Things I Like

"I'm sorry, I don't speak batshit crazy . . . "

Hmmmm.

I like The F Word, that's why I link to it. I find it intelligent, informative and interesting. It raises my awareness of certain issues. To me it's all round feminist goodness.

However, I'm not quite sure how to describe my reaction to this particular piece.

My initial reaction to the quote "Does the woman in your life really need a job?" and the "Yes apparently working women caused the credit crunch." was that I felt a certain amount of, well, anger. Because it does actually seems like the kind of point some thick type would try to make. But then I read on and got to here:

"But Newton isn’t finished - far from it - as he avers that “Women also have an important role to play in jobs that are too demeaning for men, like teaching” (because obviously educating the next generation is demeaning rather than, well, crucial and I assume he’d draw the line at women teaching science or in Universities because that’s far too butch for us and we might break a nail /end sarcasm/)."

Re-read the highlighted bit. Seriously, who could take that seriously? So I went back to the link to the original article and read Newton Emerson's piece. Holy fuck, that is not serious. Really it's not, read it. Don't get me wrong, it's not as amusing as it's supposed to be but IT IS NOT SERIOUS. And to back up my reading of it I googled Emerson. He's a Northern Irish satirist, used to run a site called the portadown times, along the lines of the onion but obviously a little more risky. Taking on Northern Irish politics is not for the fainthearted.

So I wish Louise Livesey had done the same. Then she could have acknowledged that its a crap piece of satire, and then ripped it to shreds anyway. That would have been fun. Instead her piece takes the article seriously and leads to this. And comments like this "AH, gotta love that shrill bleating of UK feminism. Where's Camille Paglia's rebuttal?".

This makes me want to go "Aaaahhhhhhhrrrrrggggghhhhh". So I did. There are enough jerks out there to take swipes, it would be nice if we didn't paint extra targets on. Two minutes of checking would have taken this target away. Don't get me wrong, arseholes would still have a go as that is what they do, but I prefer it when they aren't pointing out something I kind of agree with. Emerson's piece was satire and that seems to have passed Livesey by. Which sucks. Because while "Would you Eve it ?" may be Livesey's personal opinion it is posted on a site that claims to represent contemporary feminists in the UK and provide a community space. And to my mind that calls for a little responsibility because while the crap "Women just don't understand" mentions Livesey specifically it also attributes The F Word blog to her, rather than just that entry.

On the plus side a few of the commenter's seem to have realised that Emerson's piece is supposed to be funny. Even if it's not.

As Good As It Gets

Got this from upside down dogs.

So freakin' cute.

And yeah, this is as good as your going to get right now.