Jezebel 
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New York, 7:19 AM
Sun Nov 8
22 posts in the last 24 hours
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02:20 AM
11/07/09
11/07/09
Did they just miss Romy and Michelle? And, um, Bill Gates?
*nods with dignity at Professor Lockhart*
11/07/09
11/07/09
If we do a quick flashback to fifteen years ago, we'd see me asking this guy if he'd go to prom with me, because I was the enlightened feminist and it was cool to ask boys to prom in 1995.
He turned me down flat. Why? Not because he didn't like me -- oh, no -- but because I wasn't The Girl that he'd had a crush on since kindergarten. He asked her, she turned him down (as she always did), I asked him, he turned me down.
And now he regrets not going?
He had his chance to get with nerdy, awesome me, and he missed it. Sucker. #dailyfail
11/07/09
11/07/09
But if that's not what he meant, he's a pretty lucky guy to be in his mid-thirties and have his biggest regret be that his missed a chance to ride in a limo and dance to "Queen of the Night."
11/07/09
11/07/09
Seriously, I have an actual tiny violin that I could play for him. And I have had that exact same experience. What Dipshit McDouche here doesn't mention is that the girls he's lusting after were the pretty ones. The slow developers are the ones guys like him probably ignore or harass. #dailyfail
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11/07/09
And even if we did manage to find some geek-trait-expressing people to hang out with, these people were likely to be male, and to stop what they were doing in order to marvel at the freak of nature known as the human female, until you left them alone to do their esoteric boy things.
SOOOOOO glad that I transferred to an all-female school eventually. #dailyfail
11/07/09
Or at least it was a 50/50 split #dailyfail
11/07/09
11/07/09
Apart from a couple of things that are typically british, we're talking about your typical far-right (or very conservative Republican if it were the US) reader. We have those in France too (minus the talk about binge drinking and teenage pregnancies, which aren't so much of a problem here.), but they don't have access to the same tribunes because there's no tabloid press here, so they can't spew their hatred daily in newspapers. They compensate on the Internets, though. #dailyfail
11/07/09
We only have to live our lives dealing with gender injustices. Not getting that date in high school, though? Totally worse. #dailyfail
11/07/09
These kinds of men do not "succeed" with women for one reason: They don't see them as people. They see them as possibilities of sex. And if they just do the right thing, they can have access to that, and it'll be SO GREAT.
The reason I didn't want to be friends with Co-Worker was because he couldn't see me as anything else besides "potential girlfriend" and "absolutely nothing". He's "shy"? Well, he's not that shy around men, is he? That's because they're fully-realized people to him. Women aren't.
The author of this article sees women just like my co-worker did. Never mind that there were probably girls who would have been interested in fishing and weights and how to make her own. All he saw was "creatures" who had done weird things to themselves that he couldn't understand. Because he didn't bother trying. And he's still not.
I hate articles like this. So smug and self-serving. "Bloo blah blee, I know the secrets now!" No, you don't. You have zero idea of what it's like to be a teenage girl and feel the pressures that she feels. And even if you had been a teenage girl once, your experience only speaks for you. You don't know what I, or any other girl, went through. So why don't you ask someone a little more about their experiences and balance them against your own? I think you'd learn a lot more about yourself and how the social structure of high school works. NEWS FLASH: It isn't just hot girls and the guys who want them. #dailyfail
11/07/09
I think you're making a lot of assumptions. You accuse these guys of not attempting to understand female experiences. Honestly, aren't you assuming you can understand their experiences completely as well? #dailyfail
11/07/09
It's one thing to have some sanctuary-type all-male event our outing or whatever. But in life? You just don't like to spend time with women?! And make no mistake, this guy expected any girl he showed interest in to immediately fall into his lap. So, good enough for fucking, exactly when and where and who he wants. But other than that, you've nailed it. Just didn't see women as fully realized people. And because they're just girls also had no shame about saying it out loud. Who wants to hang out with girls anyway, amirite? #dailyfail
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11/07/09
Maybe she's assuming, but I honestly feel like it's easier for women to understand the "male" experience in their culture than the other way around. At least, that's the conclusion I've come to after having read so many otherwise brilliant male authors who just cannot. write. women. (Philip Roth, for example) I think that so much of what we take in culturally - in movies, tv, books, etc. is based on male protagonists and male experience that we naturally think of men (and white men, at that) as the "norm" and everyone else as "different." Nobody takes a look at a screenplay and says that they don't think people will be able to relate to a white male heterosexual character. #dailyfail
11/07/09
I question that. I really do. I recently watched a female body image documentary called, "Beauty in the eyes of the Beheld." Afterwards, some of the other viewers and I chatted about the film in the lobby. One man said, "I really didn't learn anything from this movie. I think it's just really hard to uncover new truths about female body image. Whereas male body image is much less explored and understood."
Honestly, yeah, probably right. Look at it this way, if you have to write a thesis on gender, won't it be easier to write something about men since so much more literature is produced focusing on female gender? #dailyfail
11/07/09
A lot of gender studies in the last 30-40 years have focused on the female gender, it is true. But you seem to be either actively discounting why, or oblivious to the reasons. It's because the only experience told before that was male. Male experiences were the only stories worth telling, male opinions were the only ones worth hearing, a male understanding of how the world works was viewed as simply How The World Works. To a very large extent this still plays out today, unless you are in the very niche, very bracketed world of gender studies.
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11/07/09
@yvnehtnoij: Oh, man. Yeah, I've heard that one, too. It's like, really? Half the time, they're a lot like the person you described. They want a ton of attention, but are unwilling to treat people as people if they don't have the requisite genitalia.
@5ft of fury: Oddly enough! I mean, I totally sat there and listened to all her problems. She like, owes me, you know? She used me for my emotional intimacy and didn't reciprocate physically. It's like she thought we were just friends, that tease.
SHOCK.
@sincbt3: Actually, I did know him, and I do know what he wants, since I worked with him and he more or less told me that he was only looking for a girlfriend. That is, when he was able to say something. I hung out with him until we were both sure of the other's motive, and since I had no interest in sleeping with him, he no longer wanted to be friends with me. There you go, I gave him a chance and then he sucked. A "femsnob"? OH YES THAT IS ME. Speaking about people and not knowing them or what they want, why don't you take some of your own advice and apply it to this situation? You don't know me at all, so how can you presume I am a "femsnob" and am all up on my high horse, anyway? #dailyfail
11/07/09
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11/07/09
The problem isn't that the commenter you're bitching at lacks understanding. The problem is that she understands all too well, as do most of us, and it just freaks you right the fuck out. The jig is up, the word is out..... #dailyfail
11/07/09
11/07/09
I do not know if that guy didn't care about the movie. He just said he didn't learn anything new from it. Honestly, neither did I.
Maybe I'm a well versed "expert," but I really think it's difficult to say original things about female body image. Whereas, there probably is a lot I could learn about male body image.
It's like "Romeo and Juliet" vs. "Borat." I think it's just plain easier to write an original thesis about Borat since people have been writing about RJ for centuries. Does that mean Borat is more interesting? No.
As specific disciplines, I think womens studies is much older and much more extensive than mens studies. That has to do a lot in terms of our "otherness," as men were interested in figuring us out, trying to understand why we are so stupid/hysterical, while assuming that they are the way humans should be.
When men were telling those stories, they weren't exactly looking at men through the lens of gender. It could be said that, Hamlet, and Tom Jones are works of male studies. Sure, I'm sure somebody has written about that. But, when looking through the lens of gender, I believe that womens' studies is more fully developed than male studies.
Frankly, I think we probably agree on these issues, but are just phrasing it differently. #dailyfail
11/07/09
I agree, in fact I am wondering why you wrote this in response to that post of mine. I think it is just plain true that male body image is less discussed than female body image. I wasn't making any judgment calls or talking about people getting hurt. #dailyfail
11/07/09
Actually, I don't think Leith mentioned "hotness" at all. He spent the whole article talking about girls in general without discussing beauty. But, obviously it is implied that what he wrote applies more clearly to more beautiful girls.
I find the article confusing. At first glance it seems like he's whining about getting passed over. On the other hand, he seems to know why he was lonely as a lad. He fully admits to being childlike and dirty. #dailyfail
11/07/09
"All the boys fancy this girl like mad. But she's way out of their league."
To me, that says "hot girl". All the boys don't fancy the unattractive girl.
"...they'd done mysterious stuff to their hair, and their faces..."
"Soon, you will be one of the older guys. The girls will no longer be out of your league."
Again, these things suggest to me that he's seeing only those who conform to beauty stereotypes. He makes no mention of girls that played sports, girls in math club, or girls with any interest other than older boys, really. I would say that there's really a "type" that is attracted to the older boys, and it has a lot to do with status-seeking. I could be wrong on this, but most of the girls that I knew that wanted to be older than they were were the types of girls that yes, would reject anyone their own age and try to be as "grown-up" as possible. Other girls, though, were perfectly happy just dating boys their own ages (or girls, as the case may be).
"...to bond with other guys in a nerdy, uncompetitive way."
That's the thing that gets me. He sees relationship acquisition as a competition. That later in life, "women" becomes a competition. That suggests, to me, a certain lack of respect for what they might want or think.
Throughout the whole article, he mentions nothing about how the girls might think or feel, other than apparently "I want an older boyfriend and I like adult things". Surely, not every girl in his class was the same? People of puberty-age are often very self-conscious and want to assert social power, and part of that is attaining a desirable thing or person.
I realize I'm projecting a little. I am analyzing his statements and making assumptions about them, but we all do this - it's how we process information. The way that he wrote it suggested that he was talking about a very specific group of female classmates, and to hell with the rest of them. #dailyfail
11/07/09
The first thing you quoted is referring to Megan Fox. I question the revelance of that. Aren't we talking about his own experiences and feelings?
The other things you quoted do not specifically address hotness. Any girl can do "strange things" to her hair and face. And frankly, most girls were probably out of his league. I already said that "obviously this applies more to beautiful girls." I thought I had my bases covered.
This guy is pretty clueless. I think you, I and pretty much everybody can agree to that. Maybe even him. I really do wonder if he is right about what happens when he ages. It's not like every middle aged man can act like a "silverfox" or whatever.
I think we agree on more than you might think. #dailyfail
11/07/09
Die in a fire, Mr. Leith. #dailyfail
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Then again, I was always the NEEEEEERD, so I think the baggy Pokemon shirts (because they didn't come in girls' sizes at the time) probably helped to shield me. #dailyfail
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That's why articles like this make me see red. #dailyfail
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If it's that simple I want a damn pony for Christian Bale not being in my pants. #dailyfail
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Oh wait, yes, he's also the guy who wrote this amazingly self-pitying (and elusive, of course) separation and then reconciliation with his girlfriend, complete with complaints about the fact that women "always" get custody. #dailyfail
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[www.dailymail.co.uk] #dailyfail
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(Their logic is not Earth logic.) #dailyfail
09/30/09
09/30/09
Watch The Wire. It's seriously good.
09/30/09
09/30/09