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About ozyfrantz
Ozy Frantz is a student at a well-respected Hippie College in the United States. Zie bases most of zir life decisions on Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, and identifies more closely with Pinkie Pie than is probably necessary. Ozy can be contacted at [email protected] or on Twitter as @ozyfrantz. Writing is presently Ozy's primary means of support, so to tip the blogger, click here.
In my experience women use the phrase “{person} just can’t handle a strong, confident woman like me” they tend to be neither strong nor confident and for the most part tend to just be jerks.
@dungone: First, I do think it helps to be credentialed before you dip into the hive mind that is Google to find all the answers, but I’m going to give that a pass because it’s rather unimportant. So far, google is the only common source we’ve got. And I can’t prove a negative, just show that there are different interpretations out there than the one you suggest. Reason one is precisely because “Strong Independent Woman” is such a vague concept. As a matter of fact, what I’m pretty sure my girlfriend was referring to was a specifically vague idea. It’s… Read more »
@Schadrach, in so far as people not doing what they’re told by society, feminism didn’t invent that. So unless they have something more in common with feminism that sets feminism apart from everyone else, I don’t think it’s fair to say that they’re doing something feminist-like. Actually I think that MGTOW isn’t very new. The post-war period in the 40’s and 50’s saw a lot of disillusionment among men. You had war veterans joining motorcycle gangs, rising divorce rates, inter-generational conflicts, stuff like that. By the 60’s you get social commentary looking back at those decades such as the famous… Read more »
Aha my bad. I saw this just before heading out to work this morning so I didn’t actually watch it.
@Danny:
The Girls Scouts are letting the kid in. It’s this girl who is objecting and calling for a boycott of Girl Scout cookies
Damn I recall a few years ago when people were highlighting how progressive Girl Scouts were (around the time that anti-gay policies among Boy Scouts was the big thing in the news).
@dungone: What is somewhat funny is that within men’s activism, men have sought to be accepted for less than what society expects out of them. So you have mini-movements like MGTOW who encourage men to spend more time doing things they like rather than pleasing society, employers, and women. One thing I find ironic is that all of those groups, whether they call themselves (or get called) MGTOW, Zetas, grass eaters, or don’t even self identify in one of these groups are essentially applying a very feminist piece of logic to themselves and saying “You know what, this section of… Read more »
Trigger warning for transphobia and rampant idiocy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y514LSe8FWk&lc=Ui70WB9B-7uotIATdoYaAVMTmoLtlVM6D31-1p1LC7s&context=C360d98aADOEgsToPDskK-D-7J57SE7kgxvRGg8mbZ
Awwwwwwwww it’s so cute!
Witness the total self-destruction some men fall prey to if they lose their jobs. I will give you that at least part of the reason for that is a self-constructed unobtainable ideal, but this is much more complicated. Men have much lesser social safety nets, are more likely to become homeless, are more likely to be ridiculed for being a failure. For men, losing a job is often the first step for losing their wives and kids, losing their primary means of being able to obtain a wife and kids, etc. It can get very, very real. Most men really… Read more »
dungone: But at the very least, men are better at compartmentalizing it – they may put women up on pedestals and worship champion prize fighters as the manliest of men, but it doesn’t stop them from becoming engineering majors and getting good careers. Well – becoming an engineering major and getting a good career is one way to live up to a certain male ideal. However, what I was thinking about is more generally the practice of constructing some internal ideal (which is often gendered, and probably always highly influenced by cultural origin and the values in one’s particular community… Read more »
@RocketFrog, agreed that men do this to. But at the very least, men are better at compartmentalizing it – they may put women up on pedestals and worship champion prize fighters as the manliest of men, but it doesn’t stop them from becoming engineering majors and getting good careers. I think the problem with women doing it is that it hurts women more than it hurts men. So when feminists try to push really vague ideas of strength and independence, it’s doubly problematic because some women end up trying to live up to an impossible ideal of not only womanhood… Read more »
What’s wrong with weak dependent women? And weak dependent men? Since both qualities are usually used to compare people to a norm or average, a very large portion of the population will always be considered weak and dependent to a certain degree. I think it is important to have a society that thinks “weak and dependent” is OK, and that caters to the needs of weak and dependent people.
@RocketFrog
I thought that was the point of this blog 🙂
dungone:
In all fairness, men do this too.
@AB, well at least part of that was a refreshingly thoughtful response from you. I’d love to respond to that. If you don’t mind, though, some of the other parts are really mundane and tiring and it’s just not worth it, sorry. The concept seemed to be used very broadly, though of course financial independence from men figured more than it would probably do in non-feminist context. And again, I’m not saying her concept didn’t exist, or that it didn’t affect her a lot, I’m just saying there are concepts and notions First, I do think it helps to be… Read more »
RocketFrog: (continued) I had some more on over-generalization, but I lost it, at least for the moment. So I’ll take this instead: People moving into your head. Self-perception is to a large degree an amalgam of the messages others have given to you about how THEY perceive you. Needn’t even be what they really think, it’s the message that counts. Every time someone says “You’re ugly!” to you (no matter whether they really thinks so or say it for some other reason) there is a strong tendency for a little voice in your head popping up and start saying “I’m… Read more »
@dungone: @AB, I don’t think you really have the wherewithal to say how broad of a concept it was that my girlfriend was talking about I didn’t. I originally assumed that she was talking about being a strong independent woman in general, and I wrote a lot about why strength and independence (including from men) could be a good thing. You were the one who told me that it was more specific. since she was clearly making an experiential remark and it’s rather insulting that you would infer for me how narrow her experience really is. I wasn’t talking about… Read more »
RocketFrog: (continued) I am not sure what you mean by orc in this, but from my guess of what you mean: – Are women orcs too? I think it is fairly obvious they are. As I get it you have been heavily emotionally abused by a horde of them. – Is orcness necessarily bad? I personally like the orcness in me as such, but have some problems with always managing it in a good way. I shut it off completely much too often for example, in the very misguided spontaneous belief that people in general will dislike, or hate, me… Read more »
“Gaslighting”, well, yes, this person did try to make me believe I was delusional as well as evil. It was not fun, but it seems I’m the one who has both feet on the ground and the troublesome conservative has left Planet Earth.
Jo: Do you also share pride in the good things men have done through the ages? Not at all. First off, I cannot really feel pride over something that does not directly result from an action of mine (the same applies to guilt – shame is different, as I define guilt as “the feeling of remorse over what someone did” and shame as “the feeling of remorse over what someone is”.. Second, that would be sort of a sexist counterpart to “white pride”. War and atrocities are not the rule, the are the exception. Males have in my mind mostly… Read more »
My primary achievement in life, the one thing I am most proud of, was overcoming an alcohol addiction – which I only had in the first place because of a character defect. Violating my policy on commenting in open threads once again, just because someone has to say it: No you didn’t. Alcoholism is no more a character defect than nearsightedness or stuttering or depression. It’s a medical condition, usually inherited, and it’s something a lot of folks have to live with, the way other folks live with Crohn’s disease or peanut allergies or what have you. I’m sure if… Read more »
sirgabe: I think the whole “women are elves, men are orcs” narrative has particularly deep cultural roots, which is why it appeals so strongly to conservatives. Many people do not even really think about it. Even those who do think about it (such as many feminists and masculists) sometimes slip up unwittingly play into it anyway. An aside, 1: I am not sure I understand the term “gaslighting”. I read that it is a reference to a film in which one person engages in manipulation to make another consider themselves insane, by rearranging things to convince the victim that they… Read more »
dungone: In my darker moments, I do wish I was not a man – but I am one, both psychologically and biologically. Not being too good at performing like one is not equivalent to not being one, in my opinion. Some things that are often said about men and rape are absurd. The statement that rape is a crime committed only by men, for instance, is only true if one operates with an absurd definition of rape. I think my own “male shame” largely has to do with a combination of having privileges that I really wish I could give… Read more »
RocketFrog:
I will be very honest here and say yes, sometimes I do feel horrible guilt for identifying as male. I’ve suffered verbal abuse and gaslighting because apparently you can’t be a guy without being “anti-woman” and a sexist pig. Now, the person saying that stuff wasn’t even remotely a feminist, just a conservative who believes women are purer than men and that being born with a womb makes you a woman as well as special and a moral gatekeeper. So in other words, she (the conservative woman in question) is her own easily-led white knight.
Schala: I hope that you do not find this offensive or erasing your suffering (and if you do, then I hope you can forgive me), but I sometimes wish I was a transperson. Not because I think that transpeople have it better than cis males – I most certainly do not believe that – but because I hate being male. It is not that I am not male; I certainly am. I just hate being a man, and often find myself wishing I was not. But I am not a woman or a sexless being who happened to be born… Read more »
RocketFrog: As I have said, these are issues for me too. Some of my thoughts on the matter. Not fully thought through, so I’d advice some caution in using them. – Do you also share pride in the good things men have done through the ages? War and atrocities are not the rule, the are the exception. Males have in my mind mostly hunted, plowed, built houses, made clay pottery, comforted children, protected women, children and other men, danced and sung for the enjoyment of themselves and others, made love, petted dogs, told exciting stories around the campfire, healed the… Read more »