Actually about male dominance
Julie Bindel on male violence dressed up as “protection” of women:
Sexism is a funny thing, because it presents as its own opposite. Describing women as vulnerable and in need of male protection is actually about male dominance and attempts at ownership.
…
Has [Will] Smith ever spoken out publicly and passionately against sexism? Would he have kicked off if [Chris] Rock had made similar remarks about another woman? Of course not: only his property gets protected. I make no distinction here between Smith and any other posturing, macho male.
Unlike, she adds, commentators who call that racist.
TeenVogue magazine, for example, continued its valiant tradition of promoting anything harmful to young women by publishing a piece that describes criticism of Smith as “weaponized white womanhood”.
Oh lord. Now I’ll have to read that one too.
“Teen Vogue” ffs. What could be more capitalist and status quo-embracing than a fashion magazine for laydeez? Yet they keep putting on this pseudo-radical disguise to tell us girls have to enjoy anal and must embrace their trans sisters and are racist if they criticize male violence.
A Guardian op-ed on the incident actually included the term “performative pearl clutching” to describe white women objecting to violence when perpetrated by a black man. I can only assume that in the imagination of the writer, black women don’t mind violence being perpetrated on black men, so long as black men are the ones doing it, and also that white women should only comment on the behaviour of white men.
Correct, because Karens.
I have heard excuses for both Rock and Smith about how both men come from communities where when words are ineffective in solving a problem, fists can be. I also come from a community where this was the case, but there lies the problem. To varying degrees, so do all women. That community is patriarchy, and how it works is that when women can’t be manipulated into compliance, violence is always an option.
Nailed it. As usual.
So you can take the man out of the violence, but you can’t take the violence out of the man?
I don’t understand the question.
This reminds me of that piece not that long ago that objected to white women (and maybe any women) reporting rape, because it supported our “carceral” society and harmed black men…apparently even when the rapist is not black! The very fact of acknowledging that rape happens is apparently racist now. (And kink-shaming, I bet.)
Patriarchal males must LOVE the ‘feminists’ doing their work for them.
It’s racist because, as already pointed out, criticism of one member of a marginalized group is criticism of the group per se. There is no conceptual separation between the two. So, ya know, stay in your lane.
Eh, that’s a rather broad brush. Can describing women as vulnerable and in need of protection be sexist? Yes. On the other hand, women are vulnerable. That’s kind of a big reason feminism exists. Do women need protection? Will the only available protection sometimes be male? Will the only effective option from those available sometimes be male? Yes, yes, and yes. Ergo, women sometimes need male protection.
Like … seriously. This is how people forget that males have a material advantage in athletics.
@2 From the old saying ‘You can take the boy out of the country…’
The discourse around this is so dumb… one rich macho idiot hit another rich macho idiot at an awards show hardly anyone watches anymore. He shouldn’t have done it, but so what? Why is this important?
Fucking Twitter…
It isn’t particularly important, which is why I ignored it (I think) until this post, but I think Julie’s piece is interesting independent of the rich dudes story.
It’s only important inasmuch as one believes that such things can influence popular opinion and behavior. I could certainly see its affecting a certain rainbow beat-wielding set’s willingness to engage in physical violence. After all, there’s not much air between “punch a Nazi” and “punch a TERF” as it stands.
The behavior is human… Condoning that behavior is the mindset of savages. When right-wingers rail about progressives hating civilization they’ve got a point, but not one that looks good in the mirror.
Neither autarchy and theism nor anarchy and nihilism, please.