Comments on: The Week In Patriarchy

By: Erik Ostrom

Erik Ostrom — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 04:30:08 +0000

I’m totally willing to believe Pitchfork is prejudiced against middle-aged women. I’d even assume it. But Flavorwire’s approach doesn’t actually show it.

I’d be interested to see whether the Pitchfork/Metacritic ratio holds up when applied to, say, older men, younger women, even just albums in general. But not interested enough to actually do the work.

By: BMichael

BMichael — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 02:26:26 +0000

@JMS No I know that people living a few hundred years ago generally wrote very explicitly repugnant things about women. I just meant that as someone who laid the foundation for our idea of modern government and liberty, and also wrote more lastingly on liberty, and as someone from Switzerland, that he’d possibly be upset.

By: Jamie Johnston

Jamie Johnston — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 12:36:20 +0000

Interesting as always, thanks. Your link about the French veil-ban is from last year, though: the thing that happened this week is that the lower house of the legislature approved the ban. (Warning: the link in the previous sentence is to the possibly-more-evil-than-we-thought BBC.)

By: JMS

JMS — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 03:42:03 +0000

Why would Rousseau be upset about Polanski? Rousseau was a complete pig to the women in his life, and was deeply misogynist in his writing.

Here’s what Rousseau had to say: “The education of women should always be relative to that of men. To please, to be useful to us, to make us love and esteem them, to educate us when young, to take care of us when grown up, to advise, to console us, to render our lives easy and agreeable; these are the duties of women at all times, and what they should be taught in their infancy.”

By: thecynicalromantic

thecynicalromantic — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 01:12:07 +0000

So… the Church doesn’t have a problem with ordaining women anymore?

And just when I’d given up on them making any progress on anything ever, too.

By: Lynn

Lynn — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 20:31:48 +0000

I love the additional statement from the Vatican saying that the same category doesn’t necessarily mean the same level of crime.

And then you read the punishments and find that, yes, in fact the woman wishing to spread the word of God is *much* more heavily punished than the rapist.

By: Samantha B.

Samantha B. — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 18:08:10 +0000

Pitchfork is pretty minimally interested in countering aesthetic norms, so I can’t say I’m terribly surprised to see that. They’re pretty fucking narrow in what they advocate for, and it’s inevitably something hyper-polished and damn corporatized. Ariel Pink went from something like a 4.0 to a 9.0 once he got slicker production. You could say that’s strictly a matter of aesthetics, but it’s not completely shocking that there might turn out to be a correspondence between aesthetic and political conservatism. They were also grotesquely ableist in their reviews of Daniel Johnston. I check them occasionally because I am old and so, especially now living in a small Southern town, underexposed. But that’s in the past tense after that bit of commentary from them. Fine, leave your fucking socks on the goddamned floor.

By: Eline

Eline — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:12:08 +0000

I’d like to point out that in that writer’s app J.K. Rowling, Margaret Atwood and Stephanie Meyer are almost definitely included.

I got the fabulous Margaret Atwood with a text that included a flurry of emoticons, rock on!