sundries

[rm]

It was cranky day on the trains this morning. It's raining and everyone is angry. And in fairness, it's easy to get annoyed. People don't understand to keep to the right. People who don't sit down make the train cars more crowded and block the seats for others. We're all wet, the trains are delayed, people's bags are in the way, etc. But man, there is only so much I can take of the fucked up reasons people think they are more special than others on the New York City subway system.

It's another piece about how boys are behind girls in school and so civilization will crumble.

Articles like this make me seethe, for starts because not only is our educational system shit, I have watched it go from bad to worse and watch kids on Craigslist hire people to write their essays -- for college admissions, for their film school class, for their fucking med school unit! So many of my friends teach university here, at _good_ schools, and the student who can express themselves cogently (not elegantly, just with basic subject/verb and an understanding of how if/then works) is absolutely, positively the except to the rule. And it galls me. So for starts, wow, our education system needs fixing in about eight hundred different places in about eight hundred different ways.

Next: if boys are so behind in school, why are men still so ahead in the workplace? Oh right, because it doesn't count when women do things (and well get back to that later, I'm going somewhere broader with this). An academically successful woman doesn't count for anything. She can't be seen as a leader, after all. And women are good with the school thing, it's not special. Dime a dozen. Ignore her. Ignore them. Women - interchangeable parts, all the same, you know how it goes. Now let's say we can even stomach the reality of the above and are okay with it (and apparently large swathes, even a majority of our society, is). Now we do have a serious problem: the people we're letting get ahead are skills-poor.

This business of "women don't count" (insert snarky "math is hard" joke here) is hardly anything new. In fact eumelia wrote this morning about the pink triangle and how in the Holocaust women never wore it. You see, the crime of lesbianism was an "anti-social" crime, one the Nazi's assigned the black triangle. The issue was not sex (probably unacknowledged because of lack of PiV), the issue was their not marrying and breeding for the Reich.

I am dead, and I did not exist.

It comes up too in arenas that many of you would consider not to matter. If you're aware of the OTW you know that part of their mission statement says "we value our identity as a predominantly female community with a rich history of creativity and commentary."

I'm a member of the OTW, and I think the statement is essentially true, and I still hate it. Because what it says is that there are activities people do and activities women do. It's self-othering, it's not particularly reflective of the fandom I spend the most time in (Torchwood -- whose dominant culture, I would argue is queer, gender aside) these days, and it -- in its attempt to do anything but -- plays into the "see, some boys write fanfiction" speech a whole lot of women do to somehow legitimize fannish creation.

95% of new students in general aviation are men. Hardly any women. But airplanes are real and not sin.

I am sick of a world in which the presence of women devalues activities, educations, television shows (even though women make more purchases than men in almost every category, a male demographic is preferred by advertisers) and desires merely by their turning their eyes towards something.

But it's nothing new. And I don't, tragically, believe it will ever be anything old and quaint and once was either. And it's one of the small reasons I can never be quite happy: because nearly everything I have ever been taught -- by my parents, by my schools, by my fandom, by more than a few lovers, and by my persecutors -- tells me one simple thing. Because I have a cunt, when I love something, I make it less. It's a strange power, being the null, and it's not one I want or like or enjoy and I would like to give it back now.

North Koreans use cellphones to tell the rest of the world about life there.

True fact most people think is just an urban legend: More than three unrelated people living together is illegal in NYC.

Comments

[mobobocita.livejournal.com]

Oh dear god, that was not my point at all.

You live in a city with millions of people and this rich history and a whole society that has traditions from places far and wide outside of itself.

I grew up in a place that had 30,000 residents. Most with the same education, same heritage and while we had some traditions, it was mostly farm oriented. Women carried the same burden as men, it made for a different world. My mother worked manual labor jobs most of my life. I was an adult before she became president.

I was the first in my family to graduate college. Not the first woman, the first person. I am one of 27 grandchildren. It's a different life than yours and all I was trying to say is that growing up in that, I was *aware* of the things that your world has declared about women but it isn't my experience. I work for a privately held woman owned business. We out number the men 2-1. We made $8 million last year. Yes, we are a minority but it's not the first thing we sell about ourselves.

I meant to be a beacon of hope that maybe somewhere, it was OK to be a girl. That being a girl didn't make you less. Not to say that you did anything wrong or that there was fault in the difference in our culture, just showing a difference.

And words are failing me, so I guess I'll just say sorry, I didn't mean to belittle your experience by sharing mine.

[nicoli-dominn.livejournal.com]

While I'm not rm, I definitely hear you and understand what you were trying to say. And when you think about it logically: the smaller a population is, the less people can afford to discriminate against sub-populations when work needs to be done. It's when the opportunities for work are limited and the populations are too large that one group will decide to unite against other groups to maintain their work and status privileges. I believe that the development of technology and transportation has also contributed to the phenomenon. In a totally agrarian society without the technological developments we have today, every person is needed to work: the landowners, the spouses of the landowners, and the children (once they're old enough). People of one gender might have assumed some work roles versus people of other genders, but in many cases, all worked side by side. As the trades blossomed and later industrial eras boomed, those who were richer could afford not to work because one person in the household could work and earn enough money to provide for everyone. In those societies, gender biases were marked because often unspoken decisions were made about who was fit to work and lead and who was fit to become an ornament. In a town of 30,000 people, however wealthy any of them are, such luxuries may be deemed frivolous.

If you're wondering, I didn't grow up in the same kind of community that you did, but my mother has told me countless stories about growing up on a farm, and about the fact that no matter what your gender was, it didn't excuse you from work if work needed to be done. Perhaps that's what gave her the kind of take-charge attitude she carried throughout her adulthood. The strange part, however, is how unaware of sexism she is. When I make a comment about someone being sexist, she tells me I'm imagining things. She didn't have to be a feminist because people looked to her as a leader and an achiever, and because she thought nothing of competing with and against others, men or women. When I find myself having to fight, whether in subtle or overt ways, she tells me I'm just being too sensitive. However, I don't think that's what you were trying to do here.

Bleh. Anyway...now that I've interrupted someone else's conversation and run my mouth off, I should probably shut up. :-P

[rm.livejournal.com]

I'll say sorry too, and then it'll all be okay, because I misinterpreted you first and you sharing your experience is good! I'm just feeling sensitive to the ideas I expoused, that I thought you were expousing and weren't. That's a good point, that hadn't occurred to me, about how the diversity of places like NYC can make people less tolerant. As much as exposure to different stuff _usually_ helps, in a place that's crowded and filled with annoyances like NYC, it doesn't always. Also, it's not like NYC isn't home to lots of businesses (film, tv, modeling, advertising, fashion) that can make everything a little more evil.