Dear "Elementary,"
A friend and I watched several episodes of your show last night at CBS.com. Five episodes, I think. I tell you this up front so that if you want to say, "Hey, five episodes from our whole body of work is nothing! You don't know a thing about our show!" then you can step away now.
If you're still here, let's continue.
Something bothered me early on, and I kept watching with the hope that it had been an inconsistency. But, no, it was consistent throughout the episodes: the Watson character is called "Miss Watson," not "Dr. Watson."
There have been many, many incarnations of the Sherlock Holmes characters over the years, several of them very popular and mainstream, but this is the first time to my knowledge that we've had a female Watson on regular prime-time television. What you're doing is kind of a big deal, and I suspect that you're aware of it.
Therefore, it is also a big deal that you've taken away the title of "Dr." and instead issued the title of "Miss."
Calling her "Dr." would put her on par with all of the other Watsons. It would make reference to her education and canonical profession. It is a title with social cachet.
Calling her "Ms." would strip away her education and canonical profession, would emphasize her femininity, yet would also be perceived by the audience as quasi-feminist.
Calling her "Miss" strips away her education and canonical profession while emphasizing that she's a single woman. It also implies youthfulness. You're communicating to your audience that she's feminine and available.
Is this a nod to the patriarchy? A sort of: I know that you're uncomfortable with us casting Dr. Watson as a woman, but we'll make it more palatable to you by emphasizing her femininity and sexual availability over her canonical credentials!
Is this a nod to feminists? A sort of: That's right, we cast Dr. Watson as a woman! And so that no one can mistake what a woman she is, we'll call her "Miss" so that she's gendered female at all times!
Here's how two of your audience members perceived it last night: You took a terrific step forward in casting Dr. Watson as a woman, and then you took a step right back again by taking away her title. It's a real disappointment for me, one of those nagging problems which make me uneasy as I watch your show.
I thought to myself, before I sat down to write this, that I should be fair. I should stop and do my research and investigate why the character is titled "Miss." Likely it's some interesting back story, something integral to the character's history. But, no, I'm not going to do my research, because it doesn't matter to me what your rationalization is. You created her history how it pleased you, and you could have written it any which way you liked. You could have written a back story which leads us to "Dr. Watson," but you chose a back story which leaves us with "Miss Watson," and that was a deliberate choice on your part.
It's like pointing out a problem with World of Warcraft and being told, "But that's the lore!" as if that's the end of the conversation. The lore is not some sacred, authentic, historical text; it's whatever the writers say that it is. You wrote a character and you gave her a history and you labeled her "Miss Watson." You could have written her any number of other ways and given us "Dr. Watson." Maybe you're proud of her history, maybe it makes terrific story-telling, maybe you're trying to build an intensely compelling character and I'm missing out on something great. Maybe. What is definite, though, is that you wrote [what is perceived as] a risky, groundbreaking role and instead of giving us a female Dr. Watson, you gave us Miss Watson.
I would rather have a female Dr. Watson from episode to episode than Miss Watson's compelling back story which hasn't come up in any of the episodes I've seen. I think that the weight of hearing Sherlock (and everyone else) say "Dr. Watson" onscreen every episode would be an interesting, important, cultural step forward. This was a chance for that, and you've robbed us of it.
I wonder if you'll tackle the Strange Case of Miss Jekyll and Miss Hyde next.
With love,
Frank Lee
Showing posts with label gender. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gender. Show all posts
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Dear Warm Bodies
Note for misogynist slurs.
Dear Warm Bodies,
I have a great deal to say to you about your movie, but I will try to confine my remarks to specific feminist issues.
While I wanted to enjoy your film, I came away with three glaring problems.
1.) The word "bitch." It was completely unnecessary. It was jarring and hateful. I assume that it was meant to be played as a funny, "human" moment of male bonding when M said, "Bitches, man," but it went too far. Of course I would prefer if you wouldn't employ such a gross misogynist theme in your film in the first place, but at the very least you could have used "women" or "chicks."
I repeat for emphasis: you didn't have to include the line at all, in any form.
2.) The kidnapping. From the trailer, I assumed that R was helping Julie to fit in and escape. I had no idea that he kidnapped her and kept her in a horrifying situation against her will because he thought that she was pretty. Had I known, I wouldn't have watched the movie at all, so congratulations on that misleading marketing.
3.) The nurse. Nora says that she wants to be a nurse; she says that she wants to heal people and find cures. Healing people and finding cures? Doesn't that sound more like the description of a doctor or scientist than of a nurse? Imagine that line coming from a man: it wouldn't make any sense. It was a gross, disorienting moment.
I wanted to enjoy your film. I really did. I had hoped that it would be fresh and funny, but there's nothing new or interesting in the same tired, ancient, sexist themes.
With love,
Frank Lee
Dear Warm Bodies,
I have a great deal to say to you about your movie, but I will try to confine my remarks to specific feminist issues.
While I wanted to enjoy your film, I came away with three glaring problems.
1.) The word "bitch." It was completely unnecessary. It was jarring and hateful. I assume that it was meant to be played as a funny, "human" moment of male bonding when M said, "Bitches, man," but it went too far. Of course I would prefer if you wouldn't employ such a gross misogynist theme in your film in the first place, but at the very least you could have used "women" or "chicks."
I repeat for emphasis: you didn't have to include the line at all, in any form.
2.) The kidnapping. From the trailer, I assumed that R was helping Julie to fit in and escape. I had no idea that he kidnapped her and kept her in a horrifying situation against her will because he thought that she was pretty. Had I known, I wouldn't have watched the movie at all, so congratulations on that misleading marketing.
3.) The nurse. Nora says that she wants to be a nurse; she says that she wants to heal people and find cures. Healing people and finding cures? Doesn't that sound more like the description of a doctor or scientist than of a nurse? Imagine that line coming from a man: it wouldn't make any sense. It was a gross, disorienting moment.
I wanted to enjoy your film. I really did. I had hoped that it would be fresh and funny, but there's nothing new or interesting in the same tired, ancient, sexist themes.
With love,
Frank Lee
Friday, February 1, 2013
Dear Tide
Dear Tide,
Here's some of the dialogue from your new commercial:
"I was pissed off and resentful because he was ogling other women in front of me in ludicrous, obvious, cartoonish fashion" is a little bit different.
You're openly rewriting one scenario (a woman's angry response to a man's wanton rudeness) into another (an irrational, hysterical woman's overreaction to her own insecure impulses, with the man's behavior a complete non-issue) to make the scene more misogynist.
Here's what your commercial says to me: women are so petty and so nasty that the very presence of another woman will throw her into a violent rage. The man, meanwhile, is completely innocent and has nothing to do with anything. Sure, maybe he took a little look, but what do you expect? He's gotta keep his options open, am I right?
Do I recommend throwing salsa on people? No.
Do I recommend using Tide Stain Savers? No, not if they're being marketed like this.
Please reconsider your marketing strategy, and I'll reconsider my laundry needs.
With love,
Frank Lee
Here's some of the dialogue from your new commercial:
Woman: It was our first date and he took me to a restaurant and there was this waitress there and I got very jealous because she was pretty so I threw salsa on him.Here's what we see actually happening onscreen:
Man and woman seated at a restaurant table beside a nondescript wall. Waitress walks past without acknowledging their presence. The man watches waitress to the point of turning around in his seat so that he can track her as she continues past them."I got very jealous because she was pretty" means that this woman is so insecure that the mere existence of an attractive woman in the vicinity drives her to violence.
"I was pissed off and resentful because he was ogling other women in front of me in ludicrous, obvious, cartoonish fashion" is a little bit different.
You're openly rewriting one scenario (a woman's angry response to a man's wanton rudeness) into another (an irrational, hysterical woman's overreaction to her own insecure impulses, with the man's behavior a complete non-issue) to make the scene more misogynist.
Here's what your commercial says to me: women are so petty and so nasty that the very presence of another woman will throw her into a violent rage. The man, meanwhile, is completely innocent and has nothing to do with anything. Sure, maybe he took a little look, but what do you expect? He's gotta keep his options open, am I right?
Do I recommend throwing salsa on people? No.
Do I recommend using Tide Stain Savers? No, not if they're being marketed like this.
Please reconsider your marketing strategy, and I'll reconsider my laundry needs.
With love,
Frank Lee
Monday, January 21, 2013
Dear Blizzard
Misogynist slur ahead, "joking" reference to sexual assault.
Dear Blizzard,
It's been a lovely day on the WOW forums.
Someone started a thread called, "Phrases/Quotes that you really like."
Guess what the very first reply was?
You throw in these lines for reasons of your own, but your playerbase has a ball with them for reasons of its own. A misogynist playerbase finds a line like that in-game and is thrilled. You've just given them license to call Sylvanas a bitch. The thinking may go something like this: Sure, maybe Garrosh is crude, but he's right, isn't he? She really is a bitch. It must be okay to call women bitches, right? You know, if they deserve it. Now it's up to the player to decide what kind of behavior warrants the term "bitch." You may or may not be surprised by where each player draws the line.
As for ooking people in the dooker, ha ha ha. Threats of sexual assault are hilarious. Rape jokes are hilarious. Obviously, it's perfectly cool that you no longer censor the word "rape" on the forums, because we're certainly all mature enough to handle sexual assault responsibly.
Some players brought up good lines in that thread. Funny stuff, dramatic stuff, some moments your writers are probably very proud of.
Wouldn't you rather players look back and reminisce over "I am the lucid dream" and Medivh's farewell from WC3, than, "Watch your clever mouth, bitch?"
I hope that you would.
With love,
Frank Lee
Dear Blizzard,
It's been a lovely day on the WOW forums.
Someone started a thread called, "Phrases/Quotes that you really like."
Guess what the very first reply was?
"I'm gonna ook you in the dooker!"Guess what also made the first page?
''Watch your clever mouth, !@#$%.'' - Garrosh HellscreamWho's Garrosh, again? Oh, right, the Warchief of the Horde. He wasn't the warchief when he called Sylvanas a bitch, but I guess that's the kind of misogyny Thrall was looking for when he had to decide whom to promote.
You throw in these lines for reasons of your own, but your playerbase has a ball with them for reasons of its own. A misogynist playerbase finds a line like that in-game and is thrilled. You've just given them license to call Sylvanas a bitch. The thinking may go something like this: Sure, maybe Garrosh is crude, but he's right, isn't he? She really is a bitch. It must be okay to call women bitches, right? You know, if they deserve it. Now it's up to the player to decide what kind of behavior warrants the term "bitch." You may or may not be surprised by where each player draws the line.
As for ooking people in the dooker, ha ha ha. Threats of sexual assault are hilarious. Rape jokes are hilarious. Obviously, it's perfectly cool that you no longer censor the word "rape" on the forums, because we're certainly all mature enough to handle sexual assault responsibly.
Some players brought up good lines in that thread. Funny stuff, dramatic stuff, some moments your writers are probably very proud of.
Wouldn't you rather players look back and reminisce over "I am the lucid dream" and Medivh's farewell from WC3, than, "Watch your clever mouth, bitch?"
I hope that you would.
With love,
Frank Lee
Friday, December 21, 2012
Dear Good Men Project
Dear Good Men Project,
I'd never heard of you before Jill at Feministe mentioned you in a series of blog posts I linked to here. Reading those posts and hearing other people's experiences with you in comments, I came up with a cloudy but troubling idea of who you are and what you're about.
Suddenly, it became much more clear.
Jill posted a link to a Twitter conversation involving one of your people, Tom Matlack. She called him your "head honcho," and I see that he's named on Wikipedia as your founder.
Here's what he says in the middle of that Twitter conversation:
I don't think that you can get very far in a progressive conversation without examining your privilege. I don't think that a feminist man who doesn't understand what privilege is can actually be feminist.
If you haven't examined your privilege, if you haven't put forth some effort to cast a critical eye over the patriarchy and notice how you benefit from it, then you don't genuinely understand the deeply entrenched systems of oppression operating in this culture. If you don't understand how men benefit from sexism, or how white people benefit from racism, etc., you don't understand the patriarchy. Flailing around in social justice or gender studies circles without understanding the basics of the conversation generally means that you're hindering more than you're helping.
Someone who doesn't understand what "privilege" means in this context can't participate in the conversation in any meaningful, productive way.
He absolutely cannot lead the conversation.
Yet Tom Matlack is your founder.
As far as I can tell, he's male, white, and currently quite wealthy. I don't know him very well, but let's say for the sake of argument that he grew up cis and straight. As a man, he benefits from sexism. As a white person, he benefits from racism. As a cis person, he benefits from transphobia. As a straight person, he benefits from homophobia. And when a feminist in a conversation on gender says the word "privilege," his immediate response is: I grew up poor. I wasn't wealthy. As if the advantage of wealth is the only advantage of importance. As if the economic class we're born into is the only privilege of relevance.
He has no idea, then, how being white has helped him in life. How being a man has been a benefit. How being cis and/or being straight is an advantage in a transphobic, homophobic society. (That's not even to get into TAB privilege, thin privilege, and the rest.)
If you don't understand privilege, you don't understand oppression. If you don't understand the kyriarchy, you don't understand what progressives are fighting for, or why. How can you ask what it is to be a good man if you don't understand what being a man means in the patriarchy? How far can that conversation among men progress if you don't begin with a fundamental understanding of your own shared privilege?
It's a truth that the patriarchy hurts men, too. Yet a man who doesn't realize that he benefits from the patriarchy by virtue of his very maleness is ignorant and needs to approach gender studies from the very beginning. A man who doesn't know how he benefits from sexism doesn't know what sexism is.
Your founder isn't at the "What does it mean to be a good man?" portion of the conversation. He's at the "What does it mean to be a man?" portion.
What sorts of men is the Good Men Project for? How can you invite all kinds of men to the conversation if you don't understand the dynamics of oppression? If Tom Matlack doesn't understand his own white privilege, how does he include men of color? How does he reach out to them to share their experiences and discuss their issues if he doesn't understand racism?
Let's go back to the tweet I quoted above. During Tom Matlack's conversation with other feminists, he said something which drew Sarah J. Jackson (@sjjphd) into the discussion. It does not thrill me to notice that while the other ongoing conversations overlap, his conversation with Sarah J. Jackson involves no one else. I wish that she didn't have to go it alone, that others had spoken up with her as they supported each other.
For context, she's a woman of color who describes herself on Twitter as an "Asst. Prof. Researching & Teaching about Media Narratives of Race, Gender & Political Protest." Here's the comment she replied to and their ensuing conversation.
She shouldn't have to work this hard to communicate with someone who considers himself a feminist ("@jennpozner I didn't take it personally. I consider myself a feminist. But apparently that word has many meanings.") and a tireless worker on issues of racism. He should be her ally. She starts off with "please" and spends the entire conversation offering him cookies. She points out, for the record, that she's a person of color who studies race. She explains all of her points in a way that anyone who's written about race should easily grasp. Yet he doesn't seem to hear a word she says. He has his "own views," and he clings to them until he exhausts her and she gives up.
He doesn't know what privilege is, and he doesn't seem to care. When a member of a marginalized population asks him to reconsider his analogies, he defends himself and argues back without seeming to accept anything she says. Not once does he agree with any of her points. Instead, he implies that he's doing the real work while she's not ("the real stuff not judgment" in a conversation where he clearly feels judged), he directs her twice to read his work (when she's already praised his project), he calls her comments "demeaning," and he says, literally, "You have no idea what you are talking about."
He doesn't know the basics of gender studies. He doesn't know the basics of racism. He doesn't know what "privilege" is (either the word itself or the general concept). He doesn't respond well to criticism.
How can the Good Men Project progress when the man at the top thinks that he knows it all already and isn't open to learning?
As I said earlier, if you want talk about what it means to be a good man, you need to start by talking about what it means to be a man. Part of being a man in a patriarchy means benefiting from sexism. Understanding how you benefit from sexism means understanding privilege. You have to start somewhere; try these two posts by Liss at Shakesville.
A final tweet from Tom Matlack:
With love,
Frank Lee
I'd never heard of you before Jill at Feministe mentioned you in a series of blog posts I linked to here. Reading those posts and hearing other people's experiences with you in comments, I came up with a cloudy but troubling idea of who you are and what you're about.
Suddenly, it became much more clear.
Jill posted a link to a Twitter conversation involving one of your people, Tom Matlack. She called him your "head honcho," and I see that he's named on Wikipedia as your founder.
Here's what he says in the middle of that Twitter conversation:
@sjjphd my privilege? I grew up with nothing. My parents didn't have enough money. You have no idea what you are talking about.He's speaking with feminists in a conversation relevant to gender studies, and he doesn't understand what the word "privilege" means in that context.
I don't think that you can get very far in a progressive conversation without examining your privilege. I don't think that a feminist man who doesn't understand what privilege is can actually be feminist.
If you haven't examined your privilege, if you haven't put forth some effort to cast a critical eye over the patriarchy and notice how you benefit from it, then you don't genuinely understand the deeply entrenched systems of oppression operating in this culture. If you don't understand how men benefit from sexism, or how white people benefit from racism, etc., you don't understand the patriarchy. Flailing around in social justice or gender studies circles without understanding the basics of the conversation generally means that you're hindering more than you're helping.
Someone who doesn't understand what "privilege" means in this context can't participate in the conversation in any meaningful, productive way.
He absolutely cannot lead the conversation.
Yet Tom Matlack is your founder.
As far as I can tell, he's male, white, and currently quite wealthy. I don't know him very well, but let's say for the sake of argument that he grew up cis and straight. As a man, he benefits from sexism. As a white person, he benefits from racism. As a cis person, he benefits from transphobia. As a straight person, he benefits from homophobia. And when a feminist in a conversation on gender says the word "privilege," his immediate response is: I grew up poor. I wasn't wealthy. As if the advantage of wealth is the only advantage of importance. As if the economic class we're born into is the only privilege of relevance.
He has no idea, then, how being white has helped him in life. How being a man has been a benefit. How being cis and/or being straight is an advantage in a transphobic, homophobic society. (That's not even to get into TAB privilege, thin privilege, and the rest.)
If you don't understand privilege, you don't understand oppression. If you don't understand the kyriarchy, you don't understand what progressives are fighting for, or why. How can you ask what it is to be a good man if you don't understand what being a man means in the patriarchy? How far can that conversation among men progress if you don't begin with a fundamental understanding of your own shared privilege?
It's a truth that the patriarchy hurts men, too. Yet a man who doesn't realize that he benefits from the patriarchy by virtue of his very maleness is ignorant and needs to approach gender studies from the very beginning. A man who doesn't know how he benefits from sexism doesn't know what sexism is.
Your founder isn't at the "What does it mean to be a good man?" portion of the conversation. He's at the "What does it mean to be a man?" portion.
What sorts of men is the Good Men Project for? How can you invite all kinds of men to the conversation if you don't understand the dynamics of oppression? If Tom Matlack doesn't understand his own white privilege, how does he include men of color? How does he reach out to them to share their experiences and discuss their issues if he doesn't understand racism?
Let's go back to the tweet I quoted above. During Tom Matlack's conversation with other feminists, he said something which drew Sarah J. Jackson (@sjjphd) into the discussion. It does not thrill me to notice that while the other ongoing conversations overlap, his conversation with Sarah J. Jackson involves no one else. I wish that she didn't have to go it alone, that others had spoken up with her as they supported each other.
For context, she's a woman of color who describes herself on Twitter as an "Asst. Prof. Researching & Teaching about Media Narratives of Race, Gender & Political Protest." Here's the comment she replied to and their ensuing conversation.
@hugoschwyzer do you assume all black people are felons since they commit more crimes on average than white people? http://t.co/nhVHnbfv
TMatlack 15/Dec/2011 08:20:33 AM PST
@TMatlack This analogy is SO spurious. Please don't use it tom argue ur point if u want POC to have any part in what ur doing. @hugoschwyzer
sjjphd 15/Dec/2011 09:36:51 AM PST
@sjjphd @hugoschwyzer groups aren't guilty. Individuals are.
TMatlack 15/Dec/2011 10:13:18 AM PST
@TMatlack men=historically privileged, POC=historically oppressed. Comparing stereotypes 2 make point=inaccurate, unproductive, & ingnorant.
sjjphd 15/Dec/2011 10:22:56 AM PST
@TMatlack It's cool 2 get caught up in a heated debate but using false racial hyperbole in it? Your privilege is showing & I know ur better.
sjjphd 15/Dec/2011 10:25:04 AM PST
@TMatlack And that's with all due respect to the arc of what you're doing at GMP. Sensational & spurious discourse helps nothing.
sjjphd 15/Dec/2011 10:26:56 AM PST
@sjjphd calling all men rapists or all POC criminals equally sexist/racist IMO. I am a white man. Does that make me guilty ?
TMatlack 15/Dec/2011 10:27:36 AM PST
@TMatlack It is NOT equal because -isms have 2 do w/ the structural power grps historically & contemporarily have over others.
sjjphd 15/Dec/2011 10:30:16 AM PST
@sjjphd my privilege? I grew up with nothing. My parents didn't have enough money. You have no idea what you are talking about.
TMatlack 15/Dec/2011 10:32:50 AM PST
@TMatlack Last time I checked men weren't continuously structurally disenfranchised. You're def guilty of is a lack of racial sensitivity.
sjjphd 15/Dec/2011 10:33:13 AM PST
@TMatlack I was talking about white privilege Tom, it exists and even poor white people can experience it.
sjjphd 15/Dec/2011 10:34:17 AM PST
@sjjphd btw if you actually look at my writing I have been the taking most on GMP about race and sex tracking, the real stuff not judgement
TMatlack 15/Dec/2011 10:35:07 AM PST
@TMatlack As a POC who wants 2 support what ur doing at GMP I was simply requesting u not use racially insensitive language to make a point.
sjjphd 15/Dec/2011 10:36:10 AM PST
@sjjphd read my work on race, prison etc before you go calling me racist please.
TMatlack 15/Dec/2011 10:37:08 AM PST
@TMatlack I know! Which is why I was suprised u made the comparison u did. I know u know better. Why the defensiveness?
sjjphd 15/Dec/2011 10:37:33 AM PST
@TMatlack HOLY SHIT I DID NOT CALL YOU A RACIST. I said the racial comparison is spurious, which it is. Your defensiveness is shocking me.
sjjphd 15/Dec/2011 10:39:06 AM PST
@TMatlack & it is possible 4 ppl not 2 be racist & still be capable of saying less than accurate/sensitive things re race. #thoughtyoudcare
sjjphd 15/Dec/2011 10:43:44 AM PST
@sjjphd I was being sensitive to the many black men in prison who feel they were a victim of racism.
TMatlack 15/Dec/2011 10:47:52 AM PST
@TMatlack Um? That's not how it came across. It seemed u were comparing black oppression 2 stereotyping of men. Not the same but #Igiveup
sjjphd 15/Dec/2011 10:50:49 AM PST
@TMatlack 4 the record I greatly respect what u do. Sad u can't hear from a POC & some1 who studies race that ur comparison was problematic.
sjjphd 15/Dec/2011 10:53:58 AM PST
@sjjphd I don't believe I ever criticized *you*. You tried to educate me on race/gender which I find demeaning since I have my own views.
TMatlack 15/Dec/2011 10:58:29 AM PST
@TMatlack U find fact men aren't oppressed grp & black ppl are, & my trying 2 alert u in good conscience abt prob w/ comparison demeaning?
sjjphd 15/Dec/2011 11:42:43 AM PST
@TMatlack #Icantanymore but hope ppl read ur friend Steve's & my pieces on having convos abt race: http://t.co/1h7Pxyci http://t.co/Q2q87X5GThe entire back-and-forth echoes countless conversations playing out all across the sphere of feminism and social justice. She points out that his language is harmful to a marginalized population. She takes pains to compliment him, to soften her critique, to make it a point to acknowledge his efforts. He replies with ignorant statements. She tries to educate him and explain what she means (all knowledge he should already have). He doesn't thank her, doesn't agree with her, but instead explains that he's already got all of this stuff down pat and has been doing the real work on these issues all along ("the real stuff not judgement"). He plays the "I'm not racist" game. He continues to insist that he's done nothing wrong, that he's entirely in the right, and that he can't be educated. She continues to try to explain while still offering compliments. He refuses to listen ("I have my own views"). She gets tired. He stops responding. She gives up.
sjjphd 15/Dec/2011 11:44:27 AM PST
She shouldn't have to work this hard to communicate with someone who considers himself a feminist ("@jennpozner I didn't take it personally. I consider myself a feminist. But apparently that word has many meanings.") and a tireless worker on issues of racism. He should be her ally. She starts off with "please" and spends the entire conversation offering him cookies. She points out, for the record, that she's a person of color who studies race. She explains all of her points in a way that anyone who's written about race should easily grasp. Yet he doesn't seem to hear a word she says. He has his "own views," and he clings to them until he exhausts her and she gives up.
He doesn't know what privilege is, and he doesn't seem to care. When a member of a marginalized population asks him to reconsider his analogies, he defends himself and argues back without seeming to accept anything she says. Not once does he agree with any of her points. Instead, he implies that he's doing the real work while she's not ("the real stuff not judgment" in a conversation where he clearly feels judged), he directs her twice to read his work (when she's already praised his project), he calls her comments "demeaning," and he says, literally, "You have no idea what you are talking about."
He doesn't know the basics of gender studies. He doesn't know the basics of racism. He doesn't know what "privilege" is (either the word itself or the general concept). He doesn't respond well to criticism.
How can the Good Men Project progress when the man at the top thinks that he knows it all already and isn't open to learning?
As I said earlier, if you want talk about what it means to be a good man, you need to start by talking about what it means to be a man. Part of being a man in a patriarchy means benefiting from sexism. Understanding how you benefit from sexism means understanding privilege. You have to start somewhere; try these two posts by Liss at Shakesville.
A final tweet from Tom Matlack:
it's the good "mens" project. women are welcome but the point is to inspire men to be good.Like many others, I would be very happy to have more good men around. Most of us would be glad to help. Many of us have been trying to help. And when we try, bringing our experience and expertise and years of study to the table, we're told things like, "You have no idea what you're talking about." Is that really what a "good man" would say?
With love,
Frank Lee
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Dear Doritos
Some Crash entries are so unique they deserve extra kudos. We received many whacky (sic) themes from this year's entries, now help decide which of these odd and oddly spirited ads made by you deserve a Nacho Average Ad Award.Dear Doritos,
-Doritos "Crash the Superbowl" ad-making contest
I was over at Shakesville today and learned that you're hosting a contest! What fun. It's great to see you encouraging people to be creative. I'm sure that your "Nacho Average Ad Awards" have received a lot of terrific submissions.
The spirit of the contest seems to be to have some zany, outside-of-the-box fun, with awards for "Best Glass Shatterer" and "Sweetest 'Stache." Funky and non-traditional!
Oh, and an award for "Best Supporting Babe."
How very, very traditional.
By "babe," I assume you mean "sexy young woman," since the accompanying image is of a pin-up mudflap sort of shape and there's a separate category for actual babies under "Best Pint-Sized Performer."
You only list eight categories of awards, yet you had to make room for misogyny. You could have made the eighth category something like "Best Stunt" or "Most Creative Product Shot." You could have pushed the "wacky" vibe and gone for "Best Use of a Shoe" or "Best Gratuitous Lip-Smacking." But you went for "Best Semi-Important Hottie."
The most important, interesting role for women, then, is to be sexy.
Men seem to be the default here. There are awards for pets and infants and "babes," but no role for best dude, best bro, best supporting guy.
The babe is a "supporting" babe, of course. No main roles for babes here! Don't take up too much camera time! The pets, the infants, they might be the star of the show, but we don't want the women to think that they're important, or anything.
What a great award. Of all of the women who strive to meet the patriarchy's current beauty standard and were shown in Doritos ads but kept largely on the sidelines so they wouldn't get uppity, you were the best. You were the best!
Sexism. Misogyny. Women as secondary, as support. Women as eye candy. This is not "unique" or "wacky" or "odd." This is traditional and old and tired. We've seen it before, trust us.
With love,
Frank Lee
Friday, November 30, 2012
Dear Chris Brown
This post contains discussion of misogyny, sexual violence, sexual humiliation, and death threats.
Dear Chris Brown,
Here's something a fan of yours said recently:
No. See, you're a felon. In a court of law, you were deemed guilty of committing a felony. It wasn't a civil case, Rihanna v. Chris Brown. It was People v. Christopher Brown. The people of the state of California are the ones legally involved here, but since California is a state in the larger country, I think that the entire nation has some interest in the situation.
You didn't break Rihanna's laws. You broke California's laws.
It's okay for Californians to be upset with you. They follow those laws. They vote people into office to write those laws. They pay taxes to fund the upholding and enforcing of those laws. The rest of the country has a vested interest in how every state's justice system works. You committed a felony. It's normal and reasonable for people to be unhappy with you over it.
It's not as simple as you having a fight with your girlfriend. It's more serious than that, and we're treating it as such.
Is Rihanna mad? I have no idea how she feels about it, and it's really none of my business anyway. Are the people of the state of California and the larger United States of America mad? Well, they certainly have every right and reason to be.
Let's move on to the specific incident to which the tweets above relate. Here's the conversation as I see it:
Apparently Jenny Johnson is a professional comedian. She's tweeted you before, but this is the first time that you've responded.
I expect that by now, you've realized that although you'd like to put your felonious behavior behind you, some people insist on bringing it up and acting as though it's relevant. (It is.) I imagine that sometimes you get frustrated at their comments, reminders, and digs. How you respond when you become angry, and particularly how you respond to women when you become angry, is very relevant to the actual felony you committed. Abuse and domestic violence are part of larger patterns of behavior. While you'd like us to think that your violence with Rihanna was an isolated incident, that's simply not how human psychology works.
So, instead of following these handy steps or perhaps reporting harassment to Twitter, when someone called you a "worthless piece of shit," you replied with nasty sexual aggression and misogyny.
Here are the insults she threw at you:
Do you see the theme of woman-hating sexual violence here?
When a woman angers you, you use specifically misogynistic slurs. You try to put her in her place by describing her servicing you sexually. You try to shame and humiliate her by talking about voiding your bowels in her face. Your replies hammer home the message: Your gender is all that matters. You're a woman, therefore I'll use you for my sexual fulfillment. I'll humiliate and degrade you while you pleasure me. You're a whore and a bitch. It's an outpouring of sexualized misogyny.
You said all of this knowing that you were in a public place. Knowing that your words were easily recorded and spread. Knowing that your fans were avidly listening.
You claim that you weren't upset. No? If this is you merely being entertaining, how do you respond to people when you're really angry?
The public has a vested interest in monitoring your behavior. Society needs to know that your abusive violence is in the past. The way you replied to Jenny Johnson tells me that you need help.
Please. Get some help.
With love,
Frank Lee
P.S. To the media outlets asking which side we're on, this is not an issue of, "Ooohhh, mint or strawberry, which one do you prefer?" This is an issue of someone insulting a celebrated felon and pointing out his criminal past, and being replied to with sexualized misogyny (from Chris Brown) and death threats (from his fans). Am I on the side of "truth and insults" or "misogyny and death threats?" That's the question you're asking? Please take a long, hard look at yourself and shape up.
P.P.S. Team Breezy, I am trying my best not to get into it with you, but death threats go way too far. Threats of any kind go way too far. Please learn to express your anger more maturely, instead of jumping into threats of death and sexual violence. Maybe your idol will learn something from you.
Dear Chris Brown,
Here's something a fan of yours said recently:
Rihanna forgave him, they made up if they can get over it so can everyone else who it does NOT concern!!!!!!!!Here's something similar from you:
"Just ask Rihanna if she mad??????"This idea appears to be popular among you and your fans. It seems as if you and Team Breezy want to believe that the problem, if one exists, is between two people: Chris Brown and Rihanna. Therefore, the argument seems to go, if Chris Brown and Rihanna say there's no problem, there's no problem, and everyone else should stay out of it.
No. See, you're a felon. In a court of law, you were deemed guilty of committing a felony. It wasn't a civil case, Rihanna v. Chris Brown. It was People v. Christopher Brown. The people of the state of California are the ones legally involved here, but since California is a state in the larger country, I think that the entire nation has some interest in the situation.
You didn't break Rihanna's laws. You broke California's laws.
It's okay for Californians to be upset with you. They follow those laws. They vote people into office to write those laws. They pay taxes to fund the upholding and enforcing of those laws. The rest of the country has a vested interest in how every state's justice system works. You committed a felony. It's normal and reasonable for people to be unhappy with you over it.
It's not as simple as you having a fight with your girlfriend. It's more serious than that, and we're treating it as such.
Is Rihanna mad? I have no idea how she feels about it, and it's really none of my business anyway. Are the people of the state of California and the larger United States of America mad? Well, they certainly have every right and reason to be.
Let's move on to the specific incident to which the tweets above relate. Here's the conversation as I see it:
Chris Brown: I look old as fuck! I'm only 23...
Jenny Johnson: I know! Being a worthless piece of shit can really age a person.
Chris Brown: take them teeth out when u Sucking my dick HOE.
Jenny Johnson: It's "HO" not "HOE" you ignorant fuck.
Chris Brown: I should fart while ur giving me top. "Seize the day" #CarpeDiem
Jenny Johnson: Your mom must be so proud of you.
Chris Brown: see.. I don't even have to tell u what u already know. Thanks HO! #bushpig
Jenny Johnson: [link to this article] #SuckIt
Chris Brown: mom says hello... She told me not to shart in ur mouth, wanted me to shit right on the retina, ....#pinkeye
Jenny Johnson: YOU FLIRT!!!
Chris Brown: Let me leave this bitch alone... It's good to know my worth by listening to a bitch that is worthless! #iwin #bushpigswag
Jenny Johnson: Okay. I'm done. All I got from that exchange with Chris Brown is that he wants to shit and fart on me.
Chris Brown: Further proved my point of how immature society is. #CarpeDiem
Chris Brown: To teambreezy... Know that I'm not upset. Just felt like entertaining the ignorance. These bitches crazy..
Chris Brown: Back to life...
Jenny Johnson: I have zero respect for a person who seems unapologetic for the terrible crime he committed and shows no signs of changing.
Chris Brown: Just ask Rihanna if she mad??????I hardly know where to begin.
Apparently Jenny Johnson is a professional comedian. She's tweeted you before, but this is the first time that you've responded.
I expect that by now, you've realized that although you'd like to put your felonious behavior behind you, some people insist on bringing it up and acting as though it's relevant. (It is.) I imagine that sometimes you get frustrated at their comments, reminders, and digs. How you respond when you become angry, and particularly how you respond to women when you become angry, is very relevant to the actual felony you committed. Abuse and domestic violence are part of larger patterns of behavior. While you'd like us to think that your violence with Rihanna was an isolated incident, that's simply not how human psychology works.
So, instead of following these handy steps or perhaps reporting harassment to Twitter, when someone called you a "worthless piece of shit," you replied with nasty sexual aggression and misogyny.
Here are the insults she threw at you:
worthless piece of shitYou replied by talking about her sucking your dick, talking about her being toothless/removing her teeth in order to service you sexually, talking about her sucking your dick again, talking about shitting in her mouth, talking about shitting on her eye, calling her worthless, calling her immature, calling her ignorant, calling her a whore twice, and calling her a bitch three times.
ignorant fuck
Your mom must be so proud of you.
Do you see the theme of woman-hating sexual violence here?
When a woman angers you, you use specifically misogynistic slurs. You try to put her in her place by describing her servicing you sexually. You try to shame and humiliate her by talking about voiding your bowels in her face. Your replies hammer home the message: Your gender is all that matters. You're a woman, therefore I'll use you for my sexual fulfillment. I'll humiliate and degrade you while you pleasure me. You're a whore and a bitch. It's an outpouring of sexualized misogyny.
You said all of this knowing that you were in a public place. Knowing that your words were easily recorded and spread. Knowing that your fans were avidly listening.
You claim that you weren't upset. No? If this is you merely being entertaining, how do you respond to people when you're really angry?
The public has a vested interest in monitoring your behavior. Society needs to know that your abusive violence is in the past. The way you replied to Jenny Johnson tells me that you need help.
Please. Get some help.
With love,
Frank Lee
P.S. To the media outlets asking which side we're on, this is not an issue of, "Ooohhh, mint or strawberry, which one do you prefer?" This is an issue of someone insulting a celebrated felon and pointing out his criminal past, and being replied to with sexualized misogyny (from Chris Brown) and death threats (from his fans). Am I on the side of "truth and insults" or "misogyny and death threats?" That's the question you're asking? Please take a long, hard look at yourself and shape up.
P.P.S. Team Breezy, I am trying my best not to get into it with you, but death threats go way too far. Threats of any kind go way too far. Please learn to express your anger more maturely, instead of jumping into threats of death and sexual violence. Maybe your idol will learn something from you.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Dear Cameron Diaz
"I think every woman does want to be objectified. There's a little part of you at all times that hopes to be somewhat objectified, and I think it's healthy."Dear Cameron Diaz,
-Cameron Diaz
Let's jump right into this.
I think every woman does want to be objectified.It's nice of you to begin with "I think," as if you're merely stating a humble opinion. However, following it up with such a blanket statement encompassing "every woman" was a mistake. You do not get to announce that the desire to be objectified is some universal experience which all women share.
There's a little part of you at all times that hopes to be somewhat objectifiedYou keep backing away (just a little part of you, just somewhat) and then going full tilt ("at all times," as if this is a constant, eternal, never-ending state). At all times? Women wish to be objectified while at work, while driving, while walking the dog, while shopping for new tires, while brushing their teeth, while cutting onions, while on the toilet. AT ALL TIMES. IT MUST HAPPEN UNCEASINGLY.
I think it's healthyI don't. You know what I think? I think that it makes women sound needy. Also shallow, vain, desperate for validation and approval, and so on. Is that how you want people to think of you? Is that how you think of women? Is that a natural, healthy state you genuinely believe every woman enjoys?
Here's what you didn't say:
I think that most women enjoy feeling attractive.
I think that many women appreciate getting some flirtatious sexual attention and sincere compliments, and I think that's normal.Here's what you communicated to me:
The patriarchy has taught me to work to attract, and place value upon, the male gaze. Instead of questioning that, I accept it wholeheartedly as a healthy feature of my womanhood.
I think very little of myself and/or very little of other women.
I don't know what "objectified" actually means.
I, like all women, want to be treated like an object, not like a full human being. That's healthy. It would be unhealthy to hope to be treated like a human being at all times, the way that men do.If you enjoy feeling attractive, good for you! If you enjoy the flattery and compliments you receive from your friends and partners, great! If you'd rather be viewed as an object, lacking in autonomy, not a person with your own ideas and personality and desires but a mere thing to be used and owned, you might want to consider why that is. And you also might want to stop assuming that all other women feel just the same way.
A lot of women fight hard to be viewed as people, as not less-than. When you say things like that, you make their work that much more difficult.
With love,
Frank Lee
Friday, August 24, 2012
Dear Maybelline
Dear Maybelline,
I just saw a commercial for Baby Lips.
I do not like your product's name.
I'm sure that the product itself is good. The name and the gender-specific marketing, however, sent my thoughts spinning down a familiar road.
Baby Lips. Marketed towards women and girls.
Let's start with the gender essentialism of marketing a body-neutral product towards only half of the population. Only women age? Only women get dehydrated?
Oh, I get it! Only women need to worry about aging! Only women need to worry about staying moist! Men, you see, get to be "ruggedly" handsome while women need to slather moisturizers and anti-aging products all over their faces (and necks and hands and so on) lest anyone consider them not youthfully dewy.
A woman's lips must be baby soft. As if they haven't changed since infancy. As if they haven't aged. As if they haven't gone through the natural maturation process. A woman should look young and innocent and immature as long as possible.
Are you literally infantilizing women?
There's pressure on women to conform to a lot of ideals and stereotypes, some of them contradictory. One of them is that women must be youthful and vulnerable and innocent, requiring men to protect them from the harshness of life. You know how women are, with their wide, innocent eyes and their girlish figures and their bell-like peals of happy laughter ringing with the sweet joy of children at play.
The narratives around women and girls and babies, the narratives warning women that aging is bad for them and maturity is suspect, the narratives that men are interesting and important and attractive over a wide number of decades but women need to cling to youth at all costs, are legion. You know them very well. You're playing into them and promoting them and profiting off of them.
The next time I need lip balm, I'll skip the Maybelline displays and buy something that doesn't tell women to be ashamed to be affected by the passing of time.
I hope that your next product comes with less gender essentialism and fewer hateful messages.
With love,
Frank Lee
I just saw a commercial for Baby Lips.
I do not like your product's name.
I'm sure that the product itself is good. The name and the gender-specific marketing, however, sent my thoughts spinning down a familiar road.
Baby Lips. Marketed towards women and girls.
Let's start with the gender essentialism of marketing a body-neutral product towards only half of the population. Only women age? Only women get dehydrated?
Oh, I get it! Only women need to worry about aging! Only women need to worry about staying moist! Men, you see, get to be "ruggedly" handsome while women need to slather moisturizers and anti-aging products all over their faces (and necks and hands and so on) lest anyone consider them not youthfully dewy.
A woman's lips must be baby soft. As if they haven't changed since infancy. As if they haven't aged. As if they haven't gone through the natural maturation process. A woman should look young and innocent and immature as long as possible.
Are you literally infantilizing women?
There's pressure on women to conform to a lot of ideals and stereotypes, some of them contradictory. One of them is that women must be youthful and vulnerable and innocent, requiring men to protect them from the harshness of life. You know how women are, with their wide, innocent eyes and their girlish figures and their bell-like peals of happy laughter ringing with the sweet joy of children at play.
The narratives around women and girls and babies, the narratives warning women that aging is bad for them and maturity is suspect, the narratives that men are interesting and important and attractive over a wide number of decades but women need to cling to youth at all costs, are legion. You know them very well. You're playing into them and promoting them and profiting off of them.
The next time I need lip balm, I'll skip the Maybelline displays and buy something that doesn't tell women to be ashamed to be affected by the passing of time.
I hope that your next product comes with less gender essentialism and fewer hateful messages.
With love,
Frank Lee
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Dear Todd Akin
Discussion of rape and rape culture to follow.
You don't seem to understand what's actually going on. I've been focusing on other angles of this issue because I assumed that everyone else was covering it aptly, but apparently you haven't been paying attention.
Let's take it back to what you actually said.
Although, if you understand that "legitimate" was wrong, and you understand why it was wrong, it seems contradictory for you to defend yourself with, "I haven’t done anything morally or ethically wrong." Separating out rape into "legitimate rape" and "forcible rape" and "rape-rape" and so on seems morally wrong to me. It's disgusting and morally repugnant to act as if "violent stranger rape" is real rape, and the other kinds are less-than-rape, kinda-sorta rape, not really rape. Calling certain kinds of rape "legitimate" as if the rest are not is doing something morally wrong.
But you say that you didn't mean to say "legitimate." Let's take you at your word. Here's what you apparently meant to say:
I don't know who those doctors were, but they're poorly educated and spreading dangerous misinformation. Pregnancy from rape is not "really rare." According to the American Journal of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, an estimated “32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year.” Consider that: 32,101. Each year. In one country. More significant than "really rare," I'd say.
Then we get to: "If it's rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."
If it's rape? If? If it's really rape. Because, you know, it might not be. It could be one of those "she cried rape" situations. One of those cases of morning-after regrets. She was asking for it, you know.
Women do not have unique powers of mind control. Women do not have "ways" to circumvent their bodies natural processes. A lot of physical functions are autonomic. Women can't make their hearts stop pumping or make their stomachs stop digesting, so why would you think that they'd be able to stop their reproductive organs from working?
This, of course, is where the patriarchy steps in to remind us that women's reproductive systems are very mysterious and sort of magical and can't ever really be understood by men. Women are, of course, basically incomprehensible. The answer to my last question was "misogyny."
It is true that in certain situations, some women's bodies may respond to great stress by miscarrying. That is true of some women in some situations. Just as "salad and jogging" doesn't equate to "lose 5 pounds a week" like some magical formula, "rape and stress" doesn't equate to "miscarriage" or "infertility." Everyone's body is different. Everyone's body reacts differently. All women are not the same. A lot of women have hearty bodies and smoothly functioning organs which will go on merrily about their business no matter how much distress the woman has been through. You can be in a car accident and continue to digest. You can be shot and still continue to breathe. You can be raped and still become pregnant.
In that one sentence, you basically said, "I'm incredibly ill-informed, I'm either lying or I have no ability to discern reputable sources from uneducated fools, I don't understand women, I know little to nothing about women's experiences, I support and promote rape culture, I think that women lie, and I need to educate myself immediately on human biology." In other words, "I'm a mendacious, incompetent asshole and I hate women."
If that's not what you meant, you have some work to do.
But you didn't stop there! The fun just kept flowing:
When someone is pregnant, "there should be some punishment." That's what you said. The magical rape-infertility process failed, the way magical processes sometimes do, and now the rape victim is pregnant. "There should be some punishment," is your response.
Are you advocating for jail time for rape, and extra jail time for rape plus impregnation? Is this a new bill you're working on? Maybe jail time plus expenses for mental health and abortion costs and, oh, no, that can't be it. You think that abortion should be illegal. Period. Across the board. For everyone, at all times.
Now it's time for you to hop on over and read what I wrote to your pal Mike Huckabee about this. I'll wait.
Back? Okay!
Overall, in a few sentences, you said that sometimes rape isn't really rape. You lied about human biology in a way that turns at least 32,101 Americans a year into liars who weren't really raped. You declared that a legal and safe medical procedure should be made illegal because, uh, why? You turned a pregnancy into a living, independent, human child to make abortion look bad (and to make people who have abortions look bad). You want to force rape victims to endure nine months of pregnancy plus labor to bear a rapist's child at a time when they most need to be in control of their own bodies.
You have a lot of learning to do. Starting with what "morally or ethically wrong" means.
With love,
Frank Lee
“...I said one word and one sentence on one day, and everything changed,” Akin told Huckabee, an early supporter. “I haven’t done anything morally or ethically wrong. It does seem like a little bit of an overreaction.”Dear Todd Akin,
-Todd Akin
You don't seem to understand what's actually going on. I've been focusing on other angles of this issue because I assumed that everyone else was covering it aptly, but apparently you haven't been paying attention.
Let's take it back to what you actually said.
"First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare," Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."According to you, the "one word" you "misspoke" was "legitimate." I'm glad that you understand how wrong it was to say that. It was an incredibly hateful, policing thing to say, the sort of verbiage I'd expect from a promoter of rape culture, and it's good that you realize it was wrong.
Akin said that even in the worst-case scenario — when the supposed natural protections against unwanted pregnancy fail — abortion should still not be a legal option for the rape victim.
"Let's assume that maybe that didn't work, or something," Akin said. "I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child."
Although, if you understand that "legitimate" was wrong, and you understand why it was wrong, it seems contradictory for you to defend yourself with, "I haven’t done anything morally or ethically wrong." Separating out rape into "legitimate rape" and "forcible rape" and "rape-rape" and so on seems morally wrong to me. It's disgusting and morally repugnant to act as if "violent stranger rape" is real rape, and the other kinds are less-than-rape, kinda-sorta rape, not really rape. Calling certain kinds of rape "legitimate" as if the rest are not is doing something morally wrong.
But you say that you didn't mean to say "legitimate." Let's take you at your word. Here's what you apparently meant to say:
"First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare," Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. "If it's rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."Well, that's terrible.
Akin said that even in the worst-case scenario — when the supposed natural protections against unwanted pregnancy fail — abortion should still not be a legal option for the rape victim.
"Let's assume that maybe that didn't work, or something," Akin said. "I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child."
I don't know who those doctors were, but they're poorly educated and spreading dangerous misinformation. Pregnancy from rape is not "really rare." According to the American Journal of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, an estimated “32,101 pregnancies result from rape each year.” Consider that: 32,101. Each year. In one country. More significant than "really rare," I'd say.
Then we get to: "If it's rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."
If it's rape? If? If it's really rape. Because, you know, it might not be. It could be one of those "she cried rape" situations. One of those cases of morning-after regrets. She was asking for it, you know.
Women do not have unique powers of mind control. Women do not have "ways" to circumvent their bodies natural processes. A lot of physical functions are autonomic. Women can't make their hearts stop pumping or make their stomachs stop digesting, so why would you think that they'd be able to stop their reproductive organs from working?
This, of course, is where the patriarchy steps in to remind us that women's reproductive systems are very mysterious and sort of magical and can't ever really be understood by men. Women are, of course, basically incomprehensible. The answer to my last question was "misogyny."
It is true that in certain situations, some women's bodies may respond to great stress by miscarrying. That is true of some women in some situations. Just as "salad and jogging" doesn't equate to "lose 5 pounds a week" like some magical formula, "rape and stress" doesn't equate to "miscarriage" or "infertility." Everyone's body is different. Everyone's body reacts differently. All women are not the same. A lot of women have hearty bodies and smoothly functioning organs which will go on merrily about their business no matter how much distress the woman has been through. You can be in a car accident and continue to digest. You can be shot and still continue to breathe. You can be raped and still become pregnant.
In that one sentence, you basically said, "I'm incredibly ill-informed, I'm either lying or I have no ability to discern reputable sources from uneducated fools, I don't understand women, I know little to nothing about women's experiences, I support and promote rape culture, I think that women lie, and I need to educate myself immediately on human biology." In other words, "I'm a mendacious, incompetent asshole and I hate women."
If that's not what you meant, you have some work to do.
But you didn't stop there! The fun just kept flowing:
...abortion should still not be a legal option for the rape victim.As I said, you don't seem to understand human biology very well. To clarify, there is no child. "Attacking a child" brings to mind images of someone assaulting a five-year-old. When someone aborts a pregnancy, that's something that happens (pay attention here) while she's pregnant.
"Let's assume that maybe that didn't work, or something," Akin said. "I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child."
abort a pregnancy =/= attack a childWith the basics of the life cycle out of the way, let's look at the rest of this nonsense.
When someone is pregnant, "there should be some punishment." That's what you said. The magical rape-infertility process failed, the way magical processes sometimes do, and now the rape victim is pregnant. "There should be some punishment," is your response.
Are you advocating for jail time for rape, and extra jail time for rape plus impregnation? Is this a new bill you're working on? Maybe jail time plus expenses for mental health and abortion costs and, oh, no, that can't be it. You think that abortion should be illegal. Period. Across the board. For everyone, at all times.
Now it's time for you to hop on over and read what I wrote to your pal Mike Huckabee about this. I'll wait.
Back? Okay!
Overall, in a few sentences, you said that sometimes rape isn't really rape. You lied about human biology in a way that turns at least 32,101 Americans a year into liars who weren't really raped. You declared that a legal and safe medical procedure should be made illegal because, uh, why? You turned a pregnancy into a living, independent, human child to make abortion look bad (and to make people who have abortions look bad). You want to force rape victims to endure nine months of pregnancy plus labor to bear a rapist's child at a time when they most need to be in control of their own bodies.
You have a lot of learning to do. Starting with what "morally or ethically wrong" means.
With love,
Frank Lee
Dear Bic
Dear Bic,
I see that you've a "ball pen essentially for women!"
Essentially for women, you say. Essentially?
I suppose that it depends how you define "women." If you're going with "uterus-owners," maybe this pen doubles as a tampon? Is it a vaginal contraceptive device?
Maybe you're thinking of women as "those people who do feminine, girly things." Does the pen have ink at one end and mascara at the other? Lipstick! Is there lipstick involved?
Well, let's look at your pen's key benefits:
Maybe it's the modern design! You know how women are about design! That's like fashion, right?
I'm really not sure what it is about this pen that makes it a must-have for women while being completely irrelevant to everyone else in the world. Is the ink pink? The ink has to be pink, right?
Oh. The ink is either black or blue.
Those are awfully manly colors, don't you think?
I don't think that I'll be buying any more pens from you until you've gotten your act together. I'm looking at the pens on my desk, and they're not Bic. Do you know what their key benefits are? They're from companies who aren't promoting and profiting from gender essentialism!
Let me know if you ever do get that pen-tampon-vaginal contraceptive device thing worked out, though.
With love,
Frank Lee
I see that you've a "ball pen essentially for women!"
Essentially for women, you say. Essentially?
1 : of, relating to, or constituting essence : inherentIs this pen made with the essence of women? What have you put in that ink?
2Ah, your pen is indispensable to women! But not to anyone else? Only to women? Why would only women find this pen essential?
a : of the utmost importance : basic, indispensable, necessary <an essential requirement for admission to college>
I suppose that it depends how you define "women." If you're going with "uterus-owners," maybe this pen doubles as a tampon? Is it a vaginal contraceptive device?
Maybe you're thinking of women as "those people who do feminine, girly things." Does the pen have ink at one end and mascara at the other? Lipstick! Is there lipstick involved?
Well, let's look at your pen's key benefits:
Retractable ballpoint penUm. Those are sort of generic pen facts. What about this pen is specific to women? Is it the "fun comfort grip?" Maybe other pens are less fun, and fun pens are for women only? Or only women demand to be comfortable! So pampered!
Medium point: 1.00mm
Fun comfort grip
Modern design
Maybe it's the modern design! You know how women are about design! That's like fashion, right?
I'm really not sure what it is about this pen that makes it a must-have for women while being completely irrelevant to everyone else in the world. Is the ink pink? The ink has to be pink, right?
Oh. The ink is either black or blue.
Those are awfully manly colors, don't you think?
I don't think that I'll be buying any more pens from you until you've gotten your act together. I'm looking at the pens on my desk, and they're not Bic. Do you know what their key benefits are? They're from companies who aren't promoting and profiting from gender essentialism!
Let me know if you ever do get that pen-tampon-vaginal contraceptive device thing worked out, though.
With love,
Frank Lee
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Dear Blizzard
Dear Blizzard,
Congratulations on your new toys! I hope that they sell well.
I realize that this is only the initial launch and that more sets and figures will be released in the future. Even so, you may have overlooked a few things.
Like women.
In the 13 sets and 19 characters available, there are no women.
You're also missing a few of the races. You got most of the important ones in, like the default races (human and orc), the shiny new races (worgen and goblin) and so on. No gnomes yet, of course. (You and I are long overdue for a talk about gnomes.)
Maybe I'm not being fair, but it's easy to draw a parallel. You got the default in, right? You got the important one: men. Women are, you know, the extra, the add-on, the one you'll get to later. You'll get around to adding them in eventually. What's important is that we have lots of men! Important men from lore! Men riding gryphons! Men standing around looking important!
You know this is a problem. You've heard from us for years about how you marginalize women. Oh, we hope for the best. We imagine that somewhere on your end, someone's trying to fix the problem. And then you launch a new project with 19 characters and no women, and we feel like fools for ever giving you the benefit of the doubt.
We want to be on your side. We want to enjoy your game and have fun with you. We're passionate, paying customers. We put up with a lot of shit from misogynistic gamer guys to stick with you, so we aren't that thrilled to get shit from you, too. And the more crap you pull, the more encouragement and permission the players have for their behavior, too. Again: you know this is a problem, and you continue to contribute to it.
Ideally, your 19 characters would be an even split, 10 women and 9 men or 10 men and 9 women. If you want to marginalize us, you could make it 15 men and 4 women. For a token 10%, you could have 2 women. Maybe one? Just one? Just one woman? No?
Was this a deliberate choice? Did you think that having the option to buy a woman on a gryphon instead of a man on a gryphon would upset your player base? Did you think that people shopping in Toys 'R' Us would see your products and get excited, and then notice a woman character among the men and be turned off enough not to try your game? Or did you put no thought into this at all? Did it never even occur to you to include women?
Congratulations on your new toys. I hope that they sell well. I won't be buying any of them.
With love,
Frank Lee
Congratulations on your new toys! I hope that they sell well.
I realize that this is only the initial launch and that more sets and figures will be released in the future. Even so, you may have overlooked a few things.
Like women.
In the 13 sets and 19 characters available, there are no women.
You're also missing a few of the races. You got most of the important ones in, like the default races (human and orc), the shiny new races (worgen and goblin) and so on. No gnomes yet, of course. (You and I are long overdue for a talk about gnomes.)
Maybe I'm not being fair, but it's easy to draw a parallel. You got the default in, right? You got the important one: men. Women are, you know, the extra, the add-on, the one you'll get to later. You'll get around to adding them in eventually. What's important is that we have lots of men! Important men from lore! Men riding gryphons! Men standing around looking important!
You know this is a problem. You've heard from us for years about how you marginalize women. Oh, we hope for the best. We imagine that somewhere on your end, someone's trying to fix the problem. And then you launch a new project with 19 characters and no women, and we feel like fools for ever giving you the benefit of the doubt.
We want to be on your side. We want to enjoy your game and have fun with you. We're passionate, paying customers. We put up with a lot of shit from misogynistic gamer guys to stick with you, so we aren't that thrilled to get shit from you, too. And the more crap you pull, the more encouragement and permission the players have for their behavior, too. Again: you know this is a problem, and you continue to contribute to it.
Ideally, your 19 characters would be an even split, 10 women and 9 men or 10 men and 9 women. If you want to marginalize us, you could make it 15 men and 4 women. For a token 10%, you could have 2 women. Maybe one? Just one? Just one woman? No?
Was this a deliberate choice? Did you think that having the option to buy a woman on a gryphon instead of a man on a gryphon would upset your player base? Did you think that people shopping in Toys 'R' Us would see your products and get excited, and then notice a woman character among the men and be turned off enough not to try your game? Or did you put no thought into this at all? Did it never even occur to you to include women?
Congratulations on your new toys. I hope that they sell well. I won't be buying any of them.
With love,
Frank Lee
Friday, August 10, 2012
Dear Fatherly Car Owner
I like lipstick around my dipstick.Dear Fatherly Car Owner,
-Car decal
Because a child's car seat and toys were seen in your backseat, I'm going to assume that you're a father. Maybe your situation differs from my assumption, which is the risk we take when we make assumptions, but until new information comes in I'll just go ahead and consider you a father.
A car is a very visible accoutrement. A car is often considered a status symbol. Our bumper stickers and other car accessories are one-glance messages we project to the world. People often use bumper stickers to promote ideas and messages; it's a way both of signal boosting and of advertising something about oneself. What's your political affiliation? What's your favorite dog breed? Which organizations do you belong to? What has your child achieved lately? It's all right there on your rear bumper.
What do you want the world to know about you?
"I like lipstick around my dipstick."
So, you have a penis. You like to get head. You like to get head specifically (as heteronormativity rears its ugly head and I continue to make assumptions) from women who conform to the patriarchy's exacting beauty standards.
That's the one thing you want the world to know about you. You like patriarchy-conforming women to suck your dick.
Not that you're a father, not that you're a member of some club, not that you passed some milestone in life, not that you want to promote a cause. No, what you're most proud of is the pleasure you get in having women (certain kinds of women, mind you) give you head.
Here's the thing, Daddy Driver. If we all lived in a happy void where nothing we do affects each other, I would look at that decal and think that if that's the most important thing complete strangers should know about you, you lead a very small, sad life. That would be the end of it.
However, what we do actually does affect each other. The things we say can sometimes fall in line with other messages and reinforce existing ideas.
There are ideas, for example, that women are only good for sex, only good for pleasing men, naturally subservient to men, and so on.
If you love and respect women, your car might boast messages like: "I love women!" "I love smart women!" "I love confident women!" If your sexual needs have to be a factor, you could advertise: "Assertive women turn me on!" "Funny women = hot women!"
But you aren't talking about women, really, at all. You're talking about an anonymous pair of lips coated in patriarchy-conforming lipstick. You've reduced women to one specific body part. A body part you're co-opting for your sexual pleasures. You don't care what a woman says with her mouth; you aren't interested in her thoughts, her opinions, her personality, her jokes, her wit. You just want a sexual orifice, and she'd better make sure that it meets your patriarchal standards.
Your reinforcement of misogynistic notions communicates to the world that women are for sex, that women are a mere collection of useable body parts, that women had better meet patriarchal standards or they'll find themselves not even worthwhile for the one purpose you allow them.
When did you get this decal? When did you decide to plaster this particular message on your car? Before your daughter was born? After? Before her mother was pregnant? After? I picture you seeing the decal in a store somewhere and giving a good chuckle and deciding to make that purchase; I picture you slapping it on your car window. Should I picture a happy daughter playing in the backseat? A pregnant woman waiting for you in the passenger seat?
The daughter's there now. The sticker's there now. She's going to see it. What will she think of it? The people who see your car at work, in public parking lots, in your driveway; your friends and neighbors, strangers, what do they think of it? What do they learn from it? I wonder if you've pictured your daughter bringing boy friends home. The boys notice your decal, and look at your daughter, and snicker, and those ideas you're reinforcing churn...
I hope that your opinions mature soon. I hope that your daughter finds a thoughtful, caring father in you. I hope that you scrape off that decal and learn to view your daughter and all women with a more respectful eye.
Maybe your daughter will join a club or join a team or get on the honor roll, and you can brag about that to the world, instead.
With love,
Frank Lee
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Dear Entertainment Industry
Dear Entertainment Industry,
We have a problem.
You've known about this problem for a long time, but let's go over it again.
People spend a lot of time watching TV. They also spend a lot of time playing videogames.
TV, movies, and games show us a wide variety of white men and boys. White men and boys are portrayed as heroes, villains, hotshots, nerds, athletes, homebodies, wealthy, impoverished, and on, and on, and on. If you're a white guy, you're going to see a lot of other white guys onscreen who might look and act similarly to you, and a lot of white guys onscreen with enviable lives you wish you had. Because white guys are often in major roles, they have more fully developed characters, so you'll see more white guys as fully rounded people.
For women and for guys of color, not so much. They're not as often the protagonist. Sometimes they're an obvious token character; sometimes they're nowhere to be seen. Without as many fleshed-out roles, they're easily pigeonholed. Women are hangers-on, love interests, eye candy, worthless if not sexually appealing. Black men are thugs. People of color who aren't black are adrift in a sea of whiteness.
This is not good for anyone.
At least we can feel good about the white boys, right? They feel great about themselves!
But how do they feel about everyone else? They're watching the same shows as the girls, as the boys of color. They're hearing and seeing the same messages, that girls are less-than, that boys of color fall into various stereotypes. They're pulling in the same sexist, racist ideas.
You're making white boys feel great! At the expense of everyone else. Why not make everyone feel great? Why not portray a rich array of all people? Let's see more interesting, witty, heroic women. More confident, intelligent, well-rounded people of color. Let's give these boys and girls (and men and women) characters they can identify with and aspire to be.
With love,
Frank Lee
With thanks to Racebending.com.
We have a problem.
You've known about this problem for a long time, but let's go over it again.
People spend a lot of time watching TV. They also spend a lot of time playing videogames.
TV, movies, and games show us a wide variety of white men and boys. White men and boys are portrayed as heroes, villains, hotshots, nerds, athletes, homebodies, wealthy, impoverished, and on, and on, and on. If you're a white guy, you're going to see a lot of other white guys onscreen who might look and act similarly to you, and a lot of white guys onscreen with enviable lives you wish you had. Because white guys are often in major roles, they have more fully developed characters, so you'll see more white guys as fully rounded people.
For women and for guys of color, not so much. They're not as often the protagonist. Sometimes they're an obvious token character; sometimes they're nowhere to be seen. Without as many fleshed-out roles, they're easily pigeonholed. Women are hangers-on, love interests, eye candy, worthless if not sexually appealing. Black men are thugs. People of color who aren't black are adrift in a sea of whiteness.
This is not good for anyone.
If you are a white girl, a black girl or a black boy, exposure to today's electronic media in the long run tends to make you feel worse about yourself. If you're a white boy, you'll feel better, according to a new study led by an Indiana University professor.Boys of color and all girls watch TV and play videogames and learn to feel like crap about themselves. They're seeing images and watching stories which portray them as less-than, pigeonholed, stereotyped.
At least we can feel good about the white boys, right? They feel great about themselves!
But how do they feel about everyone else? They're watching the same shows as the girls, as the boys of color. They're hearing and seeing the same messages, that girls are less-than, that boys of color fall into various stereotypes. They're pulling in the same sexist, racist ideas.
You're making white boys feel great! At the expense of everyone else. Why not make everyone feel great? Why not portray a rich array of all people? Let's see more interesting, witty, heroic women. More confident, intelligent, well-rounded people of color. Let's give these boys and girls (and men and women) characters they can identify with and aspire to be.
An earlier study co-authored by her and Harrison suggests that video games "are the worst offenders when it comes to representation of ethnicity and gender."Gaming companies, come on. Get your shit together. You can do better than this. "Kids playing games" is an idea we like to associate with happy, fun times, fond memories, laughter. Give them a good time that everyone can enjoy, not just the white guys.
With love,
Frank Lee
With thanks to Racebending.com.
Dear WOW Players
Dear WOW Players,
Sometimes you say great stuff on the general forums. Sometimes you say insightful, witty stuff about the game. Sometimes you say absolute garbage.
"Why can't they make female orcs sexy?" is light, as far as your usual harmful nonsense goes, but as it's part of a larger pattern, I thought that I'd address it.
This question assumes that the orc women already in the game aren't sexy. Perhaps you're unaware that different people find different traits sexy. Orc women are sexy, to some people. Maybe not to you, but since WOW is an MMORPG with millions of players and not a porn video shot exclusively for you, what you find sexy is, to be honest, irrelevant.
Why are you asking about orc women? Are orc men already as sexy as they could be? When you look at Thrall, do you admire how hot he is? Do you think that Blizzard should come up with a new character model for Garrosh and prove who puts the G in g-string?
There's an idea that women should be sexually appealing at all times. There's an idea that women are decorative. There's an idea that women's worth is tied up in their appeal to men. Those ideas are destructive, misogynistic bullshit, and furthering them makes you sound like a harmful ass.
I understand that you like to look at women you find sexy. You might enjoy playing orc women more if you found them hot. It would be great, though, if you could relax and enjoy playing your characters as they are. You can play a tauren man you don't find sexy, and you can play a tauren woman you don't find sexy, and you can have equal amounts of fun with each.
WOW is an RPG, so think of your characters as bold and brave or smart and witty or foolish and forgetful. Think of your characters as sexy or boastful or prim. Like men, women don't have to be sexually appealing to be interesting or fun or worthwhile, inside or outside of the game.
See you in Pandaland!
With love,
Frank Lee
Sometimes you say great stuff on the general forums. Sometimes you say insightful, witty stuff about the game. Sometimes you say absolute garbage.
"Why can't they make female orcs sexy?" is light, as far as your usual harmful nonsense goes, but as it's part of a larger pattern, I thought that I'd address it.
This question assumes that the orc women already in the game aren't sexy. Perhaps you're unaware that different people find different traits sexy. Orc women are sexy, to some people. Maybe not to you, but since WOW is an MMORPG with millions of players and not a porn video shot exclusively for you, what you find sexy is, to be honest, irrelevant.
Why are you asking about orc women? Are orc men already as sexy as they could be? When you look at Thrall, do you admire how hot he is? Do you think that Blizzard should come up with a new character model for Garrosh and prove who puts the G in g-string?
There's an idea that women should be sexually appealing at all times. There's an idea that women are decorative. There's an idea that women's worth is tied up in their appeal to men. Those ideas are destructive, misogynistic bullshit, and furthering them makes you sound like a harmful ass.
I understand that you like to look at women you find sexy. You might enjoy playing orc women more if you found them hot. It would be great, though, if you could relax and enjoy playing your characters as they are. You can play a tauren man you don't find sexy, and you can play a tauren woman you don't find sexy, and you can have equal amounts of fun with each.
WOW is an RPG, so think of your characters as bold and brave or smart and witty or foolish and forgetful. Think of your characters as sexy or boastful or prim. Like men, women don't have to be sexually appealing to be interesting or fun or worthwhile, inside or outside of the game.
See you in Pandaland!
With love,
Frank Lee
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
Dear Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Dear Joseph Gordon-Levitt,
Congratulations on your latest movie!
You said something really stupid recently.
"Pretty girls aren't usually funny."
I wonder how you expected Emily Blunt, the "pretty girl" in question, to reply to that. Your comment was intended as a compliment, I assume. Did you want her to laugh? To thank you?
What you told Emily Blunt is, "I'm surprised that you're so funny! I really expected you to be humorless, witless, and dull, like most good-looking women, but you actually have a sense of humor! Wow, you're really different from other pretty girls. It must be great to be so special!"
This is not a genuine compliment. It's an insult. A compliment would be, "You're very funny." Or, "You're very pretty." Or, "You're funny and pretty." If you said it in a way that makes being pretty a good thing, and being funny a good thing, independent of each other and not in relation to anyone else, that would be best.
If it's rare for a woman to be both pretty and funny, what does that mean?
If we define pretty as "equipped with a set of natural features aesthetically pleasing to the current culture," then that's genetics. You're saying that people with a certain set of natural, physical traits share a certain personality trait. That's usually a bad road to travel. See racism for many egregious examples.
If we define pretty as "well-groomed and hip to current aesthetic trends," then that's a matter of taking care with her appearance and following fashion. People who put effort into their appearance tend not to be funny? Because they're so busy checking up on style trends that they aren't interested in honing their wit? Is this true only of "pretty girls" or of other kinds of people as well, like men?
Good-looking people are dull? Boring? Assholes? Pretty girls look great but have no personality to speak of? Pretty girls are decorative? Self-absorbed?
Being pretty takes a lot of work. More for some than for others, but there's a lot of cost and effort and knowledge which goes into it. It can be absorbing, and because all of that energy goes into one's own appearance, it comes across as self-absorbing. Why would women go to all of that trouble? Why would women put so much energy into their appearance? Perhaps because the patriarchy demands it of them and punishes them if they don't.
And so they do it. And get called self-absorbed, self-centered, vapid, dull, witless, humorless, lacking in personality. Pretty girls aren't usually funny.
Pretty girls lack personality. Do you know what women with "too much" personality are called? Bitches. Do you know what ugly women are called? Cows, dogs, ugly bitches. Do you know what funny women are called? Nonexistent. Article after article, male comedian after male comedian, will tell you that women aren't funny. Women aren't naturally funny. Women are lousy comedians.
Funny women are exceptions to the rule. Exceptional women. Like pretty-and-funny girls, they're the special exceptions which prove the rule.
When you compliment an exceptional woman, you're putting down all other women. You're saying something rude and noxious about all other women. And you expect her to nod and smile and agree that she's not like those other women, those petty or mean or stupid or vapid or humorless or slutty or prudish or terrible other women.
That's a lousy thing to ask of someone. That's a lousy view to hold of an entire half of humanity. That's misogynistic bullshit. Don't say that shit and expect us all to laugh and smile and enjoy the compliment. It's not a compliment, it's a goddamned insult to all of the women she knows, all of the women in the room, all of the women in the world.
What was your point? That ugly women are funny? That funny women are ugly? That no women are funny?
For the record, Emily Blunt is 29. She's not a "girl."
Please understand that someone's appearance and someone's personality are separate, independent things. People can be pretty and funny, or pretty and dull, or ugly and funny, or ugly and dull, or handsome and compassionate, or lovely and mean, or any combination of traits. This is true of all people, and so it is true of women. It is also true of girls, because women and girls are people, and people come in many, many varieties.
Good luck in your career, and please be more aware of the many attractive, funny women around you. There are a lot of them.
With love,
Frank Lee
Congratulations on your latest movie!
You said something really stupid recently.
"Pretty girls aren't usually funny."
I wonder how you expected Emily Blunt, the "pretty girl" in question, to reply to that. Your comment was intended as a compliment, I assume. Did you want her to laugh? To thank you?
What you told Emily Blunt is, "I'm surprised that you're so funny! I really expected you to be humorless, witless, and dull, like most good-looking women, but you actually have a sense of humor! Wow, you're really different from other pretty girls. It must be great to be so special!"
This is not a genuine compliment. It's an insult. A compliment would be, "You're very funny." Or, "You're very pretty." Or, "You're funny and pretty." If you said it in a way that makes being pretty a good thing, and being funny a good thing, independent of each other and not in relation to anyone else, that would be best.
If it's rare for a woman to be both pretty and funny, what does that mean?
If we define pretty as "equipped with a set of natural features aesthetically pleasing to the current culture," then that's genetics. You're saying that people with a certain set of natural, physical traits share a certain personality trait. That's usually a bad road to travel. See racism for many egregious examples.
If we define pretty as "well-groomed and hip to current aesthetic trends," then that's a matter of taking care with her appearance and following fashion. People who put effort into their appearance tend not to be funny? Because they're so busy checking up on style trends that they aren't interested in honing their wit? Is this true only of "pretty girls" or of other kinds of people as well, like men?
Good-looking people are dull? Boring? Assholes? Pretty girls look great but have no personality to speak of? Pretty girls are decorative? Self-absorbed?
Being pretty takes a lot of work. More for some than for others, but there's a lot of cost and effort and knowledge which goes into it. It can be absorbing, and because all of that energy goes into one's own appearance, it comes across as self-absorbing. Why would women go to all of that trouble? Why would women put so much energy into their appearance? Perhaps because the patriarchy demands it of them and punishes them if they don't.
And so they do it. And get called self-absorbed, self-centered, vapid, dull, witless, humorless, lacking in personality. Pretty girls aren't usually funny.
Pretty girls lack personality. Do you know what women with "too much" personality are called? Bitches. Do you know what ugly women are called? Cows, dogs, ugly bitches. Do you know what funny women are called? Nonexistent. Article after article, male comedian after male comedian, will tell you that women aren't funny. Women aren't naturally funny. Women are lousy comedians.
Funny women are exceptions to the rule. Exceptional women. Like pretty-and-funny girls, they're the special exceptions which prove the rule.
When you compliment an exceptional woman, you're putting down all other women. You're saying something rude and noxious about all other women. And you expect her to nod and smile and agree that she's not like those other women, those petty or mean or stupid or vapid or humorless or slutty or prudish or terrible other women.
That's a lousy thing to ask of someone. That's a lousy view to hold of an entire half of humanity. That's misogynistic bullshit. Don't say that shit and expect us all to laugh and smile and enjoy the compliment. It's not a compliment, it's a goddamned insult to all of the women she knows, all of the women in the room, all of the women in the world.
What was your point? That ugly women are funny? That funny women are ugly? That no women are funny?
For the record, Emily Blunt is 29. She's not a "girl."
Please understand that someone's appearance and someone's personality are separate, independent things. People can be pretty and funny, or pretty and dull, or ugly and funny, or ugly and dull, or handsome and compassionate, or lovely and mean, or any combination of traits. This is true of all people, and so it is true of women. It is also true of girls, because women and girls are people, and people come in many, many varieties.
Good luck in your career, and please be more aware of the many attractive, funny women around you. There are a lot of them.
With love,
Frank Lee
Monday, July 16, 2012
Dear Blizzard
Dear Blizzard,
As always, thanks for WOW.
Most of us care what our characters look like. It's nice if their armor is a matching set and not a mismatched clown suit. Since this is an RPG, we tend to have personalities and histories for our toons, and the armor they wear can hint at that. Now that you've introduced transmogging (thanks!), we spend even more time and effort on our gear.
We can agree that armor's important.
I haven't been playing since 2004, so some of this is guesswork on my part. It seems to me as if early in the game, you decided to design risque armor sets for women. I say "for women" because I'm referring to the gear which looks like a bikini bottom on women characters and like long pants on men. The very same piece of gear can look like a midriff-baring halter top on women and like a long shirt on men.
Either you decided to make a change on your own, or you listened to complaints from players, because there seems to be less of it than there was. WOTLK gear, for example, doesn't seem (as far as I can tell) to have the same number of gender-based pieces.
Still, the problem persists. The double standard is complete crap. You're treating men like fully geared heroes and women like eye candy. The men can run off and save the day, secure in the knowledge that their armor can actually protect them, while the women can stride around looking sexy, well aware that their armor is purely decorative and serves no practical function whatsoever.
It's not always an issue of the women looking sexier. Consider the difference in priest tier 13 gear for men and for women, for example. On one, the mask covers the man's face completely, leaving him looking very mysterious, even menacing and creepy. On the other, the mask leaves half of the woman's face bare, which makes her look as if she's wearing a much more simple disguise. The half-mask isn't as mysterious and the look isn't as effective. Why not cover both men and women's faces entirely? Why make the women's mask smaller? Is this an issue of stereotypical sexist nonsense about women's vanity? Is this an issue of liking powerful men but preferring your women to be weaker?
Peruse all of your relevant armor sets and decide whether you prefer the half-naked look or the fully-covered look. Then tackle the work of redesigning it so that it appears the same on men and on women. If it shows a lot of thigh, it should show a lot of thigh on both men and women. If it leaves the back exposed, it should leave both men and women's spines vulnerable, not just the women's. If it leaves men fully covered, it should leave women fully covered as well.
Some women want to show off their flesh. Some women don't. Some men do. Some men don't. Give us the tools to dress our characters how we prefer. Broaden our choices and make full-coverage and skimpy sets for everyone. If you want to make some half-naked gear, fine, then make it half-naked on all toons. And fix tier 13 gear so that women get the full mask, too, please. That mysterious chess piece look is terrific!
With love,
Frank Lee
As always, thanks for WOW.
Most of us care what our characters look like. It's nice if their armor is a matching set and not a mismatched clown suit. Since this is an RPG, we tend to have personalities and histories for our toons, and the armor they wear can hint at that. Now that you've introduced transmogging (thanks!), we spend even more time and effort on our gear.
We can agree that armor's important.
I haven't been playing since 2004, so some of this is guesswork on my part. It seems to me as if early in the game, you decided to design risque armor sets for women. I say "for women" because I'm referring to the gear which looks like a bikini bottom on women characters and like long pants on men. The very same piece of gear can look like a midriff-baring halter top on women and like a long shirt on men.
Either you decided to make a change on your own, or you listened to complaints from players, because there seems to be less of it than there was. WOTLK gear, for example, doesn't seem (as far as I can tell) to have the same number of gender-based pieces.
Still, the problem persists. The double standard is complete crap. You're treating men like fully geared heroes and women like eye candy. The men can run off and save the day, secure in the knowledge that their armor can actually protect them, while the women can stride around looking sexy, well aware that their armor is purely decorative and serves no practical function whatsoever.
It's not always an issue of the women looking sexier. Consider the difference in priest tier 13 gear for men and for women, for example. On one, the mask covers the man's face completely, leaving him looking very mysterious, even menacing and creepy. On the other, the mask leaves half of the woman's face bare, which makes her look as if she's wearing a much more simple disguise. The half-mask isn't as mysterious and the look isn't as effective. Why not cover both men and women's faces entirely? Why make the women's mask smaller? Is this an issue of stereotypical sexist nonsense about women's vanity? Is this an issue of liking powerful men but preferring your women to be weaker?
Peruse all of your relevant armor sets and decide whether you prefer the half-naked look or the fully-covered look. Then tackle the work of redesigning it so that it appears the same on men and on women. If it shows a lot of thigh, it should show a lot of thigh on both men and women. If it leaves the back exposed, it should leave both men and women's spines vulnerable, not just the women's. If it leaves men fully covered, it should leave women fully covered as well.
Some women want to show off their flesh. Some women don't. Some men do. Some men don't. Give us the tools to dress our characters how we prefer. Broaden our choices and make full-coverage and skimpy sets for everyone. If you want to make some half-naked gear, fine, then make it half-naked on all toons. And fix tier 13 gear so that women get the full mask, too, please. That mysterious chess piece look is terrific!
With love,
Frank Lee
Monday, July 2, 2012
Dear Blizzard
You've come to see me, <race>? Speak and be quick, young lady. I've no time for the formalities of your race.Dear Blizzard,
-Blood elf-specific quest in World of Warcraft
Thank you for such a great product. I've been playing WOW for years, and I love it.
Despite my affection for the game, I have a hell of a lot of problems with it and with you as a company. You've heard a lot from me in the past, and I plan to use this platform to make even more noise.
Your playerbase takes a lot of its cues from you, and you know that. I wish that you'd use that power responsibly, but you often prove yourself instead to be an enormous ass.
Let's take one obvious example: belf men. (Translation for anyone reading over my shoulder: male blood elves, one of the playable races in World of Warcraft.)
There are two running "jokes" about belf men.
1.) They're gay.
2.) They're women.
Your first glaring error here is that you're basing these comments on stereotypes. That's a bad idea. It reinforces the idea that women are necessarily different from men in obvious, consistent, measurable ways. Women are this, men are that. This falls right into traps of gender policing and misogyny.
Also tied in here is the notion that gay men are feminine. That gay men are women. That gay men act in certain ways, straight men act in certain ways, and never the twain shall meet. Again: gender policing. Misogyny.
Now, what about belf men is so feminine?
Maybe it's their long hair. No, men of other races have long hair and other similar hairstyles.
Maybe it's their height. No, goblin men are short, and they're perceived as appropriately masculine.
Are their muscles not defined sharply enough?
I think that an enormous part of the stereotype is because of their surroundings. Silvermoon is a lovely city, one of the most elegant in the game. It's sophisticated and luxurious, most especially in comparison to the other Horde cities. You've put a lot of the races' personalities into their cities, and Silvermoon says a lot about the belfs as a result.
And there you have it. Their city is too pretty. It's too comfortable. How feminine they must be, how weak, to live in such a posh environment.
It's not bad enough that players make "jokes" about them. You insert those "jokes" right into the game.
As a company, overall, you should be more responsible. Reinforcing and rewarding your players' misogyny, homophobia, and general douchiness should not be part of your game design.
You're more than a faceless company, and you're well aware of it. How many players hang on the words of Chris Metzen and Ghostcrawler alone? They care what you think and listen to what you say. They agonize over and inspect and repeat your words years after the fact. You know what kind of influence you have, and you use it for this?
How can I fight the misogyny and homophobia I see among players when all they have to do is point directly at you and say, "Blizzard does it?"
If you can't figure out on your own how to design a game without this nasty crap in it, find a feminist consultant. You do still have feminist gamers in your playerbase, despite your best efforts to drive them away.
With love,
Frank Lee
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Dear Film and Television Industry
Content note: This post talks about homicide and gender in real life and in fiction.
Dear Film and Television Industry,
Thanks for all of the great entertainment you've given me over the years!
Here are some Google results:
The lowest? Dead lady, by far, followed by dead boy.
I find it telling that "dead girl" so far outstrips "dead boy."
Why did I look this up in the first place? I like mystery stories, so I watch a lot of mystery movies and crime procedurals. I've noticed that you often depict professionals (investigators, for example) saying "dead girl" in their dialogue. For example, they'll mention needing to speak with the dead girl's parents.
I'd like to suggest "the victim's parents" as an alternative. Or "[name]'s parents," as the victim is usually a significant enough character to have a name the audience would recognize.
Maybe your point is that these gritty cops are so jaded that any corpse is just a dead girl to them. My first response to that is, great, so find other ways to show it. My second response to that is, okay, but why do you so often use "dead girl" when the victim was eighteen or older and therefore a dead woman?
Why does dead man exceeds dead woman (3.5 to 1.1 in one search, 2 to 1.5 in the other)? I'd guess that it's in part because men's stories are told more often. It's also because most homicide victims are more likely to be men than women.
Why does dead girl exceed dead boy (3.0 to 0.5 in one search, 1.6 to 0.7 in the other)? I'd guess that it's in part because, as I mentioned above, people often label women as "girls," skewing the results. It's also because homicide victims are more likely to be girls than boys. Wait, no, that's not right. The study reports that, "Most of the children killed are male and most of the offenders are male."
If most homicide victims are male, then why am I seeing so many dead girls on my TV?
Here's a fun fact!
While feminists work against the patriarchy so that all lives have value, so that no one views men as expendable or women as victims or men as brutally violent or women as girls, please join our fight. We'll all be better off for it. Here are some tips to get you started! Stop sexualizing violence. Stop sensationalizing violence against women. Stop glorifying violent criminals. Work on all of your crappy narratives about sexual predators and pedophiles. And start using your victims' names. That whole thing where the killer is more important and interesting than the victims? I see too much of that in real life to enjoy watching it in my fiction.
With love,
Frank Lee
P.S. I wonder how much things like Dead Man Walking skewed those results?
Dear Film and Television Industry,
Thanks for all of the great entertainment you've given me over the years!
Here are some Google results:
transcript "dead girl" 3,000,000What crosses the million mark? Dead girl, dead woman, and dead man, in both searches.
transcript "dead lady" 72,100
transcript "dead woman" 1,120,000
transcript "dead boy" 495,000
transcript "dead guy" 989,000
transcript "dead man" 3,480,000
script dialogue "dead girl" 1,640,000
script dialogue "dead lady" 91,800
script dialogue "dead woman" 1,460,000
script dialogue "dead boy" 700,000
script dialogue "dead guy" 737,000
script dialogue "dead man" 1,990,000
The lowest? Dead lady, by far, followed by dead boy.
I find it telling that "dead girl" so far outstrips "dead boy."
Why did I look this up in the first place? I like mystery stories, so I watch a lot of mystery movies and crime procedurals. I've noticed that you often depict professionals (investigators, for example) saying "dead girl" in their dialogue. For example, they'll mention needing to speak with the dead girl's parents.
I'd like to suggest "the victim's parents" as an alternative. Or "[name]'s parents," as the victim is usually a significant enough character to have a name the audience would recognize.
Maybe your point is that these gritty cops are so jaded that any corpse is just a dead girl to them. My first response to that is, great, so find other ways to show it. My second response to that is, okay, but why do you so often use "dead girl" when the victim was eighteen or older and therefore a dead woman?
Why does dead man exceeds dead woman (3.5 to 1.1 in one search, 2 to 1.5 in the other)? I'd guess that it's in part because men's stories are told more often. It's also because most homicide victims are more likely to be men than women.
Why does dead girl exceed dead boy (3.0 to 0.5 in one search, 1.6 to 0.7 in the other)? I'd guess that it's in part because, as I mentioned above, people often label women as "girls," skewing the results. It's also because homicide victims are more likely to be girls than boys. Wait, no, that's not right. The study reports that, "Most of the children killed are male and most of the offenders are male."
If most homicide victims are male, then why am I seeing so many dead girls on my TV?
Here's a fun fact!
Female victims are more likely than male victims to be killed by an intimate or family member. Male victims are more likely than female victims to be killed by acquaintances or strangers.If the victim is a woman, and the butler did it, then the butler's probably her father or husband.
While feminists work against the patriarchy so that all lives have value, so that no one views men as expendable or women as victims or men as brutally violent or women as girls, please join our fight. We'll all be better off for it. Here are some tips to get you started! Stop sexualizing violence. Stop sensationalizing violence against women. Stop glorifying violent criminals. Work on all of your crappy narratives about sexual predators and pedophiles. And start using your victims' names. That whole thing where the killer is more important and interesting than the victims? I see too much of that in real life to enjoy watching it in my fiction.
With love,
Frank Lee
P.S. I wonder how much things like Dead Man Walking skewed those results?
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Dear Fools and Trolls on the WOW Forums
Dear Fools and Trolls on the WOW Forums,
Every once in a while (sometimes it seems like five times a day, but that may just be my perception) you start a thread to express your shock and confusion over the notion that some male gamers play female toons and/or some female gamers play male toons.
I stopped opening those threads a long time ago, and I wish that everyone else would, too, because there are much more interesting things to talk about, like those "WTF, pandas, are you kidding me?!" threads. But you keep on creating "OH NOES GENDER!" threads, so let's hash it all out now, so we can exhaust the subject and never bring it up again.
First, let me explain why I'm so hostile to these threads in the first place. It's because they come across as the ridiculous and immature sort of gender policing engaged in by children who've only just learned that boys and girls are different and are still trying to negotiate the boundaries the patriarchy has placed on them. When you express surprise/dismay/confusion over "men playing female toons, oh no!" it's like you're still trying to figure out whether women can be doctors and why different people have different genitals and why Jimmy's dad cooks dinner for Jimmy's family when only women make dinner and why Heather has two mommies. Welcome to the wide world of humanity, where different people do different things for different reasons and we don't all confine ourselves into little "boys do this" and "girls do that" boxes.
In other words, please mature. You're embarrassing yourself.
With that said, let's look at five simple reasons people might play toons which don't strictly mirror their own gender. (Much of this also applies to why people play non-human characters, so apply it to that and stop asking why people play elves.)
Variety! Why play the same old thing everywhere you go? In a lot of games, I have to play whatever the game gives me. Sometimes I can only be a human, or only be a man, or only be a particular main character. There aren't other options available to me. In WOW, there are a lot of choices. My toon can be a human! Or a gnome! Or an elf! Or a troll! Or a bull-cow-thing! My toon can be a warlock or a priest or a warrior or a hunter! My toon can be a man or a woman! My toon can have long hair or short hair or pink hair or green hair or no hair at all! It's fun to try new things and get a plethora of experiences. Some people find it boring to play the same old thing over and over, and since you can create 50 different characters on one account, why not try something new?
Fantasy! Guess what, WOW is a fantasy game! In a fantasy game, I might want to have fun exploring a different existence than the one I toil through every day. WOW gives me the chance to get creative, especially from an RP perspective. I can be anyone I want to be, so why limit myself to mimicking the very life I already inhabit? CREATIVITY. IT'S FUN.
Aesthetics! As you may have noticed, the different toons look different. They're taller, shorter, bonier, thicker, and so on. They have different body types and different facial features. They have different movements. Different casting animations. For instance, I like the staff animations for blood elf women, and when I roll a blood elf caster, I tend to make it a woman and give her a staff instead of, say, a dagger. I find every single one of the available faces for human men unpleasant, and so I tend not to play very many human men.
Attraction! Yes, some people like to look at something which appeals to them sexually, even in a minor way. Whichever toon you play, you end up looking at it a lot, so why not make something you find easier on the eyes, so to speak? If you think that draenei women are hot, you might want to play one. If you find belf men hot, you might be more inclined to play one of those than, say, an undead woman.
Personal choice! The human element! Different people like different things for different reasons. I play what appeals to me. Sometimes I like to play a strong, tough character. Sometimes I like to play a cute, fun character. Sometimes I want to play a kind character, or a sinister one, or whatever I'm in the mood for. I might be a human woman in real life and enjoy playing human women in the game, but like most people I tend to play more than one character, so I might roll something besides a human woman just because the options are there.
In explaining why some people play a variety of toons, I don't mean to mock people who only play toons who closely mimic their own characteristics. That's fine. Enjoy yourself. But stop shaming and questioning people who make different choices than you do. Shake off those narrow boundaries the gender police have erected around you and relax. You might enjoy it.
With love,
Frank Lee
Every once in a while (sometimes it seems like five times a day, but that may just be my perception) you start a thread to express your shock and confusion over the notion that some male gamers play female toons and/or some female gamers play male toons.
I stopped opening those threads a long time ago, and I wish that everyone else would, too, because there are much more interesting things to talk about, like those "WTF, pandas, are you kidding me?!" threads. But you keep on creating "OH NOES GENDER!" threads, so let's hash it all out now, so we can exhaust the subject and never bring it up again.
First, let me explain why I'm so hostile to these threads in the first place. It's because they come across as the ridiculous and immature sort of gender policing engaged in by children who've only just learned that boys and girls are different and are still trying to negotiate the boundaries the patriarchy has placed on them. When you express surprise/dismay/confusion over "men playing female toons, oh no!" it's like you're still trying to figure out whether women can be doctors and why different people have different genitals and why Jimmy's dad cooks dinner for Jimmy's family when only women make dinner and why Heather has two mommies. Welcome to the wide world of humanity, where different people do different things for different reasons and we don't all confine ourselves into little "boys do this" and "girls do that" boxes.
In other words, please mature. You're embarrassing yourself.
With that said, let's look at five simple reasons people might play toons which don't strictly mirror their own gender. (Much of this also applies to why people play non-human characters, so apply it to that and stop asking why people play elves.)
Variety! Why play the same old thing everywhere you go? In a lot of games, I have to play whatever the game gives me. Sometimes I can only be a human, or only be a man, or only be a particular main character. There aren't other options available to me. In WOW, there are a lot of choices. My toon can be a human! Or a gnome! Or an elf! Or a troll! Or a bull-cow-thing! My toon can be a warlock or a priest or a warrior or a hunter! My toon can be a man or a woman! My toon can have long hair or short hair or pink hair or green hair or no hair at all! It's fun to try new things and get a plethora of experiences. Some people find it boring to play the same old thing over and over, and since you can create 50 different characters on one account, why not try something new?
Fantasy! Guess what, WOW is a fantasy game! In a fantasy game, I might want to have fun exploring a different existence than the one I toil through every day. WOW gives me the chance to get creative, especially from an RP perspective. I can be anyone I want to be, so why limit myself to mimicking the very life I already inhabit? CREATIVITY. IT'S FUN.
Aesthetics! As you may have noticed, the different toons look different. They're taller, shorter, bonier, thicker, and so on. They have different body types and different facial features. They have different movements. Different casting animations. For instance, I like the staff animations for blood elf women, and when I roll a blood elf caster, I tend to make it a woman and give her a staff instead of, say, a dagger. I find every single one of the available faces for human men unpleasant, and so I tend not to play very many human men.
Attraction! Yes, some people like to look at something which appeals to them sexually, even in a minor way. Whichever toon you play, you end up looking at it a lot, so why not make something you find easier on the eyes, so to speak? If you think that draenei women are hot, you might want to play one. If you find belf men hot, you might be more inclined to play one of those than, say, an undead woman.
Personal choice! The human element! Different people like different things for different reasons. I play what appeals to me. Sometimes I like to play a strong, tough character. Sometimes I like to play a cute, fun character. Sometimes I want to play a kind character, or a sinister one, or whatever I'm in the mood for. I might be a human woman in real life and enjoy playing human women in the game, but like most people I tend to play more than one character, so I might roll something besides a human woman just because the options are there.
In explaining why some people play a variety of toons, I don't mean to mock people who only play toons who closely mimic their own characteristics. That's fine. Enjoy yourself. But stop shaming and questioning people who make different choices than you do. Shake off those narrow boundaries the gender police have erected around you and relax. You might enjoy it.
With love,
Frank Lee
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