(no subject)

[rowanberries]

I did good work today. Not that I'm not still significantly behind where I should/wanted to be by this stage, but I did that thing where as well as writing more, I organised bits so they actually flow, got rid of floating annotations that were redundant and were just screwing up my running word count, and shifted whole paragraphs so they're actually in the right chapter. 2000-ish words to go, but should be a fairly straightforward run at it hereafter.

We're not talking about the other two that I haven't even started.

I have a glass of wine, and I have dinner, and I appear to be composing feminism posts in standup form in my head.

Hello! I'm here to talk about feminism! Yeah, hands up who's surprised? Girl in jeans comes up on stage, talks about feminism shocker! But I'm interested in more than shrieking MEN ARE EVIL, so you really don't have to leave, bloke at the back. Yes. Hi! It's weird, though. In my experience, few men will go 'pfft, feminism, back in the kitchen, bitch,' these days, unless they're being really ironic. And please be careful. Irony, used in a way that isn't entirely clear, may cause defenestration. It's women who don't like the word. Which... freaks me out, a bit. "Oh yeah, I believe in equal rights - but I'm not one of those feminists."

[SLIDE 1: dictionary.com - fem·i·nism /ˈfɛməˌnɪzəm/ [fem-uh-niz-uhm]
–noun
1. The doctrine advocating social, political, and all other rights of women equal to those of men.

2. Yes. Yes, you are.]

But it's okay! It really is. And I know where you're coming from, at least in the conflict-avoiding sense. It's that look you get, isn't it? You know the one. I get it a lot. ...Right now springs to mind. But it's inevitable, I guess, whenever you meet someone you don't know that well, what do you ask about? Depends on your age, I guess. My teenage years, it seemed like all I was ever asked was 'what kind of music you into?' To which I would reply, 'I don't want to be pigeonholed based on this totally arbitrary system of linking personality with cultural phenomena!' I'm much more mature these days, of course. Now I would say 'who cares?! Did you catch Doctor Who the other night? Does David Tennant look more like a cocktoo by the day or what?' But no! Now they ask questions subtly aimed at adults. 'What are you doing these days?' 'What are you up to?' 'What do you want to be when you grow up?' Er. Not that last one. It's only immediate family that do that. But I answer, 'I'm at university! Third year, ooer.' Smile! Don't ask me about exams, you bastard! 'Ahhh,' they say wisely, with visible nostalgia leaking from their patronising smiles. 'And what do you study?' 'History!' I say. 'Oh, wonderful! The Tudors?' (Because 80%

[SLIDE 2: 74% of statistics are made up]

of people will ask that when history is brought up) 'What's your particular area?' And I am stuck. I can drag it out with 'Oh, we study lots of different ones, but my dissertation topic is on women in post-war Britain,' and that's when you get THE LOOK. That one. If it's a man, the slightly alarmed one. The deer-in-the-headlights look of 'oh god if I say something insensitive she's going to go CRAZY. She has a womb, and everything, shit.'

Which I'm not. But there's this whole thing of women being these crazy things, especially on their periods. [If anyone reacts, yell 'PERIODS! Half the people in the world have them once a month, I know you've heard of them.'] And you know whose fault that was? The Greeks! (It's awesome, because they're all dead now, so I can say whatever I like about them!) They actually believed that hysteria in women was caused by the womb wandering around their bodies. Literally, actually going for a stroll - it went up to the brain? Maaaaadness! I mean, what else? Around the boobs? Swelling up for extra bounciness, in the legs? Running about! In the hands? Feeling people up! 'Sorry! Hysteria of the hands, I don't know. Bloody womb.' AND THEN. Freud came along. Skipping ahead a bit, just keep up. Freud came along and said practically all women's issues come from penis envy. [If anyone reacts, yell 'PENIS! Again! Half the people in the world have them, I know you've heard of them.'] I mean, really? Wouldn't it be a bit fucking awkward, if you're a woman with issues... and then you suddenly sprout a penis? THAT IS NOT GOING TO FIX ANYTHING. But I like Freud. I do, despite his weirdly penis-and-parents fixated philosophy, because he stuck by his ideas, even when they didn't work in his historical context. There's a story I was told about a girl who was sent to Freud by her father who believed she was insane. Why? Because she wouldn't marry the man he'd picked, of course! Imagine that. Schitzo bitch. [shakes head.] And the reason? She was a lesbian. Now, as you can imagine, lesbianism? Not so well accepted! So Freud, he examined her, and analysed her, and talked to her about penises in that way that he did that would probably get him arrested nowadays, and do you know what he found? In spite of the fact that she contravened this whole culture of heterosexuality, feminine obedience, everything, he concluded that she was totally healthy, mentally and otherwise. And I like that in a psychoanalyst. Willing to conclude that someone isn't insane for being different.

And that brings me back to feminists. Guys... um, girls... don't think all feminists are crazy and out to get all men, while making all women look bad. See us for what we are - we believe in equality, and we believe in saying so, and that doesn't make us crazy. Be accepting and supportive of us and our beliefs, and you'll find we're much less likely to go hysterical on you, like, you know, all girls do. That's all we ask. Bye.

[Exit.]

Comments

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

:D

Simon: "Freud was just a freak with a really hot mum."

[rowanberries.livejournal.com]

OF COURSE HE WAS.

His whole philosophy = Trying to justify his weird thoughts about his Mum.

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

Also your stand-up is fabulous.

[rowanberries.livejournal.com]

<3

Sometimes it just makes it easier to get my thoughts together by pretending I'm talking to people. There was a whole bit about Jim Davidson and his ilk while I was making pasta sauce earlier, but I forgot it.

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

*cheerful* I do that a lot. Also in the form of LJ posts, but yes - stand-up is the other way I organise my thoughts. Odd that, isn't it?

[rowanberries.livejournal.com]

*Nods* Peculiar. Still, fun. *Grins*

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

*poke* You being without stage fright, have you ever considered actually Doing Stand Up?

[rowanberries.livejournal.com]

:S

Weirdly enough, I actually did get stage fright when I did public speaking in school. Maybe this'd be different, though, I don't know. I think it all depends on knowing what I'm talking about.

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

Well, it's you writing the script which might well help.

[rowanberries.livejournal.com]

This is true.

Well, my uni has such events.

Maybe I'll try it!

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

If you do and I can make it down to Brighton I will come and be your Amoral Support. :D

[rowanberries.livejournal.com]

*laughs*

Mind you, that would assume that my soul isn't eaten by essays. Which it is. Woe.

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

I should have guessed that from the immense posting on LJ. ;)

[ashen_key]

I do like this, I do.

However, I...*rubs head* Dictionary definitions =/= everything that a word means. And 2. Yes. Yes, you are. DOES make me go on a mental rant about labelling when done in a way that is without your consent and in a way that doesn't broker arguement.

I don't call myself a feminist - I don't agree with the movement. I'm for equality for everyone, not just my gender. And I loathe the insane, men-hating anger that the more extreme feminists go on about. I know that's not all there is to it, but...it's the same movement, and I don't agree with being thought of in the same group as them. All arguements about well, they aren't my kind of feminist kinda strikes me as similar to all the religious sniffing of they aren't our sort of [insert religion here]. I don't think all feminists are crazy, like the way I don't think all Christians (or whoever) are close-minded bigots, BUT...

I'm not a feminist. By my own choice of what I chose to label myself as, I am not feminist. I'm for equality of everyone, not just my gender. I'll hunt around for a word that describes that if I must.

And it's way, way too early in the morning for this kind of rambling, and I'm not sure my point, so I'll stop.

BUT.

I do like most of this. Even the bit about Freud. Possibly especially the bit about Freud.

[rowanberries.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey, this was definitely not meant to be an attack on anyone for feeling what they do. *Pets* Writing it as standup, in fact, is my way of putting it into non-threatening format, meant to amuse while presenting my vague opinion. *grins* You are completely entitled to interpret feminism any way you want, still, and it's all fine with me.

Where this came from is a cross between all the feminism links that have been exploding of the flist over the past few days, and a seminar I had the other day in which my tutor asked us straight out how many of us were feminists. We are a class full of girls, all studying women's history (and therefore, knowing about the different waves of the 'official' movement, and I was the only one to instantly put my hand up. And then we went into a full discussion of how we define it - so don't worry, I do think about the many different associations the word has.

I used the dictionary definition here because - well, simple, conversation, hopefully amusing format; I didn't want to get too complex while I was explaining... but also because I don't consider the 'insane, men-hating anger' you referred to to be feminism. I just don't. Some self-defined feminists may exhibit it, but that's misandry, opposite of misogyny, and just as unhelpful when it comes to negotiating actual equality, which is what I see as they key element of true feminism. By my definition, everyone who believes men and women are equal, I will incidentally count as a feminist, male or female though they be - you're equally welcome to believe that they're not unless they identify that way. That's how I roll, it's all about what the person currently expressing ther opinion believes. :) Of course, if that opinion happens to be... Um, I don't know, that all green-eyes people are made of SATAN, then everyone else is entitled to believe that they are morons.

*Waves hand* That's just how I work, when I get off my arse long enough to say anything. It's the historian in me. So long as it's just opinion, you can say most anything. (And then someone else can come along and prove you wrong. It's the circle of academia!)

[ashen_key]

I know! Actually, my own comment came from the recent spate of feminism things, too, so it was more the lines of a headdesking 'c'mon, PEOPLE' than anything else.

So, I AM amused. It's just...*waves hand*

[rowanberries.livejournal.com]

*Hugs* And that's entirely reasonable.

Man, what is it with the recent explosion, anyway? It seems like everything came at once, and now everyone's got it stuck on the brain. :S

[ashen_key]

In response to my posting a link about this woman claiming that slash is supporting the male-dominance, Jez wrote a really interesting post about 'Feminism: You're Doing It wrong', and then there was the Open Source Boob thing, and everything seemed to spiral out from that and people reacting and then other people reacting to the people reacting and now I think you are right. It's on ze brain.

[puredeadthingy.livejournal.com]

I'd pay to see this onstage.

[lizw.livejournal.com]

Me too. (Here via theyorkshiregob, btw).