August 23, 2002
I know how committed you are to free speech. I know how intelligent and articulate and creative you are. I know how technologically innovative you are. For those qualities, you have earned my deepest respect. You have earned your professional reputations on the Net in general and in blogdom in particular. Professionally, you are men of vision.
Perhaps, on a personal level, you have wives with professional careers that you wholeheartedly support – even to the extent of sharing the household chores and child rearing. Perhaps you have daughters whose aspirations you encourage, whose safety you protect, and whose strong spirits you nurture. Perhaps you go to church, teach your sons to treat others, including women, the way they would like to be treated. That is not to say that you don’t laugh a lot, kid around, act silly, say and write witty things. Being a good human being and having fun are not mutually exclusive.
I makes me wonder, however, why, in the weblogging community, you choose to give the impression that you are stupid privileged white men who get their jollies by demonstrating their lack of understanding of the bottom-line impact on the lives of women that thoughtless sexism perpetuates. They say that if you’re not part of the solution than you’re part of the problem. Well, you can argue that, I suppose. It’s possible to isolate oneself and not actively contribute to either. But you haven’t done that. Instead, you have chosen to post things like this and this and in some of the Comments here. You have chosen to be a part of the problem.
The point is not that words have power and therefore should be chosen carefully. You can choose to use any words you choose to use. What I find disturbing is that intelligent, visionary men choose to use the words they choose to foster attitudes that are destructive to the humanity and spirits of women. Why would you choose to do that?
All you have to do is go over to Blog Sisters to get some idea of how sexist male attitudes toward women affect the lives of both women and children, how attitudes that demean the worth of women contribute to the obstacles that women not-of-privilege have to face just to survive -- and that even women-of-privilege find make their lives more difficult.
Why would you choose to do that?
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Old Comments (8)
tomas on 23 Aug 2002
I really don't get this.. is this a post/letter to a specific person or a specific group of people or what?
Am I, as a man, supposed to feel singled out? Am I supposed to recognize myself at all in this?
Because, if this isn't a letter/post directed towards a specific person or group of people, you are being very sexistic as well as prejudice in this very letter/post.
Elaine of Kalilily on 23 Aug 2002
I believe that I linked to the people to whom I was referring in this particular instance. When a man posts something that reflects an attitude that is demeaning to me as a woman, he is setting up an "us" and "them" situation. I didn't set up the situation; I'm just responding to it. In this case, if the shoe fits, it's yours. If not, what's the problem? I think it's a valid question to any man who chooses to sound sexist on his blog. Why choose to do that?
tomas on 23 Aug 2002
You explicitly stated that "women can be [...] without being sexist" in one of your comments (at burningbird, to which you linked), and that men could not. That in itself is a sexist statement.
Or is it not sexism if a women speaks it?
Elaine of Kalilily on 23 Aug 2002
Of course men can be non-sexist if they choose to be. I believe that "can" implies "ability" and not necessarily actuality.
tomas on 23 Aug 2002
Are you really unaware of the vivid prejudice that which you drench your comments in?
Let me quote you (from burningbird):
"Why can't men treat us the way we treat them. We can be funny and clever and flirtatious and even sexy without being sexist. What's their problem?"
This is smiply pure prejudice, and sexism, talking. Judging from how you enunciate yourself, this might come as a shock to you; but "men" don't all think and act alike, we really are individuals, too.
Elaine of Kalilily on 23 Aug 2002
Well, I'm writing this stuff in the context of many many other of my posts, including my interview with Frank Paynter, that put my words in a perspective that you don't have because you haven't read all of that. Of course all men are individuals. As are all women. I suppose I should always use the word "some" before men and women to avoid this kind of nit picking. I will do that, for sure from now on. But until you become more familiar with other points I have made in other posts, including on my old blog, I give you the last word, should you choose to take it. I've asked the question that I wanted to ask: Why do some otherwise bright, visionary men seem to need to manipulate the idea of "woman" and relegate women to a demeaning status? I don't think doing that makes the world a more humane and "easy" place for either men or women to live in, and I don't expect an answer to my question.
The One True b!X on 23 Aug 2002
I'm confused here: I suppose I should always use the word "some" before men and women to avoid this kind of nit picking. Why is it that it's "nit picking" (a phrase which implies the complaint is trivial and unimportant) when you do it, but if a man made an over-generalization about women -- say, "God dammit, why are women such BITCHES?" -- you would probably go all apeshit over his not using the word "some" first?
Elaine of Kalilily on 24 Aug 2002
OK. You got me on that one. Mea culpa.