And.. Why Feminism Doesn't Suck

Lest we all forget...

"I am writing these words in a bar in London in the spring of 1997," she says. "I'm drinking a glass of beer ... My ability to find work allows me to pay for my drink, a small freedom, but it also gives me all the other freedoms and dignities that women before the middle of century rarely knew: to choose whom I should live with and where I can go in the evenings and how I can spend my time ... I don't think about these freedoms ... Yet all these everyday transformations, as well as others - that I use contraceptives, that I work at a newspaper, that I got a degree at university, that I am paid much the same as my male colleagues, that I can vote, that I own a flat - were only brought to me after the struggle and argument of previous feminists."

And I am writing these words from a three bedroom flat in Chicago that I share with a lesbian couple who can walk down the street holding hands in Andersonville without getting shit thrown at them. I have a Master's Degree in history that I got at a university in South Africa of all places. I've literally traveled around the world. I'm engaged in a relationship with a younger man who lives in New York. We're not married, and we have a lot of guilt-free sinful sex because I was able to get an IUD: even though I'm single (some states still won't give you one unless you're married). I work for a telecommunications company that pays me enough to live on and where my boss actually brings and/or buys me coffee. I have my own health insurance. I didn't have to marry the first guy I dated/had sex with in part because I didn't have any massive family pressure to do so. I wear guys' clothes and nobody looks twice at me. I eat alone at restaurants and nobody asks me where or when my date's coming. I can afford to tip well. I travel a lot. I used to take boxing lessons. I regularly lift weights at the gym. I know how to throw a good right cross.

So when people tell me what a terrible, confusing world all those 70s feminists made for me, I can't help but look up and around at my life and realize that without all the gains our mothers made, I wouldn't be living the life I'm living now. Nor would my female friends. And woe to all of my guy buddies who like hanging out with the smart, beer-swilling independant person that is me. Think of all my friends of both sexes would miss out on if I weren't allowed the freedoms that feminism has given me.

That's a scary thought.

Feminism Sucks Because I Can't Get a Man

Oh, Maureen, Maureen. Maureen Dowd puts the smack-down on feminism again because she's a high-powered NY Times columnist who's over 40 and not married.

Yea, feminism sure has failed you, Maureen. I mean, look at all the quality men she missed out on dating:

At a party for the Broadway opening of "Sweet Smell of Success," a top New York producer gave me a lecture on the price of female success that was anything but sweet. He confessed that he had wanted to ask me out on a date when he was between marriages but nixed the idea because my job as a Times columnist made me too intimidating. Men, he explained, prefer women who seem malleable and awed. He predicted that I would never find a mate because if there's one thing men fear, it's a woman who uses her critical faculties.

This isn't the first time that Maureen has lamented the fact that everywhere she looks in her NY City superset, men are marrying their maids, secretaries, and personal assistants.

At no point does she question whether or not she or any other women with "critical faculties" would want to date these men anyway.

In fact, this entire column feels like it's been written by a sixteen year old sitting at the front of the math class chewing her nails because "boys only notice the blond chicks."

I recognize the tone because I, too, once worried and gnawed over the fact that I was invisible to all the tall beautiful blond boys in grade school. Once I did start dating in high school I tried to dress and act more fem in order to keep said man, since he, Cosmo, and my girlfriends seemed to think this was the only way to "keep" a guy, and keeping a guy was akin to finding the holy grail.

Then I grew the fuck up.

Decades after the feminist movement promised equality with men, it was becoming increasingly apparent that many women would have to brush up on the venerable tricks of the trade: an absurdly charming little laugh, a pert toss of the head, an air of saucy triumph, dewy eyes and a full knowledge of music, drawing, elegant note writing and geography. It would once more be considered captivating to lie on a chaise longue, pass a lacy handkerchief across the eyelids and complain of a case of springtime giddiness.

Who are these women? Why can't they find honest, meaningful relationships? Maybe because they're play-acting, pretending to be somebody they're not, and turning off both men and other women. So not only are they not getting laid, they don't have any friends either.

Grow the fuck up.

Today, women have gone back to hunting their quarry - in person and in cyberspace - with elaborate schemes designed to allow the deluded creatures to think they are the hunters.

And then they get angry when their prospective mates call them "deceitful." heh

"There are plenty of ways for me to find out if he's going to see me as an equal without disturbing the dating ritual," one young woman says. "Disturbing the dating ritual leads to chaos. Everybody knows that."

What planet are these women from? Just after my first date with B, I conspired to spend the night at his house. When he offered to sleep on the floor, I asked him how big his bed was.

Oh, that's not forward at all.

And oh, look, we're still together and I'm still getting laid.

A few years ago at a White House correspondents' dinner, I met a very beautiful and successful actress. Within minutes, she blurted out: "I can't believe I'm 46 and not married. Men only want to marry their personal assistants or P.R. women."

To reiterate: Why would you want to marry these men anyway? These are the sorts of guys who'll tell you to quit your high-powered job, dress more fem, stop eating all together, and dump you on the street when you're forty and marry their secretary.

What the fuck do you want with people like this? I don't even have friends like this. Why would I fuck anyone who acted this way?

So was the feminist movement some sort of cruel hoax? Do women get less desirable as they get more successful?

And here's the bit that really pisses me off everytime I read these backlash articles: why the hell are women so damned concerned about men all the time? Why are so-called feminist magazines and articles all about men?

As K pointed out when I read the NY producer line out loud, "Why's a guy need to be your mate?"

Why, indeed?

Not only are a good deal of women lesbians, but a shitload more are at least bisexual. If it's about kids, fucking adopt or get a sperm donor. And what's with having a mate? Be single. What's wrong with it? Single women suffer from less depression than married women, in general, anyway.

Pair up with another woman or a guy friend in a sexual or non-sexual pairing and buy a beach house. Learn to garden. Buy some big dogs. Why, as women, do we have to equate our success with "having" a man? Male bachelors with high-powered careers are rarely if ever berated for not "settling down." For them, having a high-powered career is enough. But as women, whether you're a doctor, lawyer, or CEO, your success is measured in whether or not you've managed to "keep" a man. Why? Why's having a relationship so important? I was single for nearly six years after high school, and you know what, I had a really awesome kick-ass time traveling around the world and getting a sweet education. Was I somehow a failure because I wasn't partnered up?

Men, apparently, learn early to protect their eggshell egos from high-achieving women. The girls said they hid the fact that they went to Harvard from guys they met because it was the kiss of death. "The H-bomb," they dubbed it. "As soon as you say Harvard Business School . . . that's the end of the conversation," Ani Vartanian said.

And my response to this is - so what? Should you have not gone to Harvard Law so it'd be easier for you to get laid? If getting married was all you were looking for, shit, you could do that straight out of high school. You could have bundles of kids by now and be living in a rented picket-fence house, and when you're forty, without education or money of your own, said guy could dump you or die and you'd have... nothing. No job experience, no Harvard Law, and bundles of kids to feed.

That sounds fun.

When Gloria Steinem wrote that "all women are Bunnies," she did not mean it as a compliment; it was a feminist call to arms. Decades later, it's just an aesthetic fact, as more and more women embrace Botox and implants and stretch and protrude to extreme proportions to satisfy male desires. Now that technology is biology, all women can look like inflatable dolls. It's clear that American narcissism has trumped American feminism.

It's been argued that American culture is, at root, an adolescent one. And I'd agree. As a teenager, I was really obsessed with all of my supposed "imperfections." I believed that because of them, no men would ever like me, and as Maureen has pointed out, there's some bizarre belief that, as a woman, not being desired by men is the worst thing in the whole world.

But, again: then I grew up.

And you know what? Who the fuck cares what guys think? Why is feminism always talking about what guys want? Why should I care? Cause guys are in power? Then maybe I should become *more* powerful. And maybe the guys who like plastic women aren't the ones I should be interested in anyway. Maybe I should look for some alternatives. There are a lot of other choices out there, and lesbians in the audience may laugh aloud at the idea that silly straight girls are spending so much goddamn time concerned about men.

Maybe you should go out and grow up first, Maureen. Maybe you should go climb Kilamanjaro and help AIDS orphans in South Africa, then come on back home to New York City and tell me just how goddamn life-shattering it is that you aren't getting laid by an NY producer who thinks smart women are gross.

Put some of this shit in perspective, you fucktard.

What I Did This Week

Me: We're short on tower crews because they can make twice as much money in NOLA repairing the entire cell tower system out there. We're wheeling and dealing with who've we've got, "Sweetening the deal" whenever we can.

B: So, basically, you're telling me that tower crews are like mercenaries.

Me: Yea, pretty much.

B: So you're "in the field" hiring mercenaries.

Me: Yep. That's about right. And "flatlining the bar."

And I'll just let you guys figure out that last bit.

What's Wrong With This Form Rejection?

`Tis the season.

Just got back a form reject from Baen's Astounding Stories.

Let's play: What's wrong with this form rejection? See if you can spot it!

Baen's Astounding Stories wishes to woo back the casual reader and
become part of his entertainment habits. In that spirit, we are looking for thumping good stories, with plot, theme, character and resolution. We do not demand that your ending be so shocking that no one can see it coming and -- in fact -- no one can see where it came from. We don't demand that your idea be startlingly original, only that your execution of it be so.

We are not aiming to make you a literary star -- whatever that might be. We're trying to entertain readers. We are competing for a reader's beer money. We want stories that make the reader put the beer down and read to the end in breathless hurry. And we want him to feel satisfied with the logic of the ending when he gets there. If in addition the stories make him think, so much the better.

We want boys and their beer money! If your story's made for women who swill beer, too bad!

Strangely enough, instead of getting a simple "we don't want your story" I received a treatise on why the editors believe that so much fantasy/Science fiction sucks these days:

Over the last few years, perhaps because so many of our readers are also writers, science fiction and fantasy authors working in short form fiction have devoted themselves to outdoing each other in form and artifice, in the originality of the plots and the sheer shock of the stories' endings -- which often had nothing to do with what had come before. In the process often -- though not always -- the simple enjoyment of the story was lost and with it the casual reader's attention.

Let's face it, over the last few years stories have been more of a vehicle for awards than for readership and award committees move in different ways from those of a fan looking for a thumping good story.

Basically, if you're a "literary" writer looking to win "awards" it means you're bad at telling stories; your story, by virtue of its "literaryness" must have no plot and suffers from a lack of "simple enjoyment." Literary writers need not apply.

heh. heh. You want hack stories?

Oh, honey, I have hack stories!

Baen: lowering the bar.

Someday, I'm going to get into trouble for doing this sort of thing in public.

Workado

Yea, it's gonna be a busy week.

Luckily, also lots of free dinner, free lunch, free breakfast, free drinks. We've got lunch dates and dinner and drink dates with the reps for the company we're teaming with for this project.

And, as per the usual, the hotel we're staying at is awesome. It's the size of a one bedroom New York apartment. Separate room for the bed, with a closet, a tv, a desk, a living area with a couch and easy chair and another tv, a huge desk/eating table separating the kitchen from the living area, a big bathroom.

Yea. At least it's comfortable.

Though I must say, I'm really looking forward to those drinks.

I'm Feeling DownToday: Time for a Random Useless Quiz

KNIGHT

You are the Knight, the
legendary, romantic hero of great kingdoms. The
Knight is a true warrior and an epic hero. He
will do anything to defend his honor and his
kingdom. Whatever his lord or king commands he
will do without hesitation. He is very
virtuous; he holds honesty, loyalty, and
bravery in very high regard.

Color:
Purple
Animal: Lion
Gem: Ruby
Symbol:
Shield

Image:
http://www.deviantart.com/view/7339749/


Who would you be if you were a character in an epic fantasy? (beautiful pictures)
brought to you by Quizilla

What's with all this "he" crap?

(via tempest)

Total Book Count For The House:

2,749

Dude, we're so hitting the over 3,000 count by next year.

My sad, paltry piece of this count?

A mere 544 of these actually belong to me.

What kind of writer am I?????

Ah, yes: a poor one.

Need to work on that.

Off to Indy

Well, work is crazy mad wild and they're sending me to Indianpolis next week from Monday-Thursday. We're bascially living out of a hotel room there. I whined and complained about Indiana as much as possible, but it only served to delay the trip. We've got some insane amout of work to get done in the next twelve days.

Bah. But I was so happy spending all day writing and playing computer games!

So it goes. There's gotta be at least a couple times a year where I actually get paid to do my actual job. I guess. So I'm told.

Ha Ha

Ha ha. I see a new market has arrived for my Body History story.

This makes me happy. Goal is to have five stories total in the mail as of Monday.

Just Think of How Much Better the Ratings Would Be!

::cough:: ::cough::

(via Nick)

What a Slow Day

Slooooooooooooooooooowwww

Note

Do not use nasty wine even as cooking wine.

It is still gross after it is cooked.

Ug

Yea. Getting back to the gym after a break: now everything hurts.

In a good way, but damn, it hurts to raise my arms.

I Tucked in My Shirt Today

And the world did not recoil in horror.

Being Rachael Ray

I admit it, I have a huge crush on Rachael Ray, and I'm sometimes found secretly sighing over her on The Food Network.

As I'm a totaly sucker for the small-time-girl-makes-it-big story (for obvious reasons), I was delighted to find this:

Most of the thousands of recipes Ms. Ray has "canoodled" over the years were written in her cabin. She rented it 13 years ago and has lived there off and on with her mother and, sometimes, her younger brother, since. Some months she could barely put together enough money to cover the $550 rent.

"It was check-to-check living," Ms. Ray said.

She had grown up around Lake George, but the cycle of small-town life and low-paying jobs was wearing thin. In 1995, Ms. Ray headed to New York City. She worked first at the Macy's Marketplace candy counter and moved up the ranks quickly, learning about everything from buying cheese to how to shop for Liza Minnelli's holiday food gifts. When Macy's tried to promote her to a buyer in accessories, she moved to Agata & Valentina, the specialty foods store.

She stayed in the city for only two years. After a bad break-up, a broken ankle and a violent mugging in front of her Queens apartment that left her scraped and shaken, she headed home.

Ms. Ray moved back into the cabin and eventually landed a job at the fanciest food and equipment store in Albany. She was a buyer and a cook, preparing hundreds of pounds of food every day. As a holiday promotion, she developed a class to help people get dinner on the table in half an hour.

It caught on, so Ms. Ray started teaching the concept at a chain of local grocery stores and on a Schenectady television station. Anywhere they would let her, really. By 1998, she figured she could sell a companion cookbook, so she talked an independent Manhattan publisher into turning her pile of photocopied recipes into a book.

Then her moment arrived.

In 2001 a Food Network executive heard Ms. Ray cook on an upstate public radio show. The same week, a "Today" show producer saw her book and called.

Ms. Ray and her mom drove nine hours south in a snowstorm, and she nailed the "Today" show appearance. The next day, she said, the Food Network signed her to a $360,000 contract to teach America what she had been teaching the folks upstate.

My favorite part:

A favorite slam is that her meals take more than 30 minutes, which, especially for people with little kitchen acumen, they often do. They say she is untrained and relies on too many shortcuts, like shredded cheese and frozen French fries.

To which Ms. Ray says, they're right.

"I have no formal anything," she said. "I'm completely unqualified for any job I've ever had."

ha ha. Translation: Fuck you.

Tuesday Poetry

All Those Inuit Names for Snow
by Tom Tempkin

My mother is watching her mother die.
Gravity has declared war against the lower lip.
Salt has worn to fine gauze the threads

sprouting from the inner ear. For each one
that goes, we must learn a new word
for what we think life is, what we dream

it will be. Among our tricks and screams
and flowered boudoirs, we must all wear once
the wedding gown stained with mother's blood

or dance the implicit waltz while meandering
to victory with a swollen hand.
I will feed the cat when you're gone.

This is my promise.
The first one to wake whispers to the other:
poinsetta, aspen, sweet fig, dream of orchid, rose.

Why Arming Women Won't Stop Violence Against Women

So here's our heroine's choices. She can shoot him and get convicted of a variety of crimes, because you can't just go around shooting guys. The only guys you can shoot are burglars and guys who Don't Look Like Us. So she goes to jail. Then what do the rest of us do? She becomes like Andrea Yates or Susan Smith---the real life version of all those Evil Disney Mothers, while real life male scumbags get tossed into the collective dustbin of consciousness. We can't think ill of those that rule us. We can't look too closely at how they do it.

So tell me how giving women guns without changing the culture will do any damned good at all. It won't protect women, and chances are it will enrage the men who laugh at the idea that a woman has a right to enjoy her body while he does not. I have to say, too, a stray thought occurred to me. Guys who think they have such rights to women's bodies---what do you suppose their attitude is toward other methods of controlling those women's bodies? Do you really think you have to right to do anything with your body if they don't get off on it? Do you think they care about your body except if it gets them off? Do you really think they give a shit at all?

Giving women guns is just going to put more women behind bars. The very men who proclaim that this will solve the problem are removing themselves and their buddies from the responsible party list by suggesting it. "Hey," they whine, "We gave you an option, you chose not to take it. Not our problem any longer."

Writing Today

Got a couple stories back in the mail this weekend. Now I need to work on some new material.

Ah, I love the fall. I'm making a tasty vegetarian pasta tonight.

World Fantasy Schedule, Revised

I've finally nailed down the last bit of info I needed in order to book for the World Fantasy Convention in Madison, WI.

Jenn's got her proposal dissertation defense that Friday, so instead of bumming a ride up with her, I'm taking the train up late Thursday. I'll be getting in around midnight, but should be good to go for Friday/Saturday/Sunday.

I cancelled my reservations at the Doubletree because for the same amount I could get a lakeview suite at the Hilton Madison Monona Terrace, where Jenn and I stayed for our first Wiscon. We love it there, so I booked and prepaid for a slightly better rate.

Hope to see some of you there!

Once More Around the Mulberry Bush

Back to my morning weights, back to the gym tonight, back to drinking coffee.

Ahhhhhh

Here at work, Blaine's back from his honeymoon. Apparently, "Glad to be back," which says something about what a workaholic he's become. Dude, give *me* your two weeks in Hawaii, dude...