I don't know how to protect kids from their peer groups

[rinue]

I continue to be horrified by contemporary American teen boy culture. I stepped out of the paint store and a group of white boys in a car started yelling "hey pussy, hey pussy, hey pussy, look at you pussy." The five women on the street immediately tensed up - but no, they continued with "does that P stand for pussy," at which point I figured out they were catcalling the one guy on the street, who had a P on his shirt that I'd guess represented some sports team or school. When one of them women was obviously upset, the boys' response was a defensive "it's okay, he's our friend." As though by yelling they weren't also talking to everyone else on the street.

It actually makes it worse that it didn't occur to them to take into account the five women present, that we were invisible to them. It's the ultimate misogyny, the ultimate entitlement, to not bother to notice who is on the street with you. What luxury to not think other people have feelings, or ears. What privilege to assume they can't or won't hurt you back. And this is Winchester. You can bet every one of the women had graduate degrees, money, lawyers, and some measure of political influence.

I don't remember it being this bad when I was younger. I don't remember white guys from 16 to 80 feeling free to call me out or shout sexual profanity without a sense that it was transgressive. Some measure of that has to come from good luck, and from being something of a hermit; I'm sure that played a factor. But I don't think that explains it all the way. I don't understand how macho culture can be so resilient, or who is passing it down, or why we seem to have decided again that it's not important. There was a moment in the late 70's and early 80's when we were going to change things. And then we didn't. Maybe it's because the Cosby Show ended. Maybe it's because Jim Henson died. I don't know.

Comments

[rinue]

You know I have issues with several aspects of the third wave, including "I will give up my life to raise my children because that is the essence of WOMAN, as is suffering." I think there's been a general lot of whining from the children of boomers, and fake spirituality, and wanting to believe the easy things are also the noble things. The self-esteem problem.

But I don't buy that it's the feminist movement's fault that sporting event culture that's been around since at least the turn of the century is still around. And I can't imagine it's feminists who are telling their sons this is okay, or telling fathers and teachers and coaches it's okay to train their sons to be this way. I also don't really think the feminist movement is responsible for the state of television.

I might think that we should be more aggressive about those things (bearing in mind that most theorists don't recognize the existence of the fourth wave and believe that people like you and me are third wave, which they say started in the 90's), but do I think we're creating them? I don't. It would be nice if it was that simple, because I think I'd have a much easier time marshaling co-feminists than marshaling everyone else.

I suspect you meant something different than how this comment comes off to me. But I don't know what that meaning is. I would have guessed that you were saying that this goes to show you can't have a feminist movement without thinking of the place of men in it, which is completely true (and as discussed is the third-wave separatist failure that has to be remedied by fourth wave), but I didn't think that was most of Haraway's argument, which I thought tried to be post-gender and therefore would include men (and which certainly wouldn't look kindly on reducing women to a body part a la "pussy"). What am I not following here?

[liquidmorpheme.livejournal.com]

For some reason my reply posted funny. It's actually above.

[rinue]

I think that's my fault. I was messing around with my comment to fix an accidental elision.