Makes sense; if I understand correctly, the article is saying that the problem isn’t that women aren’t fitting themselves into the stereotypically “woman-shaped” niche that men have created for them; it’s that the niche that men have created isn’t actually woman-shaped at all (or, at best, is shaped to fit only a very small subset of women).
I haven’t read the article yet, but my sense is that the point is more: men have defined how one must speak, act, and look in order to work, and so telling women they’re just not doing a good enough job of lowering their voices, demanding better pay, and wearing outfits that are feminine-but-not-sexy-but-not-matronly-either (and that’s why they’re not as successful) is a form of blaming the victim.
If you’re a working woman, you’ve likely been inundated with advice about how to ensure that gender double standards don’t impede your brilliant career. Assert yourself boldly at meetings in an appropriately low tone of voice, yet purr pleasingly when negotiating salary. Be smart but never superior, a team player though not a pushover, ever-effective yet not intimidatingly intellectual. Calibrate ambition correctly, so that none are offended by your sense of self-worth, but all seek to reward your value. Dress the part.
Seems like a pretty accurate take to me.
I’m sorry; I’m either missing a distinction somewhere, or just not explaining my take-away from the article very well (or both), because I don’t see where we’re disagreeing.
I guess the part I didn’t get is the idea that there’s a woman-shaped niche at all. There isn’t, really. It’s “pretend to be a man, but you’re not really a man, so nothing you do will be good enough”. That sort of thing.
“…semen from old men is actually risk-laden.”
Sounds about right.
This is exactly the kind of article a high school biology class ought to read. Except for the humunculous part, I’ve had boyfriends assert the rest with absolute confidence. Usually when I’m arguing we should still use a condom and they think they shouldn’t need to.
Ugh.
Let a guy try to argue with me about using protection, and there will be no sex.
Yes, but has it ever ended up with the boyfriends putting tight pants on frogs?
Ah, I think I see now. So it’s not just that men are trying to force women into nineteenth century expectations of what a woman should be (which weren’t reasonable even then), but that those expectations are inconsistent to the point of being self-contradictory. It’s not so much that the standards are outdated and patriarchal, but that they’re either constantly shifting or literally impossible to meet.
Damn. That’s much worse.
Serena Williams FTW!!!
Not only that, but “career advice” is inherently victim-blaming and gaslighty if you fail to succeed. Obviously it’s your fault for not meeting those shifting and contradictory standards, not the standards in the first place. I mean, only if you’d smiled winsomely while showing you were serious, and showed you could lay down the law without hurting anybody’s feelings and were warm and open and caring, without being emotional… Why you’d be running this place.
OTOH, when people are primed to see the structural inequities, they’ll tend to cast the blame where it really belongs.
Thread:
She has to wear it. It’s a compression suit so she can um, play tennis? It’s not like it’s a frickin’ bionic arm or something!
GRR at the officials!
I loved her response. It was just so FU.
A male comedian explains why having Louis CK back on stage after only a year is a problem:
