... I wish that every woman whose actions and worth are parsed and restricted, congratulated and condemned in this country might just once get to wheel around — on the committee that doesn’t believe their medically corroborated story of assault, or on the protesters who tell them that termination is a sin they will regret, or on the boss who tells them he doesn’t believe in their sexual choices, or on the mid-fifties man who congratulates them, or himself, on finding them appealing deep into their dotage — and go black in the eyes and say, “I don’t fucking care if you like it.”
July 17, 2014
"It’s such a comfortable pose, gathering around women and deciding what we think of them — hot or not, alluring or tragic, moral or immoral..."
"... responsible or irresponsible, capable of consent or incapable of consent, maternal or neglectful."
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Amy Poehler rocks. The ground she stood on is against easy judgementalism, but that mostly comes from other women and is called gossip.
The men in leadership who join in memes deriding women for any and every thing are actually trying to impress the witch women they have to live among. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
The people who have based their entire careers on endlessly demarcating the differences between men and women don't care if you notice women as women, even if it's positive. Got it? You shouldn't think of women as any different from you, except you should, all the time, when you're realizing how your cisgendered phallogocentric views are oppressing them, but you can't keep them down, and if you think somehow that being a man makes you superior, you can think again, because women are just as good as you, only you are lording it over them, which you apparently have the power to do, because it pisses them off so much, but they don't care if you do. In fact, they don't care so much, they'll write pointless articles in once-respectable national magazines about it so they can get more people talking about a subject that — and they cannot stress this enough — they do NOT care about.
In other words, everyone in the public eye is judged and evaluated and approved or disapproved. Also in private life, only by a much smaller circle of people. It has nothing to do with being a woman, except that women are human, and subject to the same kinds of evaluations that all human beings are.
All women have to do is actually act like they don't care (I suppose not act, but actually get to a state of non-caring) then their troubles will be over. You don't have to be rude to assert your self-esteem.
I really have no problem with Jimmy Fallon - or anybody else -telling someone (male or female) that they are being offensive. If Poehler (?) were a guy and answered like that there's a good chance that punishment, either physical or job related, would have ensued. Wasn't Jill Abrahmson fired for "bitchy" behavior.
I have always thought that women are really pretty squared away compared to guys. Whining feminists are doing their best to disillusion me.
“I don’t fucking care if you like it.”
Oh yeah, that's the ticket. Let's get the womenfolk & the patriarchy in a “I don’t fucking care if you like it” no-holds barred grudge match, and let's place bets on who comes out ahead.
Are there really women who are so stupid that they think that they can get ahead by outdoing men in being nasty, rude, & anti-social? I'm sorry, men wrote the book on being nasty, rude & anti-social. I've yet to meet any over-literate feminist who doesn't have skin as thin as a grape.
Being nice & courteous to each other is what makes a society work. All the more so if you happen to be a female member of that society.
I have always thought that women are really pretty squared away compared to guys.
Idealizing women is a *big* mistake.
That's a LOT of words to say "I don't care" isn't it?
Err, actually, attention was not paid to the Hobart College rape because sexists like to contemplate how women are perceived while being assessed: attention was paid because the subject of having actual professionals prosecute rape in real courtrooms versus school administrators turning their fake investigations into extracurricular star courts is an important one. Also, pregnant women snorting meth are not arrested because the police are indulging in stereotyped judgments of their potential fitness as mothers: pregnant women snorting meth are arrested to prevent them from honking wads of biker brain glue into their unborn babies' veins.
And so on.
The entire world is not some mindless women's studies project involving sexist advertisements for smoking, glue sticks, and enough angst to fill the 350 word limit for Buzzfeed columns, thank God.
"Once, just once, I wish the Germans would be able to turn the tables on the constant condescending judgement of the French!" - said some German in 1935
Heh. Wouldn't it be funny if, after she began, "I wish that every...," we could interrupt her with "I don't fucking care what you wish!"
Hey Rebecca. I don't fucking care what you like either.
I blogged this article because:
1. I saw it praised, which is why I went there.
2. I found it hard to follow, which would often be a reason not to blog it, but it could be useful to attempt to puzzle out or tear apart or whatever.
3. I'd avoided talking about that Tom Junod article that everyone was talking about recently, so this seemed like a good place to enter that conversation. I do have a part-written post about that, but life intervened and I never finished it. I don't think people understand what Junod was doing.
All I see is the cry of another person for whom it is not enough that she get her way, but that we all vindicate her choice with our applause.
I won't do it. She can go to Hell if she wants, but I'm not going to pat her on the back and wish her "Bon Voyage".
Is Ms. Traister quite confident that we care whether or not she cares?
Ironically, "I don’t fucking care if you like it" is something a rapist might say.
I don't get the hostility.
Where's the love?
"I don’t fucking care if you like it.”
That's a conversation stopper that will work for anyone, regardless of perspective. It pops up often enough here in the comment threads, too. How, exactly, does one engage in a conversation with someone intent on not having one?
There's a weak transition in this article from a discussion of men's superficial evaluation of women to a disjointed rant about various topical women-related issues. It's the paragraph that starts, "I suspect that a lot of this irritation over the small stuff right now . . ."
It almost feels that the author is padding the piece to get a higher word count.
Good thing men aren't judged, told what people (women) think of them, told to conform to the desires, biases, and expectations of groups, communities, or society at large. "Group assessment of feminity" is so unlike any "group assessment of masculinity" that I'm not surprised the author only mentions one. NPR's recent series on what it means to be a man these days--that was probably something I imagined.
Anyway, yeah, right on sista, you tell those judgy-judgersons to get bent!You don't care what they think and anyone who thinks your actions should have consequences for which you should be responsible is an oppressor!
What does "go black in the eye" even mean? Is it something like "throwing shade."
Is my parsing of the author's language part of the problem?
Its behind a pay wall, so I didn't read the whole thing.
But the fact is, if you really do have a "don't care if you like it" attitude, then you don't get all pissed off about what other people think about something.
This woman seems really pissed off.
...go black in the eyes...
I'm not sure how you do that, but it doesn't sound like a wise move in this time of heightened zombie awareness.
If you are minding your own business then you are solidly on the moral high ground when you tell some busybody that you don't care what they think.
If you are in a collaborative environment, being loud and vulgar, then you are on pretty shaky ground, but you are welcome to say it and let the workplace dynamics run their course.
If you are trying to use the power of government to force someone to pay for your shit over their moral objections, then you really have no moral ground to stand on.
Women...can't live with them and can't live without them.
Love and romance is disarmament. And sometimes the man has to go first when the woman happens to be richer, smarter and better looking and says she wants to be independent. Which that is the league you want to play in. What does the man have to lose anyway.
Women are labeled ... by ... “closely held corporations,” whose rights to allow those estimations to dictate their corporate obligations are upheld over the rights of the women themselves by high courts.
Your birth control is one of your employer's "corporate obligations." I honestly don't understand how someone can come to think that way.
It’s such a comfortable pose, gathering around women and deciding what we think of them — ...capable of consent or incapable of consent...
So let me get this straight. If I come across a seriously drunk girl at a party, and she agrees to hook up with me ( like a said, seriously drunk ) then I'm not supposed to try to determine if she is capable or incapable of consent?
"I don’t fucking care if you like it"
Listen up, beeyotch. We know. We've known for like for ever. We've always known that you don't care.
That's why we don't want you anywhere near us. Now, do you understand.
There's nothing superficial about judging a woman by her physical beauty. Eggs are expensive, sperm is cheap. The perpetuation of the species and all the biological inertia involved determines that beautiful, healthy women are highly valued. They have always been, and will always be. Feminism is just another quixotic left wing assault on human nature, with the inevitable human toll in suffering of all foolish, misguided battles against our true nature.
That being said, a woman's total human value is more than her sexual value, but biology dictates that a higher percentage of her value is sexual than that of a man.
Most of these pissed off feminists are mad because men don't find them appealing.
Everyone judges everyone, all the time, be it "good or bad", "attractive or not", or any other set of criteria that come to mind.
(It's horribly rude to get in someone's face about such judgments, of course, generally speaking.
But that's a matter of manners, not of not "deciding what we think of them".
To call deciding what we think about people a "pose" as if it's not a thing human beings all do to every other human being all the time, unavoidably and unstoppably is ludicrous.
Rebecca Traister, the potty-mouth who doesn't care: Click Here.
Right. Out. Of. Central. Casting.
Black
Imagine if the feminist shouted at all those people as she imagines herself doing and they all wheeled around and said the same back - "I don't fucking care if YOU like it?" Imagine all the people - I wonder if you can - all screaming insults and taunts whenever they felt like it. You may say that I'm a dreamer but I hope the day when we all join the feminist dream will never come.
The HORROR! The horror....
Esquire? That big city slick magazine? Who reads it?
She lost me at abortion. If she wants to "plan" her family, then use contraceptives, or consider behavioral changes. Don't abort a wholly innocent human life for money, sex, ego, or convenience.
She should care, every moral human being should care, because her "choice" not only denigrates her dignity, but devalues human life generally. A human life evolves from conception to death. A member of a civilized society does not have a right to abort/murder a human life other than in self-defense.
As for the rest of her emotional rant, enjoy the fruits born of your confusion. Perhaps respecting individual dignity and acknowledging intrinsic value has merit. Perhaps religion (i.e. moral philosophy) will engender superior outcomes for men and women who enjoy liberty. Perhaps a prerequisite of liberty is women and men capable of self-moderating, responsible behavior.
Respect individual dignity, whether it is male or female.
Make life, not abortion.
To anyone following politics for the last few years her saying realy be "I don't fucking care if you like it, you must keep paying for it."
I mean, "the ease with which women’s choices regarding their bodies, futures, health, sex, and family life are up for public evaluation." is DIRECTLY FUCKING RELATED to making the public PAY for those choices, right? How is that not obvious? If you're going to force me to pay for something I will expect to have a say in it. The larger and more intrusive you make the goverment (through programs, subsidies, regulations, etc) the more of your choices that will effect and the more the public will have to weigh in on those choices.
I don't own rosaries, but trust me when I tell you I don't want to put them on your ovaries. If you're forcing me to pay for the maintenance of those overaies, though, I will expect to have some input regarding how they're used (so to speak)! That's just, dare I say it, equality at work.
I'm not sure how to even address the idea that "the woman’s own interpretation of her experience or intentions" is something that can't ever be scrutinized, even in the context of a trial.
The terribly frustrating part is that the Left (I guess they'd call themselves the feminist Left) is yet again the aggressor here--they force the confrontation by adopting coercive policies and then complain that anyone objecting is anti-woman. They're demanding special consideration and then calling any pushback evidence of an attack on equality.
2. I found it hard to follow, which would often be a reason not to blog it, but it could be useful to attempt to puzzle out or tear apart or whatever.
I gave up halfway through because it seemed to lack cohesion. It was fickle writing.
Not surprising, coming from a woman.
As soon as I read the words “got into a fight on Twitter” I realized that this person had nothing worthwhile to say about any subject.
The Patriarchy allows women to prattle and whine in circumstances where a man would be condemned for doing so.
Down with the patriarchy!
I wonder why people who want to make a stand not caring whether someone likes something thinks other people care what they like.
"I don’t fucking care if you like it.” is a real conversation stopper, so it is strategically wise to put it as the last sentence in the piece.
Althouse does us a favor by pointing it all out since the article was a classic tl;dr. I never made it past the middle of the second paragraph and then skimmed to the end to confirm that the quoted passage was the end. It seemed like an ending.
Anyway, she spills a lot of words on people who she claims not to care about.
"I demand not to be judged and I demand that others be forced to obey my judgements."
Sounds like equality, right?
"These days, law enforcement can comfortably deem a Tennessee mother unfit and jail her for having taken methamphetamine while pregnant."
Is there, to Rebecca Traister, any limiting principle to her idea of what women should be able to decide for themselves and about which society (men) should be unable to form an opinion or influence? The subject of her sentence is called a mother so I will assume the pregnancy in question was successful. Does the child in that case merit so little consideration (even once born!) that a rule or law intended to prevent entirely forseeable and preventable harm to it is automatically invalid because that law would in some way pass judgement on a woman and her idea of motherhood? Are these not the same people who assure us that others must be forced to pay for things they support if those things can-however tangentially-be linked back to "the good of the children?!"
Let's see, the meth-snorting momma gets to define what maternity is so it's immoral for society to punish her for actions that could harm her child. If the child's father skips out on the family, though, he should be fined and jailed and forced to pay child support (even if it's not his kid) because the only thing that matters is...what's best for the child?
What an amazing coincidence that any time two competing values or rights come into conflict the one that MUST win (and must in fact not be questioned!) are the ones that just happen to benefit women.
Are women fierce hard-charging winners who demand to be treated as equals, or delicate precious flowers who demand protection and subsidies for the sake of fairness? I guess it depends on what benefits them at that time, you know? And anyway how dare you publicly voice YOUR opnion?!
"Rebecca Traister, the potty-mouth who doesn't care: Click Here."
Haha! I rest my case.
"Women are labeled as good or bad, as moral or immoral, by major religions and “closely held corporations,” whose rights to allow those estimations to dictate their corporate obligations are upheld over the rights of the women themselves by high courts."
So women explicitly have the right to force a corporation/their employeer to pay for something the employeer opposes. What is the limiting principle here--certainly some of the Hobby Lobby owners are women, so it can't be that women can't force other women to do things. Maybe those HL women aren't "real" women, though? What can a woman not force others to do if that woman makes a choice regarding her body, future, health, sex, or family life? Those are pretty broad categories (no pun intended).
"I choose to do meth while pregnant, so you (all) have to bear the cost of caring for my injured child." Is that ok? Hell, she's a woman, I guess we can't question it.
It's clearly not enough to exercise the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life--women also have the right to force others to underwrite those definitions and choices, and in fact it's wrong for others to even offer an opinion?
Get a real life, Rebecca. You obviously have too much time on your hands.
Poor women. Men are never judged. Never, never, never.
By the way, guess which oppressor said the following:
"The backbone of society is the married, committed couple who channel their sexuality into making and growing the next generation. Those who do other things are free to make choices, but we as a society have no reason to facilitate their choices, especially their destructive choices."
We have no reason to facilitate their choices? Sounds an awful lot like someone's using an evaluative pattern that judges an individual's choices, even going so far as to refuse to pay for those choices! Rape apologists are everywhere, I guess, but considering how "men run or at bare minimum have shaped and codified the attitudes of...universities" maybe I shouldn't be so surprised.
A couple thousand exquisitely incensed words about how she "doesn't fucking care". Suuuuure.
Come back when you're attractive.
"I don't get the hostility"
You must have missed the #YesAllWomen campaign where ALL men were accused of being rapists.
I got threatened with violence by one feminazi for simply pointing out where the 1 in 5 stat is false.
They want to throw down? Fine. Special little snowflakes didn't realize we've simply been ignoring their bullshit till now.
I keep going back to how woman have been so easily oppressed by man since we came down out of the trees.
Definately not our equals. Should we treat them as such? Sure. But lets not pretend.
OT--But have you seen this, Ann?www.mindingthecampus.com/2014/07/an-amazing-diversity-plan-at-madison/
"What does "go black in the eye" even mean? "
It means she's a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan.
Khessanh - perhaps you should read Fey's book or at least you should read the chapter to understand the context before you say Fallon was right to say that.
Really you are OK with an adult admonishing you publicly like you are a child? The man is celebrated for being raunchy, but the woman is told to knock it off like your her daddy?
As for the article, she needs an editor.
The solution to speech is more speech. If she wants to defend a woman for using meth while pregnant, I disagree and would be happy to discuss it with her.
All the rest of this is self-indulgent angry crap, and I don't care about it.
I don't care if she fucking doesn't like it.
In playing the game I lost.
Do you understand me?
I LOST.
And a man like me can't be made to look like a LOSER.
Ridiculous.
You know who judges? The CDC, they keep track of every STD male/female gay/straight. One's sexual choices are never personal, they affect other people and the public health.
What I like to do, is sit around the coffee room at work, telling rape jokes. Then, when some stupid, whiny bitch complains, I go black in the eyes for a second, then whirl around and shout "I don't fucking care if you like it!".
I get so sick of these DFC's judging me!
"If you are trying to use the power of government to force someone to pay for your shit over their moral objections, then you really have no moral ground to stand on."
Megan McArdle's column on Hobby Lobby helped me to understand why the progressives reject this argument. Our private sphere has been overwhelmed by the public sphere, and everybody believes they have positive rights to all sorts of things. We're doomed.
Talk about solipsistic.
I smell a period from way over here.
Women are tired of being judged by the Esquire metric
IOW, I care if you like it.
I've often heard it said that the majority of feminists are unattractive. Is there any study out there that confirms or contradicts this bit of folklore?
Conveying the meaning, "I do care."
Good reason to keep ones assessments to oneself. For attribution: "Everyone is beautiful!"
Nothing says "adult dignity and self-possession" quite like having a tantrum about some droolers in a lad's mag burbling on about who's hawt or nawt.
Correction: "I don't give a fuck what you think and you should be paying for my choices" says it even better.
It occurs to me that the scolding this woman is experiencing isn't other people, but the small voice inside her that tells her what she is doing is wrong.
She wants to scream at her conscience; silence that thing inside her that insists that there is a limit to how much one may be self absorbed and still be a good person.
Unfortunately for her, the only way to silence one's conscience is to heed it.
Sigivald: It's horribly rude to get in someone's face about such judgments, of course, generally speaking.
But that's a matter of manners, not of not "deciding what we think of them".
Remarkable how few people seem to realize that.
Hell is living in a society full of obnoxious over-revealing people constantly demanding rispec'.
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