How do I even respond to this?

Eirwyn · **Posted:** Fri Dec 10, 2010 6:43 am

"I guess feminists can't enjoy satire?" <- Me.

Quoth yet another dick brained man on Plenty of Fish:

"Well, since you are offended by something as innocuous as being referred to as a female or a girl, I assume that it is easy to strike a bad nerve with you. Given that satire typically intends to ridicule or denounce anything and everything, I would be inclined to suppose that your taste in satire would be somewhat limited.

Perhaps, it is not your feminism that would make me apprehensive towards being satirical with you, but rather the degree of sensitivity you seem to exhibit.

I have no problem or issue with your stance on the "female" or "girl" labels, or your feminism. I'm merely suggesting that you seem easy to offend.

Correct me if I'm wrong."

What the fuck do I say. I am just. Augh.

Eirwyn · **Posted:** Fri Dec 10, 2010 7:06 am

WAIT. Crisis potentially averted! I came up with a response.

Eirwynface wrote:

Just because you don't get it, doesn't mean I'm too sensitive. You have to remember that because you're a man, you don't really get to judge what's offensive to women. The world has conspired to insulate you against the experiences of women, so there's no way you could possibly understand why we get so angry and burned out over some things. Calling a woman a girl is "offensive"- and I use that term loosely, because I don't really get irritated or anything when people do it, I just don't like it- because it's infantilizing. Nobody calls grown men 'boys' unless they're joking around, but women get called 'girls' all the time when people are being dead serious. It's like we can never fully attain adult status.

I can tell you're trying really hard not to be offensive, but I honestly feel like this is just trotting out the 'oversensitive' and 'humorless feminist' tropes that are pretty much standard anti-feminist fare. I mean, I hear it over, and over, and over again. It's almost as old and tired as being told to get back into the kitchen.

Wikipedia says, "In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement." Are you kidding me? That sounds totally up my alley. I'm all for satire if it's done right.

So basically, yeah, if your satire is going to be sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, or anything like that, then you are f*cking doin' it rong and I don't feel like my sense of humor has to be called into question so much as your ability to be a critically thinking human being. If satire is meant to expose the vices and follies of society, then the best possible way you could do it is by shaming the kyriarchy. Which is the totally feminist thing to do.

Please to do it rite, kind sir.

Learn Hexadecimal · **Posted:** Fri Dec 10, 2010 12:00 pm

That is a pretty damn good response, Eirwyn. *applauds*

esuriospiritus · **Posted:** Fri Dec 10, 2010 1:10 pm

Seconded.

Eirwyn · **Posted:** Fri Dec 10, 2010 11:00 pm

Thanks! Got his reply today:

Clueless wrote:

How can you possibly know what I do or do not understand because of my sex? How has the world conspired to insulate me against the experiences of women? Hopefully, you are referring to something more significant than being called a girl. If so, then how can you assume that there is this large discrepancy between the severity of your struggles and mine just because I am of a different sex. Isn't that sexism at worst, or prejudice at best?

Let's give you the benefit of the doubt and assume I can't understand what it's like, how can you compartmentalize your entire sex like that? Are individual preferences irrelevant to you? You only use 'we as women' when it is convenient. What about the 'we' opinion in being called 'girl'? Some women want to be thought of as older and some would rather be thought of as younger. The same goes for men. You are unique in that you'd rather be perceived as older. Is it immoral for someone to consider you young? I don't think anyone will be calling you a girl when you're 35. I personally would rather be thought of as younger and find the terms 'boy' and 'girl' endearing in most contexts, such as 'boyfriend and girlfriend'. When does a woman become a woman to you? 18? If so, legality determines when you should be referred to as only 'woman'? If not, what does determine it?

Why is it everyone else's problem that they perceive you as easy to offend? You ARE easy to offend. You can make it a sexism issue with your 'humorless and oversensitive feminist' cliche, but isn't it really about a lack of familiarity? It has nothing to do with my preconceived notions of feminism. I am not even familiar enough with feminism to cater to that stereotype. You could interchange feminism with anything else someone has a strong opinion about and I would approach the issue tentatively. How can you justify demonizing someone for innocuous, if not considerate, behavior? You may have experienced similar caution exhibited before, but that wasn't me. Am I an individual or am I just a category to you?

Satire is rarely the actual catalyst for progressive change. Satire is for entertainment, usually mindless (for the audience) and usually at the playful expense of others. Maybe ideally Wikipedia can say that it is focused on improvement, but note how it says "shaming individuals into improvement." Is that still up your alley if it includes you?

The main principle I was trying to address when I was talking about blogging is that while it wouldn't be overtly insulting to any specific group of people, I simply wouldn't put too much thought into what groups it could possibly offend, within reason. It would be more of a stream of consciousness. Let's imagine for a moment that it was equally critical of patriarchy and feminism. I'm not talking about a verbose essay dismantling either; I'm talking about satire. What would you think of that?

And on an indirectly related note, what is your opinion on what issues the average man has to deal with? For example, how is the average man oppressed by society? I need some perspective on how you view things.

My reply. I think I deserve a Kitkat bar, because I refrained from nuking.

Eirwynface wrote:

Well, you've already revealed that you don't understand why it's bad to call women 'girls', so yeah. And really, from my experience, 95% of men don't get it, don't want to get it, are possibly incapable of getting it. And no, making an educated assumption based on experience is not sexism. That's also a typical non-feminist male response, I'll have you know. You tread in tracks that have been laid down before you by other men.

Well, do you know what it's like to be unable to walk anywhere alone at night? Are you aware of the many precautions women are advised to take before going to a bar or any other "risk" location? Do you understand why street harassment is so insidious, or do you think women should be flattered by catcalls? If you don't know why women can't walk alone at night, if you don't know what of the million precautions they have to take, if you don't understand why street harassment is bad, then it's because society has made sure that you've never noticed, never listened when a woman talked about it, that the only perspective you've ever had to be familiar with was your own and those like your own.

You're right, women are not a monolith, but neither does that mean we should refrain from criticizing certain things. If we had listened to every woman who had objected to feminist thought, then we would never have attained the vote. It seems ridiculous but there were women who were against receiving the vote. Some women do prefer to be called a 'girl', but we should definitely call into question why she prefers that. And why does our culture worship youth so much? If our culture appreciated a wide range of ages then it would not be a problem, but it doesn't.

Um... I don't even know how to respond to the next point. Reiterating what you've already said doesn't make it so. And who do you mean when you say 'everyone else'? Is 'everyone else' everyone who is not like me? What would that mean? Does 'everyone else' mean 'men'? And I wasn't aware that I was demoralizing you for being unfamiliar.

Well, if you wanted to shame feminists into improvement, there is some pretty rich material there. You could play around with the sex positive vs. anti-BDSM crowd, or the pro-life vs. pro-choice, or the transphobic vs trans ally feminists, or the racism and classism that has been infecting feminism from the start. It depends on if you're shaming feminism itself for trying to achieve liberation for women, or the actual problems feminism has had.

Oh, I don't know. I might consider it for the patriarchy blaming bits.

Well, men are not exactly oppressed, not as a category. But men of color are oppressed for their color, disabled men are oppressed for their disability, poor men are oppressed for their class. I do think it's pretty f*cked up the way men are raised to reject empathy and all emotions except for the boisterous or aggressive ones. And if a man gets raped, it's very hard for him to come out about it, because the assumption is that men want "it" all the time. Actually, there's a good blog post about the difference between how the world reacts to a man being raped and a woman being raped. Feminism, while primarily focused on women, is an anti-patriarchy movement, and patriarchy hurts men, too. (Note that 'patriarchy' is not synonymous with 'men'.)

Eirwyn · **Posted:** Sat Dec 11, 2010 1:00 am

Ugh, hours later, I realize a fuck up in that reply.

Transphobe vs. trans ally? Really, Eirwyn? Just allies?

*Head+wall.*

Karalyn · **Joined:** Thu May 20, 2010 3:18 am **Posts:** 262

You need a break
Youuuuuu need a break
I'll break you off a piece of that
KIT-KAT BAR

Seriously, you're amazing for even reading his messages all the way through, much less responding to them.

MomTFH · **Posted:** Sat Dec 11, 2010 1:36 pm

Eirwyn, you did awesome.

And, I am a 37 yr old woman who still objects to being called a girl, and it still happens. There is a "guy"/"girl" dichotomy that is very insidious in common parlance, and it doesn't go away when you get to be my ripe old age. *eye roll*

Eirwyn · **Posted:** Sat Dec 11, 2010 10:04 pm

Thanks, Karalyn, Mom!

Yeah, I'm twenty, so maybe in the eyes of some people I'm still a girl, but I feel like a woman even if no one treats me like one. In my opinion you stop being a girl when your age stops having a number ending in 'teen' with it.

I found a really good comparison to give him that I thought of a little late- "Would it be racist of you to tell me I know nothing about being Asian because I'm white?" Because he's Asian.

But, I don't think I'll continue, because I don't want to be frustrated anymore.

DewsSuefbus · **Joined:** Fri May 17, 2013 2:57 pm **Posts:** 64

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