Hannah Gadsby - Nanette

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Hannah Gadsby - Nanette

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1sturlington
syyskuu 20, 2018, 9:59 am

I understand why this group is so quiet right now. As Hannah Gadsby says, "I might as well come out now. I identify as tired. I'm just tired."

So, here are a few recommendations that I hope may be cathartic as we endure this incredibly disheartening week. If you haven't seen Hannah's show yet, called Nanette, go watch it on Netflix if you're able.

Also, McSweeney's has a piece on what it's like to be a female incel (incelibate) that may have us all converting. And since McSweeney's seems to be really feeling me this week, they also have a great piece called The Menopaumorphosis.

2LolaWalser
syyskuu 20, 2018, 3:48 pm

I would actually like to hear why people are being quiet. Please tell how tired you are. :)

For my part, as a non-American on an American forum dominated by American issues, I feel increasingly uncomfortable with engaging while being a more or less helpless spectator to the goings-on in the US. In the past I was braver trying to animate things here, but it doesn't feel right for me to do so anymore.

The surge in activism in the US is impressive and I think a sign of a lasting progressive accomplishment, no matter what damage the current administration still manages to do.

3sturlington
Muokkaaja: syyskuu 21, 2018, 7:58 am

I will feel better if in the midterms there is a significant backlash to what is happening right now.

Here's an example of a Twitter conversation I was in yesterday that I think is a good example of how I and apparently a lot of other women are feeling these days--the comments are also worth reading:

I’ve identified as a “bisexual lesbian” for more than 30 years.

After these past few days, I think the “bisexual” bit of my soul has shriveled up, died, fallen off, and become dust in the political wind.

True story.

— Leah McElrath (@leahmcelrath) September 19, 2018



I told my therapist that I finally get why all the feminist utopias I read seem to have no men in them. It's getting genuinely difficult to imagine an alternative.

4LolaWalser
syyskuu 20, 2018, 4:20 pm

I hear you. It will take a while yet for the old guard to change.

But I saw a bit on Colbert's show--how if you think this (excusing away rape attempt) is "boys will be boys"... you have no business raising boys, or girls. Millions of people are hearing these things, seeing the pushback.

Anita Hill. Those evil old mummies in the Senate who hacked away at her will be getting their comeuppance.

5sturlington
syyskuu 20, 2018, 4:54 pm

This time, it feels like a panic. Like, they know change is coming and they're just flailing around spewing nonsense.

However, it doesn't help that men I know personally have been letting me down wrt these issues, both on large and small levels. Even my hairstylist turned out to be a men's rights activist, and I really liked how he was cutting my hair!

6LolaWalser
syyskuu 20, 2018, 5:12 pm

This time, it feels like a panic. Like, they know change is coming and they're just flailing around spewing nonsense.

That's exactly it. Things REALLY are changing and it really means death--not just some symbolic, metaphorical death, but actual impending death. Orrin Hatch is one leg in the grave and so is everything he thinks and believes--down to the way he dots the is and crosses the ts.

I'm very sorry about you finding lack of support among men around you. I don't know what might help... my own experiences and what I perceive with other women around me, is that that sort of thing is sadly most common. I think part of the problem must be that even the best-intentioned men don't realise how much they profit from male privilege, because so much of it is invisible, subtle, and small things. Or how they may harbour sexist prejudices despite consciously being for equality etc.

Look at that shameful, ridiculous cover title on NYRB (glad to see Roxane Gay, among others, was having a laugh about it on Twitter): THE FALL OF MEN. Now THAT is "hysteria". Whither self-reflection, irony? And that's the cool and erudite NYC intelligentsia.

7Lyndatrue
syyskuu 20, 2018, 5:58 pm

>4 LolaWalser: I saw that same bit (on Colbert), and it made me weep. I'd like to see more men stand up and say the same. He's religious (which always startles me, since it seems somehow incongruous n a person who seems so intelligent), and in this case, I'd say it adds to the statement he made.

I loathe Borin' Orrin (as my mother used to call him). She looked him in the eye, once, long ago, and said "Your soul is shriveled and small, and you are a mean little man." It is, and he is.

It's good to see someone like Stephen Colbert out there. It reminds me that there are good men, that they aren't all a waste of oxygen. I'll be having lunch on Saturday with a group that's mostly guys (we're aging computer geeks), and they're all pretty decent human beings as well. We need more of those, of both genders.

8southernbooklady
syyskuu 20, 2018, 11:24 pm

>2 LolaWalser: I would actually like to hear why people are being quiet.

Why am I so quiet right now? It actually has little to do with politics. In the longer-term, August and September are the absolute busiest months for me out here in the analog world. I rarely have time to read anything, much less think coherently about anything, until September is done. Which it almost is, thank. . .something. In the shorter-term, I haven't been posting much because the weather has been really, really bad where I live. :-)

>5 sturlington: This time, it feels like a panic. Like, they know change is coming and they're just flailing around spewing nonsense

When I have been able to come up for air, however briefly, I've found I have more energy to face the news than I have in the past year. I've finally begun to find my footing, maybe. No longer stuck on how the many apparently good people I know can support reprehensible people and policies, I've learned over the last month how to talk to my neighbors without making excuses for them. "Well, you're wrong about that" has finally entered the conversation. Weirdly enough, my disinclination to accommodate whatever weird set of principles they have that allows them to go to church, support sexual predators running for office, oppose people being allowed to use the correct bathroom, and demand we be allowed to bring guns into bars, but not allowed to look at any scientific evidence that the sea levels are rising and are going to wipe their beachfront development right off said beach...my disinclination to tolerate their mad positions has made for better relations. It's funny how little most of them really want to talk about their views when someone actually demands they justify them.

We haven't talked Kavanaugh yet, mostly because I've been out of town and unable to get back home, where when I do, no doubt, we'll have other concerns to occupy us. But #metoo has made the rounds.
I do find myself wondering if we are in the midst of a real cultural change, where we go from a society where misogyny and rape are tacitly endorsed, to one where they are unequivocally rejected. In fact, I get the same kind of vibe from them about #MeToo as I do about climate change. Reality has been poking holes in their shoddily-constructed castle-of-denial about male behavior and as it has about rising sea levels. It's not a strategy that will have much use when they are left looking at the wreckage of their house.

One odd thing I have noticed -- there's a fair amount of feminist dystopian being published lately. You'd think that stuff would suit my mood, but I haven't been able to make myself even want to pick up Christina Dalcher's Vox. Not sure why. Maybe I don't really need the allegory? It's not like I don't already see the parallels between my life and the Handmaid's Tale.

9sturlington
syyskuu 21, 2018, 7:58 am

>8 southernbooklady: I hope you get back home soon and when you get there that it's not as bad as you may have feared. If anyone is interested, I have a list of good organizations to send money to that will help people affected by Hurricane Florence.

One effect of being tired is that it has made that sense of obligation that I have to take care of other people's feelings first, which has been hammered into me since birth, finally start to slip. I am no longer as tolerant of the self-serving, dismissive things I hear from others. I feel better about myself, since I'm not just taking their shit, and I honestly don't care if it makes them feel uncomfortable when I challenge them. It's time for people who hold certain views to feel very uncomfortable. Past time.

I have also noticed the large amount of feminist dystopia. I recently read Red Clocks and can recommend it. It's just barely a dystopia since the basic premise is speculative, but it reads like contemporary fiction rather than allegory, and I found it incredibly thought-provoking and, oddly, optimistic.

>6 LolaWalser: I think part of the problem must be that even the best-intentioned men don't realise how much they profit from male privilege, because so much of it is invisible, subtle, and small things.

Yes, this. There is an inability to feel empathy with what women are going through because there's no common shared experience to draw from. I've read a theory that this stems from so much of literature and pop culture being male focused. Men don't have much opportunity to live in women's shoes, so to speak, whereas almost everything women read and see is presented from a male point of view. Or at least it was when I was growing up--I think that's changing too.

10LolaWalser
syyskuu 21, 2018, 11:58 am

>7 Lyndatrue:

Your ma sounds awesome. :)

>8 southernbooklady:

Glad to hear from you, Nicki, I hope the worst weather is over and there won't be any repeats... I'm also, and I know it may sound odd, more optimistic than I ever was before in my life, but not in expectation of some particular change (in fact lots of things may yet worsen). What makes me downright happy--actually I'm probably more happy than optimistic!--is that for the first time in my life I am seeing women speaking up, en masse, everywhere. I kid you not, I still sometimes wonder if I'm dreaming. I never thought I'd see anything like it in my lifetime. Can you see how much has changed even in the years since, for example, that documentary on street harassment? Which I thought was the moment I could die, seeing that nightmare of my girlhood finally publicly addressed and condemned, even with all the predictable attacks. And that was just the beginning!

>9 sturlington:

There is an inability to feel empathy with what women are going through because there's no common shared experience to draw from. I've read a theory that this stems from so much of literature and pop culture being male focused.

Totally agree the basic problem is that men don't empathise with women. But I think it goes much wider and deeper than the influence of the media, it's their entire socialisation (and the entire society) that is at fault. Stark as it may sound, men are brought up to hate women--to despise them, to set themselves against them, to use them mercilessly, to define themselves against women. This is the purpose of misogyny--to create men as men. As long as misogyny is the ground on which masculinity is built, there is no hope for empathy from men.

All later attempts to make them feel for women, to be fair, to play nice, to accept women as equals--all founder because of that insidious early conditioning. And the biases of the media and pop culture and so on are as much an effect as a cause of this state.

11sturlington
syyskuu 21, 2018, 1:37 pm

>10 LolaWalser: And just as insidious, something I'm working on in therapy now, is the societal enculturation of women as caretakers of men, to put men and their feelings first, to submit to men's authority, to not be too loud or too shrill or too angry, to feel that lifetime satisfaction comes from being yoked to a man, to believe men over women. I was raised by fairly liberal parents and I'm amazed at how deeply this bullshit has taken root in me. I've only become fully aware of it after experiencing some fairly harsh gaslighting and having to sort out what is real and what is not.

I'm reminded of a quote from Gillian Flynn: "They hate us. That’s my immediate thought, with each new revelation: They hate us. And then, a more sick-making suspicion: They don’t care about us enough to hate us. We are simply a form of livestock."

12LolaWalser
syyskuu 21, 2018, 3:38 pm

>11 sturlington:

Yes! It goes hand in hand, doesn't it, that if men must be built up as better than women, women must be torn down as worse than men. Of course it's not packaged (often) as bluntly as that, but that's the net result. I'm actually amazed how long it took me to see these things--that women's emancipation isn't a problem per se even for most men, it's what it tells them about themselves. Who really gives a shit if a woman wants to wear trousers or drive a truck or live alone? What's the big deal? Well: But how is "HE" now gonna define himself as a man if such "manly" attributes are suddenly allowed to women?! (Is it a coincidence "hipster" beards have taken off precisely at the point when women's rights are in the spotlight? I think not. Gotta do SOMETHING ladies can't. I bet that if women started sprouting facial hair, we'd see a male fashion of dangling genitals outside clothes yet.)

Which brings me to your point about liberal parents/education. Speaking of liberals (in broadest sense), I notice that often it's something of that sort, being brought up thinking you're valued and everything's equal and society's fair etc., that makes women disbelieve even their own experience--we end up gaslighting ourselves too.

I mentioned the street harassment thing, how it poisoned my days, my childhood, girlhood... and so on... and of course it's not just "street" harassment, but the whole complex of verbal and physical assaults, including the garbage in literature (the Western Canon my dear), opera (me at 14, suddenly questioning: but why is Rigoletto's "honour" in Gilda's cunt? And why does the duke (and everyone's uncle) breezily sing about women being fickle and a feather on the wind, when HE's a rancid rapist who can't abide by a woman longer than it takes to fuck her, once?), that whole public atmosphere of shaming women and objectifying women and treating us as part of landscape and natural-born service... and what was I telling myself as I was enduring that? "Maybe I'm the problem, maybe I AM "hypersensitive", maybe I AM "odd", maybe I don't get it, other girls don't seem bothered by anything, no one else is saying anything about it, no one is protesting... maybe it's just me."

And guess what? IT WASN'T JUST ME. Actually--IT'S ALL WOMEN. How long did it take for this to become clear to me? DECADES.

But I still can't explain any of this to my mother. All she can say, poor thing, is "we didn't have the consciousness..."

13sturlington
syyskuu 21, 2018, 4:20 pm

>13 sturlington: About the beards, lightbulb! I thought I was imagining things but almost every man I know of a certain age has grown a beard in the past year. Wow.

14John5918
syyskuu 21, 2018, 11:52 pm

I just want to say that not only do I find this and parallel threads very enlightening and challenging, but also deeply moving and above all humbling. Thank you, all of you.

Mind you, on the beard issue (>13 sturlington:), I grew mine more than forty years ago because I looked too young to be a teacher and because it was inconvenient shaving in cold water in the African bush, and then just kept it.

15sturlington
syyskuu 22, 2018, 8:57 am

>14 John5918: Lots of great reasons to have a beard, John. :-)

I just thought it was funny that Lola said that because I had been wondering why suddenly everyone I knew had a beard (except my brother and stepfather). I even said not too long ago that if all the men no longer have to shave, then the women shouldn't either.

16southernbooklady
syyskuu 22, 2018, 9:45 am

>10 LolaWalser: All later attempts to make them feel for women, to be fair, to play nice, to accept women as equals--all founder because of that insidious early conditioning. And the biases of the media and pop culture and so on are as much an effect as a cause of this state.

a friend of mine has become a grandmother for the first time, and naturally, the first granddaughter in the family is just showered with love and affection. And toys. It's funny because the whole family would say they are unabashedly feminist. They are outspoken about women's rights, reproductive health care, sexual and gender rights, etc. etc.

So what toys does their little girl have? A little pink vacuum cleaner she can push all over the house. a toy shopping cart with plastic food. and this past week? A little toy dishwasher that comes with plastic plates and cups and silverware you can load into it. A dishwasher. "designed to encourage imaginative play, nurturing and social skills and a sharing attitude and aid the development of fine motor skills"

A dishwasher. for real.

I suppose I would feel marginally better if the girl also a toy toolbox or a toy fishing rod or something...well, no, I don't think I would.

I asked my friend how they picked out the toy dishwasher, and it turns out it was a reward for some specific instance of good behavior. And the little girl picked it out herself. Apparently, when dishing out rewards, they take her to the toy store and let her loose in the section for little girl toys, where things like play vacuum cleaners and dishwashers are on offer.

At which point I was sufficiently creeped out by the conversation that I changed the subject. It's like our feminist principles just go poof when it comes to indulging our kids.

17LolaWalser
syyskuu 22, 2018, 12:25 pm

>14 John5918:, >15 sturlington:

I was partly joking but the coincidence of this fashion with the alt-right/MRA rise is interesting. I'm not claiming it's scientific, but I observe that, while not every young man with a beard is a professional misogynist asshole, more often than not the professional misogynist asshole will sport a beard.

Another subtle factor which I think I detect, and which may reflect the ethnic composition and accompanying tensions of Toronto, is some kind of competition with Muslims. Is it a competition for "cool" and what it's based on--"pure" aesthetics or some darker connotations of mastery--I have no way of telling.

>16 southernbooklady:

And ultimately it really shouldn't matter, no? But buying one little girl a car instead of a dishwasher won't address the real problem, or all of the problem. It didn't in the past, we can see that now.

It's a mistake to focus on "empowering" girls without concomitantly changing radically the education of the boys. (Of course THAT can't be changed without the entire society changing.)

As was noted many times before, the empowerment of women evolved with women winning rights to more and more "male" ways of expression--women smoking, owning property, voting, driving etc. But there was no parallel development, to say nothing of a push for men to expand their choices onto "female" ways of expression. Everything purportedly "female" remained less good, less smart, less in every way, and women were supposed to "improve" themselves and their lot by acquiring what used to be the purview of men. So "equality" was still built on the assumption of essential inferiority of the feminine.

In fact anywhere where doubts can easily be cast on the "manliness" of the subject and methods, such as in the arts, writing, fashion, men typically double down to prove how masculine and "not-women" they are.

While women were objectively gaining more freedom, men were still being raised as masculine-insofar-misogynist. The crisis just deepened decade after deacde. Observe again the sheer panic and hysteria behind Buruma's headline shrieking "THE FALL OF MEN" on a New York City literary magazine in the year 2018.

Men have "fallen" because gendered violence and oppression women are suffering is now, in the second decade of the 21st century, being widely reported as actually an injustice and not a natural way of things and men's right. Imagine that mindset.

18southernbooklady
syyskuu 22, 2018, 12:50 pm

>17 LolaWalser: It's a mistake to focus on "empowering" girls without concomitantly changing radically the education of the boys. (Of course THAT can't be changed without the entire society changing.)

What would it take for "the entire society" to change, do you think? To collectively reject patriarchial values and embrace human ones? I find myself at a loss since as you point out "human" is interchangeable with "male" and "female" is alway an add ons, extra, "other."

19LolaWalser
syyskuu 22, 2018, 1:30 pm

>18 southernbooklady:

I can't imagine anything that would happen all at once in every way, my point is rather that piecemeal approach, especially exclusive focus on women, still neglects (neglected, demonstrably) the underlying foundation of masculinity-as-misogyny.

We have now "empowered" women still being harassed by same-old-shit men. Since I don't believe this happens because men are somehow inherently shit (because if that's the case, then why not cull them--why tolerate the rabid beasts? The world could manage just fine with female sex alone.), it means that men's education and socialisation needs to change. But as long as the "context"--society at large--promotes misogynist messages, then even with the best individual circumstances, the "wokest" parents, teachers etc., kids will still be picking up on what is, after all, millennial tradition and has been absorbed into all the pores of our cultures like carrion stench.

20krolik
syyskuu 23, 2018, 4:19 pm

>8 southernbooklady:, >10 LolaWalser:

Just a reader/lurker here, but will register (with some surprise) this note of recent optimism.

I do hope you're right.

21sturlington
syyskuu 24, 2018, 6:06 am

I saw The Wife yesterday, and since I started off this thread recommending things, I highly recommend this movie. Everything we've been talking about in this thread is in that movie.

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