Of course, the commenters respond to his question by denying that they've been sexist. They're good little commenters, so they don't want to be something bad, and they accept that the thing that sounds bad — sexism — is bad, and therefore no one can say anything interesting.
But obviously, the human mammal has a response to the perceived sex of another human mammal. All sorts of conscious and unconscious thoughts and feelings flow through the nervous system. It is the most interesting topic of conversation. Don't squelch it! Facilitate it!
Why have diavlogs at all if not to expose the physicality of the interlocutors? If you want to exclude reactions of the more complex emotional/sexual kind, then let's stick to writing... and use sex-neutral pen names. If we're going to appear and speak out loud, we're doing something that has an elaborate effect on other human beings, and that's not something to deny and pretend not to see. It's something to observe, have deep (and shallow) thoughts about, and analyze — seriously and jokingly — in writing and in speech.
We're so afraid of hurting other people and of being thought ill of that we make ourselves into crushing bores.
***
Bonus: Here's an August 2008 BHtv segment in which I talked with Megan McArdle about why female diavloggers inspire wrath.
AND: Here's the BHtv link to see the kind of answers Bob got to his question.
Posts
74 comments:
The reason that commenters are angrier at you, Megan, and Michelle is the same reason, liberals are extremely biased against Clarence Thomas.
He's a Black Man off the liberal plantation.
Blacks, Browns, and Women are supposed to be liberal and vote Deomocrat. Those that aren't are race traitors, or in your case, a Gender traitor.
Oh, Hell, of course I'm sexist*. And most people are.
Of course, the feminists and the Lefties are the worst, but we all do stereotypes based on culture and our own experience.
* I'm a sucker for a pretty face, a ladylike manner (or a raffish one in the right circumstances), and a certain sweetness of disposition.
The Blonde asked me not long after we met if I was a bosom, leg, or tushie man. I answered, "I'm like every other guy if he's honest. I'm an anything-I-can-get-my-hands-on man". But mostly, I'm a buxom, hourglass man - which is lucky because you-know-who is that kind of woman.
Jesus Christ in a handbasket.
Who cares?
Interesting photo of the planet Mercury: http://www.space.com/11254-nasa-photos-mercury-orbit-messenger-spacecraft.html
Women won't be interested.
Give everyone the pixel face treatment, a Stephen Hawking voiceover and a safe nom de whinge, then no one will be sexy.
I mean sexist.
OK Althouse explain why Rob Wright pisses some of us off the most?
It's because we are "sexists" natch!
Actually you piss us off and it can be encapsulated in the fact that your stated reason for blogging is nothing more consistent than this:
“I’m perceived as conservative online because I tend to react to things that annoy me—and I’m surrounded by liberals. I’m sure that if I lived among conservatives, I’d be tweaking them instead,” she says with a laugh. “I’m the opposite of a chameleon, trying to blend into the environment.
The reason that commenters are angrier at you, Megan, and Michelle is the same reason, liberals are extremely biased against Clarence Thomas.
He's a Black Man off the liberal plantation.
Blacks, Browns, and Women are supposed to be liberal and vote Deomocrat. Those that aren't are race traitors, or in your case, a Gender traitor.
That argument works for Althouse and McArdle, but Michelle Goldberg is as doctrinaire lefty as any commenter on that wretched site.
Maybe it's the constant pouting and eye-rolling?
See you trivialize yourself!
(wv:noted)
Goldberg's, I mean.
"OK Althouse explain why Rob Wright pisses some of us off the most?"
I think the response to him has a gender component. Say something interesting about what it is.
The female is always easy to diss and write off as an emotional non-entity. The man who has not acknowledged a code of conduct must be carefully dealt with by other men because he may get in the preemptive salvo. I see this like countries having nukes or not having nukes. The ones without nukes can be dismissed as if they are the females. The nuclear powers are handled in a respectful way as if they are the males. Ask Bill Mahler about that attacking the women wherever with whatever. But the day women stop going along with putting down successful women, then watch out. Maybe 2012 is the year.
“I’m perceived as conservative online because I tend to react to things that annoy me—and I’m surrounded by liberals. I’m sure that if I lived among conservatives, I’d be tweaking them instead,” she says with a laugh. “I’m the opposite of a chameleon, trying to blend into the environment.
Well, I think that's a good thing. Madison doesn't need another critical thinker blasting Republicans. Progressives and Democrats rule Madison and the world of academia. What's needed is critical thinking from within.
Likewise, I live in Woodstock, NY, which is completely controlled by Progressives and Democrats. What's the use of beating up on Republicans in Woodstock? There aren't any.
But, if you really want to talk about the single blogger who pisses off liberals to the level of murderous frenzy... Michelle Malkin.
She has the audacity to be Filipino and a woman... and a conservative. Damn her! And she's beautiful to boot.
I think the response to him has a gender component. Say something interesting about what it is.
He's your standard wimped out academic.
If humans were not sexists the race would have died out or more likely never evolved. First recognize that all people are different and be fair to all. Men and women are differen, viva la difference
So that explains you- and who cares about the other "chicks"-
and hell while we're at it-you're all a bunch of Obama voters.
All four of you Bob-Rob or whatever his name is, McCardle, Michelle and you.
"let's stick to writing... and use sex-neutral pen names."
I would like to try that experiment with a bunch of pundits, and after developing my opinions about them, reveal the sexes. I really want to see how I would do, and if it made a difference. It would be a cool experiment for someone to set up, if it has not already been done.
Specifically as to Wright, he gets angry when women don't appreciate him when he shares his intellectual billing with them just as if the are not silly women. The College Campus Industrial complex is still the MOST SEXIST place on earth. Women must give the poor little men credit for everything the women do...that's the rule.
"But, if you really want to talk about the single blogger who pisses off liberals to the level of murderous frenzy... Michelle Malkin."
Definitely. Read some of her email and you will see the limits of vile racist, sexist hatred. You feel like you just watched a snuff film afterward. Incredible.
I hate to drop this bomb, but it's good for traffic: Palin.
I agree with SGT, people get angry at you because they are illiberal. They are progressives who do not tolerate diversity.
Trey
David said...
Cool.
(Pluto should've hired Mercury's agent.)
Michelle Malkin will be speaking at Marquette University in Milwaukee on April 11.
Althouse... you wanna go?
We'll see about free speech that night, won't we?
Oh look, Camille Paglia is guest-blogging! What a treat.
I think the response to him has a gender component. Say something interesting about what it is.
Translation: "Fill in my innuendo for me, please."
I think what pisses off some men when they hear a liberal point of view by other men is that we get the faint sense that this guy will be hiding with the women and children when the village gets attacked, yet we have to listen too him in times of peace. It's a sense of impending betrayal.
ST, how far is Milwaukee from you? Malkin is one talking head I'd definitely go out of my way to see speak.
In fact, right now I'm going to check to see if she's speaking in my neck of the woods anytime soon.
Your point is murky. Is it supposed to be that sexism isn't bad after all? Or is it one of those charges that people aren't allowed to defend themselves against?
"What's wrong with being sexy?" --Nigel Tufnel
Not saying Bob is gay, but there is a whiff of gender confusion about him. He has some body language that is more female than male. In the attached clip, he looks at the ceiling without raising his head while listening (and apparently thinking the other guy is going on a bit long and boringly.) Most men would tilt the entire head back.
We are always put off by gender confusion. The first thing we notice in a stranger is their gender, and if we can't tell it both piques interest and makes us anxious.
Wright is a bit reminiscent of Niles Frasier (David Hyde Pierce) whose heterosexual character nevertheless gave off a gender confusion vibe. His fussiness was vaguely unappealing but also greatly contributed to the humor of that fabulous show.
Think Rachel Maddow. Attractive, smart, gay, but has both a masculine and feminine vibe. Boy can she piss people off.
I never watched the last Bob/Althouse diavlog...couldn't take you squawking at each other.
What you aren't interested in your original question?
OK hell anyone who has studied military history-or hell for that matter anyone that was genuinely concerned with the change in warfare and the supposed "legality" of all that brought about by-
Terrorism would be absolutely furious with Rob Wright.
He seems to have missed even the most rudimentary concept of why Terrorism is such a successful strategy-the complete work around that terrorism does of the concept of the "nation -state".
Remember when Rob Wright wonders to himself out loud during your diavlog about why the US has not officially "declared war" since WW II?
He hasn't come up with the answers to that yet?
It's readily apparent that he's sat in his ivory tower sheltered from anyone who gets their hands dirty on the "ops side" of the house or who cares enough to study it seriously.
There is a huge information gap between the military and civilians for a variety of reasons some of them insurmountable-and there is an even huger gap between the military and the college campus elite.
How long has that been going on-since Vietnam?
The huger problem has been the political gap-I think it's dangerous.
I don't know what's to be done about it but what's infuriating about Wright is that he purports to be an expert on it all.
Wright should probably be doing this bobble head TV things in a pink tutu.
@Lincolntf...
I'm in New York. I was suggesting that Althouse might want to attend the Malkin speech to report on how free speech works at a liberal college campus like Marquette.
But, yes I am sexist. I'd attend a Malkin speech just to look at her for a couple of hours. I've proposed marriage by e-mail, but she won't divorce her husband.
"What's wrong with being sexy?" --Nigel Tufnel
Bravo Paul!
What Bob should have asked is "Are you a lightweight?"
I don't know about Michelle Goldberg, but Althouse and McArdle think faster and speak more coherently than most bloggingheads men. That must really get under their skin.
I always thought Henry Kissinger was the first feminist to get political clout by bending Nixon's ear.
What's really at stake? What if women, shoved forward on Civil Rights back in the late '60's, when corporations feared lawsuits.
Of course, once computers showed up on everybody's desk, men didn't need secretaries. Where, back in the old days, calls came into an office and went through a receptionist, who had a phone monitor on her desk. And, it took pressing levers to let callers be heard "at the other end" when they were seeking out executives.
Decade in. Decade out. Then came gays. And, AIDS, to claim the 1980's.
And, now what happens if the pendulum swings? Could it be possible, for instance, SUMI loses more points because she is female?
I never believe anyone who tells me if you cut a pie in half, both halves are equal.
Or things stay the same, when social policies can be moved off the board like a jumped checker piece.
Sure. If you take Education. You can see how women advanced out of those secretarial roles. But what if something comes along to pop the bubble?
Wasn't real estate supposed to be a secure investment?
I always expect the unexpected. Which keeps the future, as Don Rumsfeld poetically said: Uknown unknowns.
Wasn't it Horace who said you can drive nature out with a pitchfork, but she always returns?
Good luck getting men and women not to respond to gender.
"Your point is murky. Is it supposed to be that sexism isn't bad after all?"
She means we're hard-wired to notice sex differences, and all the attendant confusion and angst, and there's nothing we can do about it.
I think McArdle rankles is because she argues 'like a man.' She just states her opinion without any sort of female 'tells.' But she drives some of the bhtv commenters nuts because she frequently relays personal experiences as 'evidence.' I guess they think it's unscientific.
Michelle Goldberg just blows my mind with her big blinking baby-doll eyes and looking at herself in the camera. Ultra-femininity. But the liberal seem able to overlook that.
So both of these women are falling outside the norm of expected female behavior.
Yes, that's right, what defines me is that I'm a mammal. That's the enlightened viewpoint in a nutshell. Materialist to the core.
Bagoh20, Back in the day when hurricanes were named only after women (they were not called himicanes) I made a list of gender neutral hurricane names:
Adrianne), Beverly, Carrol, etc. Not sure how far the list went.
There has been an evolution of using boys names for girls (Jordan, Taylor). In Virginia lots of first names came from family names. Boys tend not to want uncommon first names, but mothers think their daughters should have striking first names. Is it better to be a striking (exotic) beauty or pretty?
To conclude because I have to catch a plane.
We are almost always going to have AUMFs now because of the success of terrorism as a strategy unless they are super-ceded by a UN resolution.
And I don't know if this was Wright's point but I do know that he didn't bother to clarify it. He seemed to say Iraq is illegal because there wasn't a UN resolution, and Libya is legal because there is a UN Resolution.
So-wars are only "legal" when they have a UN Resolution?
That's the conclusion he lets everyone make and he see's no problem now or in the future with that construct.
Maguro said...That argument works for Althouse and McArdle, but Michelle Goldberg is as doctrinaire lefty as any commenter on that wretched site.
Uppity blacks and women are uppity regardless of where they lie on the spectrum :)
The reason that commenters are angrier at you, Megan, and Michelle is the same reason, liberals are extremely biased against Clarence Thomas.
He's a Black Man off the liberal plantation.
Blacks, Browns, and Women are supposed to be liberal and vote Deomocrat. Those that aren't are race traitors, or in your case, a Gender traitor.
HEy - stop ripping me off! I said that several days ago trying to explain why Bob Wright is so ENRAGED at Althouse.
But she drives some of the bhtv commenters nuts because she frequently relays personal experiences as 'evidence.' I guess they think it's unscientific.
Data is data.
I'm not sure Goldberg even knows you are there during those things. It seems like she is talking to herself in the mirror.
Alex, as a bhtv commenter put it, it's a sample of n=1. I thought that at least brought the complaint into perspective :)
Bago, she knows you're there and can't forget about it.
A cold fish by definition is not a mammal. So much for Bob and Barry.
"We're so afraid of hurting other people and of being thought ill of that we make ourselves into crushing bores."
QFT
There is nothing more painful to a man than the indifference of a pretty woman. Giffords did not get shot at despite the fact that she was good looking and likeable but precisely because she was so personable. In like way, the Shankenstein monster sought out Althouse not because she was such an effective lobbyist for Walker but because she was an attractive opponent. Janet Reno, Janet Napolitano, and Madeline Albright inspire disagreement but very little hatred. Their assorted idiocies don't get under the skin the way, say, Katie Couric does. In the case of Sarah Palin, the hostility that she inspires is so comically disproportionate to any offense she may have committed that the left parodies itself.....In defense of Bob Wright, it must be said that unlike Paul Krugman he seldom uses his overbearing physical presence and raw sexual magnetism to influence an argument.
I feel like the slugger on a baseball team:
The reason you, Megan, Michelle, and Droopy piss people off isn't sexism - it's because you're inconsistent thinkers.
Not to mention tired. The sexism charge is a fine example of the lazy, liberal, conformist thinking that can make anyone outside the bubble you exist in wonder A) why they should listen to/read any of you and B) why and how you hold the positions you do in society and the blogosphere. The fact you're inconsistent thinkers telegraphs you have no values and can't be trusted - and will use PC nonsense to cover those deficiencies, put the blame on others, and make trouble for the innocent - which is probably the explanation for how you all got to where you are, right there.
And the fact the question came up between two dudes is even more embarrassing because, as ST said, "Who cares?" Understanding this feminized culture as we do, a man's potential sexism ain't the kind of question that's going to keep anyone who's aware up at night - or anymore than women's sexism has bothered them - which it hasn't.
Shit, next Bob Wright will be asking that dude if those pants make his ass look fat.
Pussies.
Alex said...HEy - stop ripping me off! I said that several days ago trying to explain why Bob Wright is so ENRAGED at Althouse.
To be fair, Clarence Thomas likely said it 20 years ago, and Thomas Sowell likely 40 years ago....
I didnt see your comment :)
I think Bob Wright was being ironic (or at least facetious) by phrasing the question "Are you sexists?"
But Ann is right in asking about the deeper reasons why people react to male and female BloggingHeads differently, though I am not at all sure that thinking in terms of "sexist" or not is the best frame.
Perhaps some of the reason that many people react strongly to Ann is that she takes positions that seem intentionally provocative, but, in that law professorish way, you can never tell how much of it she believes, and how much is just playing. Very frustrating for those of us who like to pin people down (rhetorically, not in the MMA sense). Her argumentative style also runs a little more toward talking over/interrupting her interlocutors than is to the taste of some (and which may seem neither ladylike, nor gentlemanly).
I have to agree with the boringheads comment community. They don't know anything about sex.
Well except with themselves.
You know you have almost as many Bob Wright posts as I have Joey Heatherton posts.
Think about that.
Alex, I would go for idiots for $100, rather than sexists for $100.
WV; demen - A demon of the feminine persuasion
The first paragraph of this old Althouse post describes my view of bloggingheads in general (with a few exceptions), and how Wright's sex effects my view of him.
Why have diavlogs at all if not to expose the physicality of the interlocutors?
1) Don't. (Have diavlogs at all, that is.)
They're horrible, like all video content that pretends to be serious.
And even beyond that, they're un-indexable, un-searchable, fragile, horrible wastes of effort and time.
2) So that people who can't read or can't be bothered to can listen to pretty voices instead.
(As you might have inferred, I don't watch diavlogs, videoblogs, listen to audiologs, or any of the rest of it.
Video sure is good for getting idiots to agree with you, though - see Loose Change and the equivalents clogging YouTube.)
Whenever AA says something sensible & useful I will agree without hesitation. Those opportunities are much rarer than they should be.
What is apt to draw ire is obvious bias trumping basic common sense or gratuitous spite: it may feel awesome at the time but on the Interwebs it's usually a very bad idea if you're not posting anonymously.
"The reason you, Megan, Michelle, and Droopy piss people off isn't sexism - it's because you're inconsistent thinkers."
Quoted For Truth.
Too often the response to being found in error is either to double down on said error, or to take a microscope to their response so as to get the responder to play Semantic Whack-A-Mole, or to change the subject.
We're so afraid of hurting other people and of being thought ill of that we make ourselves into crushing bores.
Did AA just raise the spectre of Sensitive New-Age Guy Syndrome on the Interwebs? Yeah, see, that kind of thing right there is why some people find themselves wishing for a psychokinesis-based PIMPSLAP.EXE file whenever they come here.
The best place to talk about smacking woman around is a thread about sexism ......err .....or something.
Face it douchenozzle, Niles Crane and his cronies are a bunch of boring pussies. Of course they have to go after women, that is just their speed.
It would take me hours just to catalog and even longer to try to articulate why, for example, I don't care if a dentist is male or female but prefer a male chiropractor. Technically that makes me sexist: I feel less comfortable dealing with women in certain professional and social context, and sometime more comfortable. It really comes down to feelings and completely subjective preferences, which many people have trouble with because they don't think these sorts of feelings and preferences are allowed.
But obviously, one very common subjective perception out there, which I don't personally hold is that conservatism is inherently cruel and harsh and non-compassionate and that women, who are supposed to be loving and nurturing betray their sex by being conservative and publicly speaking about conservative ideas and need to be publicly chastised for doing so, regardless of the validity of their ideas. I can't think of a better explanation, anyway.
More directly: Conservative women MUST by definition, be bitches. So it's OK to treat them that way in comment threads. Isn't that really what it boils down to?
Chris,
It would take me hours just to catalog and even longer to try to articulate why, for example, I don't care if a dentist is male or female but prefer a male chiropractor.
Um, because - whether it's being done by a male or female - you still don't understand chiropractic?
I would suggest, highly, you click that link and, then, the "chiropractic" tag once you get there. It's quackery. Find yourself a decent back doctor - especially a sports doctor - and stop putting yourself (and by extension others) at risk.
I'm not sexist!!! I'm an equal opportunity hater.
Chris,
It really comes down to feelings and completely subjective preferences,...
NewAge. I keep telling y'all, it's all NewAge.
I'm a frequent and vocal hater of Michelle "I'm not a monster" Goldberg, and I will not back down one iota on my right to hate her vile and misanthropic ideas without regard to the length of her 23rd chromosome.
She means we're hard-wired to notice sex differences, and all the attendant confusion and angst, and there's nothing we can do about it.
That's certainly the most obvious interpretation, but it's so difficult to square with the high dudgeon displayed here, for example, that it makes me suspect that Althouse is trying to have it both ways. I've long noticed the resemblance between McArdle's trolls and Althouse's trolls, and believed that sexism is behind a lot of it. But if such an accusation is now considered too lightweight to be worth defending oneself against, it's also too lightweight to keep company with words like "despicable".
Wm. Kerrigan:
We are men and women. It almost always matters which we are. Men and women are aggressive. Their regard for each other is clouded by grudges, suspicions, fears, needs, desires, and narcississtic postures. There's no scrubbing them out. The best you can hope for is domestication, as in football, rock, humor, happy marriage, and a good prose style. Jokes trade on offensiveness; PC is not a funny dialect. The unconscious is a joker, a sexist and aggressive creature. Our sexuality has always been scandalous.
Althouse more or less works in a way I think is and should be female.
She makes a place for things to happen, and that sustains her interest.
People come along for their own reasons, and in large numbers.
Guys are more into working out a position to draw an attracted audience, if they even want an audience.
It's enhancing complexity versus abstracting from complexity.
Megan McArdle seems to me to argue badly, and so is not much interest either way.
I don't know the third.
Bob Wright is good, especially with Kaus. Who knew there were leftists with a self-deprecating sense of humor.
He seems to argue the left's position pretty well, assuming he's not making up his facts.
He shows not much concern for stray consequences, which Kaus has recently been bringing up - unusual for a lefty.
As to the anger, I always think that's because somebody doesn't know how to argue the other side.
Maybe the reason is that people find it easier to disregard men and less easy to disregard women.
Even in a rather hard-line submission model it's submit to your own husband... and all the other men can go hang. (Except, if you're rather unlucky, other authorities who also have authority over the men such as the pastor or civil authority.) So why get all angry at men? (Yes, I know that some women make this a life calling, but not most.)
Women, on the other hand, have to get along with the women in the community (even if they ignore random male persons) so disagreement is far more consequential.
Why men might get angrier at women... well, it might be that men have ways of diffusing disagreement between themselves that can't be applied to women so they feel resentful and trapped.
This is all assuming that people really do get more angry at women.
"We are always put off by gender confusion. The first thing we notice in a stranger is their gender, and if we can't tell it both piques interest and makes us anxious.
Wright is a bit (...)
Think Rachel Maddow (...)"
Honestly... Wright is *obviously* male at first glance. Maddow is *obviously* female at first glance. This insistence that we must somehow identify not *sex* but *gender* or be uncomfortable is ridiculous. A truly ambiguous person might be distracting because I agree that we have little mental check-boxes for a person's obvious primary physical characteristics, but neither a fussy heterosexual man nor a less than fluffy gay female provides a check-box problem to the average person.
That said, when I find Wright annoying it's generally for the same reasons I find Goldberg annoying and those things *could* be described in terms of gender as female, but not at all in a flattering way as female, and I reject the notion that squishy thinking is a female trait.
Good pick up, PZ; you have a long memory.
With an emphasis on compassion, seeking common ground, banding together against the powerful, the left skews feminine. Conversely, the right is the more masculine philosophy. It's values are individual versus collective strength, demanding personal responsibility versus showing forgiveness, and a reliance on strength - personal or miliatary - to deal with conflicts.
Men of the left have have certain advantages and disadvantages with women. On the one hand, they are more likely to be perceived as allies of women, less threatening, more nurturing fathers. On the other, they run the risk of being perceived as effemininate and weak - someone unlikely to take charge in the bedroom.
A strong conservative woman shatters the advantages the liberal man has and emphasizes the disadvantages - particularly as women like her are concerned, but she also raises doubt in the man's mind that liberal women see him in those terms, too.
Little surprise that these men become enraged and fill up the comment sections with their anger at the strong conservative woman.
Writ Small, does your theory account for conservative men dogging Michelle Goldberg?
deborah said...
Writ Small, does your theory account for conservative men dogging Michelle Goldberg?
No. That probably is due to good, old-fashioned sexism.
Plus, did you watch her BH episodes with Ann? Some people are just annoying.
Hmmmm...:)
Bob Wright has the worse run forum. bjkeefe, whom Althouse has had a set to with in the comments before, has never been banned.
yet, at least two non-lefties/liberals have been banned. One for being about as belligerent as bjkeefe was with Althouse way back when, and myself for questioning the incompetent moderation of the forum.
Bob Wright is fascist by the way. :)
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