things and events.
If you have a couple of days, I can tell you about some of the skirmishes in the long-ago gender wars, kiddies. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.
As I’ve been reading over all of these posts, noting all of the awesome women who keep referring to their battle scars and their experiences, I’ve been wondering….Could you guys maybe tell us those stories? I suspect that I’m not the only person here that would really really love to here the stories of those who have done so much to ensure that we, as the next generation, have all of the opportunities that we take for granted. So, if it’s not too presumptuous, I would like to put in a request for some storytelling diaries.
would be good. But until then, or in addition, you might want to check out “In Our Time: Memoir of a Revolution” by Susan Brownmiller. It is really good and told me a lot of stuff I didn’t know, or didn’t remember (maybe because of all that stuff we were smoking back then in the 60’s). I am 53 now, but I don’t think I ever had it really rough. I think it was because the more courageous, outspoken, in your face, never back down women paved the way for me.
I’m a fifty year old man who lived in Madison, Wisconsin from 1975 through 1985. These formative years included the beginning of Take Back the Night marches, the Madison Womens’ Banker Education Awareness Taskforce (BEAT) (formed because summer school for bankers brought hundreds of men to live in the dorms for a week, away from their wives with asses and boobs grabbed galore and the film societies running non-stop porn), having many an argument with female friends turn into a discussion of the gender issues involved (“you don’t listen to me because I’m a woman”; “men are emotionally illiterate”). I remember helping a girlfriend type/edit a final paper for one of her sociology courses (on Functionalism, I think) in which we went around and around about Susan Brownmiller, Andrea Dworkin, Shulamith Firestone and Ellen Willis — a great learning experience for both of us.
I got to listen to a lot of the consciousness raising about the frat boy morons in the local bar who would hold up signs rating the women who walked by. I had my share of tearful recriminations about how unfair it was that I, as a man, could walk the streets alone at 2:00 a.m. and feel totally comfortable.
Probably because of the time I came of age, the women I’ve loved in my life have always had these issues on their minds and brought them into our relationships. This has been a great benefit to me.
Younger folk and people who lived in places culturally very different from Madison (women as well as men) did not have this kind of cultural experience and therefore process what they see in a different way.
Reading some of the comments on dKos about prudishness and “what’s wrong with showing sexy women” makes me smile and grimace at the same time. These people don’t get the difference between sex and exploitation, between objecting to something as disgusting and wrong on the one hand, and censorship on the other.
Those are debates long resolved that take me back to my lost youth, so there’s a little nostalgia there. But it makes me sad that after all we went through, so little of that consciousness raising was passed down or made its way into the broader culture. To that extent it’s a failure of our generation.
Do we have to start all over?
I don’t know. God, I hope not. I haven’t got a shred of perspective on the question you raise, but maybe other people do.
I have often thought that much of the heated rhetoric stemmed from the passion of youth. It’s an enormously powerful force that accomplishes much, but it can also be frustrating for those of us who’ve learned the value of a sincere apology the hard way over many years.
Nice diary.
A
I think it’s about age, sex and gender all wrapped together. Many very young men think sex is something they get (or don’t get) from women. Most of us feel that making love is a duet that people sing together.
The ad, snickering over the ad, and the dismissal of us sexwars veterans were juvenile, disrespectful and stupid. I suggest that we old women (and the wise, passionate men we love) have an understanding of sexual expression and profound pleasure that the shallow Beavis&Buttheads can’t even imagine. They accused us of hating sex when, judging from their writings, they wouldn’t know the power of great, cosmic sex if it fell on them.
One of these days I shall write us a diary about sex. For years I held feminist consciousness raising groups where hundreds of women let down our hair and TOLD THE TRUTH. I’m not sure those clueless, adolescent males can handle the truth.
was it you who wrote that great diary today on dKos about “Six Clicks?” I may have our Susans confused. If it was you, did you get much response? I thought it was brilliant, but I’ve been over here talking on this diary so I haven’t had a chance to go back to check.
No, but maybe susan? would post it here. I have learned many wonderful and unexpected things from other women’s <click>s.
Age–yes, in the 2 ways we’re recognizing: sensitivity of certain blocks of women, and immaturity in the subsequent discussion.
Ethnicity–The key here is American puritanism, a streak that I think is strongly associated with English and some Celtic groups.
In a puritanical mindset, any kind of sexual reference is amplified whether positive or negative. Outside such a mindset, sex is a part of public consciousness, references are not unusual and not such a big deal.
Consider just white Roman Catholics. On the one extreme we have the Riverdancing Irish, whose traditional dance is with arms clamped against the body to prevent revealing anything remotely sensual. On the other we have Latin folks who give us Mardi Gras.
There are also major differences in traditional gender roles and expectations among ethnic groups.
The Official American Myth is that we’re all Americans the instant we hit the shore. Melting pot. The truth is better acknowledged by Canadians who think more in terms of a tapestry. We can change major policies rather easily as we assimilate, but these are built on a myriad of tiny molecules of habits and behaviors that persist over generations.
I don’t have any way to consider any ethnicity influence in the events, but it’s worth considering.
At minimum, we should recognize that anyone who talks about “the” male or female mindset is not thinking very deeply.
I hope that you are not saying in a roundabout way that feminists are inherently Puritanical, because we aren’t.
I hope you also recognize that the same white English Puritanism tended to make black women into colonized whores and Latino women into extensions of Malinche.
On top of it, black women who declare themselves feminists are also still dogged in the black community for trying to turn other black women into black male haters and dykes.
Gotta cut the grass between thunderstorms, but I’ll be back to see what else you guys have said. Thanks so much for your thoughtful participation in my first diary. This has been such a pleasure.
I’m the same age, gender (and geographical location) as him, and I couldn’t disagree with him more.
I’m a 35-year old man who lives on the West Coast–Seattle in my case–so all three of us are pretty much in a similar demographic.
I think age plays a role, and that women in their 50s and 60s, women like my mom, are much more likely to understand this because they were around for the battles of second-wave feminism in the 1960s and 1970s.
Those of us who are younger have in many cases internalized what women of that generation have taught us, but not all of us were brought up with respect for feminist issues. In my case, growing up as an adolescent after my mom was divorced meant that I really got to see what life was like for her as a woman, and understand her struggles, and internalize many of her values and life lessons.
That learning wasn’t perfect, and I’ve had to struggle with some internalized sexist values from the broader culture, but I was always aware of the issues even when I was having problems with them in practice.
Some people my age don’t have that experience, and so have a more retrograde view. Kos appears to be among that group, unfortunately.
Kids younger than me, those in their early 20s now, don’t seem to have that same experience. Most of them aren’t the children of second wave feminists, and they grew up entirely within the Reagan-Bush era of anti-feminist backlash, and they’re swimming in a sea of popular culture that’s exploiting people in every imaginable way. Most of them seem to lack historical perspective, and are reverting to the behavioral standards of the earlier generation. They just don’t know better, and they’re going to have to learn everything all over again. It’s disheartening.
One of the other posters asked about stories we might have and of course I’ve protectively hung onto my story’s but it’s worthwhile to consider some things.
I grew up with a German born father who deeply believed a woman’s place was in the home. My mother was passive and missed the 60’s.
At age thirteen I was raped. The man who raped me served three years, lost custody of his children and lost his home. My world hadn’t started yet before it crashed. From that age on I was understandibly tainted and simply felt that men only wanted sex and power. Although I’m a very happy thirty-eight year old and incredibly strong despite the obstacles, I watched what happened at Kos and realized that it was simply too loaded.
This story shouldn’t shut down a conversation but instead enhance it. At Kos it would have become a festival of negativity. Many people have life stories. Whether they are 20, 40, 50 etc., they have something to say. But there has to be an atmosphere that’s ready to hear before those stories are told.
When I’m asked if something is offensive I can say “yes” or “no.” But when the comments become more “who gives a shit” then I really see my hair raise up. This is not a burden for other bloggers to carry as they raise the issue but rather a story from just one blogger wondering just how many different stories there really are?
I would like to suggest that in addition to age, location on the political spectrum also played a role (how many shades of progressive are there?).
regardless of…well you know what…I really didn’t see a lot of these posts that you are referring to. kinda glad I didn’t and am thinking I don’t really want to!
I need a bubblewrap cushion for awhile.
I had no idea there were so many of us “older” women here.
Excellent diary, Kansas. Thank you.
I think it boils down to the fact that a lot of younger women have forgotten their roots–it’s the same situation with abortion. I remember reading in some magazine that it’s not that younger women don’t think abortion rights aren’t important, but that they think it could NEVER be taken away from them, even in light of recent events.
I’m 27, and I think women my age (and younger) have forgotten how vicious the fight for equality was (and really, it’s still ongoing). We’ve all benefited so much from the fights that came before us that we take it for granted that we can work, have a family, go to school, be lawyers, be doctors, etc. We’re not the only ones who fall into this trap though-my fiance just joined a union and it’s similar; workers in this country have forgotten how hard the struggle was to get decent labor laws passed, and again, they take it for granted.
I was lucky because my role model growing up (besides my mom and dad of course), was my aunt–she’s about as liberal and independent as they come, and she told about how there weren’t many woman when she went to law school, and what she had to put up with as one of the only women salesperson out there.
Exactly. Both of my children voted for Nader in 2000. I ranted, I raved, I listed all the things that could be lost. When I mentioned overturning Roe v Wade my daughter said “they would never do that.” It all seemed like ancient history to them.
The same problem has occurred in the medical field. Fewer and fewer parents are having their children vaccinated for preventable diseases like polio and small pox which had been eliminated in the U.S.
I remember visting several hospitals where children in iron lungs were living out their lives. The iron lung literally did the breathing required to keep them alive. It was a loud huge machine which scared the hell out of me when I was a child.
I find it so disheartening that parents would expose their children to such preventable life altering diseases. They have never seen the effects.
Interesting example — that’s the shocker to younger friends and acquaintances of mine when, seeing me on a bad day for my back or some other effects, they ask how it happened . . . and I explain that it’s still side effects of having had polio when I was a toddler.
This is, after all, “only” the fiftieth anniversary of the Salk vaccine being widely disseminated — but too many think it was something solved a hundred years ago!
(Btw, I also know I’m one of the lucky ones; I had only a brief time in the iron lung, but I remember it. I had other problems, but — I walked for fifty years before back surgery and post-polio syndrome. I have met others my age still in leg braces. . . .)
I’m almost twenty-three years old, and it was in college that my awareness about the history behind feminism really crystallized into understanding of the issues that still are extremely important today. What really hit home for me was all the bills being passed which gave pharmacists the right to deny women their birth control pills.
I was in a relationship with my ex-boyfriend at the time, and I couldn’t fathom the idea of what it would be like to have my birth control denied by some pro-life whacko. I got really angry over that thought so I re-examined what the Democratic Party was going to do for that, and got angrier when John Kerry defended the pharmacists. I hate it when people, especially men, presume that they know what to do with my body better than I do. I’m the one that lives in this body, that has a hell of a time with periods which the birth control pill has thankfully regulated, and I love being sexually active.
I do not hate men just because I’m a feminist. I just want them and the pro-lifers to stop assuming that I don’t know what’s best for myself. I do. I know that without the birth control pill that my period would last for a week instead of four days, and that I would have severe cramps, and that my skin looks like crap without it. That’s one benefit of the pill that I like, heh. I am not on the pill because I am sexually active, I am on it because it helps regulate my period. That’s what gets me steamed about those pharmacists assuming I only use it to have sex with men and women indiscriminately. That’s only a nice side benefit for me.
I also love porn. I wasn’t offended at the first pie ad but I thought it was out of place on a political blog. For me it was the equivalent of hanging a poster of naked women in a classroom about the mechanics of the American Government. That’s my take on it anyway.
you seem to have figured things out just right. The pie ad was all about context, or as real estate agents say: location, location, location. It mystifies me that others could not see that.
and you also very right that the freedoms we now all take for granted are still very much at risk. the pie wars pointed that out to me, as well as the recent birth control bills you mentioned.
when if comes to gender issues, the surface reality has changed markedly in the last thirty years, but there are still deep fault lines underneath.
I’ve given the whole thing some more thought and even though I’m sure I wouldn’t have thought much of the ad without the outrageous comments, if I had given it some thought I would have believed it was definitely out of place. In the lead up to the last election I left work every day and headed over to campaign headquarters. The staffers were all very young and most of the volunteers were in the 40 – 65 age range. The office had been set up by the staffers and there were pictures of Kennedy, MLK and other inspirational posters. If I had walked in and seen anything like the pie ad I would have been shocked. Not because it is obscene but because it would have been so out of place. In my mind DK was another political war room with the same conversations I had with other volunteers. Perhaps others there see it as the neighborhood bar. If so, then it makes sense that they think objections to the ad are silly.
Kansas, I think you’ve really hit it on the nose here. I consider myself a very strong feminist, and I have done enough reading on the subject to recognize gender discrimination in a theoretical setting. What I don’t have is a whole lot of real-world experience with it. I have never felt discriminated against because of my gender, and have generally considered it an asset. That said, I didn’t get riled up at all, either by the ad, or by Kos’ defense of it. (I missed most of the comment wars, though, so it’s possible they might have tipped the scale.)
I’ve spent this week wondering if there’s something wrong with me – if I’m a defective feminist. Looking at the poll, my 26-yr-old self is on the young end of the scale, which I think helps explain it. I’ve decided to think about it the same way I learned to think about ‘invisible’ racism. When black friends pointed out treatment that seemed harmless to me, I had to learn to understand what was harmful about it, and not just brush it off as ‘oversensitivity’ because I couldn’t see it. The same goes with feminism – I believe the younger generation has a dual obligation. We have to trust our experiences and instincts, but we also have to learn from the wisdom of the elder generation.
If you say you see it, I’m gonna try to see it too. If you say you feel it, I’m gonna try and feel it with you. If you say it exists, I’m gonna believe. Because how else do we learn?
Ok, you’ve made this tough ol broad cry. It has touched me so much, to hear the thank you. And it has made my heart soar to hear you wanting to know how it was, so you can keep if from happening again.
Gawd, how we need you all. I for one am getting old and I am so very weary of this battle. I can’t stand the thought that my brand new grandaughter may end up living under the same kinds of oppression I did, in spite of how hard and long we fought for change. And I don’t want to go out the other end of thinking..what was it all for, anyway?
You’re wide awake now. Help us wake your sisters adn brothers, ok? We’re here for you…to share what we’ve learned, and to learn from you.
I for one, though at 39, don’t quite fit in the “young” women category, can’t wait to hear all about it! I have learned so much from my own mother about the effects of sexism in a lrger sense — she wasn’t involved in the feminist movement in an overt way and never talked with me about these things growing up. She divorced my dad because we lived in Germany and she was not “allowed” to go back to the states for the funeral.
My mom raised two girls (my younger sister is an MD), all alone in the 70s and 80s. We have had our issues in the past, I stopped living with her when I was 13, but the older I get, the more I respect her. And the more I encourage her to tell me her stories….
And scribe, I hope your story yesterday was just the first of many to come!
the funeral, when her OWN mother passed away back in the States. She hung on with my dad for almost three years after that, though how I cannot imagine and I’m sure there were a lot of other things too. She has told me that when my dad was working on his Ph.D. he and she became pregnant with my sister, he told my mom (a woman with a masterss degree herself) that it ws her job to stay home with the kids….
(Don’t get me wrong, I love my dad, but…yikes!)
From what I know of my grandmother, who I am named after, she died when I was 4, she was an INCREDIBLY strong woman — she divorced my grandfather before I was born (he was the quintessential Greek patriarch, all stereotypes apply).
You know, just writing this, makes me know how much I do not know — I need to call my mom and ask her more.
Sure looks like it did – I seem to be one of the ‘outliers’; nearly 31, lucky enough to have been directed to and to have stumbled on ‘classic feminism’ if you like. I read “Backlash” and realised it’s all still there, the misogyny, the patriarchy etc., and to therefore have seen the ‘post-feminism’ movement for what it is – contrived bullshit to subsume, divide and conquer a movement that posed a real threat to the powers that be.
I find this is a perpetual factor / frustration / source of marginalisation in all my networks. As a feminist lesbian, I have now all but left a site called “the pink sofa” for example – a major largely Australian-based site for lesbians to meet, date and chat online. Even amongst that crowd, it is dominated by the lesbian ‘log cabin’ equivalent and newbies who are arrogant, shallow and resort constantly to personal attacks, and know exactly jack shit about the women who fought and died for the rights they so arrogantly take for granted, and don’t give a shit for the vast majority of women who still suffer.
The more women my age I meet, the more I find them profoundly ignorant and complacent about feminism and the feminist movement. They have moved on in the white world to navel-gazing at their sexuality and demanding the opportunity to purchase sex as a “right” and to talk about BDSM in any forum no matter who is present because otherwise it’s “censorship”. They don’t want to hear about anything that suggests their actions have broader consequences, that they have personal responsibilities as a global citizen.
Kos used to be my refuge from all of this, not least because of the significant number of enlightened, articulate and strong men who stood toe-to-toe with women and weren’t afraid to risk being ostracised by other males for speaking up.
I’ve watched that slowly erode, that erosion increase rapidly with the large influx of newbies around late 2004 on, and then Kos signalled the death knell in the ‘pie fight’.
I feel a desparate need to talk to other women and men who “get” all of this, not to rehash, but to work out just what the fuck are we going to do about it – recognising that we are all, by history, situation or age feeling pretty worn out by now as well. But I can’t see any of us starting to feel any better from just comforting each other, and feeling an increasing sense of isolation. How do we convince someone like Plutonium Page, around my age, intelligent, passionate and powerful on rights, that she’s totally missing the boat on this one? (I hope people don’t mind me naming someone, but as someone I admire greatly, PP’s stance through the pie debacle has struck me deeply.)
At this point I don’t feel very smart, resourceful or wise enough to know how to start this. Can we start having conversations about this here? Am I alone in feeling a need to?
Reponses welcome, and thanks for such a great diary, Kansas.
I hate to think that so many locusts have flung their bodies into the river so that their children can neglect to walk to the other side. But, I fear that too many of us have no sense of history. Someone pointed out on a thread, on that other site (what was it called again?) that feminism is largely dismissed because it isn’t taught in school, the way the civil rights movement is. So many young women have no idea how hard won is their right to vote, to hold independent credit, to do work that isn’t secretarial, to go into bars unescorted, etc, etc. To them feminism was about burning bras, and women who want to be “men,” and has no relevance in our modern world. And so many of them are deaf to the language of sexism that is so firmly entrenched it sounds normal. So, please kansas, more diaries. We need your voice more than ever.
For me it did. I grew up in a small town in a red state, and in 1971, I was in high school and became a feminist. (Sisterhood is Powerful was the first book about feminism that I read). Feminism saved my life. Before 1970, none of my female friends would have dreamed of going to law school or medical school. My dream of becoming an artist became a real possibility because of feminism.
I remember my best friend (at 18) drove to Canada to get an abortion. It wasn’t legal yet. Very hard. But she did continue in school and eventually became a doctor.
So, I get a little defensive when some stubborn, ageist, intellectuals minimize the impact and importance of a humanist movement that liberated the lives of so many talented and productive people. I mean, why is “feminism” so much harder for people to understand?
I’m in my mid thirties and I started college at the very end of the eighties in a hotbed of PC of the most obnoxious kind. The media hadn’t heard of the phenomenon yet but it was at its peak at my school. All those Fox style horror stories – that was my campus. The number of offensive and stupid comments by the PC brigade was much larger than the number of sexist, homophobic, and racist ones. The result was what you might expect, I graduated college with a strong hostility to all things PC and a feeling that feminism had gone off the deep end. Then I went into the ‘real world.’
That was an eye opener. The constant automatic and casual sexism and homophobia shocked me. And the response when I called guys on it was even more upsetting – a mix of incomprehension and hostility. I was ‘indoctrinated’ by that liberal college experience. Questions about my sexuality – even one gay guy was convinced I must be gay myself because who else would object to this sort of stuff. And you know what? I was indoctrinated, or as I prefer to think, taught that certain forms of behaviour were unacceptable. Making certain sentiments socially disaproved of (NOT censored) does help in getting people to change there way of thinking and to lose at least some of their prejudices. The reaction to the pie affair reminded me of that eye-opening post college experience.
This doesn’t mean that I agree with the extreme PC stuff – I still think it is deeply misguided. If today I were to hear a woman say that all men are wannabe rapists I’d still think to myself ‘** you.’ As I mentioned on the Armando thread I have no problem with porn – even enjoyed it at times in my life (long distance …) I found the ad to be an unsuccessful attempt at adolescent humour but if some guys enjoy it I don’t mind and I don’t see it as any different from those bare chested pop stars some girls put up in their bedrooms. But there is no reason to put up stuff that bothers some people unless it is part of the core mission of the site or unless Kos is desperate for funds. That’s why it is different from the NARAL dispute. Discussing tactics related to abortion is a highly relevant topic for a site like Kos. It should be approached with sensitivity but there should be no expectation of unanimity. Yet already that argument showed that some on the site were rather tone deaf on certain issues.
Hmmh, don’t know how this relates to the age question…
That’s when I started to teach women’s studies — and, yes, it was a horrible time. A conservative student paper arose at my campus that attacked and attacked us as politically correct; I had to keep stating, over and over, that having women in history was, well, historically correct. To little avail. It nearly cost me my career, and there were many other costs for which I’m still paying today. . . . But I long have wondered about the impact on students who couldn’t tell what was making things so crazy, and I so hoped they somehow got good educations, anyway.
You may not know it, but later investigations showed that a right-wing foundation was funding many of these “student papers” at many campuses as well as the organizations that had conservative students enroll in our classes to harass us and other students.
If you didn’t know that, I bet some things just clicked into place for you . . . as they did for me, when I read that. It was just too weird and sudden to be “spontaneous.”
I started college in 1990 — I was lucky to find myself on a very progressive campus, in a pretty progressive city. It was rare, in that context, to find a young woman who didn’t call herself a feminist. Certainly I did, and had from early on, though I learned more than I could have anticipated about the history of the women’s movement and its various theoretical bases. On another level, for those of us within particular subcultures, this was the era of Riot Grrl — I remember plenty of debates about the politics of punk rock cultures, about music generally, and how they reinforced male supremacy. It was all very loud and passionate and perhaps occasionally a bit strident (long-suppressed anger has a way of sounding excessive when it eventually bursts out) but it opened my eyes and my mind in all kinds of ways. I was, and still am, enormously grateful for those experiences, and for the women and sometimes men who guided me through them.
To start out let me stress that I don’t think that extreme PC is a problem these days so what I’m going to say is not relevant to the present. I am also aware of the conservative funded publications but we didn’t have them at my school when I was there. So, with that disclaimer…
I did not mention the ‘all men would like to rape women’ statement for no reason. It was constantly repeated in my first two years at college. There were also the strange radical feminist versions of the Larry Summers thesis that scientific logic is a masculine form of thought and that women, as illustrated by the different nature of their orgasms, can’t do ‘masculine’ science unless they’ve developed a false consciousness. There was the demonization of the sexuality of heterosexual men and to a certain extent heterosexual women as well. There were the speech codes which is why I emphasized that I think the social disaproval form of PC is good but censorship is not. There was the lack of reaction to the very ugly harassment of the head of the pro-life group (whatever you might think of her views, saying she should be raped in very graphic terms in hate mail and answering machine messages is way beyond the pale.) And much more. Interestingly, by the time the media started getting hold of the story the extreme form of PC was already on the decline, collapsing under the weight of its own absurdity. Still, I think that relatively brief period of extremism bears part of the responsibility for the discrediting of feminism among so many otherwise liberal men and women. It made it easier for the right to tar feminism with the ‘crazy extremist’ label.
I wrote in two threads that the ad was sexy and effective but did not belong on the front page of a blog that takes itself seriously, or on the front page of my daily paper, in the same way that sketches of bosoms and derriers in the margins of the Federalist Papers would be inappropriate and jarring.
Yup, there’s a gap. We’re inured to advertising but there are a few of us lecher/purists who can discriminate between inappropriate and appropriate.
and I still think its a great point.
Still, I wasn’t about to actually post that over there in that atmosphere. Some folks talk to freepers, some call in to Rush, and some tolerate “discussions” in the current atmosphere over there. I’ve got no passion to do any of those things, myself.
Still bugs me that some there replied to you: “If there would have been more T&A in the Federalist Papers, everyone would know about them”.
Ignorance isn’t exclusively a Republican trait. Its a shame the good people ‘left behind’ over there have to deal with it.
It so clearcut to me. You don’t put up a playboy poster in your campaign headquarters, no mstter how tasteful it is. Playboy is legal, its fine, it not appropriate in that setting.
I acknowledge the issue may not be so clearcut for others. But for them to insist that its clearly appropriate, and to dispute that others can legitimately feel differently…
At the pie scene I said to myself ‘oh no, not again’ and walked away. We have definitely been here before. It seems like every successive wave of humanity has to go through the same exact lessons – that’s how I explain wars to myself. (that we are very slow learners)
Clarissa Pinkola Estes does a wonderful study of the roles of women in society in her book “Women Who Run With the Wolves.” I fear I am entering the crone stage.
don’t fear it 🙂 celebrate it!
Thanks for writing this Kansas. While it’s clearly targeted toward women from Over There, I felt compelled to drop in and tell you how much I thoroughly enjoyed your writing. Especially your positioning of the canary in a coal mine. Truly, truly superb! The whole diary was immensely thought provoking.
I also wanted to thank the women who came before me, fighting the battles and creating opportunities I otherwise wouldn’t have had. As one small example, had it not been for those women, I would not have had the opportunity (in 1975) to participate in the first shop class that allowed the integration of females. allowed the integration of females. I have to admit – I never really put much thought into feminism, but the events of this week struck a chord in reminding me how very much is on the line – including the dismantling of our basic civil rights, piece by piece.
On another thread, a black male caught my attention with his comments. (I regret that I can’t recall his screen name.) He left the other site, expressing his concerns that dismissive treatment of women today meant it wouldn’t be long before blacks were next. Pretty powerful stuff – aligned with the theme of this diary.
Thanks again, and I’d like to wish everyone a peaceful, prosperous day!
First: I think you may be right. Your point immediately brought to my mind another alarm-bell argument, which is when someone of a certain (read:young) age tries to convince me that unions are passe; that all the old battles have been won once and for all. Clearly nonsense in that and in this arena. Now to unload. This has not been my finest hour. When Kos first posted his shut-up-or-leave speech, I jumped in early with an alternative spelling for “bosoms” and another snarky post or two predicting fireworks and a lot of fun. I trivialised the issue from the start, and in the end became angry at the posters who just couldn’t seem to let it go. My bad. With the benefit of some time to contemplate my own perspective, I realize that my input to the debate was sexist, and wouldn’t do my mother (rip) or my sisters proud at all. So I need to apologise to all here who took umbrage at my posts, and to tell you all that I will try to remain teachable. This is my first post on BMT
Thank you – that was gracious and generous. It isn’t easy to step up with that sort of ‘confession’.
The inability to apologise is one of the things about people (especially my children)that drives me right ’round the twist. If people could honestly face up to themselves, we’d be most of the way to civilisation, it seems to me. So, as one preaches, one must live.
Thank you so much. Now we’re makin’ progress!
Seriously, I hope a lot of people get to read your comment.
I’m glad to going back to having only one scary memory attached to Peterboro (flying in to their “airport” from Toronto)
It’s paved.
…once they found it!
The pilot’s sun visor fell off before we had gotten full altitude. When we got near Peterboro there was much circling and discussion that suggested they didn’t know where they field was. I was quite ready to suggest they set down in the nearest clearing and let me walk from there!
YES!!! THIS is all I want to see: men and women courageous and willing to look into thier own innards to see whats what is in there, so they can decide if they wish to change any of it or not. This seems so difficult for so many men especially, to do, and you have made my day with this post!
Can you be cloned?
🙂
I agree. You can’t see if you won’t look.
I’ve got family which was there around 1890.
I ordered the Peterboro centennial book, but couldn’t find the pioneer families info that I was looking for.
Haven’t been able to locate anything more online, either.
Here’s the link to my db–I’m looking for info about the family of Adam Waddell who worked in the Ashburnham canoe industry around 1900. His parents and grandparents are likely buried somewhere in Peterborough Co.
http://worldconnect.genealogy.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=ccslessor
If you could possibly connect me with any local sources who might be able to move me forward on this, I’d appreciate it.
(Couldn’t send privately, as you don’t have email info listed. Sorry.)
I’ve copied your message into an email and sent it to a friend of mine with that family name, who has roots in this area, so he has the link to your database and your email. I hope you don’t mind.
I’m delighted. Thank you.
I too want to thank you for your opening up to an open mind on this topic. I feel if one has an open mind, one can walk through most nasty things that one has to walk thorough. It is with the narrow vision and blinders on that ppl tend to stumble around and fall into the land mines and pits of crud and nasty doo doo. Thanks if not for just opening up your mind for thought and reflection.
My wife tells me my mind is so open it’s not even protected from the elements. I can’t bring myself to condemn many people; I’m the quintessential bleeding heart who takes the nasty purse-snatcher’s difficult upbringing into account. A lot of people, especially law-and-order-build-more-prisons types find my point of view problematic.
Wow, Kansas — you and I are the same age.
At this point in my life, the future looks a lot shorter than it used to, and the idea that I’ll see so little progress in my lifetime is discouraging.
And yet. If you consider that perhaps the current women’s rights movement began sometime in the eighteenth century with Mary Wollstoncraft, Abigail Adams…
I once heard someone say that this can’t be just the issue of the week, that we have to be focused on this issue for the long haul, that in 40 years, we’ll still be here, still working…
Well, damn it, that was almost 40 years ago, and I’m sorry to say I’m beginning to get tired and my patience is wearing thin.
And yet, taking the very long view and hearing supportive comments from so many of the younger folks here, gives me hope for the distant future where my grandchildren dwell, “which [I] cannot visit, not even in [my] dreams.”
Good diary. Thanks.
That’s what I feel like when I ask myself your question, your valid question, because I think we’ve all asked it.
But, I keep going back to it. Maybe, I’m not just being a fuddy duddy. We all resist talking like our parents, swearing we weren’t ever be so clueless, or unenlightened.
But, I am gonna just say it: I come back to the conclusion that age is a factor. Not just on how you viewed the pie ad, or even the ensuing disagreements, but a host of political discourse issues. Now, I’m not being too general, I don’t think. Older people can be as stubbornly and unapologetically brash, and hanging on to your idealism of youth can be a good thing. But, the impatience for temperance and prudent sparring is not a good thing to me. Not giving a damn when it’s just as easy to care and avoid stupid fights vs. being as bold and brash as would important fights warrant. It’s a big lesson that keeps getting rejected by what I see as a lack of maturity. Even if the agism isn’t really the answer, it’s a lack of emotional maturity, on matter the age.
Short answer: Yeah, I think age has something to do with it, or at least the emotional maturity that usually comes with age.
Kansas, first off thank you for saying right out loud what I actually said over at Kos a couple of days ago…that this incident is rooted in generational differences.
In my view, to put it bluntly, Kos simply doesn’t possess the skillz or maturity or patience to deal with this. Maybe when he’s fat and sassy and has made 2 Dem presidents and 5 Dem senators…
Frankly, I hadn’t expected to something like the so-called Pie Ad to show up on something like DailyKos. And yet the dismissal, at least here, has hit 30-60 year olds the harder.
Frankly, occasional views of the demographics on DailyKos confirmed that this blog, while hip to the tip on many issues, was basically 20-35 y.o.’s.
Which makes me wonder:
Should there be a blog for some of us older progressives? or should we target a series of blogs who might be open to our ideas and input?
A final note: I read a couple of what appeared to be black male Kossacks make some stupid remarks about how this incident was simply a tempest in a teapot, or that women Kossacks should be focusing on wage disparities (Jerome a Paris’ article) rather than making disparaging critiques about the Ad.
Stupid because as I understood it, it was indeed about someone’s comfort level being upset over women’s objections. It is exactly that mindset that keeps women from obtaining wage parity and in the case of black women, only making 62(65?)% of a dollar that a white male makes. Only Latina women make even less.
I think this is a very perceptive and penetrating analysis. I know that my own mother, who is 64, is kind of an old school Second Wave feminist. In some respects, I think she is too doctrinaire in that regard, and prefer the different direction that some in younger generations have taken (in terms of celebrating differences between men and women rather than denying or sublimating them). But I also understand that her generation, like the same generation of African Americans and other minorities, went through some seriously intense and blatant discrimination that is hard to conceive of today.
In the past, I have seen my mom as being oversensitive or even “paranoid” because of what she went through before and during the era of “Women’s Liberation”. But I think you made a really interesting point, which also has merit as another way to frame it:
Alan
Maverick Leftist