—and we’ll call it a women’s website (what the hell) because I am a woman—would be one that didn’t make these excuses, writing off fun as “filler” or requiring the premise of friendship in order to raise weightier matters. This website would be one where the editors were willing to assume authority in and for their work, even if it meant sometimes seeming argumentative or unlikeable or wrong. It would be one where good faith could be assumed without gussying everything up in the trappings of intimacy, swaddling tricky subjects in chattiness. These are gestures that seem strange and infantilizing to me, because instant friendship regardless of individuality is the kind of assumption that parents make about children (“They have a daughter your age, you’ll have fun!”) and bosses about subordinates and majorities about minorities, but not one equals in power typically make about one another.
Bear with me a moment while I try to tie these two things together.
I read the above right after watching Louie CK’s segment on The Daily Show last night and they’ve sort of meshed together in my mind as I think that they both offer equal viewpoints on my issues with feminism. On the one hand, you have Louie CK who claims that feminists can’t take a joke. And I happen to agree.
Then you have Molly Fischer who claims that women can’t take criticism. And I happen to agree with that as well.
When you position yourself in this tenacious space, one where you have to be praised in a positive and friendly manner, you shut down dialogue. I’ll repeat. YOU SHUT DOWN DIALOGUE. And that right there is the death of any progress that you’ll ever make towards understanding.
Lindsay Hood is a smart, funny human. Follow her regardless of your gender. But if you happen to be a woman, her ThirtyDollarProject is about clothes and stuff.