This list made me laugh, because we either laugh or never stop screaming. Kudos, Kat Stoeffel:
We were surprised to learn today that the patriarchy is dead. We were informed by Slate’s Hanna Rosin, who wrote that criticism of her nonfiction book The End of Men can be explained by feminists’ “irrational attachment to the concept of unfair.” We got the vote and the Pill. What more could we want? “It’s elite feminists like my questioner and me who cling to the dreaded patriarchy just as he is walking out of our lives,” she writes.
She’s right. We’re clinging to structurally reinforced sexism like a bad boyfriend, and it’s time to say, “See ya later, Patriarchy.” It’s been real. Thanks for all the good times.
We’ll never forget …
1. The 200 abortion restrictions passed since 2011, closing 58 (or roughly 1 in 10) clinics.
2. Aerobic striptease, cardio pole dancing, and bikini bodybuilding…
23. That thing where dudes get an extra half of a seat on the subway for their balls….
PsiFighter37
Geno playing well, but Jets gotta make some more plays in support of him.
The Dangerman
Hey, it’s football season and basketball isn’t far behind; these are some big balls…
/ACDC
Baud
@PsiFighter37:
They just need to catch and hold on to the ball.
Percysowner
No! You don’t understand! The only metric for if life is fair to women is if Hanna Rosin is happy. None of the things you mention affect HER, so who bloody cares. Hanna Rosin has a good life, that’s all that matters.
Omnes Omnibus
From a link within the link. Honestly, I have never understood this. I don’t disagree that it is accurate: I just don’t understand it.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
FWIW, I like aggressive women. But that may be because I’m lazy.
The Dangerman
@Omnes Omnibus:
Any woman above a 2, well, maybe a 1, can be an aggressor with me anytime.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud:
Plus, one can pretty sure that one isn’t remotely overstepping.
Emma
The whole balls thing? Yeah. Good hard kick when they least expect it.
Morbo
LOL, fucking fools and their money…
Omnes Omnibus
@Emma: FWIW I always expect it, so no need to bother.
Baud
@Emma:
That’s a little too aggressive.
TheMightyTrowel
@Omnes Omnibus: I had a long response, FYWP ate it. In short: being friends with “sluts” can open a girl up to being treated as a “slut by association”. Women, men and intersex alike, we all live in the patriarchy – it’s not men oppressing women, it’s the patriarchy (kyriarchy) oppressing us all.
SiubhanDuinne
Listened to the first part of “Fresh Air” on my way home tonight. It was an interview with Billie Jean King (in connection with a PBS “American Masters” program, which I haven’t watched yet, but will) and it was a wondrous thing to be reminded what it was like for female athletes (any female professionals, really, but obvs her focus was on athletes) in the late ‘60s/early ’70s. I was around then, and somewhat active in the feminist movement, but hearing it all encapsulated by one of the era’s icons was a real treat.
Morbo
Also, damn, Hanna Rosin, read your own website. You think anyone gets away with that without patriarchy?
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus:
This, I think, is key. When the woman tells you that she’s going to ravish you, you’re probably in the clear for any misunderstandings about how far we’re going to go.
Emma
@Baud: Have you ever sat on a crowded bus next to one of those when you’ve worked a 12 hour day, have a headache, and want to throw up? Instead of being able to relax you spend 40 minutes clinging to the seat in front of you hoping not to fall off. Kicking is too kind.
Starfish
@Omnes Omnibus: One time I was friends with a slut. The only friends she invited to anything were a bunch of hot dudes, and I would tell her “Hey that dude is hot.” She had boned all of them and would get annoyed and jealous if I told her that they were hot because she was afraid that I was going to touch her man harem. Anyway, she never caught on that I liked guys who were smarter than a bowl of apples. But man were those dudes hot.
Villago Delenda Est
@TheMightyTrowel:
The broomstick up the ass crowd.
Fuck them. With broomsticks.
Sly
http://mentakingup2muchspaceonthetrain.tumblr.com/
Though I will note that the sixth picture from the top is Robb Stark, who can take up as much space as he damn well pleases. I, however, have no excuse.
SiubhanDuinne
@Morbo: Filing that story under the “Least surprising revelations” tab.
geg6
As usual, Hannah Rosin is full of shit.
Men love a woman who is assertive. Love it!. When I was between long term relationships, I went for it. And it was fun! When I met John, I gave him my card and told him to call me. Several times in a fifteen minute conversation. He did and I told him he needed to take me out. He did and here we are six years later.
Hannah Rosin is afraid to do such a thing. That’s why she condemns those of us confident and unafraid enough to do it. Or she’s done it and didn’t get any takers. Or both. Either way, fuck her.
muddy
@Villago Delenda Est: This one time (not at band camp) I was having dinner with this guy and made my intentions clear. He gaped and food actually fell out of his mouth onto the table. Oh dear, it was quite awkward.
Omnes Omnibus
@TheMightyTrowel: I guess the thing I don’t understand is why it matters. I get the hows of it. As a single straight guy, women who are comfortable with their own sexuality are a godsend. In purely platonic relationships, I’ve had lots of female friends who were “sluts.” I guess I am out of step with the patriarchy.
jl
That article in the post is one of the internet things that I can’t tell whether it is serious or snark that’s over my head.
I didn’t see anything about equal pay for equal work, but maybe I missed it.
Maybe somebody can explain it to me. Srsly.
Baud
@Emma:
You’re the reason conservatives hate public transportation.
Kick away.
NotMax
BTW, one of the meanings of the name Hannah is “He (god) has favored me.” The ultimate patriarchy.
Villago Delenda Est
@geg6:
If I may, that perhaps is precisely what she needs.
TheMightyTrowel
@Omnes Omnibus: And that’s a good thing, but age has a lot to do with it as well. Remember that most of these sociological/psych studies are being carried out on colleged aged (middle class, largely white, largely american) people. It takes time, age and confidence to be happy as yourself. Very few people are comfortable pushing back against social structures until they’re a bit older, most settled and more sure in their skin.
Villago Delenda Est
@muddy:
Sure, it was awkward, but he recovered with a vigorous “check please!”, yes?
BruceFromOhio
Just the active effort to defund Planned Parenthood makes the point. Fucking patriarchs are alive and well, and got the PACS to prove it.
Who needs balls when you got funding?
ETA: Guys making the ‘aggressive’ comments? I do truly, dearly relish the thought of any of you, or all of you, waking up in a rat-infested roach motel with no pants, no shoes, no wallet, tied to the fucking piece of shit bed, wondering what the fuck happened, straining to grab your cell phone that is just. out. of. reach.
Cacti
So, 50-years after the second wave of feminism, any ideas on why 56% of white women voted for Romney?
geg6
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’ve been called a slut. Mainly because I’m comfortable with myself. But I have had nothing but long term relationships (with a year or two of singlehood between) with men who still keep in touch and are my friends. Every single one. If that’s how it works, I’d rather be a slut than a so-called “good girl,”
Sly
@jl:
Punchy
@muddy: How did you make those intentions so clear?
/opens notebook, uncaps pen
muddy
@Villago Delenda Est: No, that’s why it was awkward.
Omnes Omnibus
@TheMightyTrowel: I’ll take one more crack at this and let it alone. For me, this extends back into college. What is funny though is listening to some of the women from college being judgmental about their children; some people don’t age well.
RepubAnon
I’m glad we finally have an explanation as to why President Obama picked Janet Yellen over Larry Summers. Oh. wait…
On a side note, an old joke: What do you have if you’ve got a mothball in your left hand and a mothball in your right hand?
Answer: Control of a very large moth.
Baud
@Cacti:
The South, I’d imagine.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cacti:
Shoulders you can land a 737 on?
Anne Laurie
@jl: All things great & small:
TheMightyTrowel
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s awful isn’t it? My friends are all starting to have kids right now – we’re largely early 30s – and most of them are fine, but a couple are doing the ‘my daughter can only be dressed in pink and must be treated like a princess’ crap. UGH.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Yep. And some suburbs.
jl
On ‘Where are all the women genius” I thought Scientific American could do a little research. I’ve read about several great mathematicians who said they had women students who had potential for doing genius work, but said that the women were ‘discouraged’ in various ways, sometimes by the teachers themselves.
There was a big row about a famous (maybe still alive) Russian mathematician who admitted that he subtly discouraged his brightest female students from continuing because he thought they had ‘more important’ work in life.
That’s as good an explanation as any of where are all the women geniuses in some fields.
So, if the Patriarchy is dead, it’s pretty fresh in the grave. Or in death throes of undetermined duration. Still able to kick people around.
jl
@Anne Laurie: OK, thanks. I missed that.
BruceFromOhio
@Cacti: Because only white woman votes count, you fucking dickhead. Try again.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Many straight men still find it a turnoff when women are sexual aggressors
Maybe I hang out with the wrong crowd, but I can’t think of a dude I know who wouldn’t love it if a woman wanted to drive.
Omnes Omnibus
@TheMightyTrowel: I enjoy responding with “Hey, do you remember the spring formal when that couple got caught having sex on the 17th green at the country club? Who was that… Oh, never mind.”
NotMax
@geg6
The closing scene of any Swedish film never fails to elicit a snort, as the word for ‘The End’ is ‘Slut.’
Uncle Ebeneezer
@SiubhanDuinne: I really want to see that. My mom was fairly conservative but she idolized BJK (and Navratilova) not only for their tennis, but for all they did for women’s rights. It’s amazing to me that within my lifetime (I’m 39) women were not being paid as professional athletes (in addition to all the other ways they were treated differently from men.) Sounds like a great documentary. I hope PBS runs it again because my tivo only got the second half :(
Cacti
@BruceFromOhio:
Mention of a fact makes one a fucking dickhead?
We’re in a brave new world at balloon-juice.
I’d say it’s an entirely fair question. Non-white women overwhelmingly went for Obama. Why the split? Especially since the GOP was the party of rape philosophers in the 2012 cycle.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gin & Tonic: That seems to be the consensus on this thread.
muddy
@Punchy: It wasn’t anything exciting, I actually thought he was onboard with the program and just made some remark that I supposed I had made my interest pretty clear by now (or something, it’s been a while) but apparently I had not made it clear at all.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cacti:
Snark detector…needs to go into the shop, stat!
BruceFromOhio
@Cacti:
In this context, and in my opinion, hell yes. You want tar the whole commentariat with one brush over a single comment, by all means. Please, continue.
eemom
oh ffs, what a MESS.
Rosin’s piece was simplistic shit, but so was the response to it. Lumping together shit like abortion clinic closures and honor killings with vaginal creams as evidence that a dumbass meaningless buzzword like “patriarchy” totally explains everything?
God. New level of brain-dead even for you.
Sly
@Omnes Omnibus:
There is a great deal in our culture that suggests to men, both subtly and overtly, that it is both our responsibility and a sign of our masculinity to convince women to have sex with us and, for that convincing to take place, “normal” women must not pursue sex aggressively. Most of us grow up to realize, at least unconsciously, that this is bullshit.
scav
@Cacti: Funny how offended some can get when women take into their heads to decide for themselves and not vote the way in the manner they should. All behaviors are open, not just the sugar & spice lockstep.
Cacti
@BruceFromOhio:
Oh, in your opinion.
So, nothing I should really care about then.
muddy
@Sly: Maybe there’s some of the “wouldn’t join any club that would have me as a member” to it.
BruceFromOhio
@eemom: And to chaos, order. Sorry, mom, I am LMFAO.
@Cacti: Oh, bitch, I have been taken down. Woe is I.
Heh.
SectarianSofa
Never too early or too late to be subvertin’ the dominant paradigm. Hanna Rosin sounds like an idiot, though I haven’t/won’t read the piece.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sly: I figure that a woman who has indicated that she wants to have sex with me has shown a great deal of intelligence and taste.
eemom
OTOH, the topic of women as sexual aggressors and men’s reaction thereto is kind of interesting…..not that it had anything to do with the moronic topic of the post, other than “slut” being on Stoeffel’s list.
Zifnab25
@Omnes Omnibus:
Dear Ladies,
If you are feeling like sexually aggressing on someone, and are looking for fresh meat, I am down with the Snoo-Snoo. Feel free to club me over the head and drag me back to your lady cave. I am down.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: Well, I didn’t really have much to say about the cupcake vibrators.
Starfish
@eemom: Way to promote the kyriarchy in your attempt to oppress other women and promote the discussion of the male cuckolding fantasy.
Cacti
@BruceFromOhio:
No, really. I care deeply about the opinions of anonymous posters on internet forums. Share some more of your wisdom with me, enlightened one.
Omnes Omnibus
@Zifnab25: Snoo-Snoo?
Tommy
Femmist rock. Even if they are not vocal about it.
I recall three years ago I was at the funeral of my mother’s dad. Died at 93. I am outside having a smoke and somebody I’ve never met starts to slam my mom, not knowing who I was. That Joyce had gotten divorced in the mid-60s. How terrible of her. Then married my dad (they have been married since 1967).
Now I didn’t confront this person, and oh would I have liked to, cause I was 41 at the time and didn’t know my mother had been married before. I thought he was drunk or making it up.
I went to my dad (my mom is about my best friend BTW). He said it was true. I think I asked if I had a brother or sister I wasn’t aware of? He said no, but he beat her just once. She left. Then we will NEVER speak of this again. You will NEVER mention you know this to your mother.
I could talk for hours about how much my mom is a rock star. That my mom since I can recall works at rape crisis centers. That she taught me respect for women …..
But that in 2009 she could still be mocked cause she left a man that beat her, well the respect for women has a ways to go.
You go feminist, you got a partner in me (and my brother)!
Cacti
@eemom:
When I was still in the meat market (i.e. unmarried/unattached), my usual response to a sexually aggressive woman was “Woohoo!”.
eemom
@Starfish:
Great word. Can’t believe it never occurred to me before, being Greek.
SectarianSofa
Speaking of sexism, the tech sector is still soaking in it. I don’t think these guys are helping. Though some disagree, I don’t think the whole ‘scrum master’ crap helps anyone.
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, yeah. So I was eating dinner and drinking wine and not following every post here. Sue me.
BruceFromOhio
@Cacti: I’ve heard that ‘We’re in a brave new world at balloon-juice.’ Maybe I should just go back to being ‘an anonymous poster’ on this ‘internet forum’, sorta like every fucking one else who posts here. Whatcha, say, Cactus? Is 56% of white women voting for Romney enough to close all of the Planned Parenthood offices, or just the ones in Texas and North Carolina? Do, please, tell.
ETA: Enlightened one, yeah. Drama is easy. Comedy? Now that’s difficult.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: OTOH my mother ensured that I was always in blue as a baby. I had dark ringlets and big green eyes. Everyone assumed I was a girl.
SectarianSofa
@efgoldman:
Well, I really felt bad for my 3-year-old (boy) when his peers shamed him out his love of pink. I decided to like pink, for him.
eemom
@Tommy:
Thanks for sharing that.
Because it is exactly stories like that which drive home the intense reality that clever-ass drivel like Stoeffel’s only trivializes.
Tommy
@SectarianSofa: LOL. Last Christmas I was with my three year old niece (I don’t have any kids myself). She is sitting on my lap in her room and we looking at her Christmas tree. I am telling her now nice all her ornaments are. I ask which one is her favorite, and she points out one. I ask why and she says she likes pink. She asked me my favorite color. I tell her purple.
She says, laughing:
I explained there are not “girls” or “boys” colors. I thought a teach moment. When I mentioned this to her parents, there was another teaching moment. There is hope ….. I hope.
BruceFromOhio
@eemom: Stars, this is one eye-opener of an explanation, and puts an interesting light on the ‘56%’ comment earlier. Wikipedia, so caveat emptor.
Kyriarchy (“rule by a lord”; from the Greek κύριος/kyrios “lord or master” and αρχή/arche “authority, leadership”) is a social system or set of connecting social systems built around domination, oppression, and submission. The word itself is a neologism coined by Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza to describe interconnected, interacting, and self-extending systems of domination and submission, in which a single individual might be oppressed in some relationships and privileged in others . It is an intersectional extension of the idea of patriarchy beyond gender. Kyriarchy encompasses sexism, racism, economic injustice, and other forms of dominating hierarchy in which the subordination of one person or group to another is internalized and institutionalized. (emphasis mine)
muddy
@Omnes Omnibus: Everyone said what a beautiful little girl my son was. He was mostly bald, being blond. He was very Gerberish.
You sound very pretty!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Seriously, how does stripping or even hookers compare in anyway to abortion clinic shut downs?
Gin & Tonic
@BruceFromOhio: Color me stupid, but I’m having a hard time understanding the basis of the argument here. Is it not of some concern that, for whatever reason, a majority of white women chose to vote for a Presidential candidate who was pretty clearly opposed to what most people would define as women’s rights issues in the early years of this century? Wouldn’t it be fruitful for those concerned about women’s rights to try to find this out? Further, would it be rude to suggest that the reproductive-rights movement has spent 40 years more or less turning a win into a loss? An issue of, apparently, settled law 40 years ago has to be fought more or less constantly in more than half the country today. What was the value of all the money contributed to NARAL and its predecessors over four decades?
TheMightyTrowel
@SectarianSofa: In fact, in that you’re probably being more in tune with the history of gendered colour associations (at least in North America).
? Martin
Progress from a blue state:
SectarianSofa
@Tommy:
I recall reading an article that the boy and girl conventional colors had been the reverse for a long time…. Pink was too strong and manly for the girls, or something.
Starfish
@BruceFromOhio: @TheMightyTrowel used kyriarchy first in this thread. When I went on a search for what the word meant a while back, it was used to explain things like why female circumcision is usually a horror inflicted on women by other women who experienced the same awful thing while growing up.
SectarianSofa
@TheMightyTrowel:
Well, there you go. Thanks.
MikeJ
@? Martin: They should do what Washington did and tie it to inflation. That way you don’t have to go back to the lege every year.
Tommy
@eemom: My mom is 5’1 on a good day. The adult men (and she is the only women) in the family call her the “Little General.” I am 43. MBA. Fairly successful. To this day I am still “scared” of my mom (I mean that in a good way). So are my father and my younger brother. She is a force of nature.
Just another story. You know who worked 24/7 to pay for my father’s MA and eventual PhD. Mom!!!!!
Then stopped her career, which I am sure could have been superior to my father’s, to raise me and later my brother.
Omnes Omnibus
@TheMightyTrowel: @SectarianSofa: Pink shirts have always been a thing in trad, preppy men’s clothing. I usually have one or two.
TheMightyTrowel
@Omnes Omnibus: Mr. Trowel, who is British and yes this is relevant, had the most amazing pink legging/skirt combo he’d wear sometimes to see the cricket. If you weren’t really looking close, you’d swear he was just in pink chinos like the oxbridge set, the second glance was when the fancy dress element became apparent.
ETA: context: how brits dress to go see cricket matches
Omnes Omnibus
OT: The people who go on HGTV’s House Hunters and House Hunters International are some entitled douchbags.
eemom
@Starfish:
btw, if you were serious in your original comment to me, you’re full of shit. Discussion of sexual dynamics is an interesting topic in its own right, and has nothing the fuck to do with promoting any archy, kyria or otherwise.
muddy
@TheMightyTrowel: You were right to marry him.
Tommy
@SectarianSofa: My MA in psychology from the late 80s has lapsed …..
Looking to buy gifts for my niece I would say that isn’t true, but what do I know.
My brother is trying to factor in the fact he is a Cisco networking guy, his wife mows the lawn and cleans the gutters, with how to raise his daughter. It is princess, all pink and Disney to be honest 24/7.
Cacti
@BruceFromOhio:
Well, apparently enough women in individual states are voting to seat R-legislators and governors, who have anti-choice as a plank in the party platform, and have never been friendly to the idea of equal pay legislation. And as the 2012 election showed, the overwhelming majority of women voters who pull the lever for R happen to be white women, I’d say it’s fair to ask why the disconnect between racial groups on issues that ostensibly affect all women?
I would also add as a background fact that second wave feminism concerned itself with the needs of hetero, middle class, white women above all others. So again, why the disconnect?
I agree, you’re not funny. Glad you can see it.
TheMightyTrowel
@muddy: You have no idea. Dude followed me to the otherside of the planet when i got a new job down in Oz. Also he makes wicked garlic bread.
Starfish
@eemom: I was distracting myself from the local flooding more than I was being serious.
Omnes Omnibus
@TheMightyTrowel: But a cricket fan?
jl
@Tommy:
I remember reading that same thing too. Around 1900 pink was considered a paler shade of aggressive red, appropriate for little boys. It was sort of a ‘training wheels’ red. Blue was a quiet demur color for girls, passive, blended well in the background.
kc
@Cacti:
Shorter Cacti: “Bitches be crazy.”
Cacti
@kc:
Hello stalker.
Tissue?
MomSense
@Cacti:
People are over thinking this. Sex is supposed to be fun.
@Tommy:
Your Mom sounds wonderful and I can tell you are too.
SiubhanDuinne
@Uncle Ebeneezer: I understand it can also be seen on the American Masters website. Haven’t checked that out yet.
Tommy
@Cacti: My mom (white women) in 2008 voted for Obama. First time in her life she didn’t vote Republican since she started voting in the early 60s. Her quote to me:
In 2012 the vote was simple for her cause she did feel there was an assault on women by the Republicans. You can agree or disagree with this, but look at the polls for younger women (race doesn’t matter).
When I attend extended family events the grandparents in the room are “birthers.” Their grandkids might not be “liberal” but on things like gay marriage they could care less.
Demographics ……
ruemara
I would be sexually aggressive, but, I find it hard to feel that way about anyone. Let’s be honest, sex is not even on the radar of things I want. However, I think a certain confidence in knowing what you want can be very sexy and I don’t understand any woman who could chide fellow females for it.
@kc: No actually. Shorter Cacti: “Feminism goes right the hell out the window over tribalism, for some”. The rest of us go, no shit sherlock.
SiubhanDuinne
@muddy:
Hence your nym?
Tommy
Can I ask a stupid question. Lurker here for years. Just started to post comments.
Is there a place where I can see a bio of the folks that front page here?
I know, I know newbie, but just asking …..
muddy
@SiubhanDuinne: Ha! No, my name is my work, I’m a potter. And generally considered quite forthright, so I don’t know what the deal was with that guy.
I still have the visual, like a snapshot, of his mouth hanging open and the food falling out. It’s perfectly wonderful.
muddy
@Tommy:I don’t think there is one.
Tommy
@muddy: Cool. Didn’t think so and it doesn’t matter that much. Just curious. I’ve been posting to forums and BBS since the 80s. My name is in my email I leave here. Easy to track me down, not trolling.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: Don’t think so.
Redshirt
@Tommy: There might have been once, but this blog has been cutting back functionality since no one can figure out why everything sucks.
Tommy
@Redshirt: I wouldn’t say that. It has an audience. I do WordPress sites for a living and I would suggest a ton of things, but lurked in the background on the upgrades here and understood all the issues John dealt with more then you can know ….
I just say this on my semi-popular blog, that gets like .0001% of this traffic:
I am just “old school.” I wonder who I am talking to …. I don’t need this from you, but the front pagers would be nice IMHO.
Nicole
I’m currently reading a text on sociology and the chapter on gender had a very interesting tidbit- data shows that married working women who keep their maiden name end up earning about 40 percent more than women who take their husband’s name. Women who do not change their names are perceived as more ambitious and more competitive than those who do, who are perceived as more nurturing and emotional.
Remember the total freakout in the 90s over “Hillary Rodham Clinton”?
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/14/us/again-it-s-hillary-rodham-clinton-got-that.html
SectarianSofa
@Cacti:
I must have missed some earlier drama.
It seems people are looking at everything cacti says with a jaundiced eye, looking at the words in the worst possible light? Or, did I miss the last troll nominations?
Suffern ACE
Speaking of bios, what ever happened to Ms. Sara PT?
? Martin
@Cacti:
White women can afford to fly their daughters to California or Europe for that abortion. It worth giving up clinic proximity to fuck over the browns.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suffern ACE: There is a reasonable possibility that she has been detained somewhere in Russia for publishing naughty pics of naughty boys. She could also be in a sweatlodge somewhere with a shitload of peyote and gin. Also, she might have broken a hip. Who knows?
@? Martin: Not all.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?
@Tommy: I have a similar mother, but she is much larger and can flat out fight. Her father, my grandfather, was a boxer of some renown and taught her how to fight. And she was mean as a snake.
Anyway, she pretty much terrorized the family well into my thirties. We’d been drinking and playing quarters on the island in the middle of the kitchen and she was drunk and losing and talking smack. I got up to leave and when I was putting on my hoodie, she sucker punched me, dropped me like a sack of potatoes, right in front of my family, my kids.
That was the last straw for me. I just snapped, jumped up and bullrushed her into the island and then proceeded to beat the holy hell outta her. She gave as good as she got for a bit but she was in her 70s and started getting winded soon enough, prolly had a lot to do with her cooking thanksgiving dinner all morning.
Anyway, she reluctantly tapped out after I got her in a choke hold (but not before crushing my left testicle in a death grip.) Found out later she ruptured my spleen. She had to get her hip replaced but it was giving her problems way before that.
I can’t even remember what my point was now.
Omnes Omnibus
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?: This really explains a lot.
jenn
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?: Sarah? Is that you?
Tommy
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?: I am new here so I will step softly. You are a cock sucker. Dick. Asshole. I told a story, don’t like it then don’t comment. Mock me I will confront you. You think you are the first idiot Ii’ve met on the Internet? What I want to say next I won’t …..
? Martin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Not all. Not even most. But some. Too often enough.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: Note the name…
lamh36
So I just got back from the bowling alley. A lady at my job convinced me to join her bowling league and I agreed to join. So if ya know me, then you’ll know I’m kinda anti – social, why in the world did I agree to do this? Figured it was better than sitting on my couch surfing the net & watching tv…meh.
So I just got back from my bowling excursion.
I hate to say it but I enjoyed myself.
To be honest, I only gonna give it a least one season and then I’m gonna reevaluate it. this is basically the first time I’ve bowled since high school, so almost 20 years at least 15. 2 of the team members bowl at least 2x a week. The other guy is a “newbie” but he just hasn’t bowled in a least a year. Everyone seems nice, but some are really competitive even though they say they’re not. So I need to up my game. I hate being the worse at anything. I am at least consistently the last…lol
So I’m the “newbie” and I HATE it. I can def get competitive and obsessed about it…ugh.
Oh and now my legs are killing me and my “bowling finger” is killing me.
Still, I got out of the house.
the Conster
I miss General Stuck.
Redshirt
@Tommy: And so now you know what a troll is. Learn to work with them, it’s much easier.
? Martin
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?:
And you decided to take that life lesson and shit on most of the people you come in contact with in much the same way.
No, you’re just pissed she was better at it than you.
Tommy
@Omnes Omnibus: Already done (but thanks for the advice).
Anne Laurie
@Tommy:
There was gonna be, at one time, but FYWP (see Lexicon, links near top left-hand column). Most FPers, IIRC, had a skeleton bio of one kind or another in their first posts, if you can sort out the search function.
Typing this on crappy new laptop from a hobby conventionl, so no long digression; my first post would’ve been early June 2009. I was IIRC underblogger #5, after TimF, DougJ, Randhino & MichaelD.
Omnes Omnibus
@lamh36: I once bowled an 84. It is my all time high score.
eemom
The thread has taken a weird turn, even for here.
@the Conster:
Me too.
Tommy
@Redshirt: I will feed a troll once or twice just for shits and giggles.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tommy: Also, if you know old D&D lingo, JSF is a chaotic neutral.
Bobby Thomson
@Sly: Thanks for the illustration. I didn’t understand what she meant and was picturing a medical condition I haven’t seen in the States that usually involves a wheelbarrow.
lamh36
@Omnes Omnibus: I hate being the worse at anything. I’m not trying to be in the pro leagues, but I at least want to hold my own and not feel like I’m dragging the team down!
Redshirt
@Tommy: It can be amusing sport, for a time.
As for Feminism, I’m for it.
Tommy
@Anne Laurie: Get it. I posted that bio of mine cause I work with corporate clients, mostly smaller companies, and I can’t get a bio from anybody. I just have some fun with mine. After that I posted I go into my business experience. How hard is it to write a bio about yourself?
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom:
Sexually aggressive women, pink on men, and JSF’s mom? How is this weird?
@lamh36: There are reasons I neither golf nor bowl.
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
Once, when I was in my mid-30s, I bowled my age. That was my lifetime high score.
Omnes Omnibus
@Amir Khalid: You win.
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
quite right.
Also too, the keys that spell “even for here” are worn down to little nubs on my laptop at this point.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: Do a macro.
Suzanne
I have been working for fourteen hours and I am too tired to kick the patriarchy in the balls, or even to do anything that involves scraping my ass off the couch, but I would like to note that I spent the day on a construction site and that I only got harassed by a contractor once, which is a record low.
Either the patriarchy is crumbling, or I am getting old and un-hot faster than I thought.
Suffern ACE
@Amir Khalid: I went bowling last month for a team work event. My colleague came in sixth out of six, finishing behind the woman who was seven months pregnant and another who was wearing a cast from some kind of tendon surgery.
Thankfully I at least finished ahead of the woman in a cast.
Ruckus
@Emma:
Sat on the el in Chicago one evening about 6 with most of the people on their way home from work. Every stripe was represented, workers in jeans and uniform shirts, men and women who obviously worked in offices. One seat away from me was a woman of about 40, nicely dressed, trying to read a computer manual. In steps a dude in jeans and tee shirt, cig hanging from his mouth and a half gallon jug of Gallo. He’s drunk of course, sit down next to the women and tries to pick her up in the worst way. After about 30 seconds it has become obvious that most of the men in the car are ready to throw this ass out the window. But at the next stop one guy who hasn’t stopped reading his newspaper, asks the dude, “Isn’t this your stop?” Drunk gets up an runs off the train, too late realizing that he has been had. Guy with the newspaper got an ovation.
Moral – we don’t all deserve a kick in the balls but some do seem to work overtime trying to earn even more than that.
eemom
bowling: I have a near-perfect lifetime record of incompetence in any activity with any (non-biological) object of the description of “ball.” However, one time, a thousand years ago, my law school bf and I went bowling with another couple. I threw the first ball and it was a STRIKE.
The End.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: Two things: 1. Nice caveat. 2. What happened after the strike. I am guessing gutter, gutter. That is what I would have done.
eemom
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes, damn you, yes. It WAS total gutter after the strike.
Which just shows to go you, that chivalry, unlike “patriarchy”, is indeed dead.
A gentleman, of bygone times involving true nobility as in knights and such, would have gallantly overlooked any such “after” details that occurred to diminish the lady’s triumph.
Come to think of it……maybe there are some subtleties of “patriarchy” I hadn’t considered…..
John M. Burt
@Omnes Omnibus: You know, if I were offered my choice of two seats in the cafe, with the opportunity to make the acquaintance of either a “slut”* or a “prude”** and with no further information offered, I would choose the “slut” (and I speak as a married man in an explicitly-agreed-upon monogamous relationship, so hoping to get lucky is not an issue).
*”Slut: One who has had one more lover than me.”
**”Prude: One who has had one fewer.”
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: Ahem, I have documentation that I am an officer and gentleman by Act of Congress. More germane to the discussion, if you are a particular type of bad bowler, you can’t simply do poorly, you must do brilliantly followed by abysmally. I know, I r 1.
@John M. Burt: Exactly.
Cacti
@SectarianSofa:
I’m not on the Xmas card list of the BJ cool kids club.
Omnes Omnibus
@Cacti: I don’t know it I am in the BJ cool kids club, but I would send you an Arbor Day card. If I sent Arbor Day cards. Which I don’t.
sempronia
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?:
sorry if this was for real, but I have not laughed so hard in weeks.
Yatsuno
@TheMightyTrowel:
That’s enough right there for me.
Patricia Kayden
@Morbo: Great story and love the website. Zimmerman is scum.
Kay
@Cacti:
I think that’s a fair criticism of 70’s and 80’s feminism, and I’m a hetero, middle class, white woman.
But why is this only applied to feminism? There’s lots of contradictions and class and race issues within political movements. You see it in environmentalism. I’m not an environmentalist but my husband is, and when I go with him to a Great Lakes enviro-conference it is overwhelmingly white and upper middle class.
The labor movement had all kinds of issues with race, and they even had and have class issues, where they ignored the lowest classes. In the early years, they didn’t want to let ordinary line workers organize, they wanted to restrict “guilds” to skilled trades and crafts. They were so slow to organize service workers that it was ridiculous. They are JUST NOW reaching out to the lowest level service workers, in fast food.
So why is this charge only thrown at feminists?
We have huge race and class issues in this country, even within liberal movements. It’s true across the board, but only feminists take shit for it.
cvstoner
I used to work for a college with a fairly large nursing program. As a part of my job, I was once asked to participate in a cross college group tasked with brainstorming ways to get more women interested in our science and technology programs, which I agreed were under-performing in that regard.
Of the six people on the committee, I was to only male. As a part of the discussion, I asked — as a side discussion, because I didn’t know — if we had any programs for getting more men interested in our nursing programs.
Now, given the severe nursing shortage that most of the country was/is suffering, and given the fact that nursing is a field in which men are wildly under-represented, I thought this was a valid question. However, the responses I received from the other members of the work group were quite enlightening. I must have been totally crazy for daring to suggest such a thing.
The point is, there is no doubt that women still undergo much strife in our society, and continue to struggle in male dominated fields. But they are also quite protective of their own fiefdoms, and when it comes to increasing the percentage of male participation they are not that excepting, either.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?
@? Martin: Pissy little comments like this is why you keep getting banned Martin.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@geg6: Hell yes. I asked mr. hedgehog out on our first date because I got tired of waiting. Our 25th wedding anniversary is coming up next month.
? Martin
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader?: Just saying what everyone else is thinking.
Pococurante
The love for aggressive women is nice. Certainly therapeutic I see. I’ve always loved strong women, was born of one, married such twice, and have raised my daughters to be the same.
It doesn’t change the fact that male children/young men are falling well behind girls/women because of thumbs on the scale.
What disappoints me about the dominant community here is an apparent inability in Group Think that facts continually change on the ground, that not every new challenge requires grounding in past trauma to unravel and respond.
Men dominate women so, passing current evidence behind, women need a big thumb on the scale. Minorities are oppressed, in increasingly scarce examples looking at middle-middle class and above, so privileged minorities need a big thumb on the scale. That Iraq outweighs the Balkans, despite evidence that increasingly desperate dictators use terrifying weapons of torture, so a thumb on the scale encouraging terror weapons excuses our non-involvement. Better, that past examples by Reagan and Bush Jr of terrible actions means the US has no place anymore as a light of human rights and defense of the common people.
So now, its ok because boys are failing worse than ever because of Some Past Thing. Wealthy privileged minorities fleece concessions that never drip down to their underclass namesakes. That decapitating Syrian leadership equates to bombing babies because, well poison is no different so let them bake. That we today are no better than a cowardly GOP that wants taxpayer diversion to corporations.
Many of you need to get off the “saving the children” rant that came up over domestic shootings, while being completely ok that we’ve done nothing yet to unravel the worst destabilizing player in the Middle East. “We did nothing before, look at Reagan, no “Freedom Bombs!” because obviously Obama will explode The Children!”
Obama is not going to explode children. But we do a pretty good job here in the US of starving them, ignoring their human trafficking, wringing our hands because it is all just too much, and look I was right about Iraq.
Horseshit. This thinking locks in a lot of low power evil.
The benign neglect by the enlightened.
Out damned spot, out.
Harold Samson
@Tommy:
Eventually you’ll get to the point where you realize there’s almost never a good reason to leave a comment.