Adventures in Feministing
It’s usually a bad sign when people with political or worse yet, personal agendas seek to change the meaning of words. It’s a form of lying with a longer shelf life. Case in point: Feminism, which is defined as:
n. Belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes. The movement organized around this.
Now to those who read, write and speak plain English, the meaning of that word is clear as a bell. Not only that, but by the definition of the term, I am without a doubt a feminist since I believe in all those things, as does any sensible person. One’s biological plumbing and chromosomes should not matter when it comes to equality in society, politics, economics and the law.
Like the word “liberal”, people cringe at the thought of being called one –though on the plus side, at least feminists haven’t degraded themselves by adopting a puke-inducing term like “progressive” (Just as an agnostic is a gutless atheist, a “progressive” is a gutless liberal.). Instead, some who describe themselves as feminists prefer to humiliate themselves in a way that is every bit as demented as the “progressives” (or as Alexander Cockburn calls them “pwogwessives”) are cowardly. While it has puzzled me that since before I was born, the word “feminist” has become such an epithet that many people who by any objective standard are in fact feminists, would recoil from being described as such, the kind of lunacy that passes for “feminism” these days could do more to make feminism disreputable than all the idiocy of Andrea Dworkin and Gloria Steinem combined.
Now it is true that the Right has run a very effective smear campaign against feminism, but this effort wouldn’t have been so effort-less were it not for the fact that a number of prominent self-proclaimed feminists (hereafter referred to as “feminists”) have adopted articles of faith (as opposed to logic and reason) that are so absurd that it would be flattery to call them stupid.
One source of these steaming shovelfuls is Feministing, a web site run by self-styled “feminist” writer Jessica Valenti, author of Full Frontal Feminism. While the site bills itself as a blog for young feminists, it is in fact a “me too” web page where Miss Valenti’s sycophantic friends and cultish followers get together to recite dogma, honor the sacraments, pledge their devotion and excommunicate or anathematize the unbelievers. Any who dare to disagree with or mock the more ridiculous dogma are branded heretics (or “assholes”) and abjured with the magic words “Fuck You!”, a devastating show of wit, no doubt. For example, a tabloid news item from a few weeks ago revolved around the fact that Lindsay Lohan had posed nude for New York magazine, in imitation of a famous photo shoot Marylin Monroe did shortly before her death. Since the whole purpose of the shoot was for Lohan to imitate Monroe, it should be obvious to anyone whose IQ score is higher than his or her shoe size that people will compare the pictures.
The pictures were remarkably similar in every respect, except that Lindsay Lohan, even donning a blond wig, does not look like Marylin Monroe. Their faces and figures are very different. To put it bluntly, Lohan had bigger boobs while Monroe had a narrower waist and rounder butt. When the posters on Feministing also perceived something so obvious (the two actresses looked different, and some preferred one to the other) that even the most sheep-like of the site’s devotees took notice, the concern trolls came out of the woodwork, with such intelligent comments as this one:
I think images like this not only “fetishize the death and downfall of women in the public eye,” but contribute to death and downfall in and of themselves. The objectification of women is a violent act in itself. It is violent to the individual woman’s view of herself. And it is violent to all women expected to live up to the expectations of beauty captured by these images, objectifying women in society further. I think that by critiquing, comparing, dissecting their bodies in the way that several people have here, we are contributing to this culture of violence. I read an argument recently that MM’s death was a product of being subject to this violent public gaze. I mean I understand that being a celebrity is their own choice, and this is part of it, especially for women, but my god if I were in the position of being scrutinized so obsessively, I might turn to destructive behavior and substances as well.
Here we have another example of people who are both dumb and dishonest trying to change the meanings of two words to make a point. “Violence” means the use of force or the threat of same. And what does this twit mean by “objectification”? The standard definition is reducing people to their sexual attributes while downplaying their other qualities or ignoring them altogether. For example, regarding a co-worker as little more than a great pair of tits and ignoring her work, skills and talent. However, that is not the definition used by the drama queens of Feministing!
According to that site’s adherents, if a man should observe a woman he does not know and thinks “Wow, she’s hot!”, and goes about his business, he has “objectified” her and according to at least one of the nuttier regulars at Feministing, has committed a violent act against her. I bullshit you not! So if say, a teenage boy in high school or college should get an erection when he sees a girl he finds attractive in class, his boner is the equivalent of hurling a paving stone at her. The fact that almost everyone viewing Lohan’s pictures (or those of any other model or movie star for that matter) has never met her and probably never will, should lessen the danger that exists in the feeble minds of the yentas-in-training at Feministing. Ah, but that would be an appeal to logic and if there’s one thing the “feminists” of Feministing can’t abide it’s logic.
While anyone with reasoning skills better than those of a baboon would dismiss this kind of stupidity as at best a failed attempt at humor, according to the thriving intellects at Feministing it must be respected as a reasonable assertion. It is the act of pointing out that such thinking is harebrained that is unforgivable, according to what they call “Feminism 101″, the mere mention of which is believed by the faithful to counter all facts, reason and logic in much the same way that fundies counter all arguments with “The Bible says so!”. In fact, the denizens of Feministing draw “Feminism 101″ like Randolph Scott drew his six-shooter in his old Westerns, but like Scott’s revolver, it’s full of blanks.
The notion that a male admiring the body of a female gives him some kind of power over her* comes from a British crank by the name of Laura Mulvey, whose lunacy is described thusly by Wikipedia:
Gaze and feminist theory
Laura Mulvey, in her essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, introduced the concept of the gaze as a symptom of power asymmetry, hypothesizing about what she called the “male gaze.” The theory of the male gaze has been hugely influential in feminist film theory and in media studies.
That’s all we needed.
The defining characteristic of the male gaze is that the audience is forced to regard the action and characters of a text through the perspective of a heterosexual man; the camera lingers on the curves of the female body, and events which occur1 to women are presented largely in the context of a man’s reaction to these events. The male gaze denies women agency, relegating them to the status of objects. The female reader or viewer must experience2 the narrative secondarily, by identification with the male.
Let’s leave aside the fact that Mulvey was writing about film and not real life. This idea is nonsense. Nobody is forced to view anything. Depending on the film or photo spread, the images could be from the point of view of the photographer, writer, director or the person being filmed. The way an image is photographed could also have to do with the story involved. Or it could be that most photographers, cinematographers, screenwriters, directors and producers are straight males and straight men –brace yourselves- like to look at women’s bodies. To think that this somehow denies “agency” to straight women or gay men (or the asexual) is mind numbingly stupid. As a straight male, I didn’t feel like I was being denied “agency” when Joel Schumacher’s camera lingered at George Clooney’s ass and crotch in Batman & Robin. Like everyone else (straight and gay) in the movie house, I chuckled –the only halfway amusing or entertaining thing to happen in that waste of celluloid.
All of this assumes that a person can’t (or shouldn’t) enjoy a book, movie or photograph if it’s created from a different point of view. I am quite capable of enjoying a movie, TV show, or book that isn’t done from a straight male point of view, just as I can enjoy works created from the perspective of religious or ethnic groups not my own. Gaze theory is revealing in that it shows the narrow minds of its believers.
Some theorists also have noted the degrees to which persons are encouraged to gaze upon women in advertising, sexualizing the female body even in situations where female body has nothing to do with the product being advertised.
I hear this bit of cretinism quite often: “What do beer and beach girls with big tits have in common?” Answer: Many men like both –even better when the two are combined with sports. Beer and bikini chicks have nothing to do with football, except that a certain male demographic likes them and the purpose of advertising is to attract customers. If a blank screen during a break in Antiques Roadshow sold beer to men ages 18-50, then that’s the kind of commercial you would get.
Not that facts or logic mean anything to those who live in fear of The Gaze, but nonsense of any kind needs to be confronted. Nonsense that is based on a crackpot theory that its originator now admits was little more than (to use an internet term) trolling even more so. That’s right; Mulvey herself doesn’t believe her own bullshit:
Mulvey later wrote that her article was meant to be a provocation or a manifesto, rather than a reasoned academic article that took all objections into account. She addressed many of her critics, and changed some of her opinions, in a follow-up article, “Afterthoughts on ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’” (which also appears in the Visual and Other Pleasures collection).
And apparently never did!
During an exchange with a poster named Ninapendamaishi, in which she and the others who squealed like stuck pigs about The Gaze (see below), she decided to throw down: Two links to another laughable website:
These links were highly informative, only not in the way “feminists” like Ninapendamaishi think. According to “feminism” as represented in Gaze theory, if a male looks at a female, he has reduced her to a sexual object unless he acknowledges her individuality when doing so. How one is expected to do this isn’t spelled out and thus it is uselessly vague. If, for example, I should be waiting in line at a supermarket and should notice a woman in line ahead of me and think “Wow! Great ass!” that would count as objectifying her. However, if I should strike up a conversation, get to know her and so on, then it would be OK for me to think “Wow! Great ass!” since I’m not objectifying her. Huh?
Does this twit (tigtog) realize that by her own standard, this will invite MORE unwanted attention from men? The average straight male will see any number of women he finds physically attractive in any typical day: at work, at school, driving, shopping et al –most of them total strangers. According to Gaze theory, if he doesn’t track down each and every female he finds attractive, interview them at length or otherwise get to know them, he has objectified them, which is apparently a Very Bad Thing. A sensible person would think it better if the guy looked, enjoyed the view, and then went about his own business. To expect a male to form a relationship with every female who catches his eye is absurd and in most cases, physically impossible. The idea that the cornerstone of a philosophy (“Feminism 101”) would require the impossible should be a sign that it is not only poorly thought out, but unhealthy as well.
When a poster named Konstanza pointed this out, the proprietor of the site first tried to argue, but facts and logic are alien to “feminists”, so she resorted to accusing him of “bordering on the sociopathic”. When he tried to rebut her she responded by deleting his post on the grounds that it was too long. His reply was right on target:
My last comment was of 558 words in length, less than the 576 words of the comment previous - which you published without complaint. That you use my comments length as an excuse for your little smear job is the very definition of disingenuity. If this is how you were taught to behave in feminism 101, I’d hate to see the sort of bratty, unreasoning, intellectually dishonest nuts who graduate from feminism 102.
As I wrote above, I found the links informative about “Feminism 101”. And how! When they start losing an argument, which usually happens to those who (a) can’t handle logic or facts and will try every known fallacy to support their claims and (b) aren’t very bright, they resort to name-calling. The favorites at Feministing are “asshole” and “troll” (which is to say, anyone who bests them in an argument). I’ll give three guesses as to what happened when I pointed out how silly it is to think that ogling a stranger is the equivalent of a violent attack –or is necessarily bad in any other way, for that matter. You get extra points if you arrange the steps in order.
The bad thing about the whole episode is not so much getting censored by another website. It’s the fact that because such dull and dishonest people have put themselves under the feminist banner, most normal people are turned off by “feminism” and by extension, true feminism itself. So the next time you hear feminists lamenting the fact that only a small percentage of women (especially younger women) call themselves feminists, keep in mind the sort of stupidity that currently resides in Feminism.
- If this were the case, Hugh Hefner would be a retiree from that other line of work he would have had to take up to earn a living when his magazine featuring men’s fantasies folded. After all, if men had some sort of power over say Scarlett Johansson, by virtue of seeing her on a magazine cover and thinking “Whoa!”, surely they might have tried to make the most of this “advantage”.
