I take it we're too sexy for you?

[CN: Sexual harassment, bullying, victim-blaming]

I want to talk about a few things that have been on my mind lately that were crystallized in this post over at Geek Feminism.

The post begins with a story about a girl in first-grade who was bullied for bringing a Star Wars water bottle to school. It got so bad she wanted to bring a pink bottle instead, just to avoid being teased. This story generated a lot of sympathy and even action on her behalf:

“Katie’s story went viral including at the official Star Wars blog and a year later CNN reported that at GeekGirlCon when a brigade of Storm Troopers formed an honor guard for Katie, and that there’s an annual Wear Star Wars day as a result. We had our own smaller burst of geek support on the Geek Feminism blog in May this year, for five year old Maya, who was turning away from her love of cars and robots...In addition, it wasn’t an especially difficult thread to moderate as I recall: a few trolls showed up to tell Maya goodness knows what (sudo make me a sandwich LOL?) but in general people left warm, honest, open stories of their geek life for Maya.”

Just as Mary specified in her post, I also want to clarify that I think this kind of support is a very positive thing. But I too have to ask: why doesn’t this degree of unified, unequivocal support exist for women who point out gender-based bullying and harassment, especially in male-dominated spheres? What about cases of sexual harassment or rape?

I think one important distinction lies in the latter: much of the harassment women discuss is different precisely because it is more likely to be sexual. Mary briefly alludes to this contrast too:

“What they don’t seem to have in common is a universal condemnation from geekdom: bullying children? Totally evil. Harassing adults? Eh… evil, except you know, he’s such a great guy, and he hasn’t got laid in a while, and (trigger warning for rapist enabling) he does have the best gaming table, so what are you gonna do, huh?”

But I think this point merits deeper analysis, particularly because it accounts for a broad array of bullying women face, as distinct from the kind that Katie and Maya dealt with. This type of bullying exists on a continuum:

• Targeting a woman’s presumed sexuality or promiscuity as a way to justify disrespect, invalidation or exclusion (this is especially relevant in geek culture)

• Targeting a woman’s presumed sexuality as a way to demean them, by using hyper-sexualized rhetoric and slurs and/or pornographic imagery (which Anita Sarkeesian discussed as just one component of the bullying* she faces online)
• Sexual harassment
• The threat of or act of sexual assault and rape

You may be thinking: how does this relate to the topic at hand? A couple ways: 1) I’d venture to say that the above encompasses the vast majority of bullying that women face and discuss (whether in geek culture or not). Any discussion about the bullying and exclusion [geek] women face is woefully incomplete if sexual harassment/violence isn’t also addressed and 2) I think it’s another important component in understanding why the same people that felt sympathy for Katie and Maya will feel far less for [geek] women who experience this kind of bullying.

I understand that there are a lot of reasons that Katie and Maya received more sympathy than adult women, and Mary already discussed a lot of them. Thus, I’m not arguing that sexual harassment is the only factor or even the most important factor in explaining this difference in sympathy. But I think it's an important factor that merits more discussion.

Let’s use Katie’s story as an example. Perhaps her story seemed universal to other geeks and that made it easier for a broad array of them to empathize with her--after all, she was being teased and bullied for being different and for her “geeky” interests.** But what exactly did those boys say to her that made her feel bad? Well, isn’t that a ridiculously callous question? All we need to know is it was bad enough to make her cry and no longer want to take her Star Wars water bottle. In the face of her unhappiness, I’m betting no one would feel right about grilling her, especially with an aim to argue that she somehow wasn’t justified in feeling that way.

But once you reach adulthood, that callous reaction becomes much more commonplace when talking about harassment and exclusion; people want to know what happened, largely so they can assess whether they find your emotional response justifiable. “Wait, what made you feel uncomfortable? Oh, that? That isn’t even a big deal/That wouldn’t bother me/Others have it worse/Can’t you take a joke/You should just suck it up/Well, if you don’t like it, you can just go somewhere else/It’s part of the culture” etc.

I acknowledge that part of this callousness is due to the fact that there’s less compassion for adults, regardless of their gender. But that doesn’t account for all of it. The problem is compounded when a)the harassment is sexual and b)the victim is a woman. 

For one, the lack of empathy (“this isn’t a big deal”) can be tied to a lack of perspective: not everyone experiences sexual harassment, and men certainly don’t experience it on the same scale or in the same way that women do, so it may be more difficult for them to empathize (this of course doesn’t give them a free pass,  just explains why some men have trouble being sympathetic). Some men don’t understand the ways that sexual harassment and bullying can make the victim feel uncomfortable, alienated, or even unsafe because they’ve never been subjected to it. And of course, some men just don’t care either way because they’re not personally hurt or excluded by it, and in fact, enjoy being able to harass women and and don’t want to give it up. If they felt sympathy for one victim of sexual harassment, wouldn’t they have to question their own behavior? Cognitive dissonance? Oh no, we can’t have that!

For another, sexual harassment opens the door to victim-blaming in a way that is far less feasible in cases like Katie’s. No one asks if there was something Katie did that meant she was “asking for it” or deserved to be bullied. But in the case of sexual harassment, there will probably be a lot of interest in what the victim was wearing, whether she was being flirtatious, whether she was drunk, etc. (i.e., victim-blaming and slut-shaming). This means that, for some people, sympathy for women who’ve been sexually harassed is conditioned on whether they conform to the flawed notions of what a truly “blameless victim” looks like.

With all of this in mind, let’s take one more look at Katie’s story. What moved people? I think it was ultimately because it was sad to think of her giving up something she loved, something that made her happy, all just to avoid being made fun of. It was sad to think that gradually, she might change herself and her interests to avoid being targeted, instead of just being herself. And it was sad to think that all of this trouble was caused by some arbitrary, baseless notion that she wasn’t supposed to like Star Wars because it was “for boys.” But the point is: all of that is still sad regardless of her age, interests or the nature of the bullying.  And it happens all the time (and this is only the tip of the iceberg.)

-C

*Yup, bullying, not “trolling.” Jay Smooth does a great job explaining why these coordinated attacks should not be understood as harmless trolling, but as an effort to intimidate, bully and silence. I want this distinction to catch on because it’s essential to understanding the nature of harassment and bullying in a digital world.

**Although Nick Mamatas makes a good case that the perception that geeks are bullied for their interests does not reflect reality, I’ll still argue that the perception is fairly strong, and was probably at play in this case.

"Fifty shades of fucked up"...yeah that pretty much sums it up

[CN: Abuse, misogyny]

Many writers and bloggers are weighing in on the success of Fifty Shades of Grey. While most can agree that the writing is abysmal, the story itself has proven polarizing, with readers either loving it despite its flaws or hating it.  For context, I’ll provide a basic plot summary of the first book in the trilogy (SPOILERS AHEAD): A 24 year old virginal college graduate named Anastasia Steele falls for a 26 year old business magnate named Christian Grey, who in turn wants her to sign a contract that would make her his submissive sex slave. The contract also stipulates what she eats, when she eats it, what clothes she wears, how she exercises, and prohibits eye contact or touching him without permission. Fifteen women have signed this contract before Ana. Ana NEVER ACTUALLY SIGNS the contract, and asks for some time to think it over (really? You’re not going to make a run for the door after hearing about this shit?) During that time, he is still a controlling, abusive dick, and she has conventional “vanilla” sex with him. Eventually she has sex as his sub three times, twice where he spanks her with his hand and the third time where beats her with a feathered flogger. While she does orgasm from these activities, she tells him she would prefer a more “normal” sexual relationship and only agrees to these activities for his sake. But Christian still wants to inflict real pain on her, so after he beats her bare bottom with a belt, she tearfully leaves him, saying that they’re incompatible (oh, okay, THAT’S the problem, not that he’s a control-freak, misogynist, and doesn't care about getting your enthusiastic consent). At some point we learn that Christian had a difficult childhood in which his "crack-whore" mother’s boyfriend/pimp burned out cigarettes on his chest, and an older woman made him her sub when he was 15, which I guess is supposed to make us forgive him for his misogyny. 
 
Despite its laughable execution, the book has sold many copies among both young and middle-aged women. Granted, maybe one of the reasons why this story has been able to get so much traction among female readers is because its poor execution made it easy to dismiss the more troubling aspects of it and take it as light entertainment/escapism and erotic stimulation. But I don’t think it’s that simple. In order to like Fifty Shades of Grey in any capacity, you have to be okay with a male/dominant/active and female/submissive/passive dynamic. Although the more intense, extreme BDSM erotica (like Story of O) may not be as popular as the comparatively more watered-down Fifty Shades, subtler versions of the dom/sub relationship between men and women is echoed across TV, cinema, other erotica, and even more high-brow literature. 

I have no issue with women reading and enjoying erotica, and support women engaging their sexuality. I’m also not judging those who found the love story of Ana and Christian compelling. But I never stop there and say to myself “well, people like what they like, and that’s all there is to it” because there are a lot of deeper implications here that didn’t start with this book but are encapsulated within it and its popularity. If women weren’t historically taught to be and socially constructed as submissive, if abuse, violence, and rape were no longer present in society, and if men weren’t largely the beneficiaries of female submission, whether social or sexual, maybe I wouldn’t feel such a strong urge to write this post. But that isn’t the world we live in, and it’s delusional to believe that any art, no matter how stupid or bad or fluffy or purely about entertainment, fantasy, and pleasure, can be divorced from societal and cultural conditioning. At its core, this book is about excusing a man’s attempt to control a woman and fetishizing male domination and female submission. Again, the latter has been going on in erotica and porn for years, and is nothing new. The book is also about a woman compromising her own happiness and comfort in order to not only secure a relationship with a man (even when he explicitly says he doesn’t want one) but also to tame him and change him into the "nice guy" she wants him to be. This is also a conventional theme in romance. And they are both damaging ideas that usually do not end up so neatly when played out in real life.
 
Many people seem to believe that fiction/fantasy, especially erotic and romantic fantasy, is immune from cultural conditioning--- as though for some inexplicable reason, it is a space of total freedom and organic expression. But the truth is, there is no space like that; or at least, never one that isn’t agonized over, analyzed, critiqued, and fought for. I know there are some who don’t care about the sociopolitical origins and implications of anything they do--- least of all in the pursuit of the almighty orgasm. But when it comes to fetishizing a woman’s pain and utter subordination (to the point where it’s encoded in a contract), when a woman's pain is so often dismissed and when she is so often made to be subordinate in real life... I mean, fuck. The fact that a woman wrote it this book means little when the script is so utterly conventional to patriarchal erotic imagination. The voice and point-of-view might be different, but the basic dynamic of dominant male and submissive female, is the same. It’s male fantasy, internalized by a woman and re-packaged as authentic female expression. Some people seem to believe that the scenario in the book is fresh and edgy, like it isn’t just some bare-faced, extreme version of sexual relations between men and women throughout history. The success of the book underscores the success of the patriarchal project. As Ashley Judd stated cogently in her recent and awesome feminist article addressed to those who criticize her based on her appearance:

“Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges, inter alia, the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women. It is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it”.

Whether it was the sex scenes or the romance that readers enjoyed, how the hell did Christian’s obsession with contractual slavery thing, even in the face of Ana's reluctance, not disrupt that enjoyment? “Love” and “great sex” make that kind of behavior okay? Or does it only make him more attractive to some readers?
  
Despite having all the qualities of a misogynist, Christian has moments of being a decent human being; apparently he doesn't take advantage of Ana when she's drunk, asks her permission before they have sex for the first time, and wears condoms each time they have sex subsequently. However, he does not ask permission for all subsequent sex and sexual activity, even the more extreme ones, despite the fact that it is all new to Ana. Obviously, the sex-slave contract is the antithesis of consensus-building, so it’s not a priority for him. Even during the first time they have sex, once Ana agrees, he goes full-out and does not pace himself, which doesn’t usually work out well for virgins. This isn’t just me promoting the Feminist values of trust-building and consensus-reaching; even BDSM in practice is supposed to be built on trust, safety, defined boundaries and a respect for those boundaries: “many practitioners and organizations have adopted the motto...’Safe, sane and consensual’, commonly abbreviated as "SSC," which means that everything is based on safe activities, that all participants be of sufficiently sound/sane mind to consent, and that all participants do consent. It is mutual consent which makes a clear legal and ethical distinction between BDSM and such crimes as sexual assault or domestic violence. ...Consent is the most important criterion here. The consent and compliance for a sadomasochistic situation can be granted only by people who are able to judge the potential results. For their consent, they must have relevant information (extent to which the scene will go, potential risks, if a safeword will be used, what that is, and so on.) at hand and the necessary mental capacity to judge".


Whether these principles are followed by BDSM practitioners is another matter (hint: not always, as I discuss later). But my point is that even a community that is built on edgy sexual practices and performing abuse and degradation scenarios values consent; indeed, recognizes that consent is even more important for this extreme sexual play, to differentiate it from sexual assault. So in case it wasn’t already clear, I’m not criticizing this book out of some knee-jerk, prudish aversion to BDSM. I don't believe that practicing BDSM nullifies one's desires for social equality or one's commitment to Feminism. However, I maintain that female domination and female submission are NOT socially equivalent acts; the latter is bolstered by a history of oppression and its continuing forms in society, while the former is not and can arguably subvert existing gender dichotomies. It is also important to remember that BDSM, regardless of the "role" a practitioner takes, does not exist in a vacuum and thus is not removed from our social context.

 
I’m sure some might say that it’s easy for me to judge behavior I don’t partake in (erotic fantasies of submission, in this case) but that if I did, I would defend it more. Well, those people would be wrong. I’m ashamed to say that I have in fact had such fantasies (not about being physically hit, but certainly submission). It’s not like I want people who have submission fantasies to feel my same sense of shame (it's my issue to work out), but I do want everyone to recognize that our fantasies--- like everything else we like, feel, and do--- have some underlying socio-political and psychological reasons. And maybe, when it comes to enjoying the thought of being hurt or submitting ourselves to someone else’s power (or fantasizing about dominating and hurting someone), we should ask ourselves what those reasons might be. To some, it's a meaningless question, I know; all they need to know is that they like something, so they shouldn't be shamed for it. I agree they shouldn't be shamed (if enthusiastic consent is given by their partners) but still the question of why we like these things has always preoccupied me personally.
 
This does not mean I support evo-psychologists making sweeping claims about all women based on the book, which is exactly what happened in this pseudo-scientific post that states that women are “biologically hard-wired” to be sexually aroused by submission. This arguement not only renders invisible those women who do not have submission fantasies or who have domination fantasies, but also legitimizes male dominance as a biologically imperative. For a good rebuttal to this garbage, see here. Others have made the argument that enjoying submissiveness is transgressive and revolutionary because it’s what the “feminist regime” (uh, what?) doesn’t want you to do. But I think this book is totally counter-revolutionary; it’s the same old conservative, patriarchal inequality and indifference to consent, this time through a woman’s (poorly written) voice. Not only that, but I think the appeal of female sexual submission can be linked back to purity--- if you relinquish control in the bedroom, then you’re not a slut, or you’re at least less of one. “Sluts” seek out sex, rather than waiting for love, the way “good girls” do. I think there is so little openness and honesty in dealing with women’s sexuality that it’s difficult for some women to even imagine participating in it, especially because they’re not quite sure what it will entail. So they imagine someone aggressively taking it instead. Someone experienced, to compensate for their utter lack of experience (that society told them to have, otherwise they would be slut-shamed and not taken seriously). I'm not making the generalization that this is the reason behind all women enjoying sexual submission, but I think it can be a factor.
 
The book certainly seems to support this--- the protagonist is a virgin. This authorial decision could also be based on making the experiences more intense and new, and for the reader to put themselves in the intensity of Anastasia's position, but it’s also about not viewing the protagonist as some “nympho” who we can’t take seriously, and who (gasp!) might not be there for love at all, just a good time. The whole female virgin with the experienced partner is also a male fantasy, by the way. I think the fantasy has just trickled down to women, who are allowed by mainstream mdiums so little space to create more organic, subversive sexual fantasies of their own that aren’t just reproduction of men’s. The virgin/experienced lover is also just another permutation of the submissive/dominant dynamic; Christian is deemed superior to Ana with his wealth of experience.
 
The fact that the story arose out of Twilight fan fiction is telling. Twilight itself is about a girl subordinating herself to the ultimate alpha male who she is convinced, we are told ad nauseum, is smarter, stronger, and better-looking than her. Stephanie Meyers claimed in a response to Fifty Shades of Grey that BDSM is “not [her] thing”, but isn’t the dom/sub dynamic what Twilight is all about, even if it doesn’t play out in overtly sexual ways (at first)? If it isn’t about masochism, why does Bella’s first sexual encounter with Edward result in bruises, and she likes it? Why is she so amenable to the thought of him killing her violently, and only seems more drawn to him after she learns that he is perpetually on the verge of doing so? Both stories involve women who have no regard for their well-being, who are consumed in their obsession with the alpha-male. Fifty Shades of Grey just takes a more overtly sexualized approach and adds some BDSM flavor to the same tired, damaging idea.

  This ties into what is one of the worst things about Fifty Shades of Grey--- that abusers would read it or hear about it and think “see? Women actually get off on this stuff--- they pretend they don’t like it but deep down, they want to be dominated,coerced, controlled, even when they express reluctance and don't give enthusiastic consent”. They’ll think that sexual submission and pain is what the erotic is all about, and even women know it. I’m aware that this isn’t exactly what the author was saying and in a sense, it isn’t her fault that misogynist sickos would misinterpret her work that way. However, all artists should try to be aware of how their work will be interpreted. What does their work support and perpetuate? What does it stifle and negate?

It's important to reiterate that Anastasia isn't giving her informed consent for BDSM play--- she deliberately puts herself in situations she is not comfortable with and frequently alludes to her fear of Christian, while he frequently states his desire to inflict her with real pain (note: THIS IS MISOGYNY. It’s not even subtle here). He also frequently asks her to “trust him” when she seems uncertain of something, but he hasn’t earned her trust at all, and in fact, given his uncontrollable sadistic urges, it seems like he would very likely violate her trust. And he pretty much does when he beats her with the belt, but the seriousness of that is downplayed in the book as a conflict of desires rather than a violation of Ana’s very legitimate boundaries. In real life, those types of situations can go much worse.  Case-in-point: there was a similar situation recently called the “Philadephia incident” described here:

“The “Philadelphia Incident” concerns a younger, inexperienced female submissive who entered into a domination and submission relationship with an older dominant man. Her limits were violated and she was forced to enter into oral sex with the man against her will. Some people in the BDSM community are calling this rape. Some people have suggested that the submissive woman consented. Others have criticised the submissive woman for not fully understanding what she was getting herself into. The young woman has now been run out of her home due to the criticism, publicity, and notoriety she has faced.”

In fact, rape and sexual assault are common in the BDSM community (which shouldn’t come as much of a surprise; if it happens in the “vanilla” world, too why wouldn’t it happen there?). Putting yourself in the power of a person you don’t know can be unsafe, but the story makes it only seem titillating and exciting. I’m not victim-blaming; ultimately it’s the perpetrator who is responsible, and we must never lose sight of that. But it makes me depressed to see women swooning over an image of masculinity that is predatory, controlling, insensitive, and uninterested or flat-out unwilling to put you on equal terms. Christian is portrayed as a character who is beyond simply role-playing as a dominator; it's who he is. 
 
If a reader's attraction to this character-type feels beyond their control, I hope they can at least recognize its problematic relationship to patriarchal history, gender norms, and the oppression of women on a macro-level. At the very, very least, recognize its real-life dangers on a micro-level. Controlled role-playing is one thing, but it doesn't always take that form; some men like to dominate you in other areas of your life, too. And if you stay with a man who wants to hurt and control you, who views you as a thing to dominate and abuse rather than a human being, if he wants you to fear rather than love him, if he does not respect your independence and views you as inferior... then he will. And I don’t buy that a man like that can suddenly make a total 180 and become grade-A husband material. Sure, an abuser is not a villain-ish abuser 100% of the time; they have moments of contrition, tenderness, vulnerability, interspersed throughout their violent abusive periods. It’s precisely this inconsistency that usually causes the abused to stay in the relationship, believing that their partner is on the cusp of changing into someone who will not make them afraid and hurt them anymore. Even if the abuser professes that they want to change, they usually relapse. Sometimes their promises of change are only more manipulation to put their partner right back under their control. But in part because of stories like this, women often believe that love, and making sacrifices and suffering for love, are the noblest, highest aims, and that you just don’t understand, she can take it, and he’s actually a great guy once you get to know him, but he’s just damaged, she’s trying to “heal” him and maybe one day he’ll change and maybe sometimes it’s her fault for being too demanding or nagging or unreasonable and he just gets jealous because he loves her so much. I know because I’ve heard this all before. And it makes me angry to know that these men are rewarded and validated with love, because they don’t deserve it. At least not until they honestly change and stop abusing, which won’t be easy or instantaneous.
 
I’ve heard the bad boy that women stereotypically “want” described as a coconut; hard on the outside, but soft and sweet on the inside. This is a dangerous way to think of people. You can’t ignore outward behavior and focus only on some elusive interior that contains wonderful potential that you must bring out, that will come into prominence in the future. Take them as they are. The hard shell isn’t a shell at all--- that’s part of who they are. If they hurt you now, they very well might always hurt you.

There are those that would say “but it’s just one book, it’s not reality”. They would say that the Philadelphia incident and real-life abuse should be treated differently, and they are not connected to this book. But art, especially the stories we tell each other, shape reality. Yes, reality also shapes art, and there’s a feedback loop going on, but when it comes to our identity and how we interact with and perceive others, stories exert a collective influence on all of us. Especially for women, romance novels, film, and erotica shape our conceptions of how relationships are “supposed” to be. Most popular mainstream art doesn’t show reality as it could be; it shows constructed reality, usually with the biased view that this is how life inevitably is, as though there was not the invisible hand of cultural conditioning guiding the author's creation of fictional worlds. This story could not exist the way it does without existing systems of thought that permeate our culture. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum; it’s a product of society, because the author is. Yes, it is just one book. But it’s part of a continuum of so many other books, TV shows, movies, video games, pornographies, comics, songs, that say the same thing--- it’s one more brick in the towering edifice of Western gender norms. And we really can’t afford even one more brick to this depressingly solid wall.

-J

"Bitch Bad?" How About "There's No Such Thing as a Bitch"

[CN: misogyny, rape culture, slut-shaming]

Lupe Fiasco just released a new single called “Bitch Bad,” and it’s probably accomplishing what Lupe ultimately wants: a lot of discussion. He wants to be thought-provoking, and he never fails to deliver on that front. But I wanted to add my own voice to the discussion.

Now, I can’t pretend to know exactly every argument that Lupe is trying to get across in his lyrics--I understand that song lyrics are limited by rhyme and meter, so admittedly he can’t be as clear and thorough as he would be able to be in normal prose. So I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt when I inevitably have to read between the lines to flesh out the songs message.

If we break down the lyrics we get a young boy who hears his mom call herself “a bad bitch” as she sings along to a song on the radio and thus starts to relate the word with his mother. Then we have two young girls watch a music video in which an artist describes “bad bitches” in a [sexually] desirable way, so they feel pressured to be like the girl they see in the video (in addition to thinking that being a “bad bitch” is a good thing).

After this story is set up, the song culminates with: 

“Sure enough, in this little world
The little boy meets one of those little girls
And he thinks she a bad bitch and she thinks she a bad bitch
He thinks disrespectfully, she thinks of that sexually
She got the wrong idea, he don’t wanna fuck her
He thinks she’s bad at being a bitch like his mother
Momma never dress like that, come out the house, hot mess like that
Ass, titties, dress like that
All out to impress like that
Just like that, you see the fruit of the confusion
He caught in a reality, she caught in an illusion
Bad mean good to her, she really nice and smart
But bad mean bad to him, bitch don’t play your part
But bitch still bad to her if you say it the wrong way
But she think she a bitch, what a double entendre”

You can see what I mean by needing to read between the lines, because it gets a little convoluted at the end. I won’t do too close a reading here, because that’s not the point of this post.*

What I really want to talk about is the discussion this song prompted, because it reveals a lot about language, sexism and misogyny--even outside of the context of hip-hop. I also want to talk about it because as soon as I read the lyrics, I had a sinking feeling that a lot of people would interpret it in a misogynistic way--and that’s exactly what a lot of commenters did:        

"Lol I knew wat dis song wuz bout from wen I saw da title. Nd I couldn't agree more. A bad bitch is da hoe dressed da skimpiest wit da colored weave( something I hate 2 see on black women). Females, if u call urself a bad bitch, don't complain wen u get raped or disrespected, u call it on urself."

This comment is probably the worst out of them all--it manages to victim-blame and slut-shame at the same time. I don’t even think I need to waste energy refuting it...right? It’s pretty obvious that just because a person refers to themselves using a derogatory term or they dress a certain way, it doesn't mean they deserve to be abused or disrespected, or that they “can’t complain” if that does happen to them. It also ignores the fact that a lot of women use the word bitch to attempt to subvert it or reclaim it--that when someone like Nicki Minaj raps “I’m a bad bitch” she means it completely differently than a man who hatefully spits it out at a women he looks down on. She means that she’s strong, formidable, powerful--whether or not using the word “bitch” is counterproductive in those instances, whether or not the word can be “reclaimed” is debatable (more on that in another post). But regardless, it’s still important to note that when a woman calls herself "a bad bitch," the context, meaning, and use is vastly different.

Most of the other comments embody the same kind of sexism and misogyny in the above example--even if they attempt to word it less blatantly. I’ll spare you the experience of reading all of them in detail, especially because I perused 70+ pages. To sum it up: their assumptions mainly come down to two different messages, one for women, one for men. For women: they need to stop being “bitches,” despite the fact that that’s what the media (and mainstream hip-hop) told them to be, particularly because guys will [understandably] treat them badly because of it. For men: they need to make sure not to disrespect all women because not all of them are “bitches.” 

And here we finally come to my main argument, and what I hope Lupe’s ultimate message is: that it's not that some women are bitches and some are not, but that none of them are--that that there is no such thing as a “bitch.” There is no such thing as this fabricated caricature of a human being--a willfully ignorant, petty, “slutty,” and subservient woman not worthy of respect, who is “just asking” for mistreatment and abuse. This is also an important corollary to There’s No Such Thing as a Slut. Beyond the fact that this kind of caricature doesn’t actually exist in real-life, it’s also important to stress that the presence of these individual traits in a real, living person would also not justify her abuse. Any argument to the contrary, that justifies the abuse of women, is sexist and misogynistic.
And really, this is what mainstream misogyny comes down to, and it's at the core of common misogyny apologia. You can hear, in the same breath "no, of course I don't hate women, I love my girlfriend/mother/sister!" and "well what did she expect? she was asking for it, she's so stupid, dressing like that, acting slutty like that." Misogyny isn't about necessarily feeling hatred for every individual woman you ever meet. It's about conditionally assigning respect, humanity, empathy to only certain women who "deserve" it, and casting the rest off as unworthy of such basic qualities. It's about classifying whole groups of women as "worth less" based on imagined, constructed distinctions and stereotypes. It's the same idea when we talk about racism--someone may not hate all black people ("but I have black friends!") but if they subscribe to stereotypes about "certain kinds of black people" and believe them to be less worthy of regard and empathy, they're still a racist.

These arguments feel really blatant and self-evident. I almost stopped writing this post several times because of that. But then I just kept looking at more comments, and realized that, for at least some people, these arguments were clearly not obvious enough.

-C

*I think interpreting the song really comes down to one simple question: are we supposed to think that the boy is wrong for assuming that the girl is a "bitch" when in fact she isn't? And that's his only mistake? Or that he's wrong because he believes that any woman could ever embody the term? The song is pretty murky on this critical distinction, especially with lines like: "He caught in a reality, she caught in an illusion," the slut-shaming "Momma never dress like that, come out the house, hot mess like that/Ass, titties, dress like that/All out to impress like that" and "Bad mean good to her, she really nice and smart/ But bad mean bad to him, bitch don’t play your part..." I wish there weren't lines like this that all too easily play into the kind of misogynistic thinking displayed in the comments.