Comments on: The Triumphant Return of Tiger Beatdown, featuring: Your New Hero, Chris Surette

By: Maggie

Maggie — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 19:05:44 +0000

Ok, that’s it, you’re the greatest person alive.

By: snobographer

snobographer — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:04:48 +0000

@L – Oh yeah. He can’t be sexist because he has a wife or a girlfriend. I know that one. Battered women’s shelters are filled with the wives and SOs of sexist men.

By: University Sex Columns, Reviewed: Unexpected Butt Boner Edition - The Sexist - Washington City Paper

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:36:24 +0000

[...] that she appreciates the work of Chris Surette, the infamous Fairfield Mirror sex columnist who conceives of casual sex in these terms: “Not only is it a story for you and your boys, but others will soon realize what happened [...]

By: L

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:19:34 +0000

@Snobographer

Having a mother (or a wife. Or having ever spoken to a woman) gets anyone out of being sexist. I just read a “redeeming” article on possibly Australia’s most sexist man, Sam Newman (if you haven’t heard of him, count yourself lucky) which tried to assuage some of his “perceived” (read: REAL) sexism with insights such as:

“Women have played a pivotal role in Newman’s life, which includes three marriages.”

Oh. Um. Wow!

(It also cites the fact that he has 3 children. They are all boys. I don’t even know how they fit into the already illogical argument. Maybe because they came from the wombs of women? I do not know.)

By: snobographer

snobographer — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:38:00 +0000

Well haven’t we all run into douchebags on the Internet and elsewhere who claim to have taken Women’s Studies or some such thing? I think, if they do take these classes, they just memorize facts and stats well enough to get a C (or not – come to think of it, maybe Surette flunked his Fem Lit class) without ever absorbing anything or giving a shit about the subject matter. That way if anyone ever accuses them of being sexist they can just break out their academic credentials (one lower division undergrad class! woot!) and the fact that they have mothers (like any member of any sexually reproduced species). Voila! Can’t be sexist!

By: Shil

Shil — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 22:44:48 +0000

@Worsement

Unfortunately, I think you’re going to encounter a fair amount of what you just described when you teach. I’ve been teaching undergraduate courses, generally freshman composition and literature, for ten years now. Gender is a subject which is often touched on in my class and I have always striven, from well before I actively identified as feminist, to get students to think critically about it (as about everything else, I hope) and reject the sexist beliefs which our society foists on them. And I agree with you totally when you say “I have to believe that a classroom experience can make a difference in people’s lives, and that they can come out of it with new ways of looking at their opinions and attachments and priorities.” The key point is that it can. It won’t necessarily do so, depending on the individual student. And if you give yourself grief thinking that you’ve failed every time someone walks out of your classroom and remains mostly the doucheface that they walked in, then you’ll probably end up making yourself very unhappy – and blaming yourself unnecessarily. You can show someone what feminist thinking is about, but you can’t make them embrace it.

By: worsement

worsement — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:31:51 +0000

That Chris Surette has apparently taken a feminist literature course, as pointed out by Dee and RLC, is maybe one of the worst parts of this whole thing. It seriously makes me want to cry. As someone who is (at least in theory) hoping to teach literature from a feminist perspective, I have to believe that a classroom experience can make a difference in people’s lives, and that they can come out of it with new ways of looking at their opinions and attachments and priorities. And that they won’t, they REALLY WON’T, just put the whole thing behind them and go on to write articles like this, for which they then have to apologize by reminding us all that they once took a feminist literature course. Right? Fuck. This is awful.

By: Ali

Ali — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 12:27:14 +0000

This completely just made my morning. Best article on doucheface Chris Surette (can we start prefixing his name with doucheface, so that whenever anyone googles ‘Chris Surette’ all the results read ‘doucheface Chris Surette etc. etc.’? Then people wouldn’t even need to read any of the results! They would get the picture in mere seconds! The internet is a beautiful thing, people) out of all the ones I’ve seen.

By: Brennan

Brennan — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 04:48:32 +0000

@ Dee and RLC
My personal favorite line in the “apology” was this gem:
“I do respect the ideas of feminism and women’s rights, even though it may not be perceived in my writing.”
Somebody, teach the douche that “respect” is an active verb; if you “respect the ideas” and *nobody can tell* it’s NOT respect.
Thank you, Sady, for bringing another hopeless douche to our attention.

By: Dee

Dee — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 03:06:49 +0000

@RLC

You’re right. How could I be so blind?

B- Rape jokes!
I- Women who have sex are sluts/whores
N- Women are clingy/emotional/crazy
G- You can’t take a joke!
O- I’m not sexist because I took a women’s studies class one time