#becausefeminism

The next time a man I barely know sits at the dinner table in my mother’s house and jokes derisively that he has a feminism filter on his web browser, it will be a miracle if I don’t kick him in the dick.

‘What kind of magazine?’ he asked me in mock confusion, having heard exactly what I had said.

‘A feminist web zine’ I said. Again. ‘It’s called The Hairpin.’

‘Oh, well I don’t know about that. Will I even be able to access that?’

Then he chuckled contentedly at his funny, funny joke.

We had been discussing, of all things, how to remove water stains from wooden surfaces. My housemate had supplied the answer, sourced (as is all excellent cleaning advice) from ‘Ask a Clean Person’, a long-running column on cheerfully feminist web zine, The Hairpin.
Aside from myself, sitting at the table were my two housemates, my mother, her friend and the aforementioned man. Mum’s friend and this guy were also having an on again off again affair.
My mentioning the word feminism, even in this incredibly casual and tangential context was enough to stop his speech, widen his eyes and produce the mock-shocked ejaculation described above.

Not wanting to be impolite to my mother’s guests, I refrained from the full verbal shanking that I might otherwise have delivered. I was actually still pretty rude, earning myself a subtle ‘stop that Rebecca’ look from my mother, but true to form, this man’s blind arrogance allowed him to completely miss my not-even-remotely-veiled snark.

If I had been subtitled on that evening (for the benefit of the hearing impaired and also the profoundly bigoted), they might have read something like this:

How can you, an (apparently) intelligent and educated man sit comfortably as the only be-testicled guest in a room full of women and so casually and arrogantly deride feminism? Even with the excuse of ignorance that your generation so frequently employs, how can you suggest that Feminism is one big terrible, embarrassing, radical faux pas?

You are sitting at a table with a woman who raised two kids single-handedly. I’m one of them. Without feminism, she would not have been able, or even ALLOWED to do that. She would have been shunned and stigmatised for even wanting to leaver her husband. We might have been taken away and raised by a properly married couple.
You have two daughters. Do you know why they have jobs? Because feminism. Do you know why they could leave their husbands if their husbands hit them? Feminism. Do you know why the police would arrest their husbands if they accused them of domestic violence instead of refusing to become involved in ‘people’s private business’? Feminism.
Do you why they were able to attend university? Feminism.
Do you know why you and your lover are able to have an affair without her facing ostracism, or even threat of death? Feminism.
Do you know why you get to use contraception and have a greatly reduced risk of contracting STIs and accidental children?
Do you know why my mum is allowed to own this property?
Do you know why women are allowed to own any property?
Do you know why we can drive, or even ride a bike?
Do you know why we can goddamn vote?
Do you know why your girlfriend is able to wear a stretchy dress and bare feet right now? Why I am able to wear pants? Why any of us can breathe and eat comfortably in our clothing? Why we can walk easily in our shoes? Why our feet, or even our genitals are not subject to ritual mutilation?
Why I could choose, of my own free will to not marry a bigoted, inconceivably arrogant airbag twice my age who condescends to tell me how ludicrous my ideas about basic human rights are?

Because Feminism. You fucking douche-canoe.

Street Harassment – everything you needed to know, ever.

Literally the best thing I have ever read, including the comments:

http://rookiemag.com/2012/05/it-happens-all-the-time/

Rug Munchers and Other Mythical Beasts

As a former student of Linguistics, I fail to understand the semantic link between ‘this is my girlfriend’ and ‘I very dearly want you to fuck me with your manly penis’.

No seriously, I don’t get it.

I have been in a lesbian relationship for over a year now, and I am beginning to sympathise with the Angry Lesbian stereotype. Not because, in addition to requiring low slung jeans and banded underwear, I am genetically programmed to simply BRIM with angst, but because:

+ Unless I take specific care to be in a gay bar at the time, men interpret my dancing with my girlfriend as an invitation for sex.
+ If I introduce my girlfriend to a straight man whom I have recently met, they interpret that as an invitation for sex.
+ If I tell a man that I am unavailable due to my being a committed relationship with a woman they INTERPRET THAT AS AN INVITATION FOR SEX.

I would argue (perhaps radically) that a vast majority of general populace do not in fact, believe, in lesbians.
Hear me out.

Anecdote:
I recently attended a university club event with my girlfriend and several other friends. We had several (read: all of the) drinks and were enjoying ourselves immensely. We were also on a boat, which is necessarily a good time.
During the last hour or so of the event, I made friends with a few young men on the dancefloor. I learned their names, I told them a bit about myself, I danced embarrassingly and they danced embarrassingly. Then my girlfriend approached, and I introduced her to my new friends.
They looked surprised, then disbelieving, then interested. We had drunk dancing fun together, and when the event finished we convinced them to attend our favourite trashy gay bar with us, instead of the official after-party.
On the way to said after-party, my girlfriend got into a cab with these boys and I followed separately. I was several minutes behind, and when I finally managed to track down my girlfriend (she had left her phone in my coat pocket), she was in tears.
Upon arrival at the bar, the boys had become irritable at my absence, and had admitted that they had only come with us in order to ‘watch you make out’. When I failed to turn up on time, they stormed off, asserting that we had ‘ruined their night’.

After years of making out with women in public (well, in venues) I have a hundred of these stories to tell.
It gets a little…tiresome.

That covers my interactions with the majority of  straight men with whom I do not have a prior acquaintance.

Maybe I’ll start carrying laminated copies.

Anecdote:
I attended the birthday of a woman with whom I have been friends for many years. We boarded together at high school and became a member of each other’s families.
He family was at the party; I spoke with them all and introduced them to my girlfriend for the first time.

Two weeks later  when I was meeting my friend for A Nice Glass of Wine, she said to me (slightly shocked and moderately offended):
‘You’ll never guess what Dad said after meeting your girlfriend!’
I said: ‘I bet I will. But she’s too pretty to be a lesbian’
‘YES!!’

I probably don’t need to unpack this statement (which I have heard a great many more times than once) for people who read this blog, but I will anyway.
‘But she’s too pretty to be a lesbian’ = ‘But you are attractive, so you must be able to get guys to fuck you. It’s only women who are too ugly/aggressive/fat/etc to get men who need to resort to lesbians.’

On the one hand, I experience men who absolutely can not conceive that two women might sexually interested in each other for any other reason than to attract or enhance the pleasure of men. I have tried to convince them. I have been firm, angry, polite, charming, and even borderline violent (of which I am not proud). I have spent literally hours trying to cheerfully explain my own experience to men, before realising that they were just glazing over until such a time as they deemed appropriate to cut me off and deliver their own personal reflections.

So I have decided that for most people, Lesbians are less a concrete reality, and more an abstract concept with which they can account for the failings of women and/or their failings with women where applicable.

I would really appreciate any handy tips for deflecting such attentions in the future, for I fear that the next time it happens I may headbutt someone.