Surely, you must be joking.

[trinityvixen]

I'm not joking, and don't call me Shirley.

This is the part that made blood boil behind my eyes:
Of course, there are always those rare women who order what they want and to heck with what a man might think.

I am not comfortable enough with The New York Times' snark powers to assume that that was meant sarcastically. Not when the entire article has been rah-rah faux feminism about how the freedom to eat more than salad on a date at a restaurant is omigosh amazing!

Seriously, the women in that article make me really sad. Because through subtle encouragement all their lives, they've been told to basically have a lousy time on dates in order to have a better chance at being liked. Now, they're being told to eat meat for the same reason. Women are not garments. We are not video games. We are not avatars that you customize according to how you feel on the day you create your WoW character or the perfect out-on-the-town ensemble. There's no reason a steak-eating happy mama has to munch on leaves sprinkled with diet, no-trans-fat vinegar water dressing unless she wants to. Newsflash: anyone whose mere presence, let alone their specific command, decrees what you can or cannot eat lest you lose face? NOT WORTH SEEING PERIOD.

Another newsflash? Plenty of women go out to restaurants and order WHATEVER THE FUCK THEY FEEL LIKE. Because that's what autonomous human beings do. I know that's a SHOCK! to the Fashion section, which is too used to telling women they're too fat and poor to ever be really stylish, but it is actually the case. Stop pretending to "help" women by reassuring them that their diets, though less than the ideal 0 calorie model plan and therefore disgusting, might actually impress a man.

THE POINT OF FEMINISM IS NOT TO DEFINE WOMEN BY WHAT MEN WANT. Likewise, the point of feminism is not to encourage false masculinity defined only in the negative--i.e. everything that isn't feminine. Sheesh.

Comments

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

Wow, a feminist post on which I entirely agree with you. Weird day :)

Sadly, there are far too many women who govern their entire lifestyle by what men think. Ironically and appropriately, I have a feeling they're less successful in dating, because no man wants to date a cipher.

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

Well, no real man, anyways :)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

That's the problem. Healthy, whole, confident human beings don't want someone who will do everything to please them all the time. There's no spark of conflict or intellectual clash of ideas being brewed to form new ones. Dating someone who just sits there and does what you want? You'd save money by just getting a Real Doll. Disgusting.

And it shouldn't be surprising that you agree. Any negative opinions about feminism or feminists come from one of two overlapping areas. Either you really think that women are lesser beings, not capable of making the same choices, being hurt or happy or productive as men, or else you assume that because they want to close the gap from being considered lesser creatures that they are asking for special privileges. Feminism is not about women-first, women-best, women-only. It's perceived that way because the movement asks for equality and women have never had that.

So long as you agree women are people, too, you're a feminist. You may not identify with it--plenty of women are, unfortunately, afraid/reluctant to do so (the same proportion who let their fear of a date decide their meal choice, I'd say) because of how they will be perceived. But talk to any out-and-proud feminist, and she'll tell you the same as me.

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

Well, there's a 3rd objection to "feminism", which is mine--that the movement has gone beyond mere equality of opportunity and begun pushing for equality of outcome. I don't object to women being encouraged as much as men in math or science, but when you start favoring women over men to meet quotas, I'm no longer on board. The same goes for Title IX issues--athletics should be made available for every woman who wants to play at the college level. But if you can't find enough women to play, the college shouldn't be forced to shut down male teams to meet an artificial equality of outcome (and yes, this does happen.)

But yes, in the sense that feminism means a belief that women should be allowed to do everything that men are allowed to do, and be judged by the same standards, I am indeed a feminist.

[arcane-the-sage.livejournal.com]

Healthy, whole, confident human beings

AH, but there in lies the problem. There are very few "healthy, whole, confident human beings" around these days. Our society has a way of breaking down such folk till they are as messed up as the rest. An unwell society produces unwell people. Just take a look at the state of mental health care these days. We've begun to backslide a bit.

[kent-allard-jr.livejournal.com]

Welcome to dating in New York.

Dates are like job interviews, where candidates are often judged by all sorts of stupid, arbitrary criteria. This leads desperate people to look for ways to game the system, because they can't accept the fact that it's a game with ever-changing, unpredictable rules. (Those things that may change your chances -- getting a degree for a job, for example, or getting a boob job for a date -- are insanely costly relative to the benefits.)

It's sad that people worry about things like this, but what they do in a capricious universe. It's the foundation of self-help as a genre, which is just a step away from the superstitions of an earlier age.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Seems like if people invested in their confidence instead of assuming they are being judged constantly on everything, they'd do better. It's a bad investment.

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

He's right, though. Presumably anyone is going to try to put their best foot forward on a date - especially a first date. It's a pretty short hop from hiding your bad qualities to pretending to have certain good ones. I'm not defending the practice, and am personally glad to be out of the dating game, but it hardly seems like the worst thing ever.

I'll also note that men do the same thing. It's even noted in this article on this topic.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I dunno that I got that impression. Men seemed to order whatever they want with only the slightest, "Oh, she might disapprove of my love of grease" even hinted at.

And there is a vast difference between trying to put forward your good qualities and covering up your bad. The one is healthy, the other is suppression. Nothing ever good comes from just smothering an emotion or a quality in yourself for too long. It will lead to stress-associated responses to the person who prompts the suppression--hardly an emotionally healthy balance to strike up in a long-term relationship.

[hslayer.livejournal.com]

No, no. Men are OBLIGATED to eat grease, even if they DON'T want to. Note the mention of the $60 burger in this article, or the Seinfeld episode where he ordered "just a salad" while on a date and was haunted by it. Or even the Burger King (I think) ad you commented on not too long ago that implied eating a giant goddamn burger (even if it's a shitty fast-food burger) is MANLY.

I actually agree with your other point, which is probably why I had no success at dating for so long. People ASSUME you're going to not belch and scratch your ass and whatever else, so if you do, they assume you must be hiding even worse things. I hate it, but that's how it is. It's much more fun to sit back and watch other people go through the mating dance, I think. Unfortunately I don't think M agrees, even at this point in our relationship.

[linaerys.livejournal.com]

Oh, UGH. When are people going to realize that "being yourself" actually is the best way to meet someone to fall in love with. And yes, it's as important to fall in love as it is for someone to fall in love with you.

Yes, people want to put their best foot forward on a date, that's fine, but all this strategy BS is just as bad as ordering a salad. Eat what you want.

This tone reminds me of women's magazines whose MO is constantly forgiving the reader for the sin of being a woman and human. It's okay not to want to get a bikini wax! It's okay, we forgive you, even though you are a disgusting waste of space.

UGH.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Instead of shaming you, they apologize for you. I'd rather the shaming because I can stand up to that and go, "Fuck you, I live how I want. If it bothers you, stop paying attention to me." The apology approach fakes the "it's okay to be you!" part and takes away the triumph of actually living like that because it implies that, even though you're happy that way, there's still something wrong with you. The patronizing drives me up the wall.

[shell524.livejournal.com]

Oooh, this article. Yeah, it didn't make my blood boil (mostly because I thought it was stupid), but it did make me blink at the AMAZING double-standard that was presented.

Remember that last bit? About guys ordering what THEY want and whether women judge them based on it or not?

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

It's truly an amazing insight into the way women are raised to behave versus men. We are raised to sublimate, them to expect satisfaction. In a million ways this is held up over the formative years of one's lifetime. Sickening.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

That's the other way these kinds of articles work. If you weren't inexplicably neurotic before, they'll get to you this way. This is how they catch the 10-15% of women who didn't buy into the starving-yourself-for-attention before this.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Though I suppose a more cynical interpretation is possible.

And accurate.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I think you're reading a little too far into it. I don't think the suggestion is literally that women should do whatever they think will impress men the most, but to not avoid something that was, for no reason, apparently taboo and therefore have a better time. It just reads to me like a lot of stupid dating advice articles aimed at both men AND women.

The article may be worthless because it's one of those but I think taking a political stance on it is overreacting.

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

Now, this is another story.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

That's the hardcore version. That doesn't mean that what was being said in the article wasn't still a variation on the same idea.

[earthrise.livejournal.com]

See, I found the article pretty annoying, too, but at the same time I regularly state nearly identical sentiments as the vegetarian interviewed, namely: “Everyone wants to be the girl who drinks the beer and eats the steak and looks like Kate Hudson.”

I just thought that was "quirky" and of course unattainable given my aversion to meat and beer. Maybe it's a matter of perceived rebellion against what I always assumed was the salad-eating ideal, but a rebellion in which I couldn't take part.

Something tells me the roots are the same, but the MOs are different for the women in this article.

[wellgull.livejournal.com]

Well, I think everybody else has pretty effectively covered this topic, so let me open up another angle that hasn't been mentioned.

This article is all about constant judging. Now I'm no stranger to constantly worrying about how people are judging me, but the other creepy subtext to this article is both that Everything Is A Signal that must be sent appropriately, and also that the reader, as a woman, should actively participate in the process of constant judgment, dissecting men the way that the women themselves believe they are dissected.

Aside from the issues of specific female roles, and decisions made to please men, the article is also gross because it promotes this attitude of constant judgment. Bitter, catty, shrewish harpies are made, not born, and this is how they are made. Judgment for all!