Jezebel 
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New York, 2:36 AM
Wed Nov 11
68 posts in the last 24 hours
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03/04/09
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Not that it really matters, but I'm a little concerned that I seem to be missing big chunks out of my Jezzie memory...
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Yes, exactly. I think we're missing the real enemy here. Profiles that consistenly characterize women who seek to marry men of high net worth and status in order to find some measure of security for themselves and their children as "golddiggers" and whores are dividing women and pitting us against one another.
Of course when you put it that way there's going to be backlash. These writers are implying - sometimes overtly stating - that these women are morally bankrupt, lazy, vaccuous and intentionally out to take advantage of someone.
Sure, there are those who are, and it's right to shame them for those qualities. But this reeks to me of the patriarchy seeking once again using negative judgments and sterotypes to belittle women who are simply trying to serve their own best interests. And they're getting some of us to help them do it.
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Attacking people for character deficits (greed, rudeness, etc) is open game.
For me the more nuanced area is when women are conforming to the patriarchy, and upholding the stereotypes that society tells them they should. Because I see this as a societal problem, I'm less likely to attack a woman for it than the P, unless she's promoting it as part of a lifestyle (patriarchy-supporting). Here I'm talking about a wide range of choices, from dyed hair to painfully high heels to boob jobs to stripping to prostitution to FGM.
YMMV.
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*I am the world's biggest anti-Duggarite, but holy shiz those comments make me want to inflict bodily harm on someone.
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I'm all about personal responsibility, but I do understand that there's a fine line between attacking someone's choices and blaming the victim.
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Like, Ann Coulter--she's like the Grande Dame of upholding the patriarchy (unless it's all an elaborate hoax and she's like, a pinko liberal commie performance artist in a brilliant satire of conservativism). But the patriarchy sucks us all in, and everyone has to make choices and compromise their values. Before class, for example, I put on makeup, even though I firmly believe that makeup, as it exists in American culture today, is a decidedly perpetuating agent of the patriarchy. At least it is the way I and most women wear it. But I make that compromise, which is a "sin" in the eyes of some imaginary anit-patriarchal judging goddess, because it makes my life easier, by making me look professional. Is it fucked that I have to alter my appearance in a way men do not in order to look professional? Yes. By doing so, am I making it harder for other women to choose to NOT wear makeup and still be considered professional? Yes. But I don't feel guilty about it, because if I felt guilty about everything that I did that is bad for the earth, according to my moral standards, I'd never stop feeling guilty. Almost all of my clothes have been constructed in 3rd world countries, in labor conditions that are probably unsatisfactory; I drive a Jeep; I eat meat; etc. I feel comfortable saying something like "wearing makeup is fucked up" but not "people who wear makeup are fucked up." It's once you start hating on the person that it can become a girl-on-girl crime.
That, and hating on behavior that is what I would call a coping mechanism for living in a world that ultimately hates women. Marriage, for example, is a fucked up institution that excludes gay people (in the US, because even marriages performed in MA don't count when you move to Florida, for example) and has historically been used as a way for men to cement their economic relations with each other by exchanging women. Today, most studies show, marriage significantly alters relationships, so that co-habitating couples who get married begin to regress into antiquated and misogynistic gender roles almost as soon as the honeymoon is over. And so marriage as an institution is fucked up. But it's also way easier to live married than not, so people who get married are trying to do their best in a system that's easier to deal with as married, and I'm not going to judge people who get married*, and I'm still going to go to weddings and have fun and love my friends who get married, all the while thinking weddings and marriages are sexist and creepy. Hating on marriage = ok. Hating women who get married = g-o-g crime.
*Unless they invite me to the wedding and there's no open bar, because that's just fucked up.
03/04/09
Okay, I get it. It's so personal, it's part of your body, your own experience was so different from mine that I can't judge you on it (having a mom who tells you you're unattractive in that shape, general low self-esteem issues, frakking Barbie dolls since age 5, etc.). So I'm not going to jump off on someone for it. UNLESS it sounds like she is advocating the same for other women (and thus becoming part of THEIR personal hellish experience) or refusing to acknowledge that the P played any role in her decisionmaking.
Furapursonalxample: I wear makeup. I like it, it's fun, I think I've mastered the art of making myself slightly more conventionally attractive. I think it's awesome that there are women who don't, I fully support and respect that decision. I know that we would all be living in a better world where women weren't expected to routinely alter/enhance their personal appearance to conform to a P-approved "norm", and I appreciate that their rejection of this corner of the P makes my life better.
I guess it all boils down to self-awareness for me. You can choose your choice, if you acknowledge what choices you're leaving on the table and what influences your decisionmaking.
/end novel
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I dig what you're saying about everyone having to make compromises, (I too wear make-up, despite how I feel about how lame it is that I feel I have to wear make-up) or else we'd all be wallowing in unbearable guilt 24/7.
I think I just struggle with how you effectively blame the system without blaming the individual, and whether maybe you SHOULD to a certain extent blame the individual for not being able to recognize the sexism that surrounds us. What's most helpful, in the long run?
03/04/09
Seriously, though, that is totally it for me, too, and you make many good points. One that struck me is that we don't have to do everything "perfectly" in order to still have our beliefs and values. We just can't -- we're human and this is the society we're stuck with. I've always thought that about trying to do good things for the environment. People like to ... I don't know ... be a jerk by saying, "Oh, you like the environment and recycle, but you still drive a car!" or something. It's like that. We can only do so much and we do what we can.
03/04/09
Most of us exist in between, and I think that the time it takes to say, "I blame the system that lead to her choice here, but also wish she had been more thoughtful as to how her actions affect societal expectations and other women's lives" is time well spent.
03/04/09
Brilliant. You've articulated this so well.
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V. nice.
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But in that "I am making responsible choices" protectiveness, there's the implication that Other women are irresponsible, unable to keep up with their bills/shopping and wishing they could remain dependent on bankers/daddies.
I think some women are eager to distance themselves from that by laughing at sugardaddy/golddigger tropes.
I'd be interested to hear Isla's take.
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Few people are entirely emancipated from this. Of course, not everyone defines "quality" the same way. I'd rather have my husband at home for dinner than spending the first fifteen years of our marriage making as much money as possible. Other women have different priorities.
03/04/09
I'm sorry, was that girl-on-world crime?
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Cheaper to get drunk at home, and kinda ruins the point of a bar.
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i wish that escapism didn't automatically mean going into outdated-until-we-know-somebody-who-actu...21st-century misogynistic gender roles each and every. single. TIME.
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Whoever wrote that DABA article should have gotten a serious dressing-down from his/her editor.
03/04/09
Society doesn't expect much of men and hasn't for awhile. Pick-up artists aren't really that different from DABA girls, they are both using the opposite sex for their gratification. But an article about pick-up artists will get a lot of comments from guys saying how inspired they now are because society tells them they can be selfish animals and no one will judge them too harshly. Women who were envious of the DABA girls (and I'm sure they exist) knew they had to hide their user tendencies.
When women attack women like the DABA girls, they're defending themselves. Men don't generally feel the same need to say "I'm not a user" because if they are users, it is kind of okay.
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Also, actually, I totally believe in female solidarity. Does that mean I have to like and be totally besties with all women? No, but it means that I'm not going to blame women for their choices. Blame the choices: yes. Blame the woman: no.
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Just curious if that holds true for men in your book as well?
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Does the Patriarchy excuse any accountability/responsibility on the part of women and their choices? Or is absolutely every choice a woman makes not actually a choice but dictated by the Patriarchy?
03/04/09
My evaluation: not worth the effort to bang head against this particular brick wall.
03/04/09
Where did i ever suggest that it didn't exist? The whole comment was asking whats the balance between patriarchal society and personal choice/responsibility/accountability etc.
But hey your choice (or was that power of the patriarchy at work? - a little joke for levity considering the whole topic is power of patriarchy over choices) if you would not like to engage in discussion and just curtly dismiss me.
I just hope others are more willing to discuss the dynamics of current society, Especially since I am not the first in this thread to raise this question, though I did expand upon it.
03/04/09