Ugh.

I worked all day (today & yesterday) on my paper & Power Point for the Popular Culture association conference next week. I thought I'd have time for a workout, but I even forgot to eat lunch, and am now too tired to actually do anything else anyway. But I did, in the course of my work, find two interestingly opposed websites that seem to deserve being linked together.

The first, an anti-feminist webpage which declares out-of-date diatribes against feminist stereotypes, which has no idea that not at all ALL feminists are these stereotypes. And even if they were, the point would be to refute the arguments of feminism-- not to attack the people for things OTHER than logic & argument. If I said your argument was stupid cause you were smell, hairy, and had bad breath, then that would not disprove your claim, but rather, make me look like a bigoted idiot.

Dude. I (and many other feminists) shave, I wear a bra, and I am a feminist. I also don't care if someone calls me a chick, or a broad. I have long hair, unlike your claim to be able to "pick out a feminist in a crowd" because she has short hair. The absurdity of the argument that feminists are "unbathed" is also so ridiculous an ad hominem attack as to be funny. I get the point that he's trying to be sort of "Shock jock" ish, and insulting people is part of that image. Good for you. Hate mail is fun, isn't it? But if you're going to be anti-feminist, at least know what feminism ACTUALLY is. You're talking about things that are SOOOO out of date and SOOOO pointless. Feminism is the attempt to end sexism, and unfair treatment based on gender alone. This includes discrimination against men. If you're being treated unfairly for reasons other than gender, then that's a different issue altogether. And what clothes we wear or what we shave doesn't really have anything at all to do with it. He says "It's just the way things have always been" and "just deal with it and move on." That's the same argument people have used to justify slavery, (it's always been that way) and poverty (just get a job and quit bitching) and any injustice out there. Stupid people have always been paid less money than their telemarketing bosses. Just get over it and stop bitching about it.

However, the second website almost proves the joker above right by living up to those feminist stereotypes of irrational silly arguments with no real leg to stand on in declaring that a long list of movies & films are misogynistic, with no really good rationale other than the idea that if a movie depicts a woman as sexy it is anti-female. There's an absurd dis on Kim Possible explained as only "because she's a spy." Why is spying anti-female? Females aren't all good and altruistic-- equality means equal chance to be "bad" too. Most of the movies and TV shows are not given any real reason for being considered misogynistic, and when they are, the arguments are silly & insulting. It makes me wonder if this isn't written by someone who ISN'T a feminist to try to parody feminist ideas to discredit feminism. It's so over the top.

Anyway. I got a good laugh out of each one. I certainly am fine with both party's right to speak-- but it just goes to show a bad argument, bad rhetoric, and bad writing just aren't convincing. What did they used to say-- "Opinions are like a@@holes, everybody's got em"? Yep. Couple of opinions on each side here.