[Noisebridge-discuss] XY Combinator

[Liz Henry]

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




On 5/23/11 9:41 PM, Griffin Boyce wrote:
> That is a pretty funny joke =)  The idea isn't bad though - lots of
> totally-dateable guys have startups or tech projects but no
> girlfriend/boyfriend.
> 
> 
> "Testimonials:"
> 
> "Before I found XY Combinator, I was lonely. Now I have a girlfriend!" Kevin
> R [ose]
> 
>  "Thank you so much for giving me a chance at a social life!" Mark Z
> [uckerberg]
> 
>  "That was the best rejection I've ever had. Very professional!" Richard N
> [ixon]
> 
> 
> On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 5:42 PM, aestetix aestetix <aestetix at gmail.com>wrote:
> 
>> Looks like an interesting site. Are there any other similar "demo day"
>> oriented dating sites?
>>
>> http://www.xycombinator.com
>>
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> 
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-- 
Liz Henry
lizhenry at gmail.com
http://bookmaniac.org
http://badgermama.com