As I said in the original post, I’m chalking this up to Adrien Brody just having a horribly thoughtless moment that is rooted in the innate sexism and racism in our culture. Do I think he’s a sexist, racist bigot? Not so much – I have no real reasons to believe that. He just provided us with a horribly perfect example of white, male privilege and how far we still have to go.

I still think he’s a very cute guy…but not that sensitive. He’s like what Margaret Atwood’s character in Cat’s Eye said, about men being like rocks, that women falls on, or so it seems. They might not mean harm, but INCLUDING our perspective, why do we always have to do 99% of the work in avoiding harm, avoiding misunderstanding, etc?

I don’t know why (was I feeling masochistic?) but somehow we’d gotten into a conversation about feminism. Naturally, he was against it. Obviously, there’s no reason for feminism to exist, women can do anything men can do in today’s society, and the reason that we don’t learn about women’s accomplishments in our history books is that women haven’t HAD any noteworthy accomplishments! (Glad he cleared that up for me.)

Ayhow I said something about how it’s evident to me that sexism still exists in our society because women get cat-called and belittled and judged on their looks by strangers, and he said…

“Can’t you just yell back at them? There’s nothing stopping you from yelling back at them! You can do it too!”

Fail. Way to miss the point entirely. But then again, I shouldn’t have been too surprised by that.

I realized as I read these comments that the ageism just recenly occurred to me, and it’s not that I’ve aged that rapidly. It’s a patronizing tone, as though speaking to someone less capable and I do feel these young men think all women are start out less capable and then get dumber.

Perhaps it is NE suburban syndrome?

Or maybe I’m getting touchy?

More and more things to blog about…There’s no time!

Interesting! From my experience, I tend to view those kinds of “endearments” as cultural. Growing up in the Deep South, I was surrounded by honey chil’ and baby and such. They fly out of my mouth (and fingers) more liberally than they probably should, especially since I had a co-worker who called everyone (regardless of age) honey. And I think I picked up lovelies from Craig. :-)

Interesting that you find them ageist. That’s certainly never crossed my mind.

I think stuff like that is largely cultural. I don’t find “honey” or any of the other Southernisms age-ist; they’re part of what I’m used to in Georgia.

But when I lived in Texas, and all the kids at the middle school where I worked referred to any female teacher (or really any female authority figure) as “Miss,” it annoyed the hell out of me. I mentioned it to a few of the teachers I was sort of pals with, and said, “Doesn’t that seem disrespectful? Diminuitive?” They had no idea what I was talking about. It was a Texas thing, apparently.

In other situations where it feels physically dangerous I’ve learned, the hard way, to just move quickly on and wish for them huge anal warts.

:-) Tell me how you really feel. ;-)

I think that was what piqued my frustration – that if I had needed a cab, at that point, I would not have felt safe getting in. That sense of security (and/or power) had been taken from me.

What’s getting to me recently is the mixing of sexism and ageism. I have 20 somethings calling me “sweetheart” and “dear”.

Interesting! From my experience, I tend to view those kinds of “endearments” as cultural. Growing up in the Deep South, I was surrounded by honey chil’ and baby and such. They fly out of my mouth (and fingers) more liberally than they probably should, especially since I had a co-worker who called everyone (regardless of age) honey. And I think I picked up lovelies from Craig. :-)

Interesting that you find them ageist. That’s certainly never crossed my mind.

I agree – Hillary’s run for President has stripped bare the blatant/latent sexism in our culture. (Down to the simple fact that we call her by her first name and Obama by his last…though anti-feminists will say that’s only because Clinton connotes her husband. Bullshit.)

Which reminds me, I have another post to finish on feminism that’s all about Hillary Clinton v. Barack Obama. And how I think one of them is better for feminism (and quite possibly a “better” feminist) than then other.

And we all know my political leanings… ;-)

Too much to write, not enough time!

Unrelated: Sex 2.0 will probably be in DC next year. Woohoo!