ARGH BLARGH GENDER!
Irradiated by LabRat
So, it seems that among today’s activities for Marko, we have sparking off a minor kerfuffle regarding guns, gender, and the presence or absence of issues thereof. He’s got a lot of nodding and general acknolwedgments of awesome from lady gunnies, and some small bit of quibble as well. Tam pointed it out for folks that may have missed it, and got her second (?) visit from a particularly loltastic anon troll that likes to shake and froth like an overloaded washing machine every time she brings up having ovaries and this making any sort of impact on how life goes for her.
Anyway. Seeing as how posting a bunch of snippits of things I have observed over time seems to be a format that’s working out well for me lately, and that I’ve already brought up just about everything directly relevant to what’s sent my thoughts down these particular lines today, here are a few thoughts on talking about gender on the interweb like a sane person.
-You are talking to individual people, not the official representatives of the Man Guild or the Woman Guild. If person x brings up example foo of something that happened to them or something that tends to happen in general, going “WELL (insert chromosome set) DOES BAR ALL THE TIME” isn’t exactly helpful. Mostly it convinces everyone else in the thread that you’re a bit unhinged, or possibly that you’re not interested in acknowledging possessors of genitalia you don’t have as, y’know, people.
-Speaking of this general pattern, “the war between the sexes” is a handy phrase to describe these kinds of issues, not an actual war between the sexes. There is no body count. No command structure. No uniforms. No rules of engagement. If you keep talking as though there were, at best you come off as too bitter for discussion to be at all worthwhile, and at worse as though, more than some sort of justice or normalization of ethical behavior, you mostly just want your side to win.
-There is no “what women want” and “what men want” despite several people having made very successful careers marketing the idea. Getting pissed that individual man/woman whoever wants something other than what you were told they did, and men/women LIED TO YOU, feeds back into point one. Individual men and women are, frankly, lucky to really know what they really want, and if this weren’t true there would be far fewer single-and-looking people. They’d mostly be thrilled if you were to listen to them instead of doing whatever it is you have decided they want. At the very best possible result, you’re going to figure it out together.
-Going John/Jane Galt on the opposite sex is… well, if you feel you are incapable of coping with men/women then okay, but NO ONE is impressed when you say you’re taking yourself off the market FOREVAR from those dastardly, scheming men/women, because of the sins of their gender. It’s like having someone tell you you’re just not good enough to infect with syphilis- it’s hard to imagine that situation being a loss rather than a sort of abstract relief.
-Being heterosexual does not mean you actually like the opposite sex. It just means you’re attracted to them. Don’t conflate sexuality with presence or absence of misandry or misogyny, it’s entirely too misleading. The world’s gay people will thank you for it, since they’re looking to sleep with people that are attracted to them rather than just fed up with men/women.
-By the same token, genuinely liking the opposite sex also doesn’t mean you don’t have some sexist attitudes. You don’t have to mean badly to say or do something sexist. I’ve said/done some stuff in the past that makes me cringe in retrospect; I’ve always been quite fond of men, and never been given a single reason or even excuse to be bitter, but I’m not one. Getting it wrong from time to time goes with that territory. Being accused of being kind of condescending and/or clueless from time to time is NOT the same thing as being accused of wanting chop people up and wear their body parts as jewelry.
-Sexism is alive and well, kiddies, both the well-meaning and the malicious varieties alike. If you get all defensive at someone who claims to have had a bad experience on the score, telling them they’re wrong and it wasn’t actually sexist and they’re overreacting doesn’t do a damn thing but convince them that you’re clueless and possibly also carrying around such tendencies. The huffier you get, the more it sounds like you saw yourself mirrored in whatever they described. Telling someone they’re all wrong about something they have direct experience with is a really bad debate strategy in general.
-Turning it around and holding up the opposite sex as *superior* and using the broad brush to flatter isn’t actually better. It’s still pretty dehumanizing, not to mention stressful. Just from my end of the stick, I’m barely capable of “civilizing and gentling” ME, let alone men in general- and I can’t imagine being expected to slay mammoths, invading armies, spiders, and then pick up the bill at the end is that much fun, either. High platforms are just high places to fall from.
-If you’re male, your gender is brimming over with lying, abusive men that use and discard women and laugh about it afterward. If you are female, your gender is brimming over with lying, abusive women that use and discard men and laugh about it afterward. Aspects of society contain refuges and get-out-of-consequence-free cards for both. Pretending unjust things just never ever happen to the opposite sex or are minor compared to the grievous insults suffered by yours is both bullshit AND incredibly unproductive.
-“Men/women won’t behave in just the way I always please” is not an injustice of any kind. That’s you being a narcissistic bitch or bastard.
Sometimes I think we’d actually get along better if we DIDN’T depend on sexual reproduction as a species- and then I figure that we’d find a way anyway…
March 26th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
I just thought of a really funny off-color comment I considered making, but since I’m a gentleman, won’t.
Great post though
March 26th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Another excellent post.
As far as uniforms- I disagree!
J
March 26th, 2009 at 9:14 pm
Oh- and isn’t it *sex*, not gender? I think gender is usually used because sex has become a bad word.
March 26th, 2009 at 10:45 pm
The tag name “my furious genitals” kicks over my giggle box* every - single - time.
John: The way I understand it, sex is in the chromosomes and gender is in the mind. (I’m very pleased with myself for not beating this into a loud undergrad on the bus home today; poor lad was very confused about a gender studies course someone had apparently forced him at gunpoint to take. Wharrgarbl.)
—
* Hat tip to LawDog**
** Is it geeky to have multiple footnotes in a comment?
March 27th, 2009 at 5:18 am
Actually, I AM an official representative of the Man Guild. I am the Deputy Treasurer of the National Chapter, and can speak on the organizations behalf. Naturally, our in-house lawyers have to approve any press releases, and such.
March 27th, 2009 at 5:30 am
I think all this get rather foolish. I have met both men and women good with guns. I can think of a few of both that I still would like to meet and train with/learn from.
I guess I am one of the odd balls because I never really got all that hung up on the sex of the person (unless they were hitting on me = ) . . .)
I have had male and female bosses, and karate teachers, and each had good and bad points. That is just the way it is.
March 27th, 2009 at 5:54 am
[…] LabRat responds. […]
March 27th, 2009 at 6:45 am
I just made this comment to a coworker last week… I honestly don’t really mind that when people get grouped in a general sense (e.g. most men are stronger than most women). Are they willing to admit that there are exceptions to the rule? How do they handle those exceptions? That’s what I find important.
March 27th, 2009 at 9:31 am
How do I surrender? I want to be interned and then Abu Graibed.
My comment at Tams:
The difference between male and female shooters is cultural. I can teach a 12 year old child how to safely shoot an M1911 … any lady that size or bigger can handle one.
There is one real difference that I am aware of that effects shooting: 5/9th of all women ( and 5/9th of all rare XXY chimera men ) have a fourth retinal cone type, and can easily spot most male designed artificial camouflage. The US Army has been taking advantage of this in both the AMU, and in photo intel units.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
In my personal experience, it’s not that the statement was not sexist, but rather it was not meant to be sexist.
Too many of us guys got a free indoctrination in being pigs from our dads. I think a goodly hunk would drop the sexism, if there was a less shrill feedback loop on the mistakes.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
bluntobject, that’s my understanding. Sex is biology. Gender is attitude.
March 27th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Blunt and John- This is one of those areas where I’ve staked out a personal zone of pedantry. I do use sex to mean biology- I am one of those people that will use the phrase “has that litter of kittens been sexed yet?” with a completely straight face. But gender is a murky area that’s about half social construct and half brain chemistry. In a situation like this where it’s mostly socialization that determines the interaction and not so much penises and vaginas, I use “gender”. I figure if a pre-op transsexual would have issues related to the gender they biologically were NOT, assuming they were passing worth a damn, then gender is the right word for the situation. YMMV, of course.
McThag: “Too many of us guys got a free indoctrination in being pigs from our dads. I think a goodly hunk would drop the sexism, if there was a less shrill feedback loop on the mistakes.”
I was trying like hell to figure out a way to say something like that and didn’t, mostly because I’ve never figured out a good middle ground between getting my snarl on and just shrugging and taking it because I didn’t want to hurt the guy in question. Of course, many of us ladies get a full course in Bitch from our mothers, too…
Kristopher: that is the coolest science fun fact I have heard all week. It makes me wonder, along with the sex-linked red/green colorblindness, what else depends on the X chromosome with vision…
John: If we concede that there are uniforms, that also means people have a legitimate reason to get upset when someone dresses androgynously- that would make them a spy or saboteur.
March 27th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
“…if there was a less shrill feedback loop on the mistakes.”
I was going to say “Pull up your big boy pants and deal with it,” but that would be shrill. And sexist, to boot.
March 27th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Labrat: When some lady tells me something I wear doesn’t properly color match, I tend to believe her. I am fully aware that I simply cannot see the same colors that a slight majority of women can see.
And I suspect that the color range in question is really there, but hidden under the usual designer color names … colors that we men look at and say “What, it just looks like beige ( or gray or whatever ) to me …”
March 27th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Tam: Isn’t that the companion statement to “Who lit the fuse on your tampon?”
March 27th, 2009 at 5:03 pm
Actually, we shrieking harpy amazons prefer to be told to “Pull up our big girl pants and deal with it…” :p
March 27th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Noted! Is this before or after the ritual smashing of beer bottles?
March 27th, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Depends. After, if the bottles are smashed in the fireplace, but before, if we are smashing them on our foreheads.
March 28th, 2009 at 1:07 pm
LR, ever since Stingray mentioned the morale-lifting sleep uniform, it’s unfortunately stuck in my head…
As Tam would say, “Brain shampoo!!!”
March 28th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
I hate to say this, but wake me for a good one. Really. My SO’s a shitload more competent than I am. I’m *INSANELY* lucky to have her as my company secretary as her off-hours gig, because in her on-hours she slings multimillion pound contracts around for one of the largest IT providers in the UK. This is also the woman who’s scraped me off the tarmac more times than I care to think about. Once, a bloke woke my Defence Response for her, and she helped pick bits of him out of my knuckles with tweezers telling me I did a good job. She’s five feet five, and has more spunk in her pinky than most men I deal with, and weighs so little she’d blow away in a high breeze.
This is the woman who’s put up with my shit for thirteen years, including last september when she threw her arms around me and wept because I’d finally managed to finish a sentence after two weeks of talking brain-jangled gibberish. When I left the country, ostensibly forever, and supported me every step of the way.
Could I be that strong for someone? I don’t know. I don’t *EVER* want to have to find out.
Women. Every bit as good as men. In different ways sometimes, but that’s why we go together real good. I’m good at what I do. No, actually, I’m frakkin’ exceptional at what I do. But I tell you, I’ve had the privilege to know women with grit like you wouldn’t fucking believe.
And I’m going to go tell her I love her, right now.
March 29th, 2009 at 10:17 am
A mention of curvy women “and” a good smoke - Certainly made my day - We’re adding a link
March 29th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Mark,
Thanks for that. I really appreciate remembering there are some really good ones out there.