(no subject)

[rm]

Dear CNN,

Why is a throwaway article about cross-gender friendships headlined in a way that implies women are propertyand that men decide the rules for and everyone knows it?

SO offensive.


http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/personal/01/23/lw.opposite.sex.friends/index.html

ETA: please send CNN an email about the problems with this story. Click on "contact CNN" at the very bottom of the CNN.com page and progress from there.

Comments

Why imply women are property men decide the rules for and everyone knows it?

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

"Should your wife have guy-friends?"
Holy Fucking shit!
I wasn't expecting anyting so blantant.
But the answer to your question is "because that's how the MSM really thinks," I reckon.

Re: Why imply women are property men decide the rules for and everyone knows it?

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

The MSM is just a reflection of how the whole damn society thinks. I expect raised eyebrows about all my guy friends from my parents, who, after 30 years of my marriage still think it's weird for me to have dinner alone with any guy friend who isn't homosexual (hoo, boy, does that get complicated :)). But I get them from all sorts of people. People I don't expect to feel that way. Makes me nuts.

Re: Why imply women are property men decide the rules for and everyone knows it?

[rm.livejournal.com]

I'm fascinated by the fact that as a gay woman, people find my friendships with men more shocking and shocking than my close friendship with a female ex. Like, REALLY?

Re: Why imply women are property men decide the rules for and everyone knows it?

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

As a walking sterotype (married to the same guy for 30 years, kids, now grandkids, middle class, white, raised and still living in the 'burbs, house, dog, a couple of cats - the only thing missing is the picket fence fer cryin' out loud), I am *still* amazed at the assumptions people make about me and my life. I'm also bisexual, poly, politically liberal, activist feminist. I still shock my conservative sister all the time, punching holes in her assumptions. She's in this weird sort of denial; she thinks I *must* be just like her. A lot of people do.

I had a point, but I think I lost it :).

[marcmagus]

Wow. Just...fail.

[digitalsidhe.livejournal.com]

It's not just the headline, either. Despite the fact that any friendship should be a two-way street, and despite the fact that such long-lasting and stable friendships as the ones described have pretty much got to be healthy, mutual, two-way things, the article somehow manages to phrase them all as "women who have guy friends" and never as "guys who have women friends". I think it's partly by "telling" things from the women's points of view...

And then there's this:

Although opposite-sex friends inevitably hook up in movies and on TV (Chandler and Monica, anyone?), many people think that it is possible to be platonic pals.

Many people "think" this (which subtly implies that they might be wrong), and then the article goes on to show that they don't "think" this any more than I "think" that I'm sitting at a computer typing words: they know it; their lives prove the point, and the movies and TV are the ones that are wrong.

But the language makes it sound like the people are probably mistaken.

Just looked at the byline: Diane Mapes. Maybe the stories all being from a female POV is because the writer's female? And yet, it doesn't come across as privileging women's stories; instead, it manages to single women out and give the impression that a woman having a male friend is newsworthy and special, without placing any such strictures on men's friendships.

This article would probably repay a close analysis, in terms of how it makes some very toxic points so subtly.

[sethg]

Yes, that too.

I have always found it easier to make friends with women than with men and this article says nothing to me.

[winterknight.livejournal.com]

God, does modern media make me tired.

Also, I love the assumption that your partner would never fall for a same-sex friend or a same-sex friend couldn't manipulate your partner (for better or for worse for them) right out of the relationship you're in.

Fuck that noise.

[thaddeusfavour.livejournal.com]

People are idiots. I really don't know what else to say about such a stupid article. I had hoped we, as a society, had progressed beyond the "lets dissect all our social interactions and make a set of moronic rules about them" stage. I see I was wrong. When I read things like this, the only feeling I get in touch with is my deep well of rage.

[argentla.livejournal.com]

And let's not forget the heterosexism, since its arguments are predicated on the unstated assumption that everyone involved is straight.

[rm.livejournal.com]

OH yeah. That was actually a high on the list response for me, and then I was like "okay, if I'm going to send CNN a nasty email (which I did), how much of this can their tiny little brains grok at once?"

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Would you be willing to share that email?

[rm.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I typed it into one of their forms, so it's off into the ether.

Tiny little brains

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

These are not the sort of people who grok things.

These are not the sort of people who grok

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

And the title assumes that the only people reading the article are married men.

[sykii.livejournal.com]

It's worth noting that (Rm, I know you know this, but it's possible that not everyone commenting does) the same person basically never writes the article and the headline.

[laufeyette.livejournal.com]

My mind is blown. That whole article is terrible.

"If you make your relationship too exclusive, it can become claustrophobic. I'm sure plenty of husbands would love another man to take his wife shopping or to the movies. It's less pressure on him."

What year is this?

Re: Why imply women are property men decide the rules for and everyone knows it?

[arcanetrivia]

The year where sexual stereotypes are still going strong?

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

I didn't think the article itself was that bad for what it was (especially the 'It's good to talk about stuff openly'), but the headline was all kinds of horrible.

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

How could there POSSIBLY be any motivation for friendship between men and women but SEX???

Geez, I can just imagine my husband and I saying to each other, "You can have this person as a friend, but not this one!" He's in two mostly-female book clubs, which I guess will soon devolve into orgies.

[chaos-by-design.livejournal.com]

Well, of course. Because female book clubs are all about the fucking.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

Why the hell is this even a CNN article?

[chaos-by-design.livejournal.com]

What the fuck? Did I just do a time warp back to 1950? Has CNN been taken over by the Taliban? What????

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether to be horrified by the way they framed this, or strangely pleased by how many of my relationships are apparently suspect. Then again, I seem not to be having nearly as much sex as the second option seems to promise.

Clearly, I'm doing it wrong.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thing that is really starting to bother me about the world:

- how much sex people think you're having is more important than how much sex you are having.

[bodlon.livejournal.com]

Let it be recorded that this view disturbs me as well.

I mean, I'm not going to argue if people think I'm awesome and getting it left, right, and center. I'm just confident that if I need to broadcast my exact status, my ability to (over?)share is well up to the task.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

I, for one, wouldn't mind having as much sex as people assume I'm having.

Let them judge however they like, but I'm getting shorted!

[arcanetrivia]

Ah, but if you're me, they're assuming I couldn't be having any sex at all, indeed, *shouldn't* be. So...

[stardragonca.livejournal.com]

Dude! That was thing about the whole Clinton thing that made me crazy.(More crazy. Well, one of them.)

[julesndairyland.livejournal.com]

UGH!!!

Awful!

I commented and posted on my Fb so other can read and complain too.

[verasteine.livejournal.com]

OMG. Bunch of idiots.

Complaint sent.

[coriander.livejournal.com]

I was wondering about that too, but I ignored it, hoping it would go away. Not so proactive though, huh?