While surfing the Great Wide Internets today, I ran across these two posts by a new favourite blogger, Sady at Tiger Beatdown. I’ll admit, I am buried so far under a rock that half the time I have no idea what she is talking about. But these posts struck a chord. A couple of times. Read these first, AND read the comments (well, skim them, anyway, since the comments generally spark great talking points).
http://tigerbeatdown.blogspot.com/2009/08/continuance-of-sexism-and-racism-in-our.html
http://tigerbeatdown.blogspot.com/2009/08/mommys-all-right-daddys-all-right-or.html#comment-form
For those of you who don’t have enough patience to read someone else’s blog (although really, you should read her. Her use of exclamation points is masterful, she is funny enough that the serious bits go down easy, and she is smart as a whip) There are two things that I really want to address in these posts. 1) racism is ironic and 2) hipster culture as anti-woman. I’m not sure that I have much more to say than what Sady already eloquently says about the latter, but I do have some thoughts to share about both.
First, directed at her remarks about ironic(?) racism. Oddly, I find that I see myself in this. I say oddly because I really try to live my life in a loving and accepting manner. I sometimes fail, but I try. And that’s all we can do, right? Well, maybe. A little while ago, I found that I was saying TERRIBLE things to my friends with the “it’s ok, they are my friends and they know that I don’t mean it” attitude. And they knew. I was being funny! I was channeling some people that I have run across when I say these things, so when my partner (I should come up for a pseudonym for that dude. I wonder if he would object to The GIT?) hears them, it’s funny, because it’s generally a DIRECT quote (or at least a paraphrase) of something that someone we know has said, and it’s a little in-joke that says “Wow, I am SO lucky that I didn’t turn out that way”. Except that I did, kinda, because I still hear those words, even though I choose to reject them. It took making new friends who don’t know those other people and who call me on that shit to make me think twice about channeling those people’s voices, even for humorous purposes. Not because it’s a slippery slope, really – I always knew that I was saying terrible things and NEVER ONCE believed them. Just that if someone was listening, would I want me to think that I ACTUALLY thought these things? Of course not. So I’ve been trying to keep my mouth shut with the saying-awful-things-about-people-because-it’s-hilarious-that-people-are-like-that. Because it’s not. And I shouldn’t be perpetuating that hateful crap. Ever.
As for the anti-woman trend in hipster culture, I don’t really have more than Sady to say on the subject, except, perhaps, that I REALLY disapprove of the hipster fetishization (and I mean that in both the “it’s sexy” and “it’s been made into a commodity”/Marxist sense of the word) of house-wifery. Not because I don’t think that women should be making homes if they want to. I love making my home a wonderful place to be for everyone. I REALLY OBJECT to the idea that we should make housework fun FOR WOMEN – give them rubber gloves with jewels and feathers! Swiffers will make women dance while they clean! Because it is Satisfying! And Easy! And Fun! (and not repetitive and hard work and boring as hell). And since it is all of these things, please do not complain that you still have to do more than your share of the housework, Madam. Because it is fun for you! We have made it so! Prozac has been replaced with trendy (even DIY) product, but the Feminine Mystique (à la Betty Friedan, but for a new generation) still exists.
Speaking of Betty Friedan, know what’s hilarious? Selling us our grandmother’s psycho-social problems on magnets! Because Prozac, and the fact that so many woman once felt that they needed to be permanently semi-sedated in order to cope with living the lives that they were proscribed is FUNNY. Especially now that Feminism has won the Battle and things are peachy. Also hilarious? My “Why yes, I am overqualified!” Sticky notes. Because I’m living the dream, baby. But given that these are mass-marketed, it seems that many of us ladies are living that particular dream. (I actually really love these, but that’s because of the person that gave me these, and not the particular product.)
Although Sady hates on Diesel ads (and from what she samples on her site, I can see why), I feel that same hate for something that I see on a really regular basis: American Apparel. I hate the bejeezus out of American Apparel ads, in part BECAUSE the brand is so trendy, and their foul presence ruins websites that I otherwise quite enjoy. Mostly, though, I hate them because they demand that we chose between exploiting (predominantly) brown people for labour (creating the product in sweatshops in poorer places in the world) or exploiting women’s sexuality for labour (selling the product). If we decide that we want ethically created goods, we buy them from a sleazy dude who exploits women that he finds hot. If we decide that we want to buy products that DON’T openly exploit women as demeaned sex objects (I really hate American Apparel ads), we have little choice but to buy clothes that are created (and not hocked) by other, more different, and likely further away, but equally exploited women. And heaven forefend that we actually say anything about the ads, because feminism WON that battle a long time ago. Those girls are there because they WANT to be. And we buy American Apparel clothes because they are just so darned CUTE! And made in the First World, so there’s no exploitation going on there! Nope! Made in the USA on the tag is a sure-fire way of ensuring that your clothes are sweat-shop free. Promise.
So in conclusion: thanks for making me think, Sady. I love your blog.
shenanigansandredtape 