She’s a textbook example of internalized misogyny. She didn’t like it much when other women challenged her on it. Therefore, we are “shrews.” ::sigh::
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I have no problems with people objectifying themselves. It’s when culture objectifies a whole segment of the population, who then can’t opt out of being treated like objects, that I have a problem. Somehow that must have gotten lost in translation.
Even men don’t really get this. We’re like, “what, it’s a compliment, how would you like it if nobody catcalled you ever?”, or, “my life is sad because nobody objectifies 350-pound men who smell like Cheetos”. We don’t get it that no matter what a woman looks like, if she falls into some kind of class or tribe, she is treated like an idealization of that class or tribe first and as a human second, if at all. We see men more as individuals, and as people, but women don’t have that consideration.
Holy fuck, did I just mansplain the objectification of women?
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Not all men do this. I do wonder if it’s partly a product of education and workplace relationships.
(In fact I’m just reading Chekhov’s Lady With Doglet, and the protagonist has exactly the reverse problem; when the story starts he talks about women as if they were inferior but admits to himself that he doesn’t enjoy the company of men and gets on much better with women, who he treats as individuals. Which is why that sentence sprung out at me. That and the fact that I sympathise.)
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I used to have so many men go out on like, one date with me and then decide I was the woman they wanted to marry. It was super super bizarre. There was no way they could have any idea what I was like. It just seemed like I looked like some ideal they had in their minds and that was all they could see. It was not flattering. It was like being invisible, only seen for the costume I wore and not the person inside the costume.
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Ehhh, I don’t know. I think everyone does it, to a small extent. It’s very subtle though. It’s not like every man goes around loudly catcalling every woman they see. It’s far more subtle than that, and it’s cultural. Gay men do it too, and even as an asexual man, I find myself doing it on occasion myself. It’s so embedded into our culture that it’s hard to get away from, even with conscious effort.
Please tell me this is an actual word.
Humblebrag much? 
But yes, this is what I was talking about.
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Women are trained that one of the most important things is to be get-along-with-able.
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You did, but it was adorable, so you get a pass.
@ChickieD - OMG the pedestal, thats the worst! One minute you’re having a drink with a dude the next you’re all wait what am I doing up here what is going on? I had so many men refer to me, to my face, as “a girl like you…” it was weird how they wanted to converse with you about you as if you were both audience and object. /shudder
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It wasn’t flattering to me. It was like I was some kind of cipher for them and not a real person at all.
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It’s my literal rendering of the Russian word “sobachka”.
A dog is sobaka - from its form a very ancient word. In Russian -ka is either a diminutive or a “friendly” word.*
A little dog is a double diminutive - soba-ch-ka. Some translations give “lapdog”. But it isn’t, it’s a Pomeranian (and there is a third Russian word for lapdog - edit: болонка).
So the most literal rendition is “doglet”. I don’t care if it doesn’t exist in English, it ought to.
E.g. a horse is a loshad, a pony or small horse a loshadka.
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This is Chekhov we’re talking about here, his characters and analysis are much less superficial than that.
Why not just call it a doggie?
Pomeranians aren’t lapdogs?
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Or a дож? (Russian for doge.)
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The OED only gives the diminutive dogling as used once in a play by Mary Russell Mitford. However, a search finds the word doglet in a novel by Nancy Mitford. It is not obvious whether they have any relation, but I’m sure you could make up a conspiracy if you wanted one.
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It’s weird what people attract, or notice, maybe.
I have a friend who was invited to threesomes and orgies all the freaking time, despite that not being her cup of tea. Another friend finds that many men want to save her, from what I’m not sure because her partner is a terrific and supportive man. Men whose wives are pregnant seem to think I’d be a good fling, it’s happened ridiculously often, despite the fact that my nature is monogamous, which the exes who have done this should freaking know.
So, I don’t know if we attract various sorts, or maybe when it happens the second time, we start noticing. People are strange.
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Hmmm, I never get invited to an orgy. Must give off the “wife” vibe instead of the wild child vibe.
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That would have been where I found it then, I think I’ve read most of her stuff.
Capital-D Doge as in ruler of Venice unfortunately, though I guess you were making a joke. In Florentine, doga meant weights and measures, so associated with administration. (Dante remarks at one point that Florence was capable of great public works “ad etade qu’era sicuro il quaderno e la doga” - in the days when the public records and the weights and measures were secure.")
My translation, my rules. (“Lady with doggie” would in any case be quite wrong; it is not that kind of a story. It’s a fairly subtle account of a changing relationship as the protagonist’s attitude to women, and a particular woman, changes.)
The Russian for a lapdog is болонка (bolonka). If Chekhov had meant that, he would have used it. He calls it a “sobachka” which is just a small dog. And he specifies the breed. Ergo, Chekhov did not consider Pomeranians to be lapdogs. (I imagine that a Russian Pomeranian would be considerably larger than a Western one as the breed was deliberately shrunk in the West).
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Sasheer Zamata has a theory/joke about various levels of training that boyfriends receive through successive women, so that when you get one that is actually polite and considerate, chances are that he’s been yelled at a sufficient number of times before he’s even met you.
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Not sure where else to share this:
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Loneliness and/or lack of self-esteem and/or desperation (due to a string of failed relationships) can lead to this. Don’t ask me how I know this.
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