Am I A Facebook Whiner?
February 23, 2014 1:01 AM Subscribe
A male friend reposted what I considered to be an offensive misogynist comment from a male celebrity. When I called it out, my friend took umbrage. I feel like he's being a jerk, but several women jumped to a defense of the joke. Am I wrong for correcting people and calling them out on what they choose to share on social networking?
I'm middle-aged white female, a committed feminist studying feminist philosophy, and I actively promote feminism and feminist causes on my social network. My friend is a gay white male, working in the arts. The post was a quote from Robbie Williams about how watching his child being delivered was 'like watching your favourite pub burn down'. I replied that Mr Williams' quote showed an objectionable distaste for the female body and its functions (skipping the other ramifications of ownership of a woman's genitalia, the concept of a vagina being ruined by childbirth, the equivalency of pub and pubis as man's playground, etc etc) as well as a basic misunderstanding of female anatomy. I was informed it was only a joke (which I read as a classic minimizing technique to switch the blame from offender to the offended). When I responded sarcastically that Oh, it's a JOKE, that makes it all okay, then and that perhaps Mr Williams should stick to producing peurile pop music and forgo comedy, my friend said he didn't want to argue, so I left the thread alone after that.
My friend posts a lot of socially concerned and thoughtful things on gender and sexuality and I'm really stunned by his inability to see how this is offensive, and also by the number of women who have jumped in to call me humourless. I feel that given that I actively promote feminism on my page and in my everyday life, that I should be pointing out misogny when I see it. Am I being some kind of stereotype of a humourless, strident feminist by reacting to this kind of thing?
I'm middle-aged white female, a committed feminist studying feminist philosophy, and I actively promote feminism and feminist causes on my social network. My friend is a gay white male, working in the arts. The post was a quote from Robbie Williams about how watching his child being delivered was 'like watching your favourite pub burn down'. I replied that Mr Williams' quote showed an objectionable distaste for the female body and its functions (skipping the other ramifications of ownership of a woman's genitalia, the concept of a vagina being ruined by childbirth, the equivalency of pub and pubis as man's playground, etc etc) as well as a basic misunderstanding of female anatomy. I was informed it was only a joke (which I read as a classic minimizing technique to switch the blame from offender to the offended). When I responded sarcastically that Oh, it's a JOKE, that makes it all okay, then and that perhaps Mr Williams should stick to producing peurile pop music and forgo comedy, my friend said he didn't want to argue, so I left the thread alone after that.
My friend posts a lot of socially concerned and thoughtful things on gender and sexuality and I'm really stunned by his inability to see how this is offensive, and also by the number of women who have jumped in to call me humourless. I feel that given that I actively promote feminism on my page and in my everyday life, that I should be pointing out misogny when I see it. Am I being some kind of stereotype of a humourless, strident feminist by reacting to this kind of thing?
This post was deleted for the following reason: Sorry, but since people can only respond with their own opinions regarding humor vs. offensiveness here, there's no way for this to be anything other than chatfilter. -- taz
« Older Magnetic Fields: Great band, better sixth sense? | A computer program that could learn... anything? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.