The legs in boots without heels belong to Posh Spice
There’s an article in today’s M magazine (comes with The Sunday Age) that discusses what a woman’s choice of shoes say about her. The article features a large photo of a female who’s on a bicycle while attired in a short dress and a pair of high heels. She rides her bike in heels, apparently. Not sure why they chose to include such a big photo of the woman in the high heels and short dress, but suffice to say she’s a heels kind of a gal:
But I am committed – I will always be a heels girl. I feel like I could run five kilometres in heels, it’s totally fine. It’s about just looking down and feeling happy – heels do that for me.
The article also features Melbourne blogger Rebekka Power, and Rebekka isn’t a high heels kind of a gal:
Heels are silly, period. They are uncomfortable, bad for my spine, misalign my pelvis…I have not read one benefit heels do for my body.
Like corsets in old England and feet binding in ancient China, heels are just another way to handicap females. When a female’s in a pair of stilettos, there is no way she can run away if she’s being attacked, or needs to get away from some form of danger or trouble.
My shoes say that I’m about as thoughtful about the impact of shoes on the health of feet as a woman who rides her bike while wearing high heels. What do your shoes say about you?
They say ‘We need another election, quick!’
I think high heels suck. Not just because they’re bad for those who wear ‘em but aesthetically too. I kinda like those boots except for the silly tip-toe bits.
My shoes don’t say anything about me, because one pair doesn’t have a tongue, and the other are quite tight laced.
Who came up with this ‘boots without heels’ idea, anyway? I’ve seen them in a couple of places now. It seems like the most horrible kind of torture imaginable.
Heh heh. I wear sensible shoes. In every meaning of those words. I’ve had a bit of trouble in the last few years with my legs and feet which have prevented me from walking freely, and I’m buggered if I can understand why a woman would choose to be hobbled by her heels. Sometimes I look at women clearly struggling to walk freely, and think that maybe I am their future.
Wears shoes which are comfortable, functional, or durable. Usually these three things do not come in the one pair of boots/shoes.
I don’t know how she walks in those things, Adrien. I’m sure footwear is a political issue (contrary to the idea the only things like elections count – which is patriarchal tosh) and I think high heel suck for many reasons. I saw a young woman walking the other day and she looked like she was about to fall bum over something or rather. I thought, “get a pair of uggies, sister”.
“My shoes don’t say anything about me, because one pair doesn’t have a tongue, and the other are quite tight laced.”
I think you’re right, MH. It is their future. I can see why they’d think they sometimes look nice, but…a nice pair of sensible shoes are much better. Some flatties look very chic.
That urban dictionary definition is sort of amusing.
Sounds sensible (see urban dictionary), SATP. What about RM Williams boots?
http://www.ptarmiganclothing.com/images/products/394_s_RM-williams-Craftsman-Suede.jpg
RMs is (are?) what I wear all the time, Darlene. I have two identical (except for age) pairs of Craftsmen for work, so I can air them, and still have something to wear when one pair is having its soles and heels replaced, and a pair of their work boots for, well, anything that requires work boots. They fit all three of SATP’s requirements.
Darlene, for high heels I prefer RM Williams “Santa Fe” and for flat heels RM Williams “Gardener”. However neither are very comfortable for leisure wear.
Darlene I’m sure footwear is a political issue (contrary to the idea the only things like elections count – which is patriarchal tosh) and I think high heel suck for many reasons.
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Well I ain;t gonna restrat my patriarchy schpiel here. I’m sure your glad. But it is a fact that no-one compels women to wear heels. So why do they do it?
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I’ve asked that question often.
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The foot-binding analogy might be telling. A kind of perverse extension of the fetish for women’s small well-shaped feet (as opposed to our ugly slabs of meat). Personally I’d rather not. I fail to see the beauty in badly curved spines or broken claws. For myself one of the modern icons of beauty is to see a woman jogging. Free and strong. As nature intended.
An opinion Adrien which is shared by most males. Jogger women bouncing along certainly focuses men’s attention.
David Irving (no relation), I agree that the RMs fit all three of SATP’s requirements. They look quite smart and comfortable, but going by what SATP says perhaps they’re not always as comfortable as they look.
Adrien, the comment about the politics of footwear was in response to comment number 1.
As a non-high heel wearer I can’t answer that question. I suppose it is considered feminine, sexy, makes one wiggle to attract the blokes. Christ knows. Nothing more attractive than feet with toes all out of shape and bunions.
I wear Dunlop Volleys. I have about half a dozen pairs in varying shades from pristine white to mouldy grey. They are comfortable and functional and, though not especially durable, cheap enough to replace every few months. During winter I wear a pair of Colorado buckle-up boots I bought in an opshop for $30, roughly 10% of their retail value. The previous owner obviously didn’t like the colour and botched a darker stain job. They had never been worn before I slipped them on and, Cinderella-like, found they fit me perfectly. What do my footwear choices say about me? Who cares? I am not trying to make any kind of fashion statement.
Re high heels: I don’t mind the look of them on some women, though they are obviously hard to walk in. I used to do a bit of stilt-walking in a previous career, and watching some women walking in stilletos reminds me of that. They are inherently unstable. Posh’s heel-less boots are really, really dumb. But then, so is everything else asociated with her.
Posh’s heel-less boots are really, really dumb. But then, so is everything else asociated with her.
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Now wait a minute,. What about her husband? Um…
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Stupid point.
As a non-high heel wearer I can’t answer that question. I suppose it is considered feminine, sexy, makes one wiggle to attract the blokes. Christ knows. Nothing more attractive than feet with toes all out of shape and bunions.
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Yes there’s the conventions of beauty.
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These conventions however are more malleable then ever they were. I know that advertising and other imagology exhert their pressures and these are considerable. Still it does boil down to individual choices made by women. That puts it in the realm of the private sphere beyond the strictly political. I can’t help feeling that a new paradigm is warranted.
Women have been told that men find high heels sexy: the visual effects of the lengthening of the calf, the tilting of the pelvis, etc. I’ve seen women at work performing biopsies or as executives schlepping around the office in high heels and it’s obvious what they’re doing: trying to show that they can be all that women can be said to be, both for themselves and all those craved desiring men.
The leather-booted, high-heeled, sadistically enclosed, strappy shoe fetish of men is very real and historically the most common cross-cultural male sexual fetish. Not surprisingly, then, the sight of women in footwear like that pictured above is beyond creepy to many. It depresses and angers me and I feel nothing but pity and sorrow for the women who wear them.
As to my preferred footwear: It has always been and remains none. Being 6ft in bare feet perhaps partly preconditioned me. But I’ve always thought bare feet are beautiful to look at and to touch. It is unthinkable to climb trees or swim or run or sleep or make love with covered feet. I adore massaging feet, anyone’s, to caress such tender, tough skin and experience the pleasure this brings to both is a joy.
There are few things more luxuriously sensual than the feel of the earth, particularly grass, on unsheathed soles. Even a little pain from burning sand or sharp gravel is preferable to being shod like a tamed, hobbled, broken mare.
Shoes of a certain shape, when worn, can transform a woman’s appearance much as does a dress of a certain cut.
Wear a dress/shoes/whatever of a similar function, but different design, and hey presto, your nymph becomes a frump!
High heels CAN be quite alluring.
Yes, SATP, we know. The point is that those of us who consider ourselves human beings first and women second are not willing to sacrifice our comfort, to say nothing of our skeletons, in order to be found ‘alluring’.
Besides, those of us who have any imagination at all can think of all kinds of other avenues of allure.
I used to love stalking around in very high stilletos, but when I bought a deli and was on my feet 16 or more hours a day, every day, I wore sneakers and other sensible and comfy shoes.
Now because I have spurs in my heels, the most comfortable shoes for me are homy ped beachies, Nike (I think) sneakers for cold days and Rossi steel caps with cushion soles for doing wet crayfishy stuff and waddling around sheep yards.
PC,
To me, when women are free to do as they want they should also be free to look like fools and wear uncomfortable clothing – as many of us men have been doing for years (exhibit 1 – the tie).
Perhaps you shold turn this into one of the general purpose condemn threads, with the first item of condemnation being silly clothing. I hate to say it, but the more you see images like that one the more you are reminding women to waer the stupid thing (IMHO). Every time I see a person in a tie it makes me feel like I should be wearing one – and I wear them more than often enough.
I used to love stalking around in very high stilletos
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Why?
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Every time I see a person in a tie it makes me feel like I should be wearing one
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Product of Grammar School right?
Adrien,
Have you been checking my facebook profile?
Have you been checking my facebook profile?
But of course. Ve in KGB haf spiez everyvhere!
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I’ve been hassled for being a non-tie wearer so many times I can’t count. It’s funny how many workplaces offer you flexible working hours and flexible dress codes and then get peeved when you take advantage of them. I’ve worn a tie exactly once in three years.
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Like suits. They’re cool – when you don’t have to wear ‘em.
Audrey Hepburn, an elegant woman who looked wonderful and sexy in ballet flats or high heels. It’s not just the shoes, it’s the way we wear them.
As for Posh Beckham, she says she can’t think in flat shoes.
As for Posh Beckham, she says she can’t think in flat shoes.
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And the heels are helpin’ out. Real good.
Adrien, I totally agree about suits and ties. Fortunately my employer doesn’t insist on either, so I can save them for when I want to wear them.
JahTeh, I’d be flabbergasted if Posh could think at all, regardless of shoe type.
I used to love stalking around in very high stilletos
Just becos, adrien, just becos they made my legs, feet and ankles look sensational when I was young, rich and famous and wearing very short minis, well maybe young and they added another 6″ in height. Anyway, I can’t wear them nowadays, but if I could I probably still would.
ALRIGHT, I WAS BLOODY VAIN! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW YOU’VE WRUNG THAT CONFESSION OUT OF ME?
Those Dunlop Volleys sound comfy indeed, oxymandias. I wonder whether we all make a statement with our attire in one way or another.
Posh’s shoes are really really dumb. True fashion victim stuff. Posh just might be the ultimate symbol of our consumerist age or just a sad woman who doesn’t know how to express herself beyond the visual.
Blokes in suits in tropical climates are a ridiculous sight. The suit is meant to give them the allure of authority and power, but the crumpled look and sweaty armpits upset the whole look, which might not be a bad thing at all.
Interesting, Jane. From high heels to sneakers and steel caps.
It’s me plates, Darlene. They got spurs an’ they’re old an’ gnarled an’ decrepit! They need cushion soles an’ low heels! And I have to admit high heels just wouldn’t cut it handling crays and marking lambs. Sigh!
I haven’t got bunions, though. Then I’d have to wear felt slippers with cut outs for the bunions like my Gran’ma.
Posh Beckham appears to have achieved what Posh Beckham set out to do — cause perfect strangers to talk about her.
This talent has earned herself and her husband hundreds of millions of dollars.
So, who are the stupid folks in this commercial relationship?
A captivating little foot,
Though swollen and red and tender!
The doctors come and plasters put,
But still they cannot mend her.
Yet, ’tis not for her foot I dread-
A theme for Pushkin’s muse more fit-
It’s not her foot, it is her head:
I tremble for her loss of wit!
For as her foot swells, strange to say,
Her intellect is on the wane-
Oh, for some remedy I pray
That may restore both foot and brain!
“The Brothers Karamazov”
Diana’s breast, and Flora’s cheeks,
My friends, they’re truly good,
But spot where is my sight’s fix
Is Terpsichore’s foot.
While it prophesies me a sort
Of valuable reward,
It does attract a hive of wishes
With its beauty, solemn, precious.
I love them, dear friend Elvina,
Deep-hidden under tablecloth,
In springtime next to grass and moss,
By fireplace, seducing poor sinner,
Reflected in the glass of floor,
And on the rocks along seashore.
Aleksandr Pushkin
Alas, on various amusements
I squandered many of life’s good hours!
But if my nerves had not been weakened
I still would worship dancing floors.
I love the madcap fling of youth,
The crush, the sparkle and the gaiety,
The girls’ elaborate dress, the novelty,
And how I do adore their feet. Scarcely
Through all of Russia could you find
Three pairs of slender women’s feet.
Ah! For long I never could forget
Two little feet… Now sad and frozen,
I still remember, and in my dreams
My heart is troubled by their charms.
But when, wherever, in what deserted strand,
You madman, could you ever forget?
Ah, little feet, where now do you stand?
What springtime flowers now bear your
weight?
For pampered amidst all Eastern luxury,
Upon the Northern, gloomy snows,
You left no trace as you passed by;
You loved the sensual eloquence
Of a soft carpet’s luxuriance.
How long for you I suffered misery
Forgetting praise, and thirst of fame,
And love of country, an exile’s pain.
But now the dream of youth is over,
Like your soft footstep on the clover.
A.S.Pushkin. Eugeny Onegin
“The Brothers Karamazov”:
“But why are you trembling? Let me tell you; he may be
honest, our Mitya (he is stupid, but honest), but he’s
– a sensualist. That’s the very definition and inner
essence of him. It’s your father has handed him on his
low sensuality. Do you know, I simply wonder at you,
Alyosha, how you can have kept your purity. You’re a
Karamazov too, you know! In your family sensuality is
carried to a disease. But now, these three sensualists
are watching one another, with their knives in their
belts. The three of them are knocking their heads
together, and you may be the fourth.”
“You are mistaken about that woman. Dmitri despises
her,” said Alyosha, with a sort of shudder.
“Grushenka? No, brother, he doesn’t despise her. Since
he has openly abandoned his betrothed for her, he
doesn’t despise her. There’s something here, my dear
boy, that you don’t understand yet. A man will fall in
love with some beauty, with a woman’s body, or even
with a part of a woman’s body (a sensualist can
understand that), and he’ll abandon his own children
for her, sell his father and mother, and his country,
Russia, too. If he’s honest, he’ll steal; if he’s
humane, he’ll murder; if he’s faithful, he’ll deceive.
Pushkin, the poet of women’s feet, sung of their feet
in his verse. Others don’t sing their praises, but
they can’t look at their feet without a thrill — and
it’s not only their feet. Contempt’s no help here,
brother, even if he did despise Grushenka. He does,
but he can’t tear himself away.”
“I understand that,” Alyosha jerked out suddenly.”
Perhaps we all are stupid, Katz. Yep, we are talking about her now, but she has a certain amount of influence. If she doesn’t somebody similarily attached to the fashion of the absurd does because there are women getting about in Melbourne wearing shoes that go way beyond the old high heel (I almost wrote high hell there).
Jane, the feet seem to be one of the first things to let us know that time is moving on and that we haven’t as been as kind to ourselves as we should’ve been.
It’s certainly true, jinmaro, that going without shoes is a wonderful thing. To feel sand or grass or whatever under the feet is sweet indeed.
hmm, in the tropical north it’s ‘crocs’ for everyday wear and birkenstocks for posh night outs
Thongs are ok too if you don’t mind fallen arches.
Darlene, our feet are very sensitive, they are a combination of hard and soft and they are the only part of our naked body that touches the ground, or the earth, which we know in our hearts is sacred.
Those Posh boots seem to have suffered some kind of spillage. Looks like they’ve had wine or some corrosive liquid splashed all over them. Come to think of it, think of sitting down with a tin of Kiwi to clean those bloody things on a Wednesday night? It’d take the entire episode of HOUSE (usually enough for all the shoes I have needing a clean.) Not that Posh would clean her own.
My grandfather had a stern row of black laceeups, one for each day of the week. It was my grandmother’s job to keep them all clean and shiny.
Birkenstocks for a night out sounds pretty flash to me
The image of Posh sitting down with a tin of Kiwi to clean those boots make me laugh out loud, Helen.
Yes, many a woman cleaned shoes with the old Kiwi. Is that stuff still around?
Too much disapproval going on here for my liking. A well made shoe with a reasonable heel is not going to do the wearer any more harm than an ill-fitting poorly constructed flat. And I can’t run in Birkenstocks or in bare feet. I can’t run carrying a laptop and eight books either, which I usually am.
Yes, many a woman cleaned shoes with the old Kiwi. Is that stuff still around?
Certainly is, Darlene. I use it on the Rossis before a thick coat of dubbin. Sea water doesn’t enhance the life of leather (or any other) footwear.
jinmaro waxes poetical eh?
Here’s my contribution:
“Oh a slim little waist is a pleasure
and a trim little limb is divine,
Oh a sly little eye is a treasure
it’ll get him drunker than wine.
You’ll drive him half insane
in a bathing suit of cellophane.
Keep young and beautiful
if you want to be loved.”
Eddie Cantor.
See:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=285-qOZjt2g
Or, as subsequently skewered by Annie Lennox:
http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=OrpHbTZ_jL8
Well most of the time I’m barefoot but if need be I just can’t get out of wearing basketball shoes from my teens. I have a pair of Andrew Gaze’s shoes from like Big W or something similar. They do the job and only cost around $40-$50. A music store in town was having a clearance sale so I grabbed a couple of those emo shoes the kids wear that are rip offs of Chuck Taylors for $20ea. If I come across shoes in my size at a price like that I have to grab them. Both Green Day one black pair and one green pair. Also got a pair of ripples lying around somewhere.
Not keen on shoes I prefer feeling the earth directly beneath me, hightens the senses.
High heels? Absolute rubbish. Dont agree with them and dont like the look of them either, must be horrible to wear.
Darlene, Kiwi’s never gone away!
The problem is training the family to use a different brush for each colour. At the moment we have black, brown and red. No blue (no medicos in the family.)
Ugly dumpy chicks should embrace fashion not revile it. Rememember, hot dudes never make passes at dowdy chicks who were glasses.
Like Jane I have Rossis.
/product-endorsement
And I agree, Laura. I’d happily wear a decent pair of Cuban heels, and ideally would match them with a grey horse, a poncho, a pair of matched six-shooters, five days’ growth and a midday squint.
I spend more on shoes and enjoy shoe shopping, unlike the rest of clothes shopping. And like M-H I fit the sensible shoes definition in all senses. there’s only really one decent shoe shop in Hobart if you care about your feet – it’s called the ‘Birkenstock Shop’ but thankfully stocks all sorts of excellent, largely european shoes. When I lived in Switzerland, the shoe shops were definitely a highlight. Lots of very stylish shoes, for which the first pitch from the sales assistants would be to explain their latest innovation in supporting healthy, strong feet.
So I picked up a habit, and one that has served me well.
I loathe high heels. I’m pretty sure it’s incorrect (I think earliest evidence points to heeled shoes first being used by the Persians to help with horse riding with stirrups), but I was told early in life that the Egyptians invented high heels specifically for their slaves to wear, so they couldn’t run away. This made perfect sense to me in all sorts of ways and I determined I didn’t want to be a slave in any sense either.
My feet seem pretty happy with the decision, and now with the help of European shoe makers, it can even by stylish.
Jinmaro,
agree with you. Much prefer bare feet. Shoes are too hard to put on. But thongs are exceedingly useful for walking on very hot footpaths and roads of sticky tar, or to stop one’s tender soles walking over blue-metal, or grass with nasty bindy-eyes. Also helpful to stop one stubbing one’s toes or bashing toes against furniture.
Winter is the time for shoes.
loved the Russian literature.
My feet are too temperamental for Birkenstocks. They just don’t seem to get along, I suspect because they’re too flat for my spurs. I’m definitely a homy ped and Rossi kid. The husband also has fussy feet owing to spurs in the heels and diabetes, and swaps between Rossi steel caps with cushion soles, Blunnies and crocs which I can’t wear.
The daughter is an RM fan but loves high heels and bare feet. She tried on a pair of Manolos in Melbourne and pronounced them divine. Although they were on sale, she restrained herself, declaring there’s always next year.
The language disordered son wears bare feet, but has to wear sneakers when he works in catering and Rossi steel caps on the mowing round while working at sheltered employment. Rubber boots for factory work with the crays.
Just a small point, but the assumption that “heels on a bike” is stupid/difficult etc. is wrong.
While heels are hell to walk in, they’re quite easy to ride a bike in.
Posh’s boots seem to ensure that she will continually topple over backwards and land flat on her back. Perhaps that’s the point.
Helen,
I’m an old bloke and I love the smell and texture of Kiwi. When our kids were young we managed to maintain a brown brush and a black brush. Later, ox blood (colour) was needed for a while (90s?).
I think the allure of Kiwi is that as kids we had to clean & polish our shoes, Nugget or Kiwi; and so the perfume and procedure take me back across the decades. Nothing like a perfume to transport us into a strong memory. cheers.
Darlene posted:
“Not sure why they chose to include such a big photo of the woman in the high heels and short dress.”
Aw, c’mon Darlene. We can all hazard a guess. Yes, we can!
Birkies don’t work well for my feet either Jane, but my partner would be lost without them. I have over the years from the afore-mentioned shop bought a range of largely German, but also other nationality shoes that are not at all like Birkie with the exception that they have also been designed from the starting principle that shoes should be good for your feet and body, not bad.
At the moment my hoofs are covered by a pair of German shoes with a built-in central ‘rocker’ that puts your feet and legs into proper posture mode – a friend compared wearing them to when you do Yoga and consciously realign how you stand and walk to fix posture. While I’m a tad more skeptical than I’m probably sounding right now about such claims, I’ve found these shoes have improved my posture and gait quite a bit – and I know it’s true ‘cos I saw my physio before and after (knee problems) and she commented unprovoked on the improvement.
Birkies I find personally generally too heavy and a bit too rigid in their opinion of how your foot should sit.
Colin wrote:
I’ve never tried it, but I’d suspect that you’d have trouble on the down part of the pedal stroke when the heel bit would scrape on the ground, wouldn’t it?
I feel a bit Imelda Marcos at the moment myself, owning six pairs of shoes:
A pair of the cheapest Shimano cycling shoes, a real bugger to walk in even with cleat covers. Ladies, if you want tight calves, switch to a pair of those.
A pair of very, very cheap Rivers shoes I keep at work, for putting on after cycling in.
A pair of incredibly beaten up Brooks Beasts – were very expensive shoes for big blokes who jog but suffer from rolling feet. I will cry when I have to throw them out, not just because of the replacement cost.
A pair of Redback boots for the weekend (comfy, good foot protection, tough, ugly).
A pair of black dress shoes I never wear unless somebody drops off the twig.
A pair of enormous ugly “dad” sandal thingies, although never paired with socks, for summer (not much use in a New England winter).
That’s a lot of shoes for a man, and is probably shameful.
1. Brooks something or other – best walking shoes I have ever owned.
2. 2 pairs of Campers – love them dearly
3. Pair of Rockport work shoes
4. Pair of Merrell leather sandles – SOO comfortable
5. Pair of Merrell trek shoes – SOO uncomfortable
Well I tied with you David, but at least I’m nowhere near the 50 plus shoes my wife owns. And not a high high heel in sight.
Liam @ 45: Until you don a Sombrero the visual effect will likely be the opposite of what you hoped for.
“A well made shoe with a reasonable heel is not going to do the wearer any more harm than an ill-fitting poorly constructed flat.”
I agree with that, Laura. I think the best shoe is probably a well-constructed flat.
“Just a small point, but the assumption that “heels on a bike” is stupid/difficult etc. is wrong.
While heels are hell to walk in, they’re quite easy to ride a bike in.”
Is that right….wow, I always ride in my sneakers so I would’ve thought heels would be hell to ride in.
Firstly I just have to point out that while the sentiments were mine, the words actually were not – I would *never* refer to women as “females”, I never said I wanted “girly” shoes and there are a few other inaccuracies (like the fact that when asked about what I’d wear to my wedding I actually said I won’t ever get married), but overall, they said what I meant, so I’m not unhappy.
Adrien said: “But it is a fact that no-one compels women to wear heels. So why do they do it?”
Of course no-one *compels* women to wear heels. No-one *compelled* women to wear corsets either. No-one *compels* women to have plastic surgery to look younger, or to have bigger boobs, or to have laser surgery to reduce the amount of normal body hair they have either. May I direct you to the definition of internalised sexism on the Feminism 101 blog?
Women – and men – do not make choices in a vacuum. We make them within the confines of patriarchy. That includes choices about footwear.
Laura said: “Too much disapproval going on here for my liking. A well made shoe with a reasonable heel is not going to do the wearer any more harm than an ill-fitting poorly constructed flat. And I can’t run in Birkenstocks or in bare feet. I can’t run carrying a laptop and eight books either, which I usually am.”
Define “reasonable”. Podiatrists says that anything over 3cm (which some people don’t even consider a heel) is doing your body a lot of damage. And the disapproval is not – at least from me, as interviewed for the article – of women for making choices, the disapproval is of the patriarchy and its ongoing literal hobbling of women. Ill-fitting shoes don’t do anyone any good, I agree. But heels tilt your pelvis on an unnatural angle (which actually means you are, if you regularly wear heels, more likely to need a c-section if you have a baby), shorten your calf muscles, and damage your lower back.
The difference between heels and running with a laptop and books is that if an attacker chases you down the street at night, you can drop the laptop and the books. What are you going to do about the heels? You’ve already pointed out you can’t run in bare feet.
one pair of Saucony trainers, cheepest in the DFO that day.
one pair of Saloman walking Boots, very comfy, but not quite fully worn in
one pair of Baxters(poor mans RMs), Black
Shimano cleats
teva sandles.
climbing boots
the sauconys are crap and i can’t wait until i can get a proper pair of asics. the Salomans have only endured one easy 4 day tramp in NZ, everything got wet and the gortex was redundant. the Baxters are fab, nearly ten years old now, my second pair, the first i got in an op shop and seemed to last forever.
i havn’t been in high heels since ‘82, it took me ages to get used to them, i borrowed a pair from a burlesque performer for a couple of months and have not found a pair that would fit since. i remember a great sense of accomplishment when i could actually walk in them without losing my balance every ten feet or so. as a theatrical device i thought that they were awsome, ’cause they made me six foot seven inches tall and my legs went on forever, ’cause they are/were such potent cultural signs (tho i didn’t think in that kind of language then), and ’cause my girlfriend thought that i looked hot. i couldn’t have coped with them as a lifestyle choise tho, they never felt sturdy enough and they caused more pain that seemed necessary. the only shoes that i ever wore that felt worse were my climbing boots, and then only when they were new of i’d been off rock for too long, like right now.
Jesus sandals
Original 80s Adidas Romes (worn very occasionally as getting frail)
Saucony brown/yellow cross-trainers (high rotation)
Dunlop KT-26 x 2 pairs (always one newish, one old)
Bright red/white Adidas footy boots
No-name el cheapo loafers that hurt my feet
No-name el cheapo loafers that look goofy and hurt my feet
2-tone fluoro-stitched bowling shoes I accidentally stole when drunk (sorry Rosemount Bowl)
Volleys
Lotto indoor soccer boots
Fremantle Dockers merch canvas hi-tops
Sensible black Shoes (that hurt my feet)
What does this say about me? That the space under my bed is getting tight.
Jane – ALRIGHT, I WAS BLOODY VAIN! ARE YOU HAPPY NOW YOU’VE WRUNG THAT CONFESSION OUT OF ME?
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yep.
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Jinmoro – Nice quotes. Them Rooskies knew a thing or two ’bout scribblin’ then. Still do. A Hero of Our Time is my favourite.
What does this say about me?
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You are an inner-city wanker.
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Jesus sandals you hippie.
Speaking of “reasonable heels”, one thing I notice while shoe-shopping these days is the lack of the podiatrist-approved three-centimetre variety. There’s a preponderance of ballet flats and three-inch instruments of torture but not much in between for girly-girls who want to walk from work to pub and home again (in no particular order!) without the hassle of toting a second pair.
If shoes are a form of self-expression (a point made rather repetitively by the ‘M’ article) and assuming that what they signify is fixed (at least for the time being), it’s not (immediately) obvious why what we can express with them is so polarised. Must I be a slut in stilettos or a dyke in sensible shoes? Can’t I be both, or neither? Can’t I make peace with the patriarchy by wearing low-rises, or opt out all together?
My feet hurt, I wanna sit on the fence.
Things accidentally stolen (while drunk or otherwise) and what does this say about you… that’s another good topic for a weekend thread!
True Emma.
I have many such things. Once I was at Myer looking at sunglasses and took so long deciding that I just walked out in triumph with them right there in my hands. Didn’t realise until I got to the train station and by then it was… um… to late to take them back. Or something.
Jesus Christ Rebekka, what a distasteful line of questioning. I’ll kick the attacker in the balls instead of running away, is that an alright answer? I have to say this theme reminds me of that revolting chain email that goes around sometimes which warns women not to go alone to their parked cars after dark.
And I can run fine in bare feet on grass but not on asphalt or concrete. In the 4.5cm heel shoes I have on today, however, I can and did run the 700m to the train station (although I shouldn’t have bothered because new timetable or not, the train was still nine minutes late.)
Emma are you in Melbourne? Try The Walking Company in Little Bourke Street. They have some girly-ish things that are not heels but are not ballet flats either.
Scrag Fight! Scrag Fight!
The last thing I accidentally stole was a packet of radish seeds from Bunnings, who totally owed me something anyhow.
Ps – sod off David.
Does it count as stealing if a major electrical retailer drops off a Stove, Fridge, Dishwasher, and extraction hood to the house you are renovating. Then never sends a bill?
Cheapest kitchen reno evva!
Laura, you said (presumably in response to what I said in the article about women being unable to run away in heels if attacked) that “I can’t run in Birkenstocks or in bare feet. I can’t run carrying a laptop and eight books either, which I usually am.”
I was merely pointing out that there’s a difference between fashion that literally hobbles women and carrying something that slows you down.
You can drop what you’re carrying, you can’t just kick off your shoes and run on concrete.
My point is not so much what you personally will do if you’re attacked (and if you’ve ever done a self-defense course you’d probably have been taught that trying to kick someone in the balls is not a particularly good idea), I was responding to your suggestion that “A well made shoe with a reasonable heel” is no worse, from the running-away perspective, than carrying a laptop and books. Actually, there’s a world of difference, and my overall point is that heels are part of a contiuum of fashion that physically disables women – corsets, enormous heavy dresses, foot binding, pencil skirts, jeans so tight you have to lie down and zip them up with a coathanger (remember the 80s?) – and that that, in itself, is a product of the patriarchy and of rape culture.
Yes, it’s distasteful to think about what you’d do if you were attacked, but it’s a hell of a lot more distasteful that we live in a culture where women’s fashion is designed to disable us if we are.
I won’t list my shoes but I have a lot of shoes. I love shoes. There are an amazing range of sensible shoes available these days, presumably thanks to the Ageing Population. Almost all of them are imported from Germany or Spain or Israel. I buy them on special at the end of the season and I’m especially fond of the ones with interesting stitching and/or in unusual colours.
Most of my shoes have a low heel; they are never entirely flat as I find the completely flat shoe -eg the ballet flat or sandshoes – or the birkenstock kind with the dropped heel very uncomfortable.
I have enjoyed this thread!
“we live in a culture where women’s fashion is designed to disable us if we are.”
Do we?
At least 99% of men don’t believe we “live in a rape culture”. They may, however, have noticed that we live in exhibitionist, status-display times. Men show off shamelessly. Women show off. Men get drunk. Women learn self-defence.
Cars get stolen. Do we then “live in an automotive-theft culture”?
I abhor rape, BTW.
Actually, there’s a world of difference, and my overall point is that heels are part of a contiuum of fashion that physically disables women – corsets, enormous heavy dresses, foot binding, pencil skirts, jeans so tight you have to lie down and zip them up with a coathanger (remember the 80s?) – and that that, in itself, is a product of the patriarchy and of rape culture.
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If you look at the moments of feminist assertion throughout history, here I’m thinking of the 1800s, the 1920s and the 1960s you’ll see clothes go thru a radical transformation. They become more comfortable. And also more revealing. There’s a correlation here that backs up this assertion.
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But women choose their clothes. They buy their shoes and the rest. So if high heels are a product of ‘rape culture’ are women who buy high heels colluding somehow in this?
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I tend to think it’s more about notions of style and beauty and that these things are challenged best with competing notions of style and beauty.
Rape culture describes a contiuum of behaviour that normalises treating women as sexual objects. There is no equivalent continuum of behaviour that normalises car theft, so no, we don’t live in an automotive-theft culture. I suggest understanding the concept you’re arguing against is helpful when trying to come up with a counter-argument that doesn’t sound like you’ve entirely missed the point.
Men are, of course, coming from a position of male privilege, so if they can’t see the ubiquity of rape culture, it’s perhaps not surprising. But when you throw figures around like “99% of men”, unless you’ve got a well-designed study with a statistically significant sample to back you up, you just sound like you’re pulling figures out of the air.
Adrien, I already answered that in my previous response to your comments – see this comment.
And the FAQ about internalised sexism on Feminism 101.
“Firstly I just have to point out that while the sentiments were mine, the words actually were not – I would *never* refer to women as “females”, I never said I wanted “girly” shoes and there are a few other inaccuracies (like the fact that when asked about what I’d wear to my wedding I actually said I won’t ever get married), but overall, they said what I meant, so I’m not unhappy.”
Thanks for pointing that out. It was a cute picture.
Jesus sandals mix the spiritual and the comfortable, FDB. Heavenly.
MH, I think the problem with some of the flat shoes is that they don’t provide enough material between the wearer and the footpath. If that makes sense.
Thank you for the Wikipedia link, Rebekka.
It begins
“Rape culture is a widely used term within women’s studies and feminism describing a culture in which rape and other sexual violence are common and in which prevalent attitudes, norms, practices, and media condone, normalize, excuse, or encourage sexualized violence. Within the paradigm, acts of “harmless” sexism are commonly employed to validate and rationalize normative misogynistic practices; for instance, sexist jokes may be told to foster disrespect for women and an accompanying disregard for their well-being, which ultimately make their rape and abuse seem acceptable. Examples of behaviors said to typify rape culture include victim blaming, trivializing prison rape, and sexual objectification.”
Well, it may be a widely used term. But to claim that ‘rape and sexual violence are common’ seems to me an extreme claim, which I’d want to see backed up by figures. Yes, several of these crimes are doubtless under-reported in Australia. Still, …… I would hazard a guess that the link between a putative “rape culture” and someone’s quaint idea of sexy footwear, deserves a special Agincourt Award [copyright LP] as a long bow.
I believe that 99% of Australian men, plucked downwards in a graceful arabesque out of the air, do not and have not engaged in criminal violence towards any women, including therein any form of sexual violence. But feel free to prove me wrong.
I further believe that 96% of Australian men find the kind of high fashion footwear foregrounded in your very interesting post grotesque, far too expensive, and demeaning. We don’t want our sheilas making fools of themselves (and us).
I’m an unabashed show obsessive and fetishist. I’ve got masses of the things. Yes, I probably have more high heels than most people here, but I’ve also probably got more “sensible” shoes (and more stompy boots, and more sandals, and more costume shoes, etc etc) than most people here, too.
It’s the one part of my wardrobe/collection of stuff where I indulge and embrace consumerism, and it’s completely worth it. I LOVE the things.
And considering I’m 5′10″ in bare feet, I always find it hilarious when people suggest I’m wearing high heels for the men. Oddly enough, most dudes are a wee bit terrified of a woman who towers over them.
Thanks Darlene! I can confirm that the picture at least was definitely me!
And even flat shoes need, you know, stuff inside them so the pavement doesn’t hurt.
I am not greatly appreciating the suggestion, which in the quote and in later comments you are a hair’s breadth from making, Rebekka, that a woman who’s attacked while wearing heels is partly to blame for her predicament.
FDB – you like Dunlop K-26s too?
Best running shoes evah! and they don’t cost a week’s wages. (Not that I run any more – too old and fat.)
I don’t think there’s much connection between wearing high heels and rape. The scenario of being able to run away from the rapist doesn’t really gel with how rape actually occurs. And yes, it does start creeping into victom blaming.
Never attack a girl wearing corsets, you are ignoring the second half of the sentence: ” in which prevalent attitudes, norms, practices, and media condone, normalize, excuse, or encourage sexualized violence”
Once again, rape culture isn’t just about rape – it’s about a continuum of behaviour that normalises women being treated as sexual objects. But if you reckon 99% of men have never been sexually violent towards a woman, it’s an interesting question who’s actually sexually abusing 14% of women before the age of 20. You reckon it’s all the one guy?
Laura, I am nowhere near blaming women who wear high heels for rape – I am blaming the patriarchy. Suggesting that women might want to think about why the patriarchy has a vested interest in keeping women’s physical movements restricted via their clothing and footwear is not the same as blaming women for being raped.
I believe unequivocally that women are never responsible for the sexual violence perpetuated against them. Never.
And yes, Fine, I know most women are raped by someone they know, and the stranger-in-a-dark-alley is actually the exception rather than the rule.
But it does still happen. And I wouldn’t want to try to run away from someone I know in heels either.
The fact that HH’s wreck your spine, legs and feet is surely enuf, isn’t it?
That Walking Shop on little Bourke st is a ripper. I never have money for shoes though. (Sob!) Greatest disappointment of the year was my new Aku’s which I saved and saved and begged birthday contributions for. They don’t. bloody. fit. after all. Watch this space, when I finally find the walking boots that fit me I’ll be selling them cheap to some lucky person.
…Ha! When will I learn to change my sockpuppet names?
The boots in the picture look silly. She looks much better in a nice pair of strappy heels – great legs. Can’t say I am a fan of the panel beating job, though, o rm uch else to do with her or her husband.
The Feminists are out in force today. What a boring place it would be if you lot were able to enforce your dress codes. It appears many of you would be happier living in North Korea than here – don’t see many in high heels there, let alone heelless high heels.
If you want to wear them or any other sort of foot wear off you go then, we live in a generally free society and fortunately we canwear what we want, despite the feminists (or should that be to spite the feminists – that would be very cool).
Razor, in my opinion there are few things more boring than your tired and predicatble comments. Yes, I know that it’s a ‘generally free society’ – why else would we have to put up with idiots like you.
When I first started working in offices in the city – females had to wear skirts and heels at just about all offices. It all changed within a few years. I had a job at 16 running scrip (broking) all over town by hand – juniors were the couriers back then – and I used to walk many kilometres per day in my one pair of high heels. You do get used to walking and even running in high heels. It’s not impossible even if it is bad for your feet/back etc.
And many dancers wear high heels – (not stilettoes) – latin, ballroom for example which are fast-paced dances. As the sayings goes – Fred Astaire is the greatest dancer in the world except for Ginger Rogers who did it backwards and in high heels.
Rebekka – Interesting that you refer me to a comment and then make another link to the same thing that answers the question. Interesting likewise that when I express a view that’s at odds with orthodoxy on matters such as these I get directed to Feminism 101 addressing points with which I was familiar by the second year of undergraduate study.
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I know perfectly well that society in general creates conventions, that these conventions are gendered and that the pressure exerted by them is considerable.
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However one has choices. There is room to move. For women there is more room to move now than ever. Yet there is this continual deferral to the notion that some monolithic power structure exists which must be destroyed to set us free. I put it to you that this is the wrong way of looking at it. Hannah Arendt remarks that all social phenomena to which we may object are answers to questions. It’s not enough to object to the answers one must come up with other answers.
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Hence this idea of sexual objectification as the root cause of rape. This phrase becomes more problematic the more you think about it. (Please don’t bother with the Fem 101 link, it’s been done). I think the problem stems more from a lack of empathy that possibly comes from the difference between men and women (empathy can be diminished by difference) and from the lack of socialization.
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I have been appalled by the behaviour of men towards women. And I’m constantly surprised that they don’t see anything wrong with it. They haven’t been taught to respect women hence they act like pigs. It’s the lack of appropriate socialization here not the presence of it. Humans are violent animals. All of us. We train ourselves not to be. One of the founding stones of every social contract is a certain understanding between the sexes. In the past, at least roughly from the time of emergent complex civilizations, this has entrenched patriarchy. To a certain extent we have broken with this past. But we have not, as Arendt would have it, come up with our set of answers.
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Sexual objectification becomes a problem concept simply because where do you draw the line between the dehumanizing restriction of women in the views of men to a ‘thing’ that is there solely as a means of sexual gratification and legitimate physical attraction? It’s easy to respond to this question in theory. However in practice there is no line, there’s a fluctuation. And this changes from person to person, group to group. And women are well capable of sexually objectifying men.
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The real meat here is what used to be called fellow feeling – do men regard women as other creatures like themselves with feelings. Do women regard men so? Actually there are those that don’t. In fact these days there seems to be such a lack of consideration I’m beginning to wonder if the rate of sociopathology hasn’t boosted recently.
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In any event with respect to the choice of footwear it seems to me that women buy the shoes. I have my most severe doubts that men and their attitudes are paramount in their decisions. I’m constantly told that by women that they don;t give a damn what we think. Hubris? Perhaps. I’m not sure. In the end however the consumer choices a woman makes are hers. If she makes decisions that are somehow acquiescing to the rape culture of which you speak what does that say?
“Rebekka – Interesting that you refer me to a comment and then make another link to the same thing that answers the question.”
That’s what happens when you ask the same question twice, i.e. but no-one’s forcing women to wear heels, so why do they do it?
“Interesting likewise that when I express a view that’s at odds with orthodoxy on matters such as these I get directed to Feminism 101 addressing points with which I was familiar by the second year of undergraduate study.”
Not that interesting – the answer to your questions was clearly “internalised sexism” and as you were still asking the question, it seemed pretty clear you hadn’t understood the answer.
Interesting that you refer to a radical feminist perspective as “orthodoxy” when if you think about it for thirty seconds – as I assume you have, since you were “familiar” with feminist concepts since your second year of undergraduate study (got to love an argument from authority) – radical feminism is pretty much the polar opposite of orthodoxy.
“However one has choices. There is room to move. For women there is more room to move now than ever.”
Choices.Not.Made.In.Cultural.Vacuums.
“Yet there is this continual deferral to the notion that some monolithic power structure exists which must be destroyed to set us free.”
Actually, I don’t believe anyone’s ever argued that patriarchy is a monolithic power structure – it’s a multi-faceted social order, not a monolithic power structure. And you reckon you’ve had a handle on all this since the second year of your undergraduate studies. I suggest you may need a refresher course.
“I put it to you that this is the wrong way of looking at it.”
Feminism – you’re doing it wrong. How original.
“Hannah Arendt remarks that all social phenomena to which we may object are answers to questions. It’s not enough to object to the answers one must come up with other answers.”
One woman’s opinions. And suggesting that feminists have to come up with the solutions to patriarchy is a ludicrous suggestion. Think about it.
“I think the problem stems more from a lack of empathy that possibly comes from the difference between men and women (empathy can be diminished by difference) and from the lack of socialization.”
I don’t see how this negates the concept of rape culture. And the concept of “difference diminishing empathy”? You could use that as an excuse for many types of appalling behaviour. It doesn’t change the fact that the group inflicting the appalling behaviour is acting from a position of power and privilege, and are enforcing their dominance.
“I have been appalled by the behaviour of men towards women. And I’m constantly surprised that they don’t see anything wrong with it. They haven’t been taught to respect women hence they act like pigs. It’s the lack of appropriate socialization here not the presence of it.”
Rubbish. That’s the patriarchy at work. They have been brought up constantly bombarded by images and situations (including within their own families) where women are being treated as objects. That’s total socialisation.
“Humans are violent animals. All of us. We train ourselves not to be. ”
I’d like to see some evidence for that. I’ve read a lot about evolutionary psychology (and I don’t mean the rubbish reported in the media) and my understanding is that cooperation is just as likely to be key to human behaviour. We are social animals, not lone animals.
“Sexual objectification becomes a problem concept simply because where do you draw the line between the dehumanizing restriction of women in the views of men to a ‘thing’ that is there solely as a means of sexual gratification and legitimate physical attraction? It’s easy to respond to this question in theory. However in practice there is no line, there’s a fluctuation.”
This has bugger all to do with the question at hand.
“And this changes from person to person, group to group. And women are well capable of sexually objectifying men.”
Again, that doesn’t negate the patriarchy or rape culture.
“The real meat here is what used to be called fellow feeling – do men regard women as other creatures like themselves with feelings. Do women regard men so? Actually there are those that don’t.”
No, that’s not the real meat here. We were discussing why women choose to wear heels.
“In any event with respect to the choice of footwear it seems to me that women buy the shoes. I have my most severe doubts that men and their attitudes are paramount in their decisions. I’m constantly told that by women that they don;t give a damn what we think. Hubris? Perhaps. I’m not sure. In the end however the consumer choices a woman makes are hers. If she makes decisions that are somehow acquiescing to the rape culture of which you speak what does that say?”
It says, once again, internalised sexism. Do you need me to post the link again?
Rebekka – That response is pervaded by base sarcasm and shallow jibes that do not address the points I’ve made. If I’ve asked a question twice it’s because it hasn’t been answered. An orthodoxy can take place in any habitus wherein a group is subject to a doctrine no matter how small the group is. When abuse and patronizing condescension comes of heretical remarks on the subjects that that orthodoxy purports to lay an authoritative claim to its asserting its orthodoxy.
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Radical feminists lay claim to such authority most definitely. You are laying claim. Here and now.
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The rest of the tosh in that remark is of the species of most doctrine driven minds. You simply say oh that’s not relevant, that’s not true and make simplistic, glib excursions into semantics. For example yes I understand the concept of internalized sexism, I think it’s a dopey and dogmatic way of viewing a phenomena that includes sexism – covert sexual prejudice and control – but includes other matters as well. Women wear high heels because they’ve been programmed by the patriarchy poor dears. No. They wear ‘em cause they want to. I know lots of women who display much better smart than you have thus far and they’d take offense at that remark.
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Many women, who are in fact feminists, that is they believe they have rights the same as men, they object to those being trampled and the rest, actually declare themselves not to be. This is not because of ‘internalized sexism’ this is because they encounter certain avatars of feminism and write them off as robotic arseholes.
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I’ll stick with Hannah Arendt if you don’t mind. She was smart. And with you I suspect she wouldn’t bother.
Oh right, so you, as a man, get to tell me that I’m doing feminism wrong, partly because you don’t understand the basic concepts of it, and then tell me that women who say they aren’t feminists actually are?
If it wasn’t so screwed up, I’d laugh my head off.
“And considering I’m 5′10″ in bare feet, I always find it hilarious when people suggest I’m wearing high heels for the men. Oddly enough, most dudes are a wee bit terrified of a woman who towers over them.”
The latter point may explain the way Tom Cruise tries to look as tall as Katie.
I must check out that walking shop in Little Bourke. Sounds good. Don’t you love it, Helen, when the clever names we come up with for certain threads come back to haunt on us others
That’s true, Jo. I don’t know how they do it. It’s hard enough walking in the things, but I am hardly a paragon of chic. Your feet must have been so tired at the end of the day.
Rebekka rekkons: “Rape culture describes a contiuum of behaviour that normalises treating women as sexual objects. There is no equivalent continuum of behaviour that normalises car theft, so no, we don’t live in an automotive-theft culture.”
Oh yes there is! There is a multifaceted social force, the petroliarchy, which exerts enormous normative power on youngsters, particularly young men. They tend to enter Hoon Culture. See large numbers of popular magazines, ‘The Journal of Hoonatious Research’, and several dozen PhD’s. There is a continuum of behaviours: from little white lies, to petty shoplifting, to borrowing Dad’s car, to taking Dad’s car when Dad is comatose after five sherries, to [you guessed it] vehicle theft.
Though of course the pomos will claim the car WAS NOT stolen, and Proudhon will ask his tedious question, “What is theft?” And Hannah Arendt was a hopeless driver. The most radical undermining of Hoon Culture is by the performance artists ‘The Hoonettes’ of Jerilderie, most of whom survived their latest *smash*. Do try to keep up, Adrien.
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The moving finger dots and having dotted, moves on; though all the
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Anyway, car-theft-culture is entangled with Middle East oil politics, the thirst of politicians for new freeways, whole suburbs of manufacturing and assembly workers, Formula One, social anthropology, etc. Not to mention working class male rituals. Racing in hot cars – assertive, communal, the group dynamics are amazing.
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Petroliarchy: if you can’t see it, you’re not looking hard enough.
Oh right, so you, as a man, get to tell me that I’m doing feminism wrong, partly because you don’t understand the basic concepts of it, and then tell me that women who say they aren’t feminists actually are?
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Credentialism is the last refuge of mediocrities. You have not made a single substantial rebuttal to any of my points. You just spout dogma. Disagreeing with something is not failing to understand it unless of course you have the misfortune to be a dissident in some totalitarian circumstance.
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Yes. I can call bullshit on your statements. Sorry sister. It’s called freedom of thought. And if you can’t do better than that then you’re not doing very well are you.
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Please feel free however to indulge your cultish sense of political philosophy. It is completely irrelevant but I suppose harmless. The irony of using categorical sexism to defend your opposition to categorical sexism naturally is lost on gramapahone minds so I won’t bother elaborating.
When I was younger, I wore high heels so I looked taller than my 152cm (5ft). I thought it would stop people patting me on the head and occasionally picking me up. It didn’t. Now I’m older they don’t pat me on the head or pick me up and my feet hurt from the high heels so I’m throwing them all out. This makes me a bit sad.
Still don’t want Posh’ boots though.
And I used to ride a motorbike in high heels – helped with stability when stopped so quite utilitarian really.
I guess it’s the end of an era for you, Angharad.
Oh, nonsense. The only people who despise credentials are people who don’t have them. This rubbish meme was made up by people who didn’t like being beaten in arguments just because they didn’t know what they were talking about.
What, like “Credentialism is the last refuge of mediocrities”?
“This rubbish meme was made up by people who didn’t like being beaten in arguments just because they didn’t know what they were talking about.”
Yes, perhaps, but if a man can’t disagree with a woman about feminism then is there any point engaging? The fact that two women (presumably both ‘credentialled’ to talk about it) can disagree with each other about feminism strongly suggests that said credentials may not be all they’re cracked up to be.
FDB wrote:
Not this FDB – it’ll be chick thread of doom part II: why men are always wrong about feminism. Do not go there.
“Yes, perhaps, but if a man can’t disagree with a woman about feminism then is there any point engaging?”
I would argue for the importance of historicity in all this. None of these criticisms of men speaking about (and for) women and feminism are taking place in an historical vacuum. What seems to irk those who want to talk in an unconstrained way about sexual politics and gender is precisely this historical dimension. Unfortunately, it does impose limits on what can be said, and in what contexts, for those of us who are attentive to the looming potential for the continuity of particular forms of power in the taking up of particular speaking positions re: women and feminism.
Of course we’re all free to be inattentive if we like, but we’ve got to expect in doing so that claims about the ‘post-patriarchal’ nature of our society are going to be met with skepticism, if not outright hostility.
I shouldn’t, but I was born in the Year of the Monkey – Thread of Doom?
I was addressing the general point. That line about ‘credentialism’ shits me to tears. I know, for example, that Adrien knows more about movies than I do, and I would therefore defer to on the subject of movies. I might disagree with him about this or that but only on the understanding that he might have the knowledge, experience and/or qualifications to prove me wrong or provide a better argument. I know that David Rubie is a parent, and, since I am not, I might disagree with him about parenting but I sure as hell wouldn’t presume to tell him how to do it, or tell him he was just wrong.
The specific question of feminism — again, it’s not about ‘disagreeing’, merely about acknowledging that telling women how to ‘do’ feminism and why they have it all wrong is a sure-fire way to demonstrate that even if you ‘did’ it as an undergraduate, you still might not have grasped the finer points.
Yes, perhaps, but if a man can’t disagree with a woman about feminism then is there any point engaging?
If it were true that a man can’t disagree with a woman about feminism then there would be no point engaging. However, there are men all over the feminist blogs (have a look) who manage to engage perfectly well. The ones who come the air of bored superiority, like Adrien, do get their ass kicked, as they would if they took that tone IRL (I can just hear the venom behind “sister“.) The fact is that some commenters regularly get womens’ backs up and others do not. That isn’t necessarily the fault of the women, you know.
David Rubie, engaging with other adults using the word “chick” is another sign of bad faith and also the kind of thing which gets your arguments taken less than seriously, especially if you’re coming the “we live in a post-feminist world, so STFU and stop complaining” angle.
Pavlov’s Cat wrote:
Why not PC? If I’m wrong, just say it. You might (from a detached perspective) be able to see something wrong with my parenting that I can’t. It’s like any problem solving strategy really, occasionally a bit of third party finger pointing is genuinely useful.
Rebekkka
and then tell me that women who say they aren’t feminists actually are?
If it wasn’t so screwed up, I’d laugh my head off.
Amen to that sista!
But there is no ongoing historical trend of Dr Cat having power over parents to tell them what to do, in such a way that would make her “problem solving” assistance a further instance of the trend.
I reckon so, Paul.
Wearing evil heels again today. Internalised self-hatred made me do it – or was it the ice-cream cones?
That line about ‘credentialism’ shits me to tears
As it does to many people who do not have credentials. You are not alone.
Those shoes are cute (I like pink) and not so high, Laura.
What is a thread of doom? I am not up with the blogging speak, even though I have been blogging for five million years.
Rubbish Klaus. If I’d have posted what Rebekka posted above, I’d have been kicked all over blogdom (and have been for a far milder set of criticisms). We’re still allowed to have opinions you know.
Thread of Doom = people who are not scared of drones attacking from the hive-mind, which makes drones even battier than usual.
Good point klaus k.
Laura’s heels are by Camper so they’re OK. Evidence of good taste is all.
BTW, do we have yet another attack of greenslime?
hm, it doesn’t seem virulent enough to me to be the original strain.
6.5 cm Darlene, and springy rubbery.
Good question. For impact, a decent lace-up steelcap, or for effect, you want a football boot with a fold-over tongue.
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Sex is not a credential. Criticism of ignorance is not silencing. Next child I see behaving badly in public gets a slap. There is no rule four.
Yes, those shoes are beautiful.
If we chat about shoes in an attempt to ward off a Thread of Doom, will we then be slagged for chatting about shoes?
Chatting about shoes worked last time PC.
I was unaware that you can still buy the venerable KT26 – a far more worthy shoe than any jumped up 1980’s original Adidas Rome. Anyone who wore a Rome at school had far too much money, and was the instant target of a muddy shoe attack.
“Rubbish Klaus. If I’d have posted what Rebekka posted above, I’d have been kicked all over blogdom (and have been for a far milder set of criticisms). We’re still allowed to have opinions you know.”
So what you’re saying is that there is a history of Dr Cat having power over parents?
My whole point about opinions is that they aren’t offered in a historical vacuum. I never said you couldn’t offer them. In fact, I explicitly said that you were free to interject, but that how that was received would be determined by how attentive you were to context.
As far as I’m concerned, you’re just one of many who feels constrained by the ways that peoples experiences have a historical dimension and resorts to accusations of double standards instead of looking at the nature of the constraint, and whether, perhaps, it has validity. There is only a double standard here if you assume we live in the eternal rationalist present where that stuff doesn’t matter.
klaus k wrote:
Am I responsible in some way for the sexism/patriarchism of my parents klaus? And what are you wearing on your feet?
In what way is hanging onto some angry ideology a “credential”?
Oh for heaven’s sake, I never said men weren’t allowed to have an opinion on feminism, I said men aren’t allowed to tell women HOW TO BE FEMINISTS.
Or that we’re doing it wrong.
And I totally rebutted all your points. You clearly just don’t understand, or completely disagree with my rebuttal. That doesn’t mean I didn’t offer one.
Excellent sockpuppet name there, Sez. Very accurate.
You got to wear sneakers to school DR? What a lax uniform policy you must have had. All the schools where I grew up acted as effective make-work institutions for the Bata company. Nothing like hard black sandals on bitumen in a Sydney summer.
[current hyper-patriarchal shoe-wearing disclosure]
“Am I responsible in some way for the sexism/patriarchism of my parents klaus?”
I’m afraid that we’re working with Howardist concept of historical responsibility here, complete with a very limited concept of the historical. I think the problem is in how you’re framing the question.
I prefer to answer these: do you believe that our experiences are only grounded in the present moment? Do you think that memory (including collective memory) is significant to how we experience the world? Do you want to take responsibility for an inherited patriarchal culture in order to make sure it’s not perpetuated? Alternately, do you care what effects your statements can have on others who have experienced sexism?
If the answer to all of these is ‘no’, then I have nothing further to say to you on the topic. If you answered ‘yes’ to any of them, then we have to reframe your initial question.
As for my shoes: I’m not wearing any.
The first question should read: “do you believe that our experiences aren’t just grounded in the present moment?”
I still maintain that it’s an attack of greenslime, as this is one of the slime’s favourite subjects, along with the culture skirmishes.
Maybe a less virulent strain has emerged.
It’s the GreenBot alright. Hi John – enjoying the attention?
A proposition:
One given party being ‘inattentive to the historical context’ of a discussion may be only as deleterious to that discussion as the other party being unable to think or talk about anything else.
For example, the following anecdote. Recently I made, in mixed company I did not know very well, a comment about gender politics w/r/t clothing and self-image. It was assumed by two of the women present that as a male I was blithely unaware of enduring patriarchy, and the conversation rapidly moved to me getting defensive then bowing out as gracefully as was possible. Later a virtually identical comment, made by a woman, attracted no such dismissive assumption, was engaged with on its own merits, and produced a fruitful conversation amongst feminists about the very topic I’d been trying to raise. Nobody present even remembered – I suspect all they remembered was needing to lever a pesky male out of their domain. Really fucking frustrating, no?
Discuss.
Liam wrote:
The official line was that uniform was desirable but non-essential. The result was a kind of kid-enforced policy: your gray pants had to be Levi or you would be shunned, a pair of actual school pants of the wool/nylon variety being a guaranteed ticket to social exclusion and the occasional beat down. Black school shoes were deliberately targeted by other kids for destruction. The green school shirt had to be the short sleeve one – the long sleeve one had to have the arms rolled up or the year 10s would target you for more abuse. They, of course, wore a t-shirt underneath with a packet of winnie reds tucked up there.
Acceptable shoes were sneakers – the KT26 being preferable as it was parent friendly (being cheap) but acceptably sneakery looking as to pass muster by the fashion police. In hindsight, it was a shit school but that had the effect of making a relative dunce like me look acceptably bright without ever doing any homework.
klaus k wrote:
Now it’s “either, or”? What kind of absolutist garbage is that? Either I’m ignoring the historical context and and therefore wrong, or I’m deliberately flouting the historical context and am therefore wrong.
Screw that for a game of soldiers.
“Nobody present even remembered – I suspect all they remembered was needing to lever a pesky male out of their domain. Really fucking frustrating, no?”
Yes, that does sound frustrating.
“One given party being ‘inattentive to the historical context’ of a discussion may be only as deleterious to that discussion as the other party being unable to think or talk about anything else.”
But also you’re basically implying here that the misrecognition you encountered rested on the inability of the women concerned to stop living in the past.
Do you get a sense of how that comes across?
Further, I would argue that history isn’t always about the distant past. It’s also about personal history, recent history
David, I’m confused as to how you’re drawing that from what I’ve written.
PC remarked: “If we chat about shoes in an attempt to ward off a Thread of Doom… will we be slagged?”
Can’t imagine anyone slagging youse if you’re ON thread.
cheerio
Klaus – whether David Rubie has or hasn’t been guilty of narrowly defining ‘history’, I have definitely not. Mine’s more of an Angelus Novus view.
Ah, I thought you were talking about primary school. Yeah, now that you mention it your experience is pretty much mine as well.
Grey King Gees, cheap black Converse-knockoff sneakers, white business shirt. The only thing missing was the plastic mixing bowl and the $200 burial money.
klaus, I’m not sure you understood what you wrote. If you’re trying to defend the idea that men can’t comment on feminism because of history, you’re wrong.
Oh, bless.
FDB, sounds frustrating, but without knowing what the remark was (or what the women really did think as opposed to what you’ve deduced they thought) it’s a bit hard to ‘discuss’. It would be nice if everyone could always get and be given the benefit of the doubt, but in practice, most people don’t deserve it. And if you substitute racial politics for gender politics it’s easier to see perhaps why a contentious remark would raise eyebrows more when it comes from an ‘outsider’.
Dunno, maybe you needed to calmly elaborate instead of getting defensive.
I guess where I’d go to next, FDB, is the recognition that trying to be in solidarity with others is going to be full of frustrating experiences like yours given the context. I’ve been misrecognised in a lot of different situations where I was trying to express my solidarity with feminists, for example.
My whole argument comes down to an ethical orientation towards how others frame their own experiences. I try to take frustrated expressions of solidarity as impetus to do it better next time.
Having said all that, I do get to the point with some people I’m trying to work with where I no longer want to engage with them in good faith. I think that’s a reasonable response individually, FWIW. We don’t have to respond to all feminists in good faith, but it’s worth thinking then about the terms in which we frame that refusal.
“Dunno, maybe you needed to calmly elaborate instead of getting defensive.”
Are you suggesting that because I’m a male I’m prone to defensive outbursts? Obviously you don’t understand what it is to suffer under the expectations placed on males in social intercourse.
Liam wrote:
I LOLled just now at that you mongrel.
I forgot the last detail: if your shirt was tucked in you were marked out for all kinds of abuse, although the favourite one was waiting until some poor tucked in, school shoe wearing kid was forced to use the downstairs toilet during lunch, the year 10s would sneak in and shove them into the urinal trough. I blame Angus Young.
“If you’re trying to defend the idea that men can’t comment on feminism because of history, you’re wrong.”
I’m not, and I sincerely hope I don’t have to continue stressing this point. You can make any comment you like.
My argument is about how context determines, in part, the way that comments are going to be received. If you’re attentive to context, then that reception is going to work out a lot better.
Klaus, you must spend your entire life being absolutely exhausted, what with all the apologising you clearly feel you need to do for yourself.
I don’t do a lot of apologising. What part of my argument do you equate with me feeling guilty, Sez Paylen? If I implied that I felt this way, then I’ve expressed myself poorly and apologise. But only to you, and only for that.
klaus k wrote:
Wait, now I’m really confused. I can comment, but I can always expect to be told that I’m wrong? That’s the last time I take advice from some shoeless, dirty hippy
Klaus – really one of my biggest problems is a personal style (particularly on the sauce) that has been described as abrasive. Mostly because I find a lot of things funny that other people don’t, or don’t want to. It’s not what happened in this case, but it does a lot. I’m not laughing at feminism, I’m laughing at misogyny – though the joke may sound the same to someone who’s determinedly po-faced about the entire subject area.
That’s my cross to bear, and I’d never give up my sense of humour for the return of being permitted into a discourse where I’m presumed unwelcome and have to earn basic respect.
But I do take your point about being tactful in retreat.
“Wait, now I’m really confused. I can comment, but I can always expect to be told that I’m wrong?”
Only insofar as you pay no attention to the broader context. I’ve maintained throughout my comments on this thread that you can say what you feel like. The real question is whether you ought to, and that is always the question as far as I’m concerned.
‘defensive’ was the word you used yourself FDB! Not suggesting anything! Wouldn’t dare.
Don’t worry Laura – 100% linguo-malar comment from me at #141.
I had a comment for you, FDB, but Firefox crashed and ate it
I think it was something about not giving up and putting that capacious wit of yours to good use to figure out when you can joke to most effect about teh patriarchy. That is, if you do think being in solidarity with feminists is worth your time.
I don’t know, maybe you’ve just got a particularly tough crowd there.
klaus k wrote:
Well, ok. Catch 22 it is then. It’s advice, but it’s not helpful or useful in any way.
Can anyone name a decent running shoe for those who pronate that isn’t made by some factory in a far off country that relies on child labour? Or are they all made like that now?
Oh yeah, they were a very tough crowd alright. I’ll be sure to bring the A material if I’m working that room again.
Q. How many feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. Depends if the lightbulb is asking for it.
“It’s advice, but it’s not helpful or useful in any way.”
I wasn’t aware that you wanted advice, DR. I’d just assumed that you didn’t much care to do anything differently.
DR, as to ethical footwear choices, I say go with FDB’s Jesus sandals and be led by Ephesians 6:15.
ephesians 6:15? Is that the one where I get to screw the housekeeper? Hot damn, I need some churchin’ up!
I already have jeebus sandals, but I can’t run in them – they get all slidey when my feet start to sweat and I’m pretty sure they were sewn together by malaysian foetuses with their tiny hands hanging out while their teenage mums worked the top of the counter stamping out the rubber sole.
Bare feet is an ethical choice for those more sensitive humans who worry about the stresses placed on Malaysian foetuses by imperialist multinational compradore child-exploiting… – erm, where was I?
DR,
Na. Book of Daniel. Sussanah and the Elders.The bloke who screwed the house-keeper – I think his name was Annas – was struck dead. Screwing housekeepers is a np-no. They there for the cleaning.
The word “ethical” is being used rather idiosyncratically here. Your intention would be rather better expressed with “ideological”.
FDB wrote:
Here’s one that I use that always works in that kind of company FDB:
Q: Why do women wear makeup and perfume?
A: They’re ugly and smelly.
But, jeez, you really have to watch out for all the historical context lying about, or else you’ll trip over.
Paul Burns wrote:
You see, if they’d have concentrated on all this stuff in Sunday School, I might have paid attention. Too much jibber jabber about two of every animal on the Ark and nothing about Noah lying around drunk and naked, or Lot and his sicko daughters in the cave. But what were jeebus sandals called before year 0? Moses Sandals?
“But, jeez, you really have to watch out for all the historical context lying about, or else you’ll trip over.”
No, you’ll keep your feet. The risk is making an ass of yourself.
Klaus
You are confusing history with “the past”.
I’m wearing black sneakers today, which I think are quite cool in an understated sort of way. Pretty shoes by the way, Laura.
I’ve never found the concept of ‘internalised sexism’ a thoroughly complelling reason as to why women might do a certain thing, such as wear high heels. It maybe one reason, but it assumes there’s only one answer to a question. It doesn’t explore why some women might internalise sexism and others don’t. It doesn’t explain why some women who are feminists might enjoy wearing high heels. It doesn’t necessarily account for the the lived experience of women.
In saying this I’m not discounting it, but it can be used as a catch-all response that opens up more questions than it answers. In that way, it can be quite useful I guess.
Greenfield – you’re confusing everybody with “anybody who cares”.
Q: How many anti-feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: None. They prefer to stay in the dark and whinge.
Annoying, isn’t it?
Greenfield?
I was silly enough to walk up to the letter box bsrefoot, forgetting about the gravel. Tomorrow I’ll be wearing thongs.
I’m wearing the most uncomfortable flat shoes today. The problem is they don’t fit.
Q: How many anti-feminists does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: None. They are too busy on the internets saving the world from The Feminists.
Hope everyone is having a good day
Q: How many feminists does it take to defend their outrageous sexism?
A: HAWT SHOES OMG AND KITTEHS!
Q: HAWT SHOES OMG AND KITTEHS?
A: 42
pwn3d.
Adrien, you’ve raised by far the most interesting question on this thread. If human beings are pre-disposed, as you say, to violence and lack intrinsic empathy for each other, then how in hell can empathy, caritas, social solidarity, call it what you will, be instilled? Education? Obviously, no, it’s not nearly enough.
So where does that leave us, philosophically and strategically, do you think, as an animal species? (Unfortunately for all other species and Earth, the most powerful of all existing species.)
a lovely day Darlene, i just realised that the Hbomb has more shoes than me and she is only 25 months old. latest aquisition is a pair of agressivlly pink sandles, but she can recite the alphabet so she gets what she wants today, which right now is spraying herself with water. what is it with kids shoes and clothes? blue and pink and blue and pink . . . . .ad throwingupingum.
i was going to make some comment re not being allowed to mix certain shoes with certain clothes, but i think it is redundant:)
Pavlov’s Cat – #99 Oh, nonsense.
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You’re quite right PC. It’s the first.
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The only people who despise credentials are people who don’t have them.
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I don’t despise credentials nor dismiss them. But credentialism is where people get to thinking the bit of paper is more important than what is actually known, and what one can actually do. If one is competent then one should be able to demonstrate that acumen by, um, demonstrating acumen. Not citing credentials.
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That said I used credentialism metaphorically. No certification is necessary to assert one’s feminist authority. Genitalia do not warrant authority.
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This rubbish meme was made up by people who didn’t like being beaten in arguments just because they didn’t know what they were talking about.
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Yes sometimes. And sometimes people use credentialism to win arguments they’re losing. I am not losing this argument.
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There is an assumption extant in the commentary here (must I needs make the point universally) that women wear high-heeled shoes because they have something akin to what Malcolm X referred to as ‘the slave mind’. An internalized inferiority complex that is, if the language used to describe it’s any evidence, deliberately designed to keep women in their place. I don’t think is entirely phooey, not at all. I think however that it isn’t the entire story. Look for the dialectic.
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Doubtless there is a relationship between apparel and patriarchal practice. The brief era of liberation-feeling amongst Western Europeans in the early decades of the 19th century featured a modification in the codes of female dress that was unprecedented in complex societies`. It was simpler, more comfortable and more expressive of a free sexuality.
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This went back in the drawer for a hundred years and then, from the 1920s on, quite a bit changed. This is undoubtedly due to the increasing economic and political power that women wield. Yes – still much less then men. Yes – still pretty much restricted to parts of the ‘Modern’ World. But different nonetheless.
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There are women walking about these days who control millions of dollars, who write laws that compel populations likewise in the millions. Who create, who think, who act in ways and with a liberty unknown since forever.
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And they wear high heels. Is is not then highly simplistic to say that this is entirely due to their slave minds? Well perhaps not. But constant reference to a concept of which I’m familiar and about which I’ve displayed no ignorance does not back up this argument of which I am rightly skeptical.
Rebekka – I have no idea how one tells someone else to be a feminist. What does that mean exactly. Unlike some other political movements like say Marxism-Leninism there is no official party line. I’m not telling you how to be anything.
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You say you rebutted my points. Okay… I ask the question why do women wear high heels. You link to internalized sexism? No actual polemic just here’s the answer comrade. Who’s instructing who in doctrine?
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Your next point of rebuttal tells me again “internalised sexism” and that this answer is clear. Why this is so is never made plain. Then there are various excursions from thsi regurgetations like:
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Actually, I don’t believe anyone’s ever argued that patriarchy is a monolithic power structure – it’s a multi-faceted social order, not a monolithic power structure. And you reckon you’ve had a handle on all this since the second year of your undergraduate studies. I suggest you may need a refresher course.
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Yes a mutli-faceted social order which is explained by “internalized sexism” how? I’m then told that I’m saying feminism is wrong. I’m not. And eventually we lead back to “internalized sexism”.
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Can’t you do better than that?
Helen wrote:
Oh please. Oversensitive much?
It’s just a word, in what had become a lighthearted thread. Anybody whose old enough to have seen “Puberty Blues” or read the book couldn’t ever use it seriously, ever.
An interesting premise if it were suppoted by more than mere assertion- worthless words. If Adrien had solid evidence to support that proposition I am sure he would post it. However I can find nothing on this thread to suggest that he advanced it in the first place.
Can you point out where he did?
David, context is everything, and there is a lot of pooh-poohing feminism on this thread so I wouldn’t see the use of “chick” as friendly irony as I would, say, on Shakesville.
In that case Helen, you understand why I might get snippy at being accused of arguing in bad faith. Automatically reading my comments in that light verges on bigotry, which I despise.
“Rebekka – I have no idea how one tells someone else to be a feminist. What does that mean exactly. Unlike some other political movements like say Marxism-Leninism there is no official party line. I’m not telling you how to be anything.”
Yeah, except for where you told me that it was because of women like me that other women, who say that they’re not feminists, but actually are, won’t admit to feminism. In which comment you implied that (a) I’m doing feminism wrong, and that (b) the women who say they’re not feminists don’t know their own minds and you clearly know better, because they actually are. According to you.
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“You say you rebutted my points. Okay… I ask the question why do women wear high heels. You link to internalized sexism? No actual polemic just here’s the answer comrade. Who’s instructing who in doctrine?”
Apart from the obvious point that your last sentence should read “Who’s instructing whom in doctrine?” my answer to your question why do women wear high heels was “Because of internalised sexism”. Which according to you, you learned about as a second-year undergraduate, so I needn’t have bothered. According to me, however, if you did know all about it, you wouldn’t have asked the question in that form.
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“Your next point of rebuttal tells me again “internalised sexism” and that this answer is clear. Why this is so is never made plain.”
(1) it is not my job to educate you. You clearly have access to a computer, and some literacy skills.
(2) I would have thought it fairly clear to anybody with basic comprehension skills that internalised sexism happens because of the context of the patriarchy
“Then there are various excursions from thsi regurgetations like:
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Actually, I don’t believe anyone’s ever argued that patriarchy is a monolithic power structure – it’s a multi-faceted social order, not a monolithic power structure. And you reckon you’ve had a handle on all this since the second year of your undergraduate studies. I suggest you may need a refresher course.”
Yes, that was a rebuttal of your assertion that the patriarchy was a “monolithic” power structure – one of the many points I was rebutting, in detail, and which you claim I ignored (and because of course, it’s your job to set the agenda)
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“Yes a mutli-faceted social order which is explained by “internalized sexism” how?”
It’s not and I never suggested it was – YOU HAVE GOT THIS ENTIRELY THE WRONG WAY AROUND. Internalised sexim is explained by the patriarchy, the patriarchy is not explained by internalised sexism. Sheesh.
“I’m then told that I’m saying feminism is wrong. I’m not.”
Except for where you told me my feminism is wrong, because I’m putting off all the poor dears who are too stupid to know that they’re actually feminists, so they’re wrong too. But you, a man, are clearly cleverer than all of us, because you know that actually they ARE feminists, and that my feminism is incorrect.
“And eventually we lead back to “internalized sexism”.
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Can’t you do better than that?”
So it’s clearly my fault that you can’t get a handle on what I’m saying. In which case, clearly, I can not do better because your understanding won’t allow me to.
And Sez Paylen: “In what way is hanging onto some angry ideology a “credential”?”
You just gotta love the inherent misogyny in that statement. My ideology is angry only in that I am reacting to oppression. Since when is anger an inappropriate response to oppression? The rest of my ideology isn’t angry. It’s funny how when a woman expresses a strong opinion it’s “angry”. Presumably towards men.
The reason why I think men can not actually tell women how to do feminism is not about credentials, it’s about experience. Men have not experienced being a women oppressed by the patriarchy. They can’t. We do, daily. There’s the difference.
Adrien, you’ve raised by far the most interesting question on this thread. If human beings are pre-disposed, as you say, to violence and lack intrinsic empathy for each other
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I’m not sure who said that. But Greg M is right I haven’t said that ever.
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In my view all animals have some predisposition to violence for the simple reason that violence is endemic in nature. very few animals will simply let others kill them without a fight. We’re also hunters and that involves violence.
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This does not mean we lack intrinsic empathy for one another. We do. There’s a theoretical assertion that this empathy is limited in certain ways. For example in war the dehumanization of the enemy is standard practice. There is a concerted effort to represent the enemy as something other than human. Some tribal cultures refer to themselves as ‘human beings’ implying that other human beings are not. Likewise there’s a literary riff that posits men and women as inextricably different and a certain lack of inter-sexual empathy has been noted.
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Whatever the ontology of this paradox there’s quite a lot of convincing evidence that it is there. Please see Dave Grossman’s On Killing. He’s quite articulate on the subject of empathy and its neurobiological characteristics.
Rebekka – In which comment you implied that (a) I’m doing feminism wrong, and that (b) the women who say they’re not feminists don’t know their own minds and you clearly know better, because they actually are. According to you.
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I implied no such thing. Feminism, as I’ve said, is not a centrally organized discourse. There is no official doctrine. There are various spheres of orthodoxy and individual variations on that. I find the idea that one can do this or that ‘ism’ wrong to be part and parcel of the gramaphone mind. It ain’t for me.
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Yes, that was a rebuttal of your assertion that the patriarchy was a “monolithic” power structure
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Your references to The Rape Culture and to the Patriarchy are references to a monolithic power structure. I’m always amused by the left-wing habit of promoting the heterogenous view of social relationships whilst at the exact same time using terminology that suggests some oppressive pyramid somewhere.
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Men have not experienced being a women oppressed by the patriarchy. They can’t. We do, daily. There’s the difference.
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I don’t experience sexism and misogyny true. But if we were living in a patriarchal society your capacity to engage in this conversation would be limited. You wouldn’t be allowed. Your assertions of the intrinsic misogyny in a statement that has not a trace of it is telling. What you do is simply regurgitate a doctrine. You then proceed to respond to all considered polemic with the same slogans.
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I have not said that women who espouse feminist principles but balk at the label are stupid. That’s a lie. I have not claimed that you are doing feminism wrong I simply dispute the idea that a woman who wears high heels does so because of internalized sexism. Despite the fact that I’ve defined this term in my own words you still persist in saying that I don’t understand it. Yet you are unable to speak of its processes with any level of sophistication in your own words.
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Saying that I’m sexist and/or a misogynist is a slander and a coward’s way of evading open debate. You’ve thus far proved unable to even articulate how this internalized sexism upon which you harp actually compels women to wear high heels. It’s the ultimate unfalsifiable. Simply relegate explanations of phenomena of which you disapprove to some sub-conscious process and repeat ad nauseum. Thus far however, despite you self-declared superior understanding you aren’t even able to use you own words to speak of this process.
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It’s not your job to educate me? It’s not within your abilities either.
Adrien, I don’t think there is anything simple about our pre-disposition to violence.
But thanks for the Grossman reference. You always have some good ones.
Very interesting to see holders of a complete and closed belief-system, responding to challenges. “Unfalsifiable”, Adrien? Are you Popperian?
I can almost see it. A photo of a lolbloke with the caption “feminizm – ur doin it rong”
I’m not sure what the photo should be, though. Maybe a bloke in what my oldest son calls a wifebeater (blue singlet).
Disclaimer: I have no blue singlets in my closet.
But if we were living in a patriarchal society your capacity to engage in this conversation would be limited. You wouldn’t be allowed. Your assertions of the intrinsic misogyny in a statement that has not a trace of it is telling.
Believe me, our capacity to engage in this conversation is limited. Whenever we turn a feminist slant onto any issue on this forum, there is a mild pile-on, on other forums, there’s a huge pile-on. The difference being between an air of superiority and inability to listen to what we’re saying, and virulent hatred. Up to and including rape and death threats.
I’m going to wear some thongs (and clothes) when I go to the movies to see The Duchess this afternoon.
Thanks for that Paul. Excellent film by the way.
“I implied no such thing.”
Bullshit. You said:
“Many women, who are in fact feminists, that is they believe they have rights the same as men, they object to those being trampled and the rest, actually declare themselves not to be. This is not because of ‘internalized sexism’ this is because they encounter certain avatars of feminism and write them off as robotic arseholes.”
And if you can’t see that (a) you’re saying some women say they’re not feminists but you know better, they actually are, and (b) that calling my feminism that of a “robotic arsehole” implies that I’m doing it wrong, you’ve got problems.
“Your references to The Rape Culture and to the Patriarchy are references to a monolithic power structure.”
No, they’re not. You are interpreting them as such, but I have said nothing that implied they are. I do not think either rape culture or the patriarchy are monolithic. I don’t think rape culture is a power structure. I am not responsible for you misinterpreting.
“I don’t experience sexism and misogyny true. But if we were living in a patriarchal society your capacity to engage in this conversation would be limited. You wouldn’t be allowed.”
Oh that’s complete bullshit. Patriarchy is more subtle than not “allowing” women to talk on the internet. But clearly we’ve got to the root of the problem here – you don’t believe in the patriarchy. Clearly there’s no point continuing a dialogue with you.
“Despite the fact that I’ve defined this term in my own words you still persist in saying that I don’t understand it.”
Yeah, because your definition is completely wrong and ignores the salient point.
“Saying that I’m sexist and/or a misogynist is a slander and a coward’s way of evading open debate.”
You have DEMONSTRATED sexism in this discussion, and I don’t believe I have called you a misogynist. You, however, have repeatedly implied that I’m stupid, and have also implied that I’m a “robotic arsehole”. So if the misogynistic hat fits, wear it.
“internalized sexism upon which you harp”
HARP, interesting term for someone who claims they’re not sexist. Belongs in the category with “shrill”, “angry”, “nag” etc.
“It’s not your job to educate me? It’s not within your abilities either.”
You’re right, it’s very hard to teach someone who’s clearly stupid, close-minded, and unable to recognise the position of privilege from which they argue. It probably is beyond my ability (and also my care factor).
Oh I don’t know, I’ve seen a whiff of virulent hatred here from time to time, usually expressed when some uppity woman insists that she knows more about being a woman (and has probably read more feminist theory, history and literature) than da menz.
And who could forget the Norks Thread of Doom? ‘We know more about tits than you do, beyotches, so shut up.’
Give the thread credit PC, the last 1/5th or so was fun. And Laura’s guitar was awesome.
Pavlov’s Cat wrote:
(puts head in hands).
That was a fun thread, weasn’t it?
Not sure if PC’s provocative precis really captures it, but whatevs.
By the way, I said summat here yesterday and it’s not come up. Having changed email addresses it seems I’m now back in the spambot’s good books.
I’d say it captures the first 4/5ths, FDB. Before everyone started piling on Adrien for punctuation it was an utter train wreck of a thread.
Liam, YSTLIABT.
I also object to being called a menz. It’s blokedy bloke de bloke, thanks very much.
menz, mensch, men, menschen, chaps, deadshits; what’s in a name, David? On this thread, the ladies rule, OK?
blokes, fellas, dills, blokey, patriarch, sugar-daddy, rapist, wife-belter, sermoniser, dunderhead, stuuuuupid, shit-fer-brains, man, boy, lad, laddish, twerp, idiot, menz, l’homme, …. had enough eh? I got more: tit-fancier, leg-drooler, bum-patter, high heels desirer, brother, father, uncle, son, ….
I’ll settle for patriarch.
Goes with the beard.
onya maaaaate!
FDB,
any chance the lads might turn this one into another ‘norks colloquium’?
(o)(o)
Don’t finish there FDB – I’m sure you can do a whole public toilet stall in ascii art if you try hard enough.
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(o)(o)
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I’m sure you boys will be interested in one of our newer titles: ascii Art for Beginners. Can’t understand why it hasn’t sold more.
waiting for the Braille edition!
Nice portrait, Liam.
But I’d've expected something more Goyaesque, ‘cos folks call you Liamista. ?No estas el artista de Espa~a?
Where’s the beret?
All your beret goodness here
Perhaps the beret’s finest hour. Now take off your shoes and get in the fountain while I use the video camera.
Rebekka – this is because they encounter certain avatars of feminism and write them off as robotic arseholes.
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What made you think I was talking about you.
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There is certain social tendency for people to disavow feminism yet still espouse the basic principles yes or no?
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No, they’re not. You are interpreting them as such, but I have said nothing that implied they are. I do not think either rape culture or the patriarchy are monolithic. I don’t think rape culture is a power structure. I am not responsible for you misinterpreting.
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Fair enough.
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Yeah, because your definition is completely wrong and ignores the salient point.
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The crux of our disagreement. If you could be a grown-up for ten minutes this discussion might become constructive. I await the end of the tantrum.
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You have DEMONSTRATED sexism in this discussion
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Nonsense. Have the honour to substantiate that remark or withdraw it.
Go back and count the number of times you’ve used terms like “harp” and “tantrum” referring to a woman, and how many times you’ve used those or similar terms about a man. Then go back and count how many times you’ve implied a woman is stupid because she has an opinion you disagree with, and how many times you’ve done the same to a man – if this thread isn’t a significant enough sample for you, I suggest you look at all your comments on LP over time.
Then we can discuss how you demonstrate sexism.
But as far as I’m concerned there’s no point there’s no point me putting any further energy into a discussion with someone who’s blind enough not to recognise patriarchy.
Rebekka
Translation Services
Doc 1.1
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But as far as I’m concerned there’s no point there’s no point me putting any further energy into a discussion with someone who’s blind enough not to recognise patriarchy.
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Should read:
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It is dangerous to enter into a discussion with anyone who doesn’t already agree with you. You run the risk of falling prone to doubt; to doubt is to betray.
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Go back and count the number of times you’ve used terms like “harp” and “tantrum” referring to a woman, and how many times you’ve used those or similar terms about a man.
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I wasn’t referring to women in general I was referring to you in particular. I tend to cut the ground out from under gramaphone minds as a matter of habit irrespective of genitalia, ethnic heritage or psycho-sexual disposition.
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Look here and feel the love.
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Or if you feel tainted by visiting Catallaxy have a look sometime at how I treat ol’ Jack Strocchi.
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Currency Lad is the World Heavyweight Champion of Australian Gramaphone Minds. One thing I can thank the Cosmos for is that you lot spread yourselves amongst the ideologies nice and thin. Separates the power. I fear one day you’ll drop your various differences and awaken to your one true purpose: to make everyone point in the same direction.
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In The Unbearable Lightness of Being Sabina leaves a French protest against the Sov invasion of Czecho. Being a Czech refugee her Parisian friends are puzzled. Why did you split? Well she can’t answer because she can’t explain it to them: that behind the tanks and pogroms, behind the barbed wire and machine gun towers, behind all the evils of the world is a more primal, fundamental evil. And the image of that evil is a crowd of people, fists in th’ air, shouting the same syllables in unison.
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But Sabina wears high heels. So she’s a slave, right?
helen – Believe me, our capacity to engage in this conversation is limited.
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I believe you. Why do you think that is? Because I suggest that this society is not longer classifiable as a patriarchy but as a society undergoing a process of dialectical transformation? Is it wrong to advocate an idea?
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Whenever we turn a feminist slant onto any issue on this forum, there is a mild pile-on, on other forums, there’s a huge pile-on. The difference being between an air of superiority and inability to listen to what we’re saying, and virulent hatred. Up to and including rape and death threats.
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Interesting. reminds me of a Creationists assertion that the Godless liberals are anti-science fanatics. I suggest you check out PC’s suggested link. The huge pile on did occur. It was piled on me. Again and again my opinions were caricatured and distorted and again and again there was nothing of substance in response to my points apart from dogma.
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And how do you and PC describe it? Death threats, rape threats? Shut up bitch? Well I never saw any such there and I would never say such things. It’s simply inaccurate, dishonourable and unfair to try and intimidate me with that kind of moral slander.
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Again in the link on internalized sexism there is not one, not one reference to the fact that men and women – the sexual difference in the human species – is a natural phenomenon. Not one. Yet if one looks at neurobiology one sees that the sexual difference is expressed in the very architecture and chemistry of the human brain!
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But that might be a source of inconvenient facts and therefore you don;t go there if you’re a ‘good feminist’. Now, tho’ I fully expect someone to characterize me thus, I’m not arguing in any way that Nature proscribes gendered roles. In fact even if it did I’d still be inclined to defy it. Yet any scholarship or intellectual discourse that seeks to examine gender difference, gender behaviour, issues viz this whilst categorically ignoring nature is bankrupt.
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Likewise assumptions that choices made by women to wear this or that, or to do this or that is the result of a slave mind, self-hatred subconscious or otherwise simply because one disapproves, sans any substantiation is the mark of an autocratic recourse to doctrine.
That’s probably because it’s so fewking obvious that it really doesn’t need mentioning except to those who keep on misrepresenting “gender is a social construct” as a claim that there are no physical differences between men and women. That gender is constructed has never been a claim that there is no sexual difference, it’s all about the social value that society places on those sexual differences.
And how do you and PC describe it? Death threats, rape threats? Shut up bitch? Well I never saw any such there and I would never say such things. It’s simply inaccurate, dishonourable and unfair to try and intimidate me with that kind of moral slander.
Adrien, I was not referring to this thread but to being a feminist poster on the internet per se. Please don’t move the goalposts to artificially deem me wrong. To do the Ozblogosphere justice, there are fewer actual threats than in the US.
Your comment on male/female brains: evpsych is the very epitome of gramophone-mindedness.
Adrien, you should consider that arguments like these will invariably lead to you being subjected, esp. with Tigtog, to a form of Corella warfare…
I have no idea what that means, paul, but it doesn’t strike me as a helpful comment. I haven’t been reading this thread, but it’s always extremely disagreeable to start entering into meta-commentary and singling out the presumed attitude of other commenters, and indeed quite contrary to our comments policy. Please take note.
nah, just an attempt to breathe a bit of humour into another one of these interminable gender threads that always breed so much acrimony.
Loosen up, babe!
Because is no possible way a reference to feminist women as parrots could have any motivation to insult or belittle.
That’s probably because it’s so fewking obvious that it really doesn’t need mentioning except to those who keep on misrepresenting “gender is a social construct” as a claim that there are no physical differences between men and women.
Your comment on male/female brains: evpsych is the very epitome of gramophone-mindedness.
Heh.
No, no, no… I can’t believe acutely intelligent people can so miss the obvious.
And somebody back there accusing poor old Adrien of being sexist. C’mon!
Tig Tog employs a sulphur crest as an emblem; has a sometimes extrovert style.
Hence “Corella Warfare”?
Cheez!
Actually, Adrien- they have a point!
I say this on just returning from Gary Sauer Thompson’s response at “Public Opinion”, to an adhominem on Fran Kelly by Christopher Pearson.
Obnoxious, slithery,sickening black propaganda- not the slightest attempt to engage on something serious like say global warming or the imminent recession.
So, I’d say am now on a level with the most recent Helen and Tig tog comments, but agree Rebekkah was over the top, not unlike Pearson with Kelly.
Yes, Adrien, it’s all about you.
Can just imagine giving that smokey cat a big hug!
I suggest you look at all your comments on LP over time.
Then we can discuss how you demonstrate sexism.
Geez Adrien, bit unreasonable to take that personally. Typical behaviour of teh menz of course, imaging personal abuse is somehow about them. A product of their eternally adolescent minds, don’t you know.
“Likewise assumptions that choices made by women to wear this or that, or to do this or that is the result of a slave mind, self-hatred subconscious”
Just to be very clear, I *never* described internalised sexism as either “slave mind”-like – that was Adrien’s analogy – or as unconscious self-hatred. The reality is, of course, a lot more nuanced than that.
As it ever occured to Rebekka that Adrien might not be addressing her as a sheilah, but as a – quite unsavoury – blog persona or even as a second wave feminist. Rebekka is making the common mistake of conflating “women/females/chicks/sheilahs/broads/girls/xx-chromo-types” and “feminist”. The two are totally different kettles of fish.
Greenslime attack!
Shorter Mary Bennet – Ur doin it rong!
Yes, because a real woman can’t be a feminist.
“Rebekka is making the common mistake of conflating “women/females/chicks/sheilahs/broads/girls/xx-chromo-types” and “feminist”. The two are totally different kettles of fish.”
Sorry, where exactly did I do that? I don’t believe all women are feminists.
And I think I might be a tad too young to be a second-wave feminist, even if I am a “quite unsavoury” blog persona. I’m proud of being a feminist, I embrace the term “radical feminist”, but I think given that I wasn’t yet born during most of the second wave, I think I’ll have to give identifying with it a miss.
In our extensive experience, of all the strains of slime that infest Australia, greenslime is one of the most virulent and most difficult to treat.
However, it is extremely easy to detect, despite its pathetic attempts to disguise itself, and once identified is best ignored. We have found that this is easier to say than do, owing largely to the annoying characteristics of this slime.
Those who have had experience with greenslime realise that its prime objective is to gain attention, and once this attention is withdrawn it will seek to satisfy this insatiable need elsewhere.
TicTog – who keep on misrepresenting “gender is a social construct” as a claim that there are no physical differences between men and women.
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But am I misrepresenting it? I went thru that link at Feminism 101 there is no reference to biological aspects of gender – none. Now there should at least be some attempt to distinguish socially constructed ‘internalized sexism’ from biological phenomena that can affect the psyche – body chemistry, brain architecture.
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Helen – Adrien, I was not referring to this thread but to being a feminist poster on the internet per se.
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I’m sorry. I have no idea where I got that idea from. Incidentally:
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Your comment on male/female brains: evpsych is the very epitome of gramophone-mindedness.
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How so? I am not an adherent of sociobiologically inspired ideologies. I regard Nature’s power over us as unacceptable and fascistic. (Except when it really nice and Romantic.) A gramaphone mind is one who repeats doctrine. What doctrine am I repeating? I merely assert the possibility that a woman buys shoes for some reason other than self-hatred or slave-mindedness.
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In short, and these are the bones of all my ‘anti-feminist’ stoushes, I’m saying that women might be exercising their choices to please themselves. Maybe. I’m not even arguing absolutely. I’m just trying to get you lot to entertain an alternative possibility.
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And I’m the gramaphone mind. Ok.
rebekka – Just to be very clear, I *never* described internalised sexism as either “slave mind”-like – that was Adrien’s analogy – or as unconscious self-hatred. The reality is, of course, a lot more nuanced than that.
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Well add some nuance.
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My analogies are those of Feminism 101:
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It seems self-hatred is fairly self-explanatory then. As we’re told the self-hatred isn’t an overt, conscious loathing, it means:
This is an example of ‘the colonized mind’, one conditioned to see life from the point of view of those who, tho’ different, wield power over you. You see yourself as ‘other’ and the other as yourself. Sort of.
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The concept of ‘internalized sexism’ is introduced by making it clear that women aren’t entirely passive recipients of patricrchal ideology:
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Acceptance, rejection and something described as “mixture of acceptance/rejection” which perhaps might be better described as rebellion. Still a little simplistic.
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Of course being the Social-Darwinian Male Chauvanist Pig I am, I’m just distorting the meaning of all this. Doubtless my opponents will deploy their famous rigour and deft skill and dissemble this polemic smartly.
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And I think I might be a tad too young to be a second-wave feminist, even if I am a “quite unsavoury” blog persona. I’m proud of being a feminist, I embrace the term “radical feminist”, but I think given that I wasn’t yet born during most of the second wave, I think I’ll have to give identifying with it a miss.
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The thing is everything you say sounds like it come straight from some 1975 common room. This is a game that moves as you play. Why don’t you move on? Perhaps even to the point where you don;t get hostile and categorically reject someone simply because they think that assuming a fashion phenomenon can be entirely explained by reference to sexist socialization is sloppy.
“Well add some nuance.”
No, I already told you, not engaging with you any more.
Rebekka
Translation Services
Doc 2
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No, I already told you, not engaging with you any more.
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Should read:
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Dear Customers. As I’m unable to actually provide what I say I can provide I will constantly evade this by either deeming it unworthy or saying it’s more complicated than that without explaining myself. It’s much easier than actually reading a book y’see..
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Apologies for any inconvenience.
There is no point wasting energy arguing with someone with whom you have no common starting point.
Interesting that someone with worse grammar and spelling than me would accuse me of not reading books though – it’s my experience as a professional editor that the people who can spell and construct a sentence properly are the people who read extensively. And those who don’t, can’t.
“it’s my experience as a professional editor that the people who can spell and construct a sentence properly are the people who read extensively. And those who don’t, can’t.”
Said experience should have told you to put the “can’t” before the “don’t” in that sentence (fragment).
Hey Rebekka I thought you weren’t gonna do this anymore.
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Spelling errors. Wow! That’s an unexpected ploy. Devastatin’. Glad to see however that you’re keeping up your usual standards of argument by asserting something without ever substantiating it. And, as FDB demonstrates, tripping over yourself in the process. N’uk.
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There is no point wasting energy arguing with someone with whom you have no common starting point.
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Indeed.
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I should tell you that as you get older it becomes more and more difficult to find people who’re committed to shouting exactly the same syllables in unison as you. Sell-outs!
it’s my experience as a professional editor that the people who can spell and construct a sentence properly are the people who read extensively.
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Oh. My. God! Seriously! Are you serious?
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As a professional copywriter I express my surprise someone would pay you to edit their work. Unless that’s a pretentious term for ‘proof reader’.
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And even then.
Starting point is a different thing from agreeing entirely, as I would have thought even someone as patently stupid as you would have realised. And I disagree with FBD over the order of my sentence fragment. Either makes sense.
Although I’m not a moderator here, perhaps a reminder to read the comments policy is in order?
Rebekka explained “There is no point wasting energy arguing with someone with whom you have no common starting point.”
Interesting, Rebekka. Many of the most lively discussions at LP involve something like that.
Your “patriarchy” seems to be a rather nebulous social force: diffuse, multifaceted, yet strong and horrendous. It’s difficult to engage with such a concept.
Ultimately it seems that one accepts it (as an article of faith) or one rejects it and finds the theme preposterous, or one searches for other ways of framing one’s investigation of society.
I have the feeling that “power” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Yes, rape can involve criminal abuse of physical power; but the range of male behaviour from wolf whistle or admiring glance to brutal rape is many-faceted, nuanced, amazingly various, culturally influenced, varies with history,….. Rebekka, you see a Rape Culture. Others don’t (and why should they not say so?)
Violence against women, boys’ attitudes: http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2008/s2421741.htm
Adrien, if you look at my post bck at 164, you’ll see that I questioned the use of internalized sexism as the only answer to the question of high heels. So, I think it’s a fair question.
But, I think you need to look at why you receive such a negative response from many of the women posters here. Just look at what you’ve written. It’s unnecessarily snide, aggressive, rude and obviously just spoiling for a fight. It’s no wonder that Rebekka chooses not to engage with you any more. You don’t get that women may have some particular insight into the lived experience of being a woman and may actually know more about it than you. You maybe advised just to listen and think about it for a while.
If your underlying model for the relationship between the sexes includes the idea that all animals are violent, hence people will be violent without socialisation, then you’re arguing on incredibly shaky ground in your initial premise. All species of animals aren’t violent. Many species will run away rather than fight when provoked. Even within predators many individuals will either run or freeze when challenged. Dogs have a very sophisitcated code of body language to ensure that fights rarely ensue. There are also many examples of animals working cooperatively together. You really need to hang out with animals a lot more before you make those sorts of statements. Especially if you’re going to use it as part of your argument about the relationship between sexes.
And I disagree with FBD over the order of my sentence fragment. Either makes sense.
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No. Those who don’t might not for other reasons besides incompetence. Those who can’t, don’t, because they can’t. Work for a major publisher do you? BTW gratuitous insults like “patently stupid as you” are a violation of LP protocols. I do admire the wit and idiosyncratic flare of the phrasing however. Usually one has to go to a News Ltd headline to find eloquence of that calibre.
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Still if I’m so thick one would’ve thought it’d be easy for a brilliant editor such as yourself to pick apart my definitions of ‘internalized sexism’, to show that I’ve verballed Feminism 101 or at the very least fail to understand it and to demonstrate that high heels are purchased by women who have internalized this socialized construct akin to self-hatred. Tho’, as you say, it’s much more complex. On all these matters, your, hereto unseen, elucidative capacities are, no doubt, breathtaking.
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That you haven’t, I’m sure, is entirely because a troglodyte such as myself is beneath you. Not because the acumen you attribute to yourself is a magniloquent fancy you’d prefer remain untested.
“Either makes sense.”
True, but this sentence I am writing in the current time also does make successful sense and does break no rules in grammar. It reads like shit though, and fails a warthog’s standard for elegance, as did yours.
Good writing isn’t just about being decipherable, hence my suggestion that a good editor might construct a sentence well, not just without breaking an explicit rule. If you want to convince the unconvinced that you are NOT stubborn, obtuse or evasive in argument, then a lighthearted acceptance of my point might have helped.
Anyway, I think for me a re-reading of the LP comments policy is in order.
*slaps wrist*
“Ultimately it seems that one accepts it [patriarchy] (as an article of faith) or one rejects it and finds the theme preposterous, or one searches for other ways of framing one’s investigation of society.”
Actually, I think that one observes a power imbalance, and gives it a name. I don’t think it requires faith to recognise that women get paid less than men, are far more likely to be a victim of sexual and/or “domestic” violence, are objectified and do the bulk of society’s unpaid caring work.
It doesn’t require faith to recognise that women still only make up a tiny percentage of board appointments, and that the vast majority of CEOs are men.
And it doesn’t require a whole lot of faith to look at the article you posted the link to and realise that there are systemic issues – 23% of kids witnessing physical violence against their mother by her partner. That’s nearly a quarter, for heaven’s sake.
Finding the “theme preposterous” probably means you haven’t looked closely at the evidence.
But you seem to think I was saying rape culture and patriarchy are the same thing – they’re not.
“the range of male behaviour from wolf whistle or admiring glance to brutal rape is many-faceted, nuanced, amazingly various, culturally influenced, varies with history,”
Yes, of course it is. Rape culture describes a continuum of behaviour, in which women are treated as objects not people. At one end of that you have a wolf-whistle – a comment on a woman’s physical attractiveness that reduces her to her physical self. At the other end of that you have rape. I would argue that admiring glance is something both sexes do, and nothing to do with rape culture.
But the overall phenomenon is one where it’s acceptable to reduce a woman to a physical object. When men don’t speak up against it when other men wolf-whistle, or comment, or tell a sexist joke, the man who’s behaving like that is getting a powerful cultural message that it’s ok to treat women that way. Wolf-whistling doesn’t *cause* rape. It’s a continuum.
I was, however, not saying that people should not disagree with the idea of rape culture. I was objecting to a man laying claim to the definition of feminism – suggesting that some women are doing it wrong, and others are feminists even though they say they’re not. Men do not experience being women oppressed by the patriarchy, so while they are welcome (at least as far as I’m concerned) to engage with feminism, they are not welcome to tell us that we’re not doing it right, or that we are not as we label ourselves.
“I have the feeling that “power” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
That’s interesting, what do you mean?
Wasn’t directed at you in particular FDB. But by all means feel free to read them over again.
“At one end of that you have a wolf-whistle – a comment on a woman’s physical attractiveness that reduces her to her physical self. At the other end of that you have rape. I would argue that admiring glance is something both sexes do, and nothing to do with rape culture.”
At what point does something become “part of rape culture”? How is an admiring glance qualitatively different, such that it’s not just another point on the continuum, to the innocuous side of wolf-whistle?
Seems a little arbitrary.
I think I was probably guilty of not “try[ing] to stay reasonably germane to the topic” Mindy.
If I wasn’t I certainly am now!
Fine – You don’t get that women may have some particular insight into the lived experience of being a woman and may actually know more about it than you.
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With respect Fine. I do get that. Doubtless my perspectives are different, doubtless there’s things I don’t get. But the ‘I’m a woman therefore I know more’ doesn’t cut it. If you know, say something that demonstrates it. It is entirely reasonable to ask questions and to express skepticism. It’s unreasonable to react to this with hostility. Please scan the above. Who’s doing what here?
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Feminism has gotten bogged down with doctrine and group-think. This is because, as here, and as elsewhere, there’s a recourse to explaining things entirely in terms of fairly simple notions of socialization that appear not to’ve been developed by empirical exploration or indeed any other way. Despite being routinely told that ‘it’s more complex’ the rhetoric never gets more complex. In fact the minute you challenge the orthodoxy it gets hostile. And when you point out that the orthodoxy is doing this, you get denial that there’s any such thing!
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I apologize for my snide, rude behaviour but I think if you’ll look up that you’ll notice Rebekka was snide and patronizing first. I think if you look across at the other threads you might see a similar pattern. It’s also worth noting that it’s often the same gang.
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The conversations reminds me of certain people I associated with in undergrad days. Doctrinaire and intolerant. One who comes to mind spent an hour berating a friend of mine for not being a real feminist because she shaved her legs. Wasn’t the point – choice. Is a choice which doesn’t conform necessarily better or more liberating than one that does? Does it matter? I merely ask questions. Funnily enough this person was given to making proclamations on behalf of women in general. As far as I’m aware no-one ever so much as nominated her as any kind of representative of her sex. She assumed it.
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Likewise this idea that I’m somehow hostile to women, or anti-feminist, or unable to communicate with them is a generalization based on the spurious extrapolation of my conflicts with a handful of gramaphone minds. I’m none of those things. And I’ve not displayed any glaring ignorance of the issues nor have I claimed any authority. Again I merely suggest possibilities and repeat often that I may be mistaken. There is nothing of substance on offer to say that I am.
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It won’t do. It’s not good enough. Contrary to popular belief I do not think we live in a post-feminist world. I think feminism is still essential in a progression to a better planet. And it’s a long way off done. However if such as gets regularly witnessed here is the best that can be done, well, what will be done?
Adrien has repeatedly called me stupid throughout the discussion, as well as calling me a robotic arsehole among other things, so it’s interesting that I’m the one who’s told to re-read the comments policy.
I agree that my sentence was not entirely elegant, but I’m actually not in professional writing mode when taking a quick break to write a comment on a website – surprising as that might seem. The editing process is slightly different from the blog commenting process.
Adrien has repeatedly called me stupid throughout the discussion,
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Example s’il vous plait?
Although I do agree I was also snide.
“At what point does something become “part of rape culture”? How is an admiring glance qualitatively different, such that it’s not just another point on the continuum, to the innocuous side of wolf-whistle?
Seems a little arbitrary.”
Perhaps it is, but I tend to think we’re all going to look at people to whom we are attracted. But wolf-whistling is almost solely done by men at women, as a way of stating – loudly – that they find her physically attractive. It’s asserting power, because a woman can’t do anything about it. Make eye contact, and she can look away, ignore you, or smile and look back. There’s a totally different dynamic happening there.
And we need some way of communicating attraction, otherwise no-one would ever get any!
The primacy of the notion of patriarchy as *the* explanation of the causes of women’s oppression, which is ongoing, if relative, depending in degree on numerous other factors, has never been accepted holus bolus by all feminists, particularly during the second-wave. It is entirely legitimate and interesting for Adrien to raise this in the context of discussing the topic of this thread and I share his frustration and objections to the way his arguments have been distorted, ridiculed, and misrepresented. I’d agree that none of his arguments have seriously been challenged, let alone defeated.
It is a shame that most commenters seem to either not be interested in more deeply investigating patriarchy or the issue of the intersection of biology, sex and gender.
A very useful book that addresses all these issues is Beatrice Faust’s nuanced and very thoughtful “Apprenticeship in liberty : sex, feminism and sociobiology”. Also Martha Nussbaum’s astonishingly comprehensive and interdisciplinary “Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions” – which has become a constant resource for me on all sorts of philosophical questions – provides fascinating discussion of many questions raised in here and on the other thread about cosmetic surgery. Which I have just read. Again, Adrien’s legitimate and interesting arguments there were neither seriously addressed or defeated. Or, I suspect, really understood by many.
FDB, in reality I wonder whether you have trouble knowing the difference in tone between a wolf whistle and an admiring glance? I don’t know whether it’s that hard when it actually comes to doing the two things.
“wolf-whistling is almost solely done by men at women, as a way of stating – loudly – that they find her physically attractive.”
So it’s on the “continuum of rape culture” because it’s something men do to women? I hope your horses can see that cart coming.
“It’s asserting power, because a woman can’t do anything about it. Make eye contact, and she can look away, ignore you, or smile and look back. There’s a totally different dynamic happening there.”
Quantitaively different, sure. Qualitatively too, but what is it about the difference between a look and a whistle that makes them not part of the same thing, while a whistle and a gang-rape are?
And we need some way of communicating attraction, otherwise no-one would ever get any!
Oops, I guess I copied more of your comment than I thought. Take my verbatim repetition as agreement with that last bit at least.
I suggest that the difference is that a look can be ignored, whereas a wolf whistle can’t. I think also context plays a big part. An admiring glance on a busy street doesn’t feel threatening. A wolf whistle when you’re 16 and walking by yourself absolutely does.
Now here I am breaking the repeat-comments-without-reply rule, but yes Fine, of course there is a difference. I’ve never loudly and publically proclaimed a lady’s desirability, though each on its own can have a role.
“Wolf-whistling doesn’t *cause* rape. It’s a continuum.”
You see, even though I think an admiring glance is qualitatively different than a wolf whistle, I have a lot of trouble with this idea. I don’t think a wolf-whistle and rape are part of the same continuum. Again, I think they’re qualitatively different than each other. I don’t like being wolf whistled and will challenge men when they do that. But I don’t believe it’s a way making rape acceptable.
I think we’re about on the same page Fine.
For one thing, starting the continuum at wolf-whistling rather lets Teh Male Gaze off the hook, doesn’t it?
Please let’s not start on the Male Gaze. We’ll all go mad this rate.
Yes, for all those who missed it, my last comment was 90% mischievous and 10% sorry-for-being-mischievous.
Please don’t let’s go there.
How is an admiring glance qualitatively different, such that it’s not just another point on the continuum, to the innocuous side of wolf-whistle?
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An admiring glance, as opposed to a leery stare, hurts no-one and is complementary. A wolf-whistle, in the stereotypical scenario, breaks one’s concentration. It can be a pain.
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But wolf-whistling is almost solely done by men at women,
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That’s changing. The four boys in a Tarrago syndrome, where they drive around making guttural ape noises at any lass that takes her fancy… The girls can do it too y’all. I’ve seen ‘em. Does a man feel threatened by women doing this as a woman may if men do it to her? That’s another question I suspect the answer is no.
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I do suppose that it’s not the expression of one’s desire that’s the problem it’s how it’s expressed and what feelings are expressed by that. A lot of men express desire mixed with aggression and even disdain.
Adrien, feminism has not only got bogged down, it is moribund. This might have something to do with the fact that it is non-existent as a social movement and has been so for at least 25 years.
Martha Nussbaum whom I referenced above at 255 refers to an examination [unread and details unremembered] of Rousseau’s Emile where he apparently self-censored a chapter which revealed his complete lack of empathy for his consort, Sophie. It was, she claims, an implicit acknowledgement of the incompatibility between male dominance and compassion, something which so troubled Rousseau, she says, that he could neither publish nor destroy it.
Rousseau also demonstrated (and Nussbaum examines this whole subject in some depth) how very difficult it is for specific groups – whether racial, class, or gendered – to have compassoion for suffering people who are significantly different from themselves. I think there is a distinct lack of empathy and compassion by many men for women’s plight. But, I have no doubt that this in reinforced by many women’s seeming compliance with and acceptance of the humiliations, etc of femininity.
Jinmaro – No. That’s totally untrue. It’s your self-hatred.
Ah well again I feel like Luke
A reasonin’ with the Strother
It seems again I’m thought a kook
So me think, me ask: why bother?
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Perhaps a meglomania stakes me,
I want to rule the nation
But wiser heads abound, they brakes me
An’ I’m back on mod’ration
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Oh well I can take a hint
And I can read the signs
I fail to make the least imprint
Or court superior minds
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So I’m gonna drops the pipe f’r now
And play some other tune
Or maybe just go bush: bow wow
And bark at yonder moon.
Adrien, one thing is for sure. This blog is not at all serious about intellectual clarity. The people who run it and egoists whose main concern is the protection of and enhancement of their own self-esteem.
Geez jinmaro, that’s a hell of a Greenfield impression.
Oops, I said the G word.
Hey, Jinmaro why don’t you get yourself some blogging software and set up your own site. Then we can all come around to your place and gasp in awe at your intellectual rigour.
Nice fan you’ve picked up there, Adrien.
Oh, absolutely. That’ll be why every time there’s a thread here about it, there are are 100-500 comments from several dozen different people, male and female, some of whom know quite a lot about feminism and most of whom are passionately arguing a number of different detailed and nuanced positions. Bogged-down, moribund, non-existent movements always generate lots of heated well-informed discussion of this kind, as everyone knows.
Heh!
And word, Fine!
No, please, the last contributors.
Don’t just follow the old trick of withdrawing, presumably to sulk, when someone says something you don’t agree with.
Lurk a bit, then troll back not with comments in good faith, but bitter and snide us ‘n them stuff to ostracise the dissident viewpoint.
Adrien, I wonder why you bother.
You know they only get nasty if you question an aspect of their stated viewpoint or prejudice of the moment.
They call it “transgressing” or “refusal”, but it’s just the old fashioned silent treatment to punish those who won’t accept holy writ.
Shorter Paul: “It’s your duty to educate us, and/or make yourself available for us to make snide remarks at.” (You see Paul, I see a fair bit of snideness in Adrien’s posts, plus a huge amount of superiority and entitled-ness, while you and others seem to see him as a poor innocent Candide being mocked by the crool denizens of the purple realm.)
Feministe, BitchPHD, la Chola, Pandagon, Shakesville, Hoyden, the Curvature, the F word, to name just a few; all buzzing daily with multiple posts and hundreds of comments. A moribund movement? I think not.
Oh, also on the matter of us not always treating your fabulous ripostes with the awe they deserve, what you interpret as “the silent treatment” some of us call “being at work” or “being asleep” or “being with the family”. Shocking behaviour, I know. If you don’t have these problems, I commiserate.
Helen , enjoyed yours and all tho others commenting at this thread, at the far more meaningful “G 20″ thread, etc.
What is it with you lot?
If it’s not about self it’s not worth the trouble?
When I see identity politics and gender I just see an excuse for another orgy or black hole of more separatism, isolationism, self absorption and narcissism- middle class victimhood/entitlement.
Go for a trip somewhere in the third world and see how the REAL victims are travelling.
“Go for a trip somewhere in the third world and see how the REAL victims are travelling.”
I think anyone whose parents ever told them to eat up their brussel sprouts because there are children starving in China/India/Africa can probably see the logical flaw in that suggestion.
I would add that dictating to other people what they should and shouldn’t be blogging and commenting about simply mirrors the kind of behaviour that leads to the political repression and oppression that help to keep the Third World poor, and does nothing to help said Third World in any way.
Jesus, Louise.
paul – I don’t do “commenting on demand” – as I haven’t read the great majority of this thread, I don’t plan to make a substantive comment because I don’t think it would be appropriate to do so unless I’d followed the debate. And I have work today!
As Helen said.
And what Rebekka said as well – I’ve noticed in the past that it’s apparently only on threads to do with feminism and women that you feel it’s urgent to point out that imperialism in Africa is a much more pressing matter. This is analogous to the line from the right (and the Decent Left) that “Western feminists” are all a bunch of selfish wimminz. You don’t appear to have any compunctions in commenting on all manner of other subjects without bringing up the urgent question of Africa – or whatever – or thinking that it’s wrong to talk about such things without bringing up the urgent question etc. But I guess they’re “far more meaningful” as opposed to things that concern women, and discussions of gender relations. With respect, you should perhaps ponder why that is, before you start lecturing other people.
“Go for a trip somewhere in the third world and see how the REAL victims are travelling.”
No, that’s not the case at all. That’s like telling rape victims, domestic violence victims etc in this country to hush and think of the people in the Third World. And we are a diverse group, Paul.
Paul, I’ve been to many countries in the so called ‘third world’, and most people there I imagine, wouldn’t see themselves as victims. A lot of these countries are far more patriachial than ours on the surface, but there seems to be a lot less violence and aggression directed towards women than in our country, where it bubbles just underneath the surface most of the time.
Anyway, your general point is ridiculous, since it suggests that while there are people worse off than ourselves, we have no right to attempt to improve our conditions or society.
Half a dozen comments since that last post of mine, all sour and all content-free zones.
To think someof you call yourselves “leftists”!
I repeat. Insular, narcissistic, morbid and self-preoccupied and unreflexive.
Paul, I think you’re having yourself on. Most of the posts above have more ‘content’ than yours, if by content you mean arguments.
Blathering on with a series of negative adjectives which you think describe others, may I concede, be your definition of content. In which case you are correct.
Well, I have rechecked to see if I got it wrong about lack of commentary on some of the real-words threads at LP, rather than this nonsense.
Like I said, where’s the “content” aspect; vis vis real world issues and not just you, Adrian, but most of the other navel-gazers here, also.
Look forward to lots of new posts at the “G-20″ thread. Lots of (belated concern re “other” and focus finally off selves!
“I repeat. Insular, narcissistic, morbid and self-preoccupied and unreflexive.”
You’re right. While we’re being raped or beaten, we should just keep a stiff upper lip and say to ourselves “hey, at least I’m not being raped and beaten in the third world. That’s very comforting, and will help us be less narcissistic and pre-occupied.
Oh, and just in case adrian’s right and your definition of “content” is a list of pejorative adjectives I’ll throw in some “content”:
nincompoop, mooncalf, yeasty hell-hated skainsmate, clodpate, clay-brained miscreant, softhead, wretched pulling fool, tomfool, whining mammet, doghearted clotpole, mangled earth-vexing malt-worm.
Paul walter, Kim asked why you only do these sprays in threads about women and feminism. I wonder what the answer to that question is as well.
And yes, I forgot to close the tag at the end of in the third world – d’oh.
“doghearted clotpole” – what have you been reading lately Rebekka? That’s a great list of pejorative adjectives. I’ve only heard nincompoop before.
“I have the feeling that “power” isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
That’s interesting, what do you mean?
Well, what is power? There’s brute force, assault, guns etc. There’s economic or financial power, e.g. corporate or husband-controls-the-purse-strings. There’s the power of suasion. The power of example.
Liberal democracies attempt to constrain financial power to some extent. All societies attempt to constrain brute force, to some extent. Some states use extreme force (executions, disappearances, intimidation, torture).
But power is limited. It’s crude. It can be circumvented. Social changes render some assumed “powers” obsolete: look at that man in the fancy uniform, he’s a laughing-stock.
As to discerning power relationships, that’s fraught. In Newtonian physics, invisible forces are occasionally deduced through their effects. The motion observed, shows that forces were in play. You might then find an independent way of measuring the force(s) directly.
Does that worldview translate into the social sphere? Hardly. We may observe an outcome, and attribute it to a “balance of forces”, an “imbalance of power”; a waste of time, generally. The forces are close to unknowable. Their “balance” is unclear. Why? because persons A, B, C behave differently when confronted with what appear to be similar circumstances. Because societies D, E, F take different trajectories when facing similar circumstances. Some persons “speak truth to power” and walk away unhindered. Others flee. Others succumb. No rhyme, no reason.
In my ignorance, I feel that suasion, a stunningly clear insight, and family love will trounce “power” on most days of the week. The audacity of hope. In my ignorance, I think power’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Hail and farewell, Rebekka.
BTW, nice set of adjectives you’ve got there
Mindy: Shakespeare!
At risk of another diversion, and though the insults are fantastic, not all contain an adjective.
*runs*
Paul, if you are not interested in issues surrounding gender don’t comment on threads about them.
This blog is a mixture of topics (and thank heavens for that).
You don’t have to be in the Third World to endure crap because you’re a woman (or a man for that matter).
Paul, I actually think that people have been quite kind to you, given the level of abuse you seem to think is OK, but that last comment was completely over the top and probably offensive to the majority.
I for one have tried to engage you on the issues, but it’s a complete and utter waste of time.
Couldn’t answer Kim’s question, could you paul walter? Too hard is it?
“Rebekkah, its not others youre concerned about when you talk about “getting raped”-it’s only yourself. And only because you are so self-absorbed as think your apparently fatal charms would encourage that sort of interest in you.”
And can’t you see how deeply repugnant that reponse is? You really lose all credibility with that level of nastiness.
“Rebekkah, its not others youre concerned about when you talk about “getting raped”-it’s only yourself. And only because you are so self-absorbed as think your apparently fatal charms would encourage that sort of interest in you.”
That’s absolute crap – when one in three Australian girls says they have been “forced to have sex” against their will, when one in four women has experienced domestic violence, why wouldn’t I, as a feminist and as a human being, be concerned about it as an issue?
I’m very interested in birth and breastfeeding issues from a feminist (and human) perspective as well, even though I don’t intend to have children.
And I’m not stupid enough to think that rape has anything to do with whether a woman is conventionally attractive or not.
Also, where do you get off, telling me *I’m* self-absorbed, when you are dismissing this whole thread because gender issues don’t interest you??
And my name doesn’t and never has had an H on the end of it.
FDB, you are quite right! I should have said lumpish nincompoop, bat-fowling mooncalf, yeasty hell-hated skainsmate, beef-witted clodpate, clay-brained miscreant, reeky half-faced softhead, wretched pulling fool, warped tomfool, whining mammet, doghearted clotpole, mangled earth-vexing malt-worm.
Well said Adrian.
I hope I’m one of the targets of your disdain Paul – I’d take it as a sign I’m doing something right. Your contributions here are marginally coherent at best, and when I do understand what you’re trying to say it usually turns out to be antagonistic to your hosts or another commenter.
Not worth the trouble, and in the above case grossly offensive. Whatever her faults, it’s plain that Rebekka cares a great deal about others, while you casually insult people merely for finding something interesting which you do not. Tell me, who is the self-centred one?
Nope. You are middle class poseurs and perfect examples of self absorption and false consciousness.
I stand by my claims.
Well then, with all due respect (i.e. none) I wish you well in your search for a clue how to behave in company.
Got many friends?
Hey paul walter, here’s your comment in the Mr Darcy thread.
“Don’t know how relevant this is, but apparently were related to the Dukes of Chandos, freebooters associated with Marlborough; also Warren Hastings, the probable model for colonel what-’is-face in one of Austen’s novels ( Sense and Sensibility? ). Hastings got caught with his fingers in the till in a big way during his defacto vice regal time in India.”
A trifle self-absorbed and poseur-ish surely? Tsk. Tsk.
Fine – Hey, Jinmaro why don’t you get yourself some blogging software and set up your own site. Then we can all come around to your place and gasp in awe at your intellectual rigour.
. That said her argument that feminism has atrophied over the last quarter century or so is completely wrong.
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You don’t need blogging software it’s all online. I know you’re being sarcastic but that’s not a bad idea. Jinmaro has guts. And and as this very wise person says guts is enough. I suspect she might have more than that.
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Nice fan you’ve picked up there, Adrien.
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Actually yeah.
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Your impeccable excavation of the facts show her argument not only to be wrong but utterly mistaken. Obviously feminism is very a strong current influence in today’s society and has been consistently vital since the heyday of the second wave.
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Which makes it even more puzzling as to why we still live in a patriarchy.
paul last week posted quite a quite a few times on the “OMG Valley Girl Thread” which really exposes his self-important hypocrisy but even amongst all the light hearted and fun comments on that thread, he couldn’t quite suppress his bubbling gynophobia – this comment had no context, and wasn’t part of any joke:
Like WTF?
And this pearler is from a recent thread on paid maternity leave revealing how easily paul moves away from his claims and core positions when the issue heads anywhere near females – even siding wif the bosses!!
I’d say way over a decade at least.
I withdraw my last remark of my comment at 305, totally unhelpful.
(sorry, if duplicate comment appears)
The thing that gets on my goat is the suggestion that anyone who is interested in gender issues is “middle class” and whatever else. All presumption and for many of us, not true. It’s just a way of trying to tell us to shut up with the women’s stuff.
Anyway, I just read a horrible horrible story about a terrible case of child abuse. Presumably we shouldn’t talk about such stuff because it’s not to do with G-20 or those kind of “serious” things.
Ooooh wee!!!
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Thangs is hot!
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This Paul chappy comes along and asks me why I bother. Y’all only get nasty. Then he gets nasty. Mmm don’t know about that ‘rape’ comment there old sock. Rebekka is obnoxious but we should be most dispassionate in discussing this most unpleasant thing. Fatal charm, I’d wager, isn’t what precipitates rape. A callous will to power does and it’s something that keeps us in the gutter.
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Helen says she sees: a fair bit of snideness in Adrien’s posts and well she does. The superiority I must likewise ashamedly own; what part of this is due to quality, what part the patrician pose is something others can decide.
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But I am not entitled, nor feel myself thus. No-one is. Amongst my ancestors there were those who were entitled. They were the Thanes of something or other and people had to address them as my lord or lady this and that. This means exactly this: Nothing.
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Helen thinks some people see me “as a poor innocent Candide being mocked by the crool denizens of the purple realm.”
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Well that’s a class bit of prose there Helen but anyone who thinks me innocent is not merely mistaken but psychotic.
Oh, I have many, many faults, but posing and self-absorbtion are not two of them. I will admit to being impatient, sarcastic, occasionally short-tempered, pedantic, lazy and too literal. And not gladly suffering fools.
I don’t think it’s fair to call Rebekka obnoxious, just because she makes you defend your arguments. Isn’t a robust discussion what you are here for? You give as good as you get.
And not gladly suffering fools.
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You forgot to add ‘has tendency to leave self wide open to comebacks’ but, no, I’m only gonna think it
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Back on topic: here’s some fantastic shoes. Better looked at than worn I’d wager. Put together by this lassie.
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Patriarchal dupe or feminist icon, both and/or neither? You tell me.
Now who’s leaving himself wide open?
You’re deluded, dude.
Darlene’s no doubt got better things to do, but I might jump in here and point out that the comments policy suggests that a whole thread shouldn’t be captive to some discussion of one commenter’s views. So I’d suggest that the topic of “paul walter” has been discussed sufficiently. And from a moderation point of view, he might like to consider the high degree of offensiveness of at least the comment directed at Rebekka @ 295. It’s unacceptable.
Our place, our rules, remember.
Mindy – I don’t think it’s fair to call Rebekka obnoxious, just because she makes you defend your arguments…
. Rebekka and I are the Beatrice and Benedick of Larvatus Prodeo.
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Not really. I called her obnoxious ’cause, well, she is.
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You give as good as you get.
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Yep. I’m obnoxious too
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Isn’t a robust discussion what you are here for?
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Nah… Pavlov’s Cat’s right. I’ve stop taking my medication and I think I’m Napoleon.
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And now about the shoes. These are the kinda thing: good for kickin’ boys with.
The 295 comment is no longer there. Didn’t see it previously. It was highly objectionable in relation to another commentator and also had a nasty inference about women being guilty for sexual assaults committed against them.
I did have better things to do
. I was watching The Simpsons and eating Hudson Homer chocolate ice cream.
Here’s a pair of shoes that I think are lovely:
“Our place, our rules”, said Stalin.
paul, if you don’t accept the comments policy, and our interpretation of it, you have no place commenting here. Simple as that. Every time you make a comment, you implicitly agree to abide by it. It’s quite possible to have disagreement without getting personal, making comments offensive to individuals, and to maintain good practice in being responsive to the topic. If you choose not to do that, that’s your choice, but we are not obliged to entertain either comments or objections from someone who is not prepared to participate according to the guidelines we’ve laid down.
Now, a REAL story.
The Age reports former premier Paul Lennon as saying that the Gunns project is now “dead in the water”.
Any comments?
Mmmmm, no. This is a thread about shoes and gender issues (or isshoes). And the sisters (in shoes or without them) are sick of blokes telling them what are important issues and what are not.
I just wanted to show this picture of these shoes. And in the spirit of the shoes, it might be time to go over all Stalin and close the thread. I can’t check it for the rest of the night and there might be nasty comments like the one deleted posted. Have a good night.