She Never Fails to Amaze
Posted on | December 24, 2014 | 117 Comments
Amanda Marcotte's irrepressible weirdness:
Before I take off for the rest of the week, I want to flag this amazing post at Feministing written by Katherine Cross that articulates better than anything I've ever read why it is so irritating to women to have men constantly sharing how our appearance makes their dicks feel, even if the determination is that we adorn ourselves in a dick-pleasing manner. Often, women react to this constant judgment by saying, "It's not about you," but the counterpoint is always that, in some cases, women are clearly trying to look sexy, and thus it must be because it is a performance solely for the benefit of men. . . .
Really? I mean . . . really?
Who are these "men constantly sharing" their phallic responses with women? Whence this sense of "constant judgment"?
Decades ago, I gave up attempting to explain why women decorate themselves the way they do. It's utterly irrational.
Yes, feminists have a theory of how the "patriarchy" is to blame for women's fashion habits, but in all my years of being a male supremacist oppressor, I've never understood this.
Consider, for example, the designer handbag. One encounters women who complain constantly about their economic plight but who nevertheless simply must have a $200 designer-label purse.
Likewise, shoes — stand-up comedians have endlessly mined the female obsession with shoes. I'm convinced that every woman, no matter her socioeconomic status or cultural background, secretly yearns to be Imelda Marcos. Even the wealthiest man is probably content with owning two or three pairs of shoes (dress shoes in black and brown for business, plus a pair of sneakers for the weekend) while his female office assistant owns a closet full of shoes in every color and style imaginable.
As I say, feminists have tried to blame women's fashion obsessions on the patriarchy (Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth was the most famous attempt), but having spent my entire life as a male supremacist oppressor, I'm certain it's not my fault that women are the way they are. Perhaps I wasn't important enough to be invited to the secret meetings of the Omnipotent Male Cabal where it was decided that women must be brainwashed into spending all their money on handbags and shoes. Still, I think most men probably share my view that women's fashion appetites are (a) insane and (b) not our fault. Certainly, no sane man has ever felt an urge to discuss fashion with Amanda Marcotte — telling her how her "appearance makes their dicks feel"? really? — and even less would any sane man wish to discuss such a subject with Katherine Cross:
We can even see this in GamerGater propaganda . . . That movement's ongoing obsession with dyed hair is premised on a similar belief that all women who disagree with them and color their hair brightly — green, or blue, or pink, for instance — are doing so because they wish to thumb their nose at men specifically, or that they are doing it as an entirely self-conscious, petulant political statement; again, for men's benefit. One male Gater even described this phenomenon as "having political statements shoved at me just by taking a cursory glance at a person." To them, women with dyed hair are doing it just to irritate them.
It is interesting to note that many of the "Social Justice Warrior" feminist types assailing the videogame industry as a bastion of misogyny have strange-colored hair. It is also interesting to note that some of these women were born male, for example "Brianna Wu" a/k/a John Walker Flynt, whose Encyclopedia Dramatica file is quite interesting.
You may not be aware that Katherine Cross is accused of unethical journalism, having allegedly failed to disclose her professional association with Anita Sarkeesian's Feminist Frequency while covering Sarkeesian's feminist videogame crusade. And you might also be unaware that Katherine Cross was born male and has written at some length about her own transgender status, "the difficult lives we have to live before we can truly be ourselves . . . perpetually battling with a world that despises us," et cetera. Transgenderism has frequently been a subject of Katherine Cross's writing at Feministing and, in light of that, let us read more of her column that Amanda Marcotte so highly recommended:
Thus, our appearances are always a complex dance between our own desires and what we think the desires of others are; this is true of all of us. Even when women are performing for others, we do so no more frequently than men do, and often as not are performing for other women . . . We are adrift on the same silken sea of fashion and taste as men are.
To believe that we as women solely adorn ourselves for the specifically sexual gaze of men is, looked at in this way, a denial of humanity.
Yeah. Whatever you say. Dye your hair green and sail away on the "silken sea of fashion." We don't care. Really. We're just so grateful that you gave Amanda Marcotte another excuse to make an utter fool of herself, endorsing a transgender feminist's critique of how men allegedly judge women by "how our appearance makes their dicks feel."
How do Amanda Marcotte and Catherine Cross make you feel, guys?
Category: Feminism
117 Responses to "She Never Fails to Amaze"
December 26th, 2014 @ 3:20 pm
you're entitled to your OPINION, which is really just a matter of taste, culture, etc. but don't mistake it for fact, or objectivity.
Not as Gen X become hiring managers and view things like tattoos as the norm. The idea That a tattoo makes you less qualified to do a job, especially when Matt Taylor is covered in ink and managed to land a space probe on a comet, is ridiculous.
But they're ready for retirement and Gen X who sees tats as no big deal are making the hiring decisions. Millennialis are even more liberal in terms of fashion than Gen X is.
No, you're just old, and things change. Tattoos and nose rings are no longer a sign you're a part of a gang, or wayward. They are now part of the fashion norm.
alauda
I don't think the right has the right to talk about attractiveness when they have Shadowdancer Duskstar on their side.
http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/cutelildrow/650739/550808/550808_600.jpg
I could craft a more attractive woman out of dead brachiopods and parasitic worms.
neshobanakni
"She's a man, baby!" (Austin Powers).
Seriously, converts can be the most dangerous. Just look at Islamic terrorists.
Notice how her teats are displayed, just begging for that bull gaze.
Del_Varner
It would be funny if "Katherine" Cross considered "her"self to be a lesbian.
Like I said…come back to us when you have kids. My oldest daughter had to remove her piercings and keep her tats covered up to get her job with a major city department.
And my 18 yr old grand daughter came to realize that tats and piercings, other than small ones in her ears, was not the way to get ahead in life. By the way, she just made the Dean's List her first semester in college.
You do know that most public schools now have dress codes against abnormal piercings, weird hair colors, ect.
Yehiel
Udderly strange for a gift.
mark abrams
autistic is a newly discovered/invented psychological condition with no somatic correlative (like most psychological conditions ). It didnt get to a behavior people try to treat with drugs so that it will go away because it is desirable. It is indeed ,to most people, an objectionable condition and one they wish to change. So it is definitely not a term or praise of endearment, perhaps it isnt the best possible insult but it does convey social ineptness and a certain denseness concerning human interactions quite well.
What does it say that most designers are gay? They must hate women given the styles and the height of the heels women wear.wear.
I think 9 is the limit of my aspirations. 🙂
December 26th, 2014 @ 10:26 pm
"Perhaps I wasn't important enough to be invited to the secret meetings of the Omnipotent Male Cabal where it was decided that women must be brainwashed into spending all their money on handbags and shoes."
Not only that, but we forgot to invite you to the meeting where we decided that men should be brainwashed into spending all our money on guns and hot cars. Sorry about that!
WTF Alauda? She's pretty.
It's much simpler than what we're making it: fashion is porn for women, but socially acceptable.
A woman who would wear that shirt is complete on her own…as in alone.