Category Archives: in brief

Posts that are under 700 words, i.e. not novels.

[In Brief] Do Feminists Care About Men’s Issues? (A handy list!)

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Men’s rights activists (MRAs) would have you believe that feminism is sexist against men because feminists don’t care about issues that affect men, such as restrictive gender roles, circumcision, sexual violence against men, the military draft, and custody rights.

That always seemed like a strange argument to me because, as a female feminist, I care about these issues quite a lot, and so do all of my feminist friends of all genders.

But of course, that’s circumstantial evidence. So I decided to make this list of articles about men’s issues written by feminists. Most of these aren’t some sort of niche feminists, either–the articles on this list come from well-known outlets like Feministing, Feministe, RH Reality Check, and Alas, A Blog.

(A note: it took me and two friends about fifteen minutes to make this list over two pages long. That should speak for itself.)

I’ve also compiled it into a Google Doc, which you can access here. I will keep updating it!

Hopefully others will find this useful in countering MRAs who claim that feminists just don’t care about men.

[In Brief] On “Smug” Liberals

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Sometimes I see conservatives derisively claiming that liberals/feminists/progressives are just “smug” and self-satisfied, that we hold the opinions that we hold because it gives us some sense of self-righteousness, that we do it in order to feel like we’re better than everyone else.

I find this bizarre. I, for one, was considerably more smug and self-righteous when I was a far-right conservative than I am now as a progressive feminist.

Yes, I think I’m right. No, I’m not a relativist when it comes to human rights and social justice. I’m right, and the belief that certain people should be denied rights is not equivalent to the belief that they should have those rights. No, I’m not going to do what women are supposed to do in our culture; that is, hem and haw and say “well of course all opinions are equally valid” and “I mean it’s just my opinion and I could be wrong” and whatever. Nope, I’m not wrong. Sorry.

But I’m not saying this in order to feel superior to you. I’m saying it because that just happens to be what I believe.

I don’t feel self-righteous about my political views, but I do feel proud, and it has nothing to do with you, hypothetical person who disagrees with me. I feel proud because I care about people. I feel proud because when people read my writing and see the stickers on my laptop and the books on my shelf, they know that I’m someone they can come to. Someone who won’t tell them, “But come on, that’s not really racism” and “Don’t you have more important things to worry about?” and “I’m sorry you got raped and all, but why’d you go out wearing that?” and “You and your boyfriend did what? That’s disgusting.”

I feel proud because I still remember the alternative: that festering sinkhole of judgment I lived in, in which I thought of some people as “those people” and meticulously drew lines in the sand to separate myself from those people.

I feel proud because I am absolutely, positively fine with being told that I have “privilege” and that my life has been easier than many other lives for reasons none of us control. I’m not fine with the fact that privilege is a thing, I mean, but I don’t get defensive about being called out on it. Not anymore.

I feel proud because I think–I hope–that my friends would feel comfortable letting me know if I’ve said something that marginalizes their race, gender, sexual orientation, or any other identity. I feel especially proud of that knowing that I have not always had friends whom I would feel comfortable telling that.

I feel proud because I don’t think that my personal morals should have anything to do with the law, which means that in my ideal society, people who disagree with me on just about everything would still be free to live as they choose (provided, of course, that they do not impose on the rights of others).

I think those are all things to be proud of. It’s fine if you don’t, but don’t assume that my politics have anything to do with making myself look better than you. That’s something I couldn’t care less about.

Now, as for liberals who actually behave smugly towards conservatives, two points: 1) Rude people exist within every conceivable political orientation, and we can all agree that they are bothersome; and 2) they’re probably not being smug simply because you’re a conservative.

They’re being smug, specifically, because you believe they shouldn’t be able to marry their same-sex partner whom they love, or that they should be forced to carry their rapist’s baby to term, or that their children should learn insufferable nonsense rather than the theory of evolution in school. 

I would say, in those cases, that smugness is quite warranted.

[In Brief] Romney’s Abortion Flip-flop

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In 1994, one of our current presidential candidates said the following:

I have my own beliefs, and those beliefs are very dear to me. One of them is that I do not impose my beliefs on other people. Many, many years ago, I had a dear, close family relative that was very close to me who passed away from an illegal abortion. It is since that time that my mother and my family have been committed to the belief that we can believe as we want, but we will not force our beliefs on others on that matter. And you will not see me wavering on that.

One guess which candidate this was. And here’s a hint: it wasn’t Obama.

That same year, according to the Daily Kos post I linked to, Romney and his wife Ann attended a Planned Parenthood event, and Ann donated $150 to the organization. But in 2007, Romney claimed to have “no recollection” of that, and said that “[Ann’s] positions are not terribly relevant for my campaign.”

This last statement is in itself a lie. Romney claims that Ann “reports to me regularly” about women’s issues.

It doesn’t surprise me that politicians flip-flop on hot-button issues. Of course they do. And not only that, but people can and do genuinely change their minds about things (take it from me; I used to believe that abortion should be illegal in almost all cases).

But this isn’t just a change in politics; it’s a change in values. Romney did not say, “I believe that the government has no authority to ban abortion.” He did not say, “I believe that in a just society, women should have the right to choose.” He said that “we can believe as we want, but we will not force our beliefs on others on that matter.”

What changed in 18 years that forcing one’s beliefs on others suddenly became acceptable to Romney?

This is yet more evidence that the Republican Party we have today is nothing like the Republican Party of two decades ago. Not that I would’ve been a huge fan of that one, either.

[In Brief] Most Beautiful Teenager

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I stumbled upon (don’t ask me how) this Facebook page today. It’s called “Most Beautiful Teenager.”

Teens post photos of themselves on the page and see how many likes and comments they can rack up. Sometimes there’s a “scale” for the number of likes, usually going from “ugly” (100 likes) to “OUT OF THIS WORLD” (100,000 likes). The page itself posts photos too (the best ones, I’m guessing).

Both girls and guys post photos on the page, although most of the photos come from girls, and virtually everyone is white and thin.

The comments are pretty predictable, both the creepy ones and the hateful ones. Some people post photos asking to be added as a friend, or requesting “no hate” (they usually get it anyway). Here and here are two disturbing examples, but there are many.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with valuing and taking pride in your appearance (to a reasonable degree, at least), and I’d take issue with anyone who slams these individual teens as vain or superficial.

But I think it says something about our culture as a whole that young people are willing to post pictures of themselves, with their full names attached, to a public page, knowing that they’re going to receive at least a few incredibly mean or creepy comments, just to see what others think of their looks.

All the casual racism, homophobia, and misogyny on the page is telling, too.

For the record, I don’t think the page should be shut down or anything like that. Nudity is banned, so it’s not breaking any laws, and it’s not like people can’t post photos publicly to their own profiles anyway. It’s just disturbing how many users it has, how many photos get posted, and how obsessively its fans defend it when criticisms come up on the page, as they sometimes do.

 

This blog will now have short posts too!

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After much deliberation, I’ve decided to start writing more short posts on this blog. By short I mean, several hundred words as opposed to my usual 1000-plus-word ones.

The reason for this is twofold:

  • to make it easier for me to write more often, since I don’t always have time and energy for those huge pieces, and
  • to allow me to comment on things that I just don’t have enough Thoughts to write a thousand words on.

I will label all of the short-ish posts with an [In Brief] tag in the post title, so that if you’re really only here for the novella posts, you can just avoid them.

That said, I think you’ll like them! 🙂