Tiger Beatdown

So, this exchange. Shall we?

Some attendees said they were planning to air ads attacking conservative Democrats who were balking at Mr. Obama’s health-care overhaul. “F—ing retarded,” Mr. Emanuel scolded the group, according to several participants. – Peter Wallsten, Wall Street Journal

Just as we’d be appalled if any public figure of Rahm’s stature ever used the “N-word” or other such inappropriate language, Rahm’s slur on all God’s children with cognitive and developmental disabilities – and the people who love them – is unacceptable, and it’s heartbreaking… No comment from his boss, the president? – Sarah Palin, Facebook

There are a few things that come to mind, immediately, when I look at this. I’ll tell you about them for a while, and then the shouting will start.

The first thing is that I started to eliminate the word “retarded” from my vocabulary a while ago. What happens, when you take any word out of your average everyday roster of words, is that you notice how much you use that word in the first place, and how involuntary it often is: you stop thinking about it for a second, and it just pops out, or you start reaching for a better word, and then notice that you are reaching. This happened when I stopped using “bitch,” “cunt,” “pussy,” all of it; you’re talking, and then there’s a hole in your speech where there wasn’t before, a new set of ellipses. She’s such a… I settled on “dick,” a while ago, because that’s funny. And now I’m back to using “bitch,” but never for other ladies and only in reference to myself, mostly with an absurd suffix because I want to make it a lighthearted and non-venomous word, which I can do because I am a lady and I own it. “Retarded” I don’t own, so it’s just gone. I had to come to terms with the fact that this bit of language was tied to ideas I didn’t want to support, and get rid of it. If anyone is listening, the official Tiger Beatdown Program is that we should not use retarded to mean “bad” or “stupid.” It is very gross, for reasons I will detail below.

But here is the other thing it makes me think of: a while ago, at a bar, my boyfriend was describing a movie that he found offensive and exploitative on the subject of intellectual disabilities. And he was detailing the many over-the-top and gross ways in which the movie exaggerated or dwelled on or manipulated the audience with the lead character’s disability, and focusing to some degree on the details of the actor’s performance, and laughing because bad movies are funny, even when they’re also offensive. And some douchebucket leaned over the separation between tables, and was like, “well, I hope you enjoy making fun of disabled people.” Which: thanks for listening in on this conversation, but would it have troubled you too much to just listen to all of it, Mister? Because, you know, the problem my boyfriend had with intellectual disability in this movie is the same problem that I have with mental illness in the movie K-PAX (or, you know, the character of Hurley on Lost): allowing a roomful of non-disabled people the chance to masturbate their own compassion by feeling sorry for an actor pretending to have some vaguely defined developmental shit, or positing that Maybe The Mentally Ill Simply Have Special Gifts, rather than being honest about the fact that they have what is in fact a pretty painful and life-altering disease, is gross and ableist, and masquerades as compassion when really all it’s doing is convincing you, the non-disabled person, of how very righteous you are. In much the same way that, say, hissing the proof of your superior compassion at a stranger in a bar does.

The Palin/Emanuel exchange makes me think of both of these things. And it opens up what is a continual question for me, which is that I can’t help but feel that this is one of the core problems with language debates: sometimes the game gets shifted around, the word itself becomes the problem and not the actual underlying attitude of which the word is a symptom. Because although the words are bad, and there are a million reasons to stop using them, they are also not even remotely the core of the issue.

(Continued)

Ladies! How are you feeling lately? Hopefully, the answer is “TERRIBLE.” For, ladies, I cannot have a conversation with you unless we focus on your many physical and personal failings! I am a lady too, you see, and that is how we roll. Have I mentioned that my hair looks like something DIED IN IT today?

Yes, as your stunning cap-off on “My Navel Is So Interesting I Think I Might Just Jump Right In There and Drown” Week, it is time for a Sexist Beatdown! In which the delightful Amanda Hess of Washington City Paper’s The Sexist and I continue the discussion re: the weird rounds of mutual overt self-deprecation and covert social maneuvering that take place amongst the ladies. And come up with solutions for all your problems in that regard! Except, well: not.

ILLUSTRATION: Okay, but, seriously: one of the questions that a lot of people were stuck on was, “how do I bypass the Fat Talk?” And my answer is, GO SOMEWHERE THAT THEY SERVE THIS BUSINESS. No-one wants to eat the Hangover Pizza alone.

(Continued)

So, that Clay Shirky piece about how ladies don’t self-promote so much! Perhaps you have heard about it? Because I sure have. I have, in fact, been writing around that very piece for a while now, trying to explain how I feel about it. Because Lord knows no conversation is complete until we have all HEARD ABOUT MY FEELINGS.

The thing is, I am actually not the most impartial commenter on this particular piece for any number of reasons. For one thing, I need to do the FULL DISCLOSURE thing, here, and tell you that I like Clay and consider him a friend. He is a very nice man, that Clay Shirky! And I’m not trying to say that my having a good opinion on the writer of the piece means that I have the Best Perspective Ever on this particular topic. I’m just saying that I do have a perspective on it, which I need to acknowledge. Because here is maybe the reason I am the least objective and impartial about it: I have had conversations with Clay Shirky which demonstrate, exactly, the particular dynamic he is talking about. These conversations, they have gone like this:

“I, Clay Shirky, believe you to be capable of more than you are doing right now! Allow me to offer you some advice on this particular front.”

“Oh, my goodness, NO! I believe you to be severely deluded as to my capabilities! Allow me to present you with a list of reasons why I would not be qualified for doing anything, ever, in the entire world.”

FIVE HOURS LATER:

“And so, Clay, those are the reasons that I suck. I can provide you with further proofs of my sucking, drawn from personal history reaching back as far as kindergarten! But I think you have the basics. You see why you must rescind your advice and belief in me as a person, as clearly I would only bring shame upon you. I am but an idiot child, who spills things frequently upon my wretched frame. How did I even get dressed this morning? I don’t know! It is a fluke, clearly.”

“Um, okay. But I was trying to help…?”

“CEASE THIS FUTILE CRUSADE AT ONCE! I must go now, and mortify my flesh, perhaps with whippings. As I do so, I shall review my sub-standard grades from middle school, that I might never aspire above my due station. Thanks for coffee!”

The thing is: I can see where people might object to the language of the piece, or find that it overgeneralizes about ladies. I can see where people might feel that he misses out on some of the larger structural issues at play. It is a truth universally acknowledged that when a dude entitles something “A Rant About Women,” people tend to assume bad faith there, and if there are comments enabled, you can bet there’s a-gonna be a rumble. But, as a lady who continually downplays herself, has panic attacks when engaging in even the most mundane and obligatory forms of self-promotion, and enthusiastically shoots herself in the foot career-wise on a more or less constant basis, I… well, I can’t say he’s not on to something, basically.

If we’re talking about gender, we’re (hopefully) not trying to talk about behaviors or traits that every single member of each gender shares to exactly the same degree and in the same way. Because there are none of those! What we are talking about, though, are behaviors that are widespread within each group, including some differences between the two groups. And, while probably not every woman in the world is as hugely averse to self-promotion or as neurotically terrified of being a social climber or a narcissist or a craven careerist or a selfish asshole or whatever as I am, I have noticed that an aversion to self-promotion tends to be kind of a lady thing. I basically think we need to get over that.

So, for the moment, I don’t necessarily want to talk about why some ladies do self-promote aggressively, and don’t get rewarded for it. Because that’s been covered. I want to talk about why ladies don’t self-promote aggressively. I think there are reasons for this too, as it turns out. Allow me, for the moment, to list some that I have observed! They involve middle school, animal behavior, your mother’s dating advice, and a decades-old article in Ms. So, you know, bear with me.

(Continued)

You know what I really enjoy? When some lady decides to write a book about What Is Wrong With Feminism Today! This lady, typically, is the One True Feminist, and has the weighty responsibility of talking down to all us heathens; typically she wants us to stop taking our clothes off, or start taking our clothes off, or get less upset about the date rapes, or get more upset about the stay-at-home moms, or whatever. The point is! The What Is Wrong With Feminism Today genre, whatever its message, relies pretty much exclusively on the supposition that no other feminists in the history of the world have ever done any thinking about these issues, or that all of our thinking has been wrong, wrong, WRONG, and that this one lady can somehow explain it all to us in book form for she is now our Queen. So much fun!

Anyway, some lady (Nina Power? I don’t believe we’ve been introduced) has done it again. Her book is called One Dimensional Woman, and I learned about it from the Guardian review, which makes it sound like… someone wrote Female Chauvinist Pigs, again? But in less readable, more judgey fashion? Anyway. I kind of doubt that Nina Power’s book is going to singlehandedly solve feminism. No, feminism will not be solved until I release my book, tentatively entitled You Are All Wrong, I Figured It Out, Bow Down Before Me.

But what’s fun about it is that she blames Jessica Valenti for the rise of “consumer” or “self-help” feminism! And “consumer” or “self-help” feminism, in case you were wondering, is feminism that is just too darn accessible and easy for the kids to get into. Because the One True Feminism needs to be kept on a high shelf, with a lock on it, like the liquor. You know, so that the kids don’t go boozing themselves up on gender equity!

I admit it: I kind of like it when people decide to start blaming Jessica Valenti for things, although I imagine she doesn’t like it much, because: oh, man! Someone is getting a Valenti-authored blog post they won’t soon recover from! I basically approach feminism like it is professional wrestling, and I am sorry. But this blog post is one of the more memorable hit-’em-with-the-folding-chair (OF LOGIC) things I’ve seen in a while, and you should read it all up, because it’s good for you.

However! What is a blog post if you don’t write another blog post about it? A lonely little blog post unconnected from the great Ouroboros of the Internet, that’s what. So, of course, Amanda “Doctor Serious” Hess of Washington City Paper’s The Sexist and I, Sady “Professor Quentin T. Bummers” Doyle, the world’s foremost experts on feminism that is very severe and theoretical and heavy-hitting and not any fun at all ever, must now have a well-reasoned, extensively annotated, highly intellectual discussion on the question of whether feminism has departed from its philosophical calling.

SPOILER: We make jokes about that one yogurt that lets Jamie Lee Curtis poop. She does not poop often, Jamie Lee!

ILLUSTRATION: Slipping down as easily as a friendly-bacteria yoghurt drink, Valenti’s version of feminism, with its total lack of structural analysis, genuine outrage, or enzymes that help your slow intestinal… wait, what? I got confused.

(Continued)

#1. Laphraoig.

I had some.

#2. “But its very name implies that it will be difficult, nay, impossible, to obtain!”

Even if you know that the rich vein of MacGuffin ore located in the planet is called “unobtainium” – which, yeah, not Cameron’s word, it’s a long-standing nerd joke, whatever – the first time Giovanni Ribisi leans over a mystical floating space rock and pronounces the word with deep, Ribisian seriousness, the merriment is irresistible.

#3. The Ultimate Intimacy.

Okay, so, what the mystical tribal people of (blue) color do instead of sex is to stick their exposed nerve clusters (they have them in their hair!) together and connect to each other’s nervous systems. That doesn’t seem all that exciting to me – although maybe it would if the nerve system you were connecting to were being stimulated by some extremely pleasurable activity, like, say, actually screwing – but they are hippies and mostly I’m just glad they’re not blowing bong hits into each others’ mouths and talking about their deep spiritual connection to the trees. Well: not talking about that more than usual. Talking about the deep spiritual connection to the trees is foreplay, as it turns out. But you know about the nerve-clusters-equals-fucktimes thing, yes? It’s on the Internet; it will be on the DVD; James Cameron has made it explicitly clear by this point that, when you directly access another entity’s nerve clusters with your nerve clusters, you are in fact engaged in fucking.

So, imagine my surprise when, about an hour in, our hero does it to a horse.

(Continued)