‘Mankind’ sexist or not?

There’s been a lot of argument on Comment is Free on how ‘mankind’ is not sexist because ’man’ was originally for all people, not just men.

This has irked me, mostly because however true that may be in theory, in practice it ignores what man means currently and, crucially, seems to be an argument purported by men with little or no regard for how women feel at being airbrushed out like this.

Like almost everyone in the English speaking world today who hasn’t gone into etymological depth, I hear ‘man’ and I think ‘mlae’. When I hear  phrases like ‘the history of mankind’ or ” evolution of man’ , I feel left out. This world does not define me as a man, and lets face it history itself is one big male bias. So you have the ‘history of mankind’ quite literally being the history of men, with maybe one paragraph on how women got the vote . 

So yes, to my mind ‘mankind’ is sexist. And don’t get me started on people who just use ‘man’, which is still disturbingly common. 

I am a woman and when people use ‘mankind’ , to my mind it describes how male is seen as the default, how women have been othered and relegated to a niche interest and subsection. After all women have ‘women’s history and men have well history. As a woman I do feel annoyed and angry when people use mankind and other sexist phrases, regardless of whether the etymology is inherently exist or not and surely the feelings of half the human race, sorry ‘mankind’ should be taken into account just a little?

It is not ‘derailing’ to suggest that the language used to describe humanity as a whole, actually reflects humanity as a whole. Seeing as it affects our everyday lives it’s not ‘hysterical’ or ‘overly emotional’ to suggest that women’s feelings on the matter should be listened to either. 

My mum made a point re: sexist language in church, she said it makes her feel alien and not a part of the whole thing when all the hymns etc are going on about us all being ‘brothers’ in Christ and ‘goodwill to all men’. I think this point stands in general, so before you go off on a etymological tangent that has little bearing on current language usage and perception you might want to consider the 50% or so of people who might be offended by your choice of ‘non sexist’ language. Language does after all evolve and meanings and perhaps more importantly , perceptions of meaning, change.

Bodies

I’ve been thinking a lot about bodies lately. I’ve just finnished Susie oprbach’s book of the same name.

I’ve also spent the last few weeks doing feildwork. Using my body as a body, digging, getting dirty, not caring bout how I look or how I am presented to others. It felt good. Liberating even to have a body that’s just that a body that belonged to me, that wasn’t being judged by what it was wearing, how fat or thin it was, how ‘appealing’ it was to others. It was such a relif to get up, put on muddy clothes, and set off without bothering how I look or what my make up is like or if I look fat, or if I look fashionable or whatever. 

I have a body that works, it does what I want it to with minimal complaint and I am so amazingly lucky to have that. Yet why do I never feel at home in my body? Or when I do I’m reminded that I shouldn’t be getting complacent, I could loose some weight, I could buy new lotions and potions to do whatever pseudo sceince is in at the moment. Pep up my petitdes or whatever. 

I honeslty think that these last few weeks where I’ve been digging all day and too tired to do much else has been the first time in a long, long time I can remember being at home in my body, feeling like it was MY body and that I didn’t have to worry about what other people thought about it.  All those things we spend so long wprrying about and trying to erradicate, sweat, dirt, just didn’t matter.

The Fragile Male Ego

Or how a certain type of man always blames the woman for thier own failures.

I’m chatting online on OK cupid (bad habit, but yields utterly hilarosu results at times, I have a bad habit of talking to people onlien for the lulz sometimes) and some guy pops up in the chat thingy ‘hey which bit of lievrpool are you in? wanna go out? do you think we’d cuddle what do you wanan do? How about sex? etc (you can see a section of the ‘I wasn’t being pushy or demanding’ barrage below) 

I reply that I prefer to get to know people first and that he seemed a bit full on, which y know rings all the ‘don’t go and meet lunatics’ alarm bells.

I then get a barrage of insults calling me a tramp, implying I use a lot of batteries (well it certainly is preferable to idiotic men isn’t it? and I’d probably get better concerstaion out of a vibrator to be honest).

Perfect example methinks of that type of man known as ‘mr entitlement’ apparently I should be greatful he’s made a generous ofer to go out with me , despite showing no effort to want to talk to me even for five minutes.  Explainign that i’d rather chat to someone first to see if we have anythign even remotely in common before agreeing to meet a lunatic from the inatrwebs seems to me a pretty reasonable response. but no to Mr entitlement I am an evil bitch who ‘demands’ men spend hours talking to me before I dare grace them with my presence. 

There is a certain type of misogny that seems to come to the fore when you reject a certain type of low life not worthy of the word ‘man’ men and it really pisses me off.  The whole ‘It can’t possibly be my fault that not every woman wants to jump into bed with me so hey she must be a DYKE WHORE BITCH FAT ASS BITCH DYKE or something along those lines. I’m always somewhat amazed at the sheer hatred and bile these men will heap upon women who reject them, and then see it as us deserving it becuase we don’t want a date or whatever.  

The homophobic aspect of all this is disgraceful too (this is not the only time I’ve been called a lesbian for refusing advances). I’m not insulted by being called a lesbian, I am insulted by homophobic insults, by the insinuation that being gay is a bad thing worthy of scorn. So all those ‘well if you’re not a lesbian why are you offedned? ‘ lines don’t wash. I’m offedned becuase denying people thier humanity based on thier sexual orientation is a hideous and inherrently insulting thing. 

I called the guy on this and he denied being a homophobe. yeh right, it is homophobic to use lesbian as an insult. It inferrs it’s a bad thing, something to be ashamed of. I don’t date homophobes and I will challenge your language if you use such bigoted and insulting language. 

That and the whole disbelief that I might be on there just for fun and aren’t that interested in meeting people and  sometimes it’s just ncie to have a conversation about things. 

I wish I could say this guy was an isolated incident, but I’ve seen enough of this sort of bullshit on and offline to regoconise it and mentally assess it as a certain catergoy of behaviour. 

Yeh I know I should just close down the chat in a nano second, but sometimes I’m bored and morbidly curious.  

editied convo snippets for LOLs and because I am an ‘immature cunt’. 

Depressing Irony moment

I just cleared out my spam comments, all of them were advertsing porn. 

Sigh.

I’ve been challenged by a friend to come up with some ideas on porn, not for the blog but in general so I shall think about that and perhaps blog my findings. It’s a complicated issue that much I know.

Why feminism is not sexist

It’s a complaint I hear over and over again , that the word ‘feminist’ is sexist and that we’d be better of calling ourselves ‘equalists’.

We wouldn’t.

Yes we are about equal rights for all, but with a particular focus on women’s rights and the way women are oppressed by the patriarchy. To use the term ‘equalist’ is to deny this focus on women, which is not sexist it’s just focusing on one particular aspect of a problem. To remove any association with women and the female is to gloss over the fact that the problems we are dealing with are specific to women.
(disclaimer for the terminally thick who just don’t ‘get it’: Focusing on problems relating to women does not mean we don’t care or are hostile to the problems of men it just means we;re focusing on women. If you still don’t get it go and complain to a donkey sanctuary that it’s not looking after dolphins.)

We’re called feminists, or womanists , or women’s rights activists because we are focusing on problems faced by women as a result of their gender. To take emphasis away from this dilutes these problems and assumes some sort of equal playing field.

So until women are not discriminated against BECAUSE THEY ARE FEMALE the word ‘feminist’ and other terms referring to gender continues to be apt.

‘Feminist’ is not sexist in the way ‘fireman’ is.

Fireman assumes that one must be a man to do the job and uses the male as the default for ALL.

Feminism focuses on the particular way in which women/ the female gender as a group are discriminated against and their place in society.

In short fireman etc. is sexist because it uses the male default to be a default for all regardless of gender, feminism focuses on problems that females face as a result of our gender.

Focusing on one problem does not deny or belittle the existence of others.

‘Curvy’

Two articles got me thinking; one a more flipptant musing on the usage of the word ‘curvy’ to mean ‘fat’ and another in depth and fascinating study of ‘black booty politics’

They got me thinking about this move towards ‘celebrating curves’ and ‘real women’ we’ve seen in response to the size zero thing. Shifting the ‘ideal’ of what a woman should look like and attain to is not an improvement. I’m sick of hearing ‘oh I wish we could go back to the 50s where we had Marilyn Monroe that’s what real women are like!’ and similar comments. All the ‘real women have curves! thing.

Yes real women have curves, but real women are also don’t.

Shifting an ‘ideal’ shape does no one any favours. Women are still made to feel inferior by not being an ideal shape.
Curvy or stick thin, it doesn’t matter by forcing one narrow ideal upon women you force the majority of us to feel inferior for not living up to some ideal that only a small percentage of women achieve either by genetic fluke or surgery. When one narrow ideal is held up women will always be encouraged to loose just a few punts, gain just a few, tone up, get bigger boobs, get smaller boobs, arses etc. We can never just be.

It shouldn’t matter what shape you are, there should be no ‘ideal’, there is no monolithic woman who comes in a one size fits all woman-shape.

Could you date a non-feminist? and other related issues

I read this interesting article today and it got me thinking. Not so much on dating, but on the whole ‘people who don’t define as feminists’ is this good bad or what?

I will admit I am sick of the ‘I’m not a feminist but…’ spiels, however what I really mean is I’m tired of people who don’t really know what feminism is about, people who have no clue on feminist though, philosophy and academia. People who think ‘Fat hairy man hating lesbian’ and don’t see beyond the stereotype, who use myths and fabrications to belittle us.
I used to think women who deliberately didn’t define as feminist but believed in equality and shared what I see as feminist views on gender and sexual politics were misguided if not downright stupid. Then I read ‘Why I am not a feminist’ and had a wake up call. Feminism is not for everyone, everyone has a right to define as what they like. Feminism has a chequered past, while we have achieved great things we have the ugly underbelly too. I can see why feminism does not appeal to a lot of women who don’t fit the white middle class cis able bodied criteria.
However I do see a great difference in Renee’s intelligent and well argued position and those who assume feminist = hair legs and ugly, ie those who argue against feminism without having any understanding of what it is. You can argue about feminism all you like but unless you show a grasp of the issue, unless you argue with some intelligence then I am not going to take you seriously, especially when you are belittling views I hold dear.

As for could I date a non feminist? Perhaps, I like to think I can accept views that differ form my own, but anyone who did not accept my views and did not accept that this is an important part of my life, something I am passionate about. No way.
As for a rampant misogynist? forget it.

Some links on why I don’t personally agree with the ‘but why not just call yourself ‘equalist’ surely ‘feminist’ is just sexist and not very fair if you only focus on women that’s discrimination too!!!!!’ type arguments:
http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2007-04-07_569
http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/04/12/faq-why-feminism-and-not-just-humanism-or-equalism-isnt-saying-youre-a-feminist-exclusionary/

A world without men?

Sorry to break it to the misinformed feminist haters, but we really don’t want a world without men. This article almost made me puke over my breakfast in rage.

‘Face it guys we’d be better off without you’

This sort of journalistic polyfilla is one of the reason feminism gets a bad name. This is not feminist by a long shot.
A whole world of cliches about outmoed and sterotypically nonsense gender roles for men and women? The world would be better with women becuase we;d talk about shoes and not start wars. Yawn.

I know it’s just a ‘fun’ article but I spent too much of my time having to explain to folk that feminism is not about hating men and thinking women are better, it’s about wanting people to be valued as people no matter what their make-up of chromosomes or gender identity. This sort of utter tripe does us no favours and just plays not the hands of the ‘ohh see you DO hate men!’ nutters.
Is it really too much for mainstream media to admit that there are women who can put up shelves as well as put on mascara and that there are men who love fast cars as well as cute babies?
The world would be a better place without bullshit gender stereotyping and shit journalism. I think I’m more annoyed becuase this is The Guardian, I expect better from them. This is like a time warp into the 1970s , you could imagine it flanked opposite an advert for bri-nylon flowered shirts and avocado seeds. Plus, as a ‘fun’ article it fails becuase it’s so unimaginative and bloody boring. I get much less offended by these things if they’re funny and well written.

I also love ‘Attack of the 50ft Woman’ and have that poster on my wall, it now feels sullied. Maybe I could blu-tak on a little cut out of Tanya Gould into the little burning car?

Song of random interval

‘Big Ovaries Baby’ – Gaye Adegbalola

This may be the best song ever. I found this by chance after trying to find a suitable song for a production of ‘That Takes Ovaries’ and goddamn it’s fantastic. I’m now wasting more money than I should on itunes, check out Saffire – uppity blues women , who Gaye’s also in. Damn, I love these women. (‘too much butt for one pair of jeans’ is recommended)

anyway big ovaries:

Why I hate ‘women’s’ magazines

I don’t buy women’s magazines anymore. I’m much happier and healthier now I don’t read page after page shaming me into hating myself.

I flicked through 2 magazines my sister bought and I can’t even enjoy them as mindless fluff. In the word’s of Morrisey ‘They say nothing to me about my life’. I don’t enjoy women being shamed for daring to go about their daily life not being airbrushed and ‘perfect’ every second. I don’t enjoy unhealthy eating habits and an obession with food and calories presented as ‘healthy’. I don’t like reading about women being shamed for being single, for not being the ‘perfect’ wife/mother/stepford mannequin. I don’t like having damaging gender stereotypes shoved in my face. I don’t like the fact that vapid issues and ‘gossip’ are presented as ‘women’s’ issues, shoving us into the old ‘don’t tax your pretty little head on serious issues, here look at some shoes and so and so off the telly looking ‘fat’ on the beach’.

Above all I don’t like the way they make money out of making women hate themselves and other women. This may be even more misogynist than lads mags. It’s this sneakiness and the pretence that these publications speak to and for women that angers me more than the lads mags, which are at least pretty damn upfront about their lack of respect for women. The idea that they’re our friend that they’re on our side, that’s what makes their misogyny more offensive to me. I hate playboy, I hate maxim and all those soft core porno mags masquerading as ‘lifestyle’ magazines but at least they don’t pretend to be my friend whilst waging war on me, like some Judas of the make up counters.