i don’t want to achieve equality by sinking to men’s level, i want them to get on ours! why should i have to unlearn the conversational art of waiting my turn, unlearn sexual self-restraint, unlearn trust in others’ good intentions, unlearn the impulse to cater to others’ needs, just to have a chance at success among savages? why can’t the men learn some fucking manners so we can all conduct our affairs in a civilized manner? i shouldn’t have to stop saying sorry, you say sorry!
In the 80s when I was in my freshman year in college, they still had entirely separate mens and women’s dorms. I was in class waiting for a final to start and one of the guys was telling someone about how he had had to go into a women’s dorm to drop something off, and he was startled to see posters on the walls, flowers, curtains, etc. He said his men’s dorm had holes in the walls, things on fire, fights, guys walking around with open wounds and he just didn’t understand why they had to live like this. He said, “I want to live with the women, in civilization.”
Am reading Sisterhood of Spies, about women working for the OSS during WWII. One of the stories mentions that the women in London had a male visitor who would eat in their mess hall once a month. He was married and wasn’t interested in hitting on any of the women; he just wanted to eat in an atmosphere where people said “Please pass the butter,” instead of “PASS THE GODDAMNED GREASE”
I dated a guy who brought me along on group activities (movies, video game night, etc.) with four or five other male friends. Once I mentioned to one of the other guys that I hoped I wasn’t intruding on their “guy time” or some such. He got this sort of rueful look and said, “The truth is, I really like it when you’re here because it gives us a reason to act better. When it’s just guys, we all have to try to outdo each other with how vile we are.”
So the moral of these stories are men don’t even treat each other like human beings.
Women have more power and agency in Shakespeare’s comedies than in his tragedies, and usually there are more of them with more speaking time, so I’m pretty sure what Shakespeare’s saying is “men ruin everything” because everyone fucking dies when men are in charge but when women are in charge you get married and live happily ever after
I think you’re reading too far into things, kiddo. Take a break from your women’s studies major and get some fresh air.
Right. Well, I’m a historian, so allow me to elaborate.
One of the most important aspects of the Puritan/Protestant revolution (in the 1590’s in particular) was the foregrounding of marriage as the most appropriate way of life. It often comes as a surprise when people learn this, but Puritans took an absolutely positive view of sexuality within the context of marriage. Clergy were encouraged to lead by example and marry and have children, as opposed to Catholic clergy who prized virginity above all else.Through his comedies, Shakespeare was promoting this new way of life which had never been promoted before. The dogma, thanks to the church, had always been “durr hburr women are evil sex is bad celibacy is your ticket to salvation.” All that changed in Shakespeare’s time, and thanks to him we get a view of the world where marriage, women, and sexuality are in fact the key to salvation.
The difference between the structure of a comedy and a tragedy is that the former is cyclical, and the latter a downward curve. Comedies weren’t stupid fun about the lighter side of life. The definition of a comedy was not a funny play. They were plays that began in turmoil and ended in reconciliation and renewal. They showed the audience the path to salvation, with the comic ending of a happy marriage leaving the promise of societal regeneration intact. Meanwhile, in the tragedies, there is no such promise of regeneration or salvation. The characters destroy themselves. The world in which they live is not sustainable. It leads to a dead end, with no promise of new life.
And so, in comedies, the women are the movers and shakers. They get things done. They move the machinery of the plot along. In tragedies, though women have an important part to play, they are often morally bankrupt as compared to the women of comedies, or if they are morally sound, they are disenfranchised and ignored, and refused the chance to contribute to the society in which they live. Let’s look at some examples.
In Romeo and Juliet, the play ends in tragedy because no-one listens to Juliet. Her father and Paris both insist they know what’s right for her, and they refuse to listen to her pleas for clemency. Juliet begs them – screams, cries, manipulates, tells them outright I cannot marry, just wait a week before you make me marry Paris, just a week, please and they ignore her, and force her into increasingly desperate straits, until at last the two young lovers kill themselves. The message? This violent, hate-filled patriarchal world is unsustainable. The promise of regeneration is cut down with the deaths of these children. Compare to Othello. This is the most horrifying and intimate tragedy of all, with the climax taking place in a bedroom as a husband smothers his young wife. The tragedy here could easily have been averted if Othello had listened to Desdemona and Emilia instead of Iago. The message? This society, built on racism and misogyny and martial, masculine honour, is unsustainable, and cannot regenerate itself. The very horror of it lies in the murder of two wives.
How about Hamlet? Ophelia is a disempowered character, but if Hamlet had listened to her, and not mistreated her, and if her father hadn’t controlled every aspect of her life, then perhaps she wouldn’t have committed suicide. The final scene of carnage is prompted by Laertes and Hamlet furiously grappling over her corpse. When Ophelia dies, any chance of reconciliation dies with her. The world collapses in on itself. This society is unsustainable. King Lear – we all know that this is prompted by Cordelia’s silence, her unwillingness to bend the knee and flatter in the face of tyranny. It is Lear’s disproportionate response to this that sets off the tragedy, and we get a play that is about entropy, aging and the destruction of the social order.
There are exceptions to the rule. I’m sure a lot of you are crying out “but Lady Macbeth!” and it’s a good point. However, in terms of raw power, neither Lady Macbeth nor the witches are as powerful as they appear. The only power they possess is the ability to influence Macbeth; but ultimately it is Macbeth’s own ambition that prompts him to murder Duncan, and it is he who escalates the situation while Lady Macbeth suffers a breakdown. In this case you have women who are allowed to influence the play, but do so for the worse; they fail to be the good moral compasses needed. Goneril, Regan and Gertrude are similarly comparable; they possess a measure of power, but do not use it for good, and again society cannot renew itself.
Now we come to the comedies, where women do have the most control over the plot. The most powerful example is Rosalind in As You Like It. She pulls the strings in every avenue of the plot, and it is thanks to her control that reconciliation is achieved at the end, and all end up happily married. Much Ado About Nothing pivots around a woman’s anger over the abuse of her innocent cousin. If the men were left in charge in this play, no-one would be married at the end, and it would certainly end in tragedy. But Beatrice stands up and rails against men for their cruel conduct towards women and says that famous, spine-tingling line – oh God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the marketplace. And Benedick, her suitor, listens to her. He realises that his misogynistic view of the world is wrong and he takes steps to change it. He challenges his male friends for their conduct, parts company with the prince, and by doing this he wins his lady’s hand. The entire happy ending is dependent on the men realising that they must trust, love and respect women. Now it is a society that is worthy of being perpetuated. Regeneration and salvation lies in equality between the sexes and the love husbands and wives cherish for each other. The Merry Wives of Windsor – here we have men learning to trust and respect their wives, Flastaff learning his lesson for trying to seduce married women, and a daughter tricking everyone so she can marry the man she truly loves. A Midsummer Night’s Dream? The turmoil begins because three men are trying to force Hermia to marry someone she does not love, and Helena has been cruelly mistreated. At the end, happiness and harmony comes when the women are allowed to marry the men of their choosing, and it is these marriages that are blessed by the fairies.
What of the romances? In The Tempest, Prospero holds the power, but it is Miranda who is the key to salvation and a happy ending. Without his daughter, it is likely Prospero would have turned into a murderous revenger. The Winter’s Tale sees Leontes destroy himself through his own jealousy. The king becomes a vicious tyrant because he is cruel to his own wife and children, and this breach of faith in suspecting his wife of adultery almost brings ruin to his entire kingdom. Only by obeying the sensible Emilia does Leontes have a chance of achieving redemption, and the pure trust and love that exists between Perdita and Florizel redeems the mistakes of the old generation and leads to a happy ending. Cymbeline? Imogen is wronged, and it is through her love and forgiveness that redemption is achieved at the end. In all of these plays, without the influence of the women there is no happy ending.
The message is clear. Without a woman’s consent and co-operation in living together and bringing up a family, there is turmoil. Equality between the sexes and trust between husbands and wives alone will bring happiness and harmony, not only to the family unit, but to society as a whole. The Taming of the Shrew rears its ugly head as a counter-example, for here a happy ending is dependent on a woman’s absolute subservience and obedience even in the face of abuse. But this is one of Shakespeare’s early plays (and a rip-off of an older comedy called The Taming of a Shrew) and it is interesting to look at how the reception of this play changed as values evolved in this society.
As early as 1611 The Shrew was adapted by the writer John Fletcher in a play called The Woman’s Prize, or The Tamer Tamed. It is both a sequel and an imitation, and it chronicles Petruchio’s search for a second wife after his disastrous marriage with Katherine (whose taming had been temporary) ended with her death. In Fletcher’s version, the men are outfoxed by the women and Petruchio is ‘tamed’ by his new wife. It ends with a rather uplifting epilogue that claims the play aimed:
To teach both sexes due equality
And as they stand bound, to love mutually.
The Taming of the Shrew and The Tamer Tamed were staged back to back in 1633, and it was recorded that although Shakespeare’s Shrew was “liked”, Fletcher’s Tamer Tamed was “very well liked.” You heard it here folks; as early as 1633 audiences found Shakespeare’s message of total female submission uncomfortable, and they preferred John Fletcher’s interpretation and his message of equality between the sexes.
So yes. The message we can take away from Shakespeare is that a world in which women are powerless and cannot or do not contribute positively to society and family is unsustainable. Men, given the power and left to their own devices, will destroy themselves. But if men and women can work together and live in harmony, then the whole community has a chance at salvation, renewal and happiness.
In the immortal words of the bard himself: fucking annihilated.
instead of reporting the murder, i would like to help you bury thE BODY CAUSE DAAMN
“Nakia and Okoye are allowed to be the full expressions of themselves, as women pursuing their passions while determining how their lives will unfold.
“Black Panther” offers a refreshing reprieve from the misogynistic media with which we are regularly bombarded by showcasing empowered women that are inspiring because of their contributions to their country and the way they show up in their own lives. Women who know that love does not keep you from your life purpose, romance does not come before your personal values and you are a better partner when you are in purposeful pursuit of your calling.”
The women of ‘Black Panther’ are empowered not just in politics and war, but also in love.
Don’t tell your daughter that when a boy is mean or rude to her it’s because he has a crush on her. Don’t teach her that abuse is a sign of love.
My mom always taught me yell or fight back. Boys would be mean and I would yell back. I would get my ass pinched and I would smack them as hard as I could.
Who alway got in trouble? Me.
They would call my mother and she always came in and lectures my teachers and threatened to sue for making her miss work and treating me poorly.
She always taught my brothers to respect women. The only fights my brothers ever got in was defending women from someone else.
The school tried to call my father once instead of my mother on us. He came in in his full preacher outfit (being a preacher and all) and gave them an entire sermon on what would Jesus day of he was called in. They decided dealing with my mom was better.
I think my favorite story of this is when some kid snapped my bra and I turned around, didn’t even think about it, and punched that little motherfucker right in the nose.
So naturally, I end up in the principal’s office, refusing to apologize.
“He shouldn’t have put his hands on me and I wouldn’t have hit him!” That’s the only thing I was saying.
These people had the unfortunate luck of catching my dad at home, instead of my mom. So he comes fucking sauntering in there, like he’s Clint fucking Eastwood in some western movie and looks at me.
“Melissa, did you punch him?”
“Yes.” I said.
“Why?”
“Because he snapped my bra strap.”
And he turns his squinty eyed glare to the principal and says, “You’re telling me my daughter is in trouble because that squirrely looking kid put his hands on her and she chose to defend herself? That’s what you are saying to me.”
“Well, sir-” The man kind of stuttered because my dad is kind of intimidating in the quiet sort of way that kind of whispers in the back of your mind that this person could be dangerous. “Melissa did make it physical.”
“No. That kid put his hands on my daughter. Are you saying my daughter cannot defend herself when some boy decides to put hands on her? Is that what you are teaching my girl?”
I didn’t get suspended that day.
*slow clap for excellent parenting*
This is the parent I want to be omg
I will be this parent.
Great parents
I love stories like these because I run an advice blog and I hear about shitty parents a lot and it’s really nice to know there are ones out there doing it right.
My sister and I used to go to a day care after school and while at said daycare there was this boy who loves pulling girls off the monkey bars.
My sister, a green belt in tae kwon do at the time, went up to a councilor and asked “next time he does this can I teach him a lesson?” And the councilor, barely paying attention, said sure.
So, a couple minutes later my sister is back on the monkey bars and this guy comes over, grabs her legs, and yanks as hard as he can.
Next thing the kid knew he was screaming and crying because my sister came down punching.
My sister did not get in trouble that day. The councilor however got an hour long lecture from my mother about how my sister should have never been put in that situation to begin with and the day care should have handled the problem before making my sister have to raise a hand.
So, yes, teach your girls to fight back when they have no other choice, but also do your part as an adult to make it to where they don’t need to fight back.
every woman on tumblr should have this on their dash
And every man
Look how nobody’s yelling or arguing or making things into a competition. Look how this is to straight up educate people through a different perspective. Look how effective that makes the message.
The last one really hit me. I never really thought about something like that could actually impact a woman’s life. Damn…
Patriarchy teaches men to alleviate their emotional needs through unequal relationships, rewarding the construction of toxic hierarchies in families, workspaces, and social arenas. When we start dismantling the inequalities between spouses, employees, and fellow citizens, the diminishing powerful have no skills to build relationships of mutual care work with equals. Their loneliness is a way station: a place to take stock in their investment in decolonization and come to terms with their complicity in oppression. Learning how to socialize as a way to survive begins young for women, for religious, racial, and ethnic minorities, for queer and trans people. What lonely entitled men are really asking for is to be cocooned from the life experiences that give other people the skills to survive loneliness.
It is imperative to resist the disproportionate foregrounding of cishet male loneliness because the structurally oppressed manifest their benign loneliness symptoms differently from those who suffer from the malignant disease of thwarted entitlement. Buried inside the lonely-men essays is the threat disguised as suggestion that we feel concern for Lonely Men because Lonely Men can turn violent. This is a red herring in much the same way that alcoholism is used as an excuse for male violence; the problem isn’t alcohol or loneliness but patriarchal masculinity. Meanwhile no surgeon general is declaring racism or misogyny to be an epidemic despite the increasing number of people literally being killed by men “suffering” from these states of mind. It takes a special kind of self-centeredness to be able to cite stats that show that marriage hurts women’s life expectancy and continue to advocate it as a solution to save lonely men instead of trying to fix the toxic husband syndrome that is killing women. Men who demand that women concern themselves with the problem of lonely men in order to ensure their own safety are issuing the same hackneyed threats that patriarchy entrenches—a disguised demand that women invest their energy in socializing boys, in dating men, in doing even more care work than we already do.
idk because im not physically or mentally attracted to him and ‘but he likes you’ or ‘but hes really nice’ isnt going to change the fact that im not interested
Damn, I don’t think women know how much that really hurts
I don’t understand this “you don’t know how much that hurts” stuff. Do men not remember rejecting women? Have they forgotten that they hold us to impossibly high standards of behavior and beauty? That our personality alone is not enough for most men. Us being a “nice person” isn’t what men list as their prime quality in a woman.
How come we’re rejected constantly, compared to each other, pitted against each other and pretty much just accept this and move on but the second we do that to a guy we’re friend zoning bitches that are shallow and heartless.
Normally the men complaining about rejection would have no problem finding a lovely girlfriend if they’d just expand their idea of beauty.
If you’re not a stereotypical “hot guy” don’t expect to pull a stereotypical “hot chick”. It’s not every man’s right to have an extremely attractive girlfriend; it’s not your right to have any girlfriend. And if you wouldn’t date a woman based purely on her having a nice personality, why the fuck should any woman date you?
This is how you know that men are incapable of empathizing with women. When they say shit like “You don’t know how much it hurts to get rejected” it is a DIRECT, CLEAR implication that we don’t experience emotion or pain on the same level that they do. That is some basic-ass misogyny and dehumanization and you should back away from any man that talks that way.
“Damn, I don’t think women know how much that really hurts”
your hurt feelings do not override my right to say no.
Years ago, a friend went to a party, and something bothered him enough to rant to me about it later. And it bothered me that he was so incensed about it, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. It seemed so petty for him to be upset, and even more so for me to be annoyed with him.
Recently, something reminded me of that scenario, and it made more sense. I’ll explain.
The party was a house party. One of those parties people throw if they’re renting a good-sized house in college. You know the type—loud music, Solo cups of beer, and somebody doing something drunk and stupid before the end of the night.
At some point, my friend had occasion to use the bathroom. When he went into the bathroom, he was disgusted to see that the hostess had left a basket of feminine hygiene products on the counter for guests to use if needed.
Later, when my friend told me about it, he wrinkled his nose and said, “Why would she do that? Guys don’t want to see that!”
When I suggested that she was just making them available in case a woman needed them, he insisted that they could be left in the cabinet or under the counter. Out of sight, anyway.
I wish I’d had, at the time, the ability to articulate what I can now.
To me, this situation is, while relatively benign, a perfect example of male privilege.
A man walks into the bathroom and sees a reminder that women have periods. And he’s disgusted. He wants that evidence hidden away because it offends his senses. How dare the hostess so blatantly present tampons and pads where a man might see them? There’s no reason for that!
A woman walks into the bathroom and sees that the hostess is being extra considerate. She gets it. She knows what it’s like to have a period start unexpectedly. The feeling of horror because she’s probably wearing something she doesn’t want ruined—it is a party after all. The sick embarrassment because someone might notice, especially if she’s wearing light-colored clothes, or worse, sat on the hostess’s white couch. The self-conscious, semi-nauseated feeling of trying to get through a social event after you’ve exhausted every avenue to get your hands on an emergency pad or tampon, and you’re just hoping to God that if you tie your jacket around your waist—you brought one, right?—keep your back to a wall, clench your buttcheeks, squeeze your thighs tightly together, and don’t…move…at…all—you might get through the evening, bow out gracefully, and find an all-night convenience store with a public restroom.
Or maybe she came to the party during her period, but didn’t bargain for her flow to suddenly get that heavy. Or she desperately needs a tampon, but her purse is in a room where a couple is not to be disturbed. Maybe she doesn’t know the hostess well enough to ask if she can use one. Or she doesn’t know anyone at the party well enough to ask. Or she figures she can make do with some wadded up toilet paper or something.
Whatever the case, she walks into the bathroom, and she hears the hostess saying “Hey, I know what it’s like, and just in case, I’ve got your back.” She sees someone saving her from what could be a minor annoyance or a major embarrassment.
The hostess gets it. The woman who just walked into the bathroom? She’s either going to see that the person throwing the party is super considerate, or she’s going to be whispering thanks to Jesus, Krishna, and whoever else is listening because that is a basket full of social saviors.
But to the guy who wrinkled his nose, it’s still offensive that those terrible little things are on the counter, reminding his delicate sensibilities that the playground part of a woman is occasionally unavailable due to a gross bodily function that he should never have to think about.
In the grand scheme of things, it’s a tiny thing. It’s a tiny annoyance for the man, and a more significant but relatively tiny courtesy for the woman. After all these years, my friend has probably forgotten, but I never have. As a woman whose life is partially governed by a fickle uterus that can ruin an evening faster than a submerged iPhone, his story has stuck with me.
How can you be so offended by a small gesture that has zero effect on you, but could make such an enormous difference to the person who needs it?
It occurs to me now that this is a small but effective illustration of how men and women see the world. It’s part of the same thought process that measures a woman’s value through her bra size and her willingness to have sex with him—that everything about us is displayed or hidden based on how men perceive them or what he wants to get from us. Unattractive women should be as covered as possible, while attractive ones shouldn’t be hiding their assets from male eyes (or hands, or anything else he wishes to use).
A woman who isn’t smiling is an affront to him because it detracts from her prettiness, despite the fact that there might be a legitimate reason for her not to smile (or more to the point, that there isn’t a legitimate reason for her to smile). Her emotional state is irrelevant because she’s not being pretty. It’s the line of thinking where a man blames anything other than cheerful sexual consent on the woman being a bitch, being a lesbian, or—naturally—being on her period. Everything we do, from our facial expressions to our use of hygiene products, are filtered the lens of “how it looks to a man.”
It’s the line of thinking where a small gesture from one woman to another, an assurance that someone else understands and will help her without question or judgment, a gesture which could save a woman’s evening from being ruined, is trumped by a man’s desire to see an untainted landscape of pretty, smiling women with visible cleavage and vaginas that never bleed.
And people wonder why we still need feminism.
This is actually an amazing idea I hadn’t though of. (And apparently it has the bonus side effect of showing which of your male friends are whiny pissbabies.)
When we have friends over I always set a little basket of pads and tampons out just in case anyone needs some.
None of the men have ever complained about it, possibly because at most of those parties I’m also showing off my cool new axe.
“women don’t know how much rejection hurts” i wasn’t allowed to play with legos or touch a football or look at sports. i wasn’t allowed to eat more. i wasn’t allowed to talk loudly, to laugh too much, to inject myself into male conversations. i wasn’t allowed to be good at science. i was told “oh sweetheart, have another college in mind, STEM fields are hard.” i got turned down from jobs in favor of boys where were less qualified. one boss told me he was hesitant to hire me because my last name is hispanic and i’m pretty and he didn’t want the “controversy.” i couldn’t take up space on the train. i would be talked over in public places. i couldn’t eat steak or drink beer, they were “boy” things. video games were off limits, i wasn’t allowed to ask if i could see more characters like myself in them. super heroes were all men, women were just love interests. i wanted shirts with wonderwoman, with black widow, with harley quinn, i found next to nothing. i wanted pockets and colors other than pink and clothes designed for warmth, not sexy, i got nothing. women change their name to be published nationally. i wasn’t allowed to be emotional, i wasn’t good at driving, i wasn’t in charge of my own body. i wasn’t allowed to show off my body, i wasn’t allowed to dress modestly. i had to be pretty, whatever it took, but my eating was constantly made fun of. “she’s, like, anorexic” was a punchline, not a disorder. “she’s fat” was a death sentence.
boys said no because: i wasn’t pretty i wasn’t small i was too loud i spent too much energy on being funny on because i wouldn’t shut up what a feminazi i wasn’t smart i was too smart for my own good i was always reading i was always busy i was too needy i was too independent i was not who you took home i was too much of a house mom i was perfect and it was scary.
women don’t know. women don’t know. never sat in a room and wrote angsty poetry about this shit. somehow both overemotional and not capable of knowing how much rejection stings. which one is it. which one is it. i’ll give you a hint: we’ve been rejected since the first time our parents said, “no, not the blue blanket, it’s for little boys to play with.” we are used to having “no” slammed in our faces. we got used to it. maybe the reason it seems so unnatural to hear “no” is because for your entire life, you heard “yes.”
“maybe the reason it seems so unnatural to hear ‘no’ is because for your entire life, you heard ‘yes.’”
Question of Smoke 