Archive for the 'Anxious masculinity' Category

What I Saw, Part II

Published at October 16, 2009 in New York Fugging City, Female trouble and Anxious masculinity. 0 Comments

Remember how I was so surprised a few weeks ago to see a woman on the back of a NYC Sanitation truck for the first time in 13 years here?

I just came back from a trip to Montreal, and the very first garbage truck I saw there had a woman on the back of it.

Methinks there might be a bit of provincialism/protectionism in the NYC Sanitation union.  But as someone on the City Council told a firefighter who was complaining about diversity meaning that guys whose fathers and uncles and brothers were firefighters couldn’t be assured of following in their footsteps:  It’s a civil service job. It’s not the family business.

Hulk Hogan, MRA

Published at April 15, 2009 in Crime, Anxious masculinity and Woman-Hating. 6 Comments

How dare the bitch leave me!

Pro wrestling legend Hulk Hogan, embroiled in a bitter divorce with his wife, Linda, told Rolling Stone magazine he can “totally understand” O.J. Simpson, the former football great found liable for the deaths of his wife and another man.

“I could have turned everything into a crime scene like O.J., cutting everybody’s throat,” Hogan said in the interview for a feature that will run in Friday’s edition of the magazine.

“You live half a mile from the 20,000-square-foot home you can’t go to anymore, you’re driving through downtown Clearwater [Florida] and see a 19-year-old boy driving your Escalade, and you know that a 19-year-old boy is sleeping in your bed, with your wife… . “I totally understand O.J. I get it,” Hogan said.

Note the possessive pronouns: it’s HIS stuff, goddammit, and HIS possessions include HIS wife. Nothing belongs to her, of course. Not even her own body. HE will decide who she can sleep with, and if it’s not him, it’s nobody.

This is exactly the kind of thing that leads to this. Or this. Or this. Or this.  Or this.

Fortunately, Linda Hogan and her attorney realize this, because she’s putting it out there:

A spokesman for Linda Hogan said Wednesday that the statement amounts to a death threat and that her attorney is “weighing all options necessary to protect his client.”

“Sadly, his recent comments remind us that his definition of fair is much different than what the law dictates,” Linda Hogan said in a written statement.

Her spokesman, Gary Smith, linked the comments to the 55-year-old Hogan’s three-decade career, during which he held multiple championship titles and, during his heyday in the 1980s, was easily the most popular wrestler in the world.

“We have always maintained that the fear that Linda has had to live with comes from the rage and instability much too often associated with pro wrestlers,” Smith said in the statement.

Though I definitely take issue with the idea that this is something limited to pro wrestlers. Sure, there have been some high-profile cases of pro wrestlers killing their families and themselves in rages, but what really fuels these guys is a frustrated sense of entitlement. There’s a reason that women are most in danger of being killed *after* they leave their abusive husbands or boyfriends. There’s a reason that MRAs are so obsessed with keeping control of their wives even after the divorce, through use of the courts or playing games with child support. There’s a reason that MRAs are so obsessed with bitches “getting themselves pregnant” just to trap them and take their money.

And there’s a reason a guy I met through OK Cupid last week (and I think the issue there is the free nature of the site attracting the freaks, not any sort of personal tear in the space-time continuum that keeps feeding me these jokers) went off on a long, angry screed about two women with whom he’d been on dates who’d committed the mortal sin of not reaching for their wallets on the first date when the lunch check came — to the point where he bailed on the second one in the middle of the date, called her from Starbucks to tell her she was old enough to pay for her own fucking lunch, and then passed the phone to some strange man (for some bros-before-hos support, I suppose) when she started yelling at him for being an asshole.

I failed to find this amusing, and told him so. And for pointing out that at age 41, he should really learn how to negotiate the lunch check in a civilized manner if he wants to go Dutch treat instead of running out the back door and then enlisting strangers in his efforts to avoid the consequences of such behavior, I got the following from him: “No bitch tells me to buy her lunch.”

When I responded that I considered bullet dodged, thanks much and happy hunting, he emailed back, “blow me.”

“Not,” I replied, “if your dick were made of chocolate.”

Zero to “blow me” took about four emails. If he ever manages to marry anyone, he will undoubtedly wind up in divorce court singing the same sort of tune as Hulk Hogan.

Oh. Boo. Hoo.

Published at March 12, 2009 in Female trouble, Sex miseducation, Anxious masculinity, Woman-Hating and Dipshittery. 7 Comments

How little sympathy do I have for Travis Henry?

Travis Henry was rattling off his children’s ages, which range from 3 to 11. He paused and took a breath before finishing.

This was no simple task. Henry, 30, a former N.F.L. running back who played for three teams from 2001 to 2007, has nine children — each by a different mother, some born as closely as a few months apart.

Reports of Henry’s prolific procreating, generated by child-support disputes, have highlighted how futile the N.F.L.’s attempts can be at educating its players about making wise choices. The disputes have even eclipsed the attention he received after he was indicted on charges of cocaine trafficking.

“They’ve got my blood; I’ve got to deal with it,” Henry said of fiscal responsibilities to his children. He spoke by telephone from his Denver residence, where he was under house arrest until recently for the drug matter.

Henry had just returned from Atlanta, where a judge showed little sympathy for his predicament during a hearing and declined to lower monthly payments from $3,000 for a 4-year-old son.

Three days after the telephone interview, he was jailed for falling $16,600 behind on support for a youngster in Frostproof, Fla., his hometown.

“I love all my kids,” he said in the interview, but asserted he could not afford the designated amounts, estimated at $170,000 a year by Randy Kessler, his Atlanta lawyer. Kessler said Henry was virtually broke.

$170,000 a year works out to $18,888.88 on average per child.  Obviously, some are getting more, such as the 4-year-old in Atlanta, but it works out to an average of $1574 per month per child.  Which is neither a huge burden for a pro football player with a $20 million contract *nor* a huge amount of money relative to what it costs to clothe, feed, educate, shelter, entertain and transport a child.  His cocaine habit probably cost more per month.

Actually, he got cut loose from the team because of injuries and the cocaine thing.  So he’s only been paid $6.7 million.  Are those tiny violins I hear? Continue reading ‘Oh. Boo. Hoo.’

David Brooks soils himself in fear over Michelle Obama’s biceps

Published at March 8, 2009 in Political theater, Anxious masculinity, Woman-Hating and Dipshittery. 5 Comments

Let’s ignore for the moment all the other dreck in this typically specious MoDo column. Let’s focus on the glimpse she gives us into the psyche of David Brooks:

Let’s face it: The only bracing symbol of American strength right now is the image of Michelle Obama’s sculpted biceps. Her husband urges bold action, but it is Michelle who looks as though she could easily wind up and punch out Rush Limbaugh, Bernie Madoff and all the corporate creeps who ripped off America.

In the taxi, when I asked David Brooks about her amazing arms, he indicated it was time for her to cover up. “She’s made her point,” he said. “Now she should put away Thunder and Lightning.”

I’d seen the plaint echoed elsewhere. “Someone should tell Michelle to mix up her wardrobe and cover up from time to time,” Sandra McElwaine wrote last week on The Daily Beast.

Washington is a place where people have always been suspect of style and overt sexuality. Too much preening signals that you’re not up late studying cap-and-trade agreements.

David was not smitten by the V-neck, sleeveless eggplant dress Michelle wore at her husband’s address to Congress — the one that caused one Republican congressman to whisper to another, “Babe.”

He said the policy crowd here would consider the dress ostentatious. “Washington is sensually avoidant. The wonks here like brains. She should not be known for her physical presence, for one body part.” David brought up the Obamas’ obsession with their workouts. “Sometimes I think half the reason Obama ran for president is so Michelle would have a platform to show off her biceps.”

Oh. My. Continue reading ‘David Brooks soils himself in fear over Michelle Obama’s biceps’

Question for the ages

Published at January 14, 2009 in Religious nuts, Anxious masculinity and Woman-Hating. 3 Comments

What is it with all these dudes who think that a worldview that requires the submission and suppression of women (and, in this case, any dissent) in order to lift up men is “edgy,” “cool,” “punk” or in any way transgressive?

Sounds like the regular state of play for about the last 5 million years.

Oh, but this one’s got tattoos!  And plays loud music!  Must be edgy!

See also Jill from a couple of years back.

Credit where credit is due

Published at November 20, 2008 in The Teevee, Hear me roar and Anxious masculinity. 3 Comments

I watch a lot of Discovery Channel shows, and one of the things that’s always bugged me is the dearth of women on them, especially as they indulge their hardon for Manly Men in Manly-Men occupations.  Mythbusters has broken my heart by getting rid of Scottie and interns Christine and Jess, a welder and two engineers, and keeping Kari.  Who, while she pulls her weight and does a good job blowing things up, seems to have passed the producers’ test because of her looks rather than her skills.  The message seems to be that you can be accepted as the exceptional woman in the boys’ club by being hawt.

But now they have a new show, Time Warp, which seems to be quietly challenging that male dominance.  The basic premise of the show is to do various things and film them with high-speed cameras so that they can be played back very slowly and you can see what’s going on.   They’ve slowed down water droplets, wet dogs shaking off, a pole vaulter, car crashes, etc.  I started watching because some of the slo-mo over the credits looked really cool.

The hosts are two guys, Jeff and Matt.  Matt’s the high-speed camera guy, and Jeff is some kind of unspecified scientist and artist.  The show is based in Boston, and they use a lot of local experts to do various things or explain various things for the cameras.

But here’s the cool part:  a lot of those experts are women.  The pole vaulter, for example, and two archers (who were actually girls, since they were Junior Olympians), a pool player, a woman who was doing something with nails and steel-toed boots (I just caught the end of it last night).  And there are more pictured in the credits, but I haven’t seen all those shows.

I have to say, I’m impressed (I’d be even more impressed if there were more people of color included as well).  Given that the default expert is almost always male unless it’s a particularly “female” area of knowledge, the fact that they use women as experts for things that men do as well is very encouraging to me.  And they don’t make a big deal of it, either, it’s just, “So-and-so is a nationally ranked pool player who has won this and that title,” “Frick and Frack are archers who compete in the Junior Olympics,” “Thus-and-so is a pole vaulter on the University of Massachusetts track team.”

It’s a small thing, but it matters.  It matters because it shows women having skills, being expert at those skills, and being recognized for that expertise.  It shows that women can be accepted as authority figures.

And as for Mythbusters, they’ve gone from having a cast that was half female to doing a Kill Bill movie myth that was specifically about a woman (Uma Thurman being buried alive and punching out of the casket) and then using a male martial arts expert to determine whether “you” could punch through the casket and how much force could be generated.  Boo.

Welcome to the wonderful world of dating!

Published at December 22, 2007 in I will die alone eaten by my pets, Anxious masculinity, Vanity and Dipshittery. 20 Comments

Or, why Zuzu prefers to scratch the itch without getting emotionally involved at this point.

After reading some of the responses to this guest-post by Linnaeus over at Feministe, I decided that I’d give OK Cupid a try. It’s been a while since I’ve done any real online dating-dating, at least not since Nerve went from a buy-credits-to-send-emails model to a per-month-charge model, along with a really ugly site redesign. And since I don’t really get out all that much anymore, I’m not meeting a whole lot of men through activities (yes, I need to change that, for reasons apart from meeting men. I’m working on it). Mostly, I’ve been on, ahem, “alternative” personals sites for the aforementioned itch-scratching, but that’s been hit or miss, too. But at least there are no illusions, and few games, because everyone knows what you’re there for. Not that it keeps some guys from freaking out anyway, but that’s not my problem.

Anyway, for various reasons, I’m looking for a little something more. So in goes the toe.

I signed up Thursday, my profile got approved Friday, and I began filling it out and answering questions this morning. The first email I got was while I was still filling out the profile, and asked me why no picture. Had I known how that one would end up, I’d have ended it right there. But more about him later. Continue reading ‘Welcome to the wonderful world of dating!’

Why so angry?

Published at December 16, 2007 in work work work, I see fat people, Anxious masculinity and Woman-Hating. 8 Comments

So I’m reading this piece in Broadsheet the other day about a new paper on a study demonstrating that white women are most affected in terms of salary and promotion for being fat,* and against my better judgment, I looked in the comments. As you might expect, the usual suspects brought up the usual moral panic about fat people and healthcare (as do the commenters at a posting on the New Economist’s blog about the study, and their comments are even worse), but one person made an interesting observation:

In addition to the “you can if you really WANT to,” the “prove yourself” and all the other self-help that is more useful and more kindly meant, people have bought up the insensate, profane and semi-literate rage that is often expressed by men and women alike when the subject of obese white women is dragged into editorial columns yet again.

From the especially vitriolic women, I think it’s a way of women establishing superiority over other women while expressing fear of losing status in their subtext. “I’m not like that. I’m not fat. I’m not disgusting. I’m special — but, oh God, what happens if I gain weight? No, I’ve got to hate this so I won’t and can maintain my special perfect thinness.” Barf. And many of them do.

From the especially vitriolic men, it’s “how dare these THINGS not do everything they can to ‘prove themselves’ in our eyes, but instead OFFEND those eyes. They’re not LISTENING TO US.” These characters, especially the semi-literates, seem to think it’s the right of every man, regardless of how he looks, to have arm candy of his very own and to judge women who don’t meet that standard for whatever reasons. Thyroid, anyone? Water retention? How about pregnancy? Want a woman with a big belly to hide out lest your eyes be offended? Repeat after me, and without four-letter words, IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU.

I really wonder if this is the extent of it. The gibbering and incoherent rage that comes up when this subject is raised is really astonishing, especially that from men, and especially men who seem to think that they’ll be FORCED to find fat women attractive if fat somehow becomes acceptable.

Which I always think is rather revealing, because who’s to say fat women think you’re attractive, punkin?

But I do think this status thing ties into this terror of having to accept fat people, particularly fat women, and especially particularly fat white women. It’s like some kind of advance case of cooties or something, where the very idea of being seen as accepting a fat person as a human being might contaminate that person. And I’m sure a lot of it is simple social anxiety and far too much emphasis on status and the “market value” of one’s mate (which seems to be a big thing in libertarian circles these days). Because you might secretly be attracted to fat women, but you wouldn’t want anyone else to know about it, so you have to loudly proclaim how disgusting they are.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t a significant feeling that fat women — you know, the kind of women who are supposed to be unattractive and unsuccessful at love — are getting away with something by having sex and relationships and being seen as attractive while not in possession of a body that shows proper conformity with the prevalent standards of beauty and the time, money and energy required to achieve them.

Thoughts? Why do you think there’s so very, very much anger and seething rage directed towards fat people, and especially fat women?

________

* There was no effect on the wages of white men, and black men actually benefited from gaining weight (probably because they were seen as less sexually threatening or something). Black women had an interesting wage progression: the thinnest black women made less than average-sized black women, but wages declined if they got heavier (though not as significantly as they did for white women). One commenter suggested that part of the disparity could be explained by white women getting a premium for being thin.

Hmm, interesting twist

Published at September 4, 2007 in Political theater, Pantysniffing, Schadenfreudelicious and Anxious masculinity. 0 Comments

Larry Craig now says he just may not resign after all:

“It’s not such a foregone conclusion anymore, that the only thing he could do was resign,” Sidney Smith, Craig’s spokesman in Idaho’s capital, told The Associated Press.

“We’re still preparing as if Senator Craig will resign Sept. 30, but the outcome of the legal case in Minnesota and the ethics investigation will have an impact on whether we’re able to stay in the fight — and stay in the Senate,” Smith said.

Craig, a Republican who has represented Idaho in Congress for 27 years, announced Saturday that he intends to resign from the Senate on Sept. 30. But since then, he’s hired a prominent lawyer to investigate the possibility of reversing his plea, his spokesman said.

He probably should have hired a lawyer to begin with, rather than mailing in his plea deal and expecting everything to go away.

I’m actually pretty happy that he’s deciding to fight being pushed out of the Senate over this. Oh, don’t get me wrong — the schadenfreude of all these moralizing Republicans, particularly those who, like Craig, had plenty to say about Bill Clinton, getting caught up in one sex scandal after another is like Christmas in August. But hell, why should Craig be forced out for a sex scandal that hadn’t even yet involved any sex when David Vitter, whose name appeared on the DC Madam’s phone list, is encouraged to stay?

Well, except for the fact that Vitter’s replacement would be appointed by a Democratic governor, and he went to a female prostitute, we have an answer. Of sorts:

[Mitch] McConnell, R-Ky., disputed there was a double standard in how GOP leaders reacted to Craig’s case and to the admission in July by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., that his telephone number showed up in 1999, 2000 and 2001 phone bills of an escort service that federal authorities say was a prostitution ring.

In Vitter’s case, “there have been no charges made,” McConnell said, adding that the alleged wrongdoing occurred before Vitter was a senator.

Craig, by contrast, pleaded guilty to a crime, McConnell said. “The legal case was, in effect, over. At that point, the question was for the Republican leadership, what would be our reaction to it,” he said.

Ah, yes. Because it’s the filing of charges that makes all the difference!

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Okay, maybe not. Delay actually didn’t step down until it was obvious that he wasn’t going to win re-election. It wasn’t the corruption charges.

I don’t really know what the Senate rules are regarding service after being convicted of a crime, but I would imagine they’re loose enough that low-level misdemeanors such as disorderly conduct — which is what Craig pleaded to, and what five members of Congress were arrested for outside the Sudanese embassy — are gimmes. Vitter, if the story is to be believed, participated in a crime of a more serious sort, with all sorts of potential for coercion and economic disparity. Mark Foley preyed on Congressional pages, who are not only underage, but entrusted to the care of the Congress.

The more I’m reading about the Craig case, the more I’m convinced that the cop jumped the gun — while the signaling was well-known in certain circles, how can you possibly argue that the intent to have sex then and there in the stall was crystal clear? My understanding of the foot-tapping and hand-waving code is that it’s incredibly elaborate for a couple of reasons — one, because it resembles certain things one might innocently do in a stall (tap one’s toes, wave a hand underneath a stall to get paper, checking for occupancy), it doesn’t necessarily draw attention to itself. And two, if the overture is made and either no signals or the wrong signals come through, then it’s clear that the other guy isn’t into it, and you move on. This will save you a beating. The whole point, then, is to prevent unwilling straight guys from even realizing they’re being cruised:

That said, what results! In minute, choreographic detail, Mr. Humphreys (who died in 1988) illustrated that various signals — the foot tapping, the hand waving and the body positioning — are all parts of a delicate ritual of call and answer, an elaborate series of codes that require the proper response for the initiator to continue. Put simply, a straight man would be left alone after that first tap or cough or look went unanswered.

Why? The initiator does not want to be beaten up or arrested or chased by teenagers, so he engages in safeguards to ensure that any physical advance will be reciprocated. As Mr. Humphreys put it, “because of cautions built into the strategies of these encounters, no man need fear being molested in such facilities.”

Mr. Humphreys’s aim was not just academic: he was trying to illustrate to the public and the police that straight men would not be harassed in these bathrooms. His findings would seem to suggest the implausibility not only of Senator Craig’s denial — that it was all a misunderstanding — but also of the policeman’s assertion that he was a passive participant. If the code was being followed, it is likely that both men would have to have been acting consciously for the signals to continue.

But a lot of guys seem to think that the toe-tapping is lewd in and of itself, and an actionable sexual assault and far worse than any kind of harassment a woman has to put up with on the street and deal with despite the absence of undercover cops waiting to bust catcallers and frotteurs. Certainly a few self-described liberal guys on the threads here, here and here thought so (and many more disbelieved the stories the women on the threads were telling about being harassed, demanding proof).

I would imagine this kind of butt-clenching terror that a gay guy might hit on you is one of the forces driving the GOP parade of outrage over this.

Mind you, what would be really refreshing would be if Craig started taking a look at the kind of discrimination, legislation and morals policing that drives a lot of men, men like Larry Craig, to seek anonymous sex in public restrooms, instead of living out and proud in their communities and loving whom they wish.

But I won’t hold my breath.

Dear Heineken,

Published at August 28, 2007 in Advertisers want to suck your brains, Marketing mania!, Anxious masculinity and Woman-Hating. 12 Comments

Women drink beer, too.

If you’d like women to drink your beer, perhaps you should rethink ad campaigns like this one:

That’s right up there with those Volkswagen “Fast” commercials. Remember them?

Count me as one consumer who will not be buying either a Volkswagen or Heineken.

Love,
Zuzu