Lotta response to Halley’s Girlism blog entries, which bug the heck out of me.
Basically, Halley is in favor of using one’s feminine wiles to get ahead in the workplace. “Women want to be sexy girls and use all the tricks girls use. Crying, flirting, begging, winking, stomping their feet when they don’t get their way, general trotting around showing off their long legs and whatever else they decide to show off thereby distracting and derailing men.” And she has a stereotype of feminism as the exclusive property of butch dykes, right out of Rush Limbaugh.
Doc finds Halley’s flirtatious approach appealing and charming; he and his wife both agree that feminism is boring. I’m glad that Doc and his wife have had so little experience with sexism that they can’t remember why feminism was ever relevant in the first place.
My grandmother wasn’t allowed to finish high school. My aunts had to fight to go to college. Early in my career, I worked in a place that had big gender disparities in pay (and had a male mentor who researched the subject and got me a big raise). I’ve seen women who flirt with the boss, sleep with the boss, and get their cute butt canned when things go sour.
I’m really not persuaded that the best response to injustice is to giggle and flirt.
Via doc, Sheila Lennon responds to Halley with a testament on the last wave of the women’s movement, about equal pay for equal work, being respected as a woman instead of dismissed as a girl, legal birth control, and first-hand reports on the sexual revolution.
Doc finds feminine style attractive in women; and that’s peachy.
But the point isn’t to make all women chop their long flowing tresses and wear blue jeans. The point is that people are different from each other. Some of these differences line up by gender averages, and some of them don’t. I have straight guy friends who wear more nail polish than I do. I have lesbian friends who own more make-up than I do. I have many male friends who love to cook and are dedicated parents. I have short hair, like books, hate shopping, like cooking, and find violent first-person shooter games really boring.
These things don’t line up in neat little rows by gender stereotypes, and that’s part of the lesson of feminism for me.