[Noisebridge-discuss] Noisebridge-discuss Digest, Vol 43, Issue 24

[Lee Worden]

Very well said.

On 05/24/11 15:00, noisebridge-discuss-request at lists.noisebridge.net wrote:
> From: Liz Henry<liz at bookmaniac.org>
> Subject: Re: [Noisebridge-discuss] XY Combinator
>
> Obligatory feminist analysis.
>
> I don't think it's funny at all and will happily explain why. The joke
> rests on several stereotypical ideas -- that hardworking geeks are all
> men, that women are commodities, and that men are entitled to sexual
> access to women. I could unpack more but that's plenty to go on.
>
> That to me combines into a "joke" that is merely a re-stating of
> misogyny and in fact is one side of the coin of rape culture. Men are
> taught that women are commodities. Women and girls are positioned in the
> "joke" as if they hold immense power (here, actual "capital" which  is
> coded as "access to a vagina"). The rape culture aspect here is that men
> are also taught that they should and can feel resentment and rage for
> not "having" automatic access to women's bodies (and labor,
> incidentally). It doesn't do men any good either for geeky guys to be
> positioned as ungendered men who need to be taught how to be more
> masculine, because then we end up with geeks who are constantly trying
> to do macho posturing and prove even harder they're not like women --
> geeks who have to perform misogyny in order not to be the targets of it.
>
> I like to pretend sometimes that I get to be just human, but am sadly
> aware that no matter what, under patriarchy, I have a dual status as
> person and as currency. Since that's what I live under, I don't have any
> fucking patience with this sort of joke and with ironic hipster sexism.
> No... your ironic hipster sexism doesn't get a free pass to funny. It's
> actually just the same to me as previous generations' asinine har-haring
> over Dagwood or The Lockhorns in the funny papers...
>
>
>
> - Liz
>
>