"... she came back with: #StumblingTowardParity, #PushingForBetter, #StillWorkingOnIt, #GuysThisIsYourProblemToo, #DemandingMoreForMoreOfUs, #Feminism."
How about #reality?
Showing posts with label Rebecca Traister. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rebecca Traister. Show all posts
Monday, July 2, 2012
Sunday, May 13, 2012
"The image of the feminist as a mirthless, hirsute, sex-averse succubus is a friendly-fire casualty of the Republican 'war on women.'"
"It’s a grave loss to conservatives, who have used this faithful foot soldier as a comfortably grotesque stand-in for the real people whose liberties they have sought to conscribe: women."
Goofball rhetoric from Rebecca Traister in the Washington Post.
I mean, it's such a silly collection of words that I'm not sure you're even supposed to try to sort it out. Maybe Traister just wants us to wallow a big comfy bubble bath of words. But I don't care. Despite being a woman, I look for reason and order.
A "succubus" is "A demon in female form supposed to have carnal intercourse with men in their sleep" — OED, first meaning — so what's a "sex-averse succubus"? Assuming some people thought feminists were demons, whoever thought they were demons who sneaked up on sleeping men to have intercourse? And if one ever did think such a thing, would you picture them doing it without mirth? I'll grant you the hair. I think the demon ladies who fuck you in your sleep probably don't take the trouble to go into the salon for a thorough pre-fuck waxing.
But, anyway, it's good to know — thank you, WaPo expert feminist — that this image is shot to hell by Republicans, who accidentally slayed one of their own. You have this war — the "war on women" — and on one side of it are Republicans, and — within this metaphor — these warrior Republicans shot the grim, hairy, female rapist demon — or, more specifically: her image and said image was one of the Republican soldiers.
And now "conservatives" (presumably these same "Republicans") suffered a "grave loss" because "this faithful foot soldier" — the succubus — had been serving "as a comfortably grotesque stand-in for the real people whose liberties they have sought to conscribe: women." Now you could really get confused here, because the word "conscribe" might make you think of forcing people into the military service, and if the succubus was a fellow soldier to the Republicans and a stand-in for real women, then you might think, what's the loss? Obviously, Republicans want real women on their side.
But Traister is using the word "conscribe" in the sense of "circumscribe." It's really bizarre to choose the less common word "conscribe" over "circumscribe" precisely when you're working the military analogy and the alternate meaning of conscription is likely to suggest itself. Anyway, it's not that the Republicans are trying to conscript real women onto their side in a political battle. It's that Republicans are out to cut back the "liberties" of women, and it's easier to do that, presumably, if you've demonized women.
But the demons were only the feminists, not women more generally, many of whom are Republicans and/or conservatives. Presumably, all women care about their liberty. The argument is over the meaning of liberty and how one person's desire for liberty is to be weighed over the needs and wants of others. In the present-day context, the Democratic Party side of the war on women the "liberty" in question is having one's health care treatments paid for.
If you want to get real, let's get real. Talk straight. Be clear. And then we can see what we're talking about and make rational decisions.
Goofball rhetoric from Rebecca Traister in the Washington Post.
I mean, it's such a silly collection of words that I'm not sure you're even supposed to try to sort it out. Maybe Traister just wants us to wallow a big comfy bubble bath of words. But I don't care. Despite being a woman, I look for reason and order.
A "succubus" is "A demon in female form supposed to have carnal intercourse with men in their sleep" — OED, first meaning — so what's a "sex-averse succubus"? Assuming some people thought feminists were demons, whoever thought they were demons who sneaked up on sleeping men to have intercourse? And if one ever did think such a thing, would you picture them doing it without mirth? I'll grant you the hair. I think the demon ladies who fuck you in your sleep probably don't take the trouble to go into the salon for a thorough pre-fuck waxing.
But, anyway, it's good to know — thank you, WaPo expert feminist — that this image is shot to hell by Republicans, who accidentally slayed one of their own. You have this war — the "war on women" — and on one side of it are Republicans, and — within this metaphor — these warrior Republicans shot the grim, hairy, female rapist demon — or, more specifically: her image and said image was one of the Republican soldiers.
And now "conservatives" (presumably these same "Republicans") suffered a "grave loss" because "this faithful foot soldier" — the succubus — had been serving "as a comfortably grotesque stand-in for the real people whose liberties they have sought to conscribe: women." Now you could really get confused here, because the word "conscribe" might make you think of forcing people into the military service, and if the succubus was a fellow soldier to the Republicans and a stand-in for real women, then you might think, what's the loss? Obviously, Republicans want real women on their side.
But Traister is using the word "conscribe" in the sense of "circumscribe." It's really bizarre to choose the less common word "conscribe" over "circumscribe" precisely when you're working the military analogy and the alternate meaning of conscription is likely to suggest itself. Anyway, it's not that the Republicans are trying to conscript real women onto their side in a political battle. It's that Republicans are out to cut back the "liberties" of women, and it's easier to do that, presumably, if you've demonized women.
But the demons were only the feminists, not women more generally, many of whom are Republicans and/or conservatives. Presumably, all women care about their liberty. The argument is over the meaning of liberty and how one person's desire for liberty is to be weighed over the needs and wants of others. In the present-day context, the Democratic Party side of the war on women the "liberty" in question is having one's health care treatments paid for.
If you want to get real, let's get real. Talk straight. Be clear. And then we can see what we're talking about and make rational decisions.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
"If you do not care that Latoya Peterson, the founder of the blog Racialicious stopped reading JackandJillPolitics midway through the campaign..."
"... or if you do not even know who these people are, then Big Girls Don't Cry will seem pretty mystifying in parts."
I tried to read that book (by Rebecca Traister), and this review says a lot of things I couldn't motivate myself to get to the point of being able to write.
I tried to read that book (by Rebecca Traister), and this review says a lot of things I couldn't motivate myself to get to the point of being able to write.
Ms. Traister laces her analysis with that of like-minded political bloggers and friends from New York who are similarly outraged... This book is shrewd and smartly written, but if there is a weakness to Ms. Traister's analysis it is that she relies too much on Internet chatter and on the insights of her group of friends. She traces each blog war that arose whenever there was a skirmish on the campaign trail and treats these online battles as if they really mattered, not only to politics but to the world off-screen....There are so many things that are interesting to talk about in real time, when the election is still in play. That's what blogs do. I don't understand collecting all the detail in a book. Who is the compilation for? People who care about the details absorbed it all through blogs (and other media) at the time. They've moved on to the new details of the day and the current campaigns. People who didn't care at the time... why would they care now? It would have to be that the details seen together reveal a picture that couldn't be seen before. If you don't have that, you don't have a book.
Ms. Traister's effort to recount every flare-up from the 2008 makes this book seem either too early or too late. The due date for campaign books about the last election was about ten months ago. A lot of Big Girls reads like a game of "Do you remember when we cared about" archeological shreds of a dim and distant and mostly insignificant past....
Friday, July 30, 2010
"[T]he ceaseless obsession with and exultation over Chelsea's upcoming nuptials is emblematic of how our culture rewards women who marry...."
Hyperventilates Rebecca Traister about the way other people are hyperventilating.
I don't mean to be the Matrimony Grinch. Weddings are joyful and great. What they are not is the apotheosis of the human, the romantic or, more pointedly, the female experience.Oh? Why not?
There are a lot of people who don't get married. There are a lot of people who can't get married....
The fevered fetishization of the marital day is not just irritating, it's destructive. It reproduces attitudes about personal -- and especially female -- achievement that are far past their sell date....
You know what weddings are? They are parties.... Who knows how tasteful or how extravagant the marriage of the only Clinton daughter will turn out to be? Who -- besides those who really love her and her future husband -- really cares?
Thursday, March 5, 2009
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