spitfireinspace:

• Mr “Welcome to the real world”. Sexism happens. Always has, always will. Might as well suck it up and deal with it. Try to change society? What are you, mad? I don’t like it either, sunshine, but just be good and don’t make a fuss.
• Mr “Oh my god calm down it was a joke”. Everyone knows if you tack “lol” onto the end of a sentence, no one can get mad at you because you were being hilarious, and if anyone gets offended they’re being an uptight prick. You truly are the George Carlin of our time.
• Miss Validator. “I’m a girl, and I think this is HILARIOUS. Calm down feminists!” Watch as everyone in the thread uses her as yet another reason why you are stupid and oversensitive and they are hilarious and right. May also “apologise for her gender” in a cosmic blast of internalised misogyny.
• Mr “I refuse to believe this happens”. He would never cat call or rape and isn’t sexist at all and thinks gender roles are outmoded. Therefore, he thinks, everyone else thinks just like me too. Can’t line up women’s experiences of sexism with his own worldview, so dismisses everything they say, demanding “proof”. Sees no irony in this.
• Mr “actually you’ve got this the wrong way round”. Silly you! This is looks, feels, smells and tastes like misogyny but is actually misandry. Don’t worry, easy mistake to make, anyone could have done it. Just don’t say I’m wrong or I’ll link you to pages explaining why you have female privilege and call you an ignorant bitch. 
• Mr EvoPsych! Has never studied this but has skimmed some articles and therefore can explain every facet of how human behaviour works. And why it’s just best and most natural for everyone to stick to their traditional gender roles. Because that’s how we did it in 10000bc. Women and men are just different, that’s why you’re not as smart as him.
• Mr *totally unrelated point*. Seriously dude, how did you even get here. Seems to be having a totally different discussion than the one you’re having, then whines that you aren’t addressing his points.
• Mr “I’m so not the problem here. Hello ladies.” Ugh, photoshopping is TERRIBLE, fashion is STUPID and I tell my girlfriend not to wear makeup because makeup is GROSS. I like small boobs - take that societal norms! You don’t have to have plastic surgery anymore, girls, because I like’em small. Stop dieting! I like a woman with meat on her bones. Read Proust! I like a lady who’s well-read. I don’t understand why you would want an item of clothing that cost more than £50 - you don’t need that to attract me, madam. What do you mean, you like wearing eyeliner and don’t dress yourself solely for my benefit? I told you I don’t like high heels! STOP DOING THINGS I DON’T LIKE!

ladyatheist:

portableairport:

racebending:

ladyatheist:

Yes. That really happened. Thank you Billy Crystal for reinforcing the fact that Black people are costumes.

Since this happened, there’s been a lot of grumbling about how it’s “just a joke” and Billy Crystal has been doing this forever, so “it’s not a big deal.”  

This is followed by a lot of anxiety and hand-wringing about being “too sensitive” on the part of people of color, and a whole lotta labeling from the other end.

The implication is that if you are “too sensitive” then your feelings are invalid because they are extreme and those with feelings deemed extreme have no right to complain.  ”Too sensitive” compared to whom, exactly?  

The term frames people who accept depictions of racism in media as normative, while we who are “too sensitive” are the ones not getting with the program (or getting the “joke.”  Even if the “joke” is awful.)

The culture that we live in is designed to label folks who “construe something as racist”—regardless of historical context or modern exclusion— as people who are “too sensitive.”

In our society, to be “too sensitive” is a bigger sin than “doing something that has a racist impact.”

Why? Because being sensitive is what people who are at an disadvantage do. (Hence sensitivity being a negative trait attributed to women and minorities who just want respect.  Note that being a “pussy” is an insult to men and “having balls” is a compliment.)

In contrast, cultural bullying is something that people with privilege do.  People with agent status are lauded for making “gutsy” jokes and expressing their free speech without caring about responsibility or impact (that would involve being too sensitive.)  The entitlement is such that the sensitive fee-fees of the people they are disrespecting shouldn’t matter.  

Meanwhile, people with targeted status are expected to “take it,” as in, docilely receive and accept it.

White male privilege has made it worse for those impacted by a racist act to be called pussies than for the perpetrator to be called out for doing something racist. The majority of people with privilege are doing the former, making it impossible to win by doing the latter.  

Sometimes people who do not have privilege buy in, too, to gain what little modicum of power might available from being associated with “having balls” rather than “being a pussy.”  (Shush, you’re being too sensitive.)  And, people who would otherwise be allies in situations like this (cis-men, people who are white, etc.) are also afraid to speak out because to be reduced to this label is a loss of esteem.  (“I don’t want to be viewed as being ‘too sensitive.’”  Why not?)

In order for privilege to keep its power, things have to be this way. Minorities have to be worried about being labeled as “too sensitive”—as if it were some sort of blight, having sensitivity, omg worst thing ever—if we dare speak out.

Here’s the deal:  For decades, the practice of blackface was used to dehumanize, denigrate, and exclude people of color from society and Hollywood.  The people complaining that we’re “too sensitive” are drawing comparisons to “White Girls” and Dave Chapelle’s white face without taking into account that whiteface was never used by historic Hollywood to as a tool perpetuate negative stereotypes that got people discriminated against, beaten, or killed.

Whiteface was never used by Hollywood on a sweeping basis to prevent an entire population of white people from having the ability to represent themselves on screen.

Whiteface has not contributed to a systemic national climate against white people.

Whiteface has not aided and abetted pattern of lynchings of white people across the country.

Can’t say the same for blackface.

Given that Hollywood continues to have diversity problem to this day, of course the scene touched a nerve. It is easier to label the outcry as “too sensitive” than to examine the historical context behind why people might be upset or disturbed.

If you disagree with this please unfollow me plz. I don’t have the patience for any apologist bullshit today thx

Extra emphasis is mine. The commentary on this is golden.

notasenator:

angels-and-angles:

As defined by urban dictionary, the friendzone is…

“When you are expected to support a girl you really like while she searches for a smarter, richer, and more handsome boyfriend. There is little you can do without feeling like a dick. All in all, one of the meanest things a girl can do, whether they mean it or not.”

and ”The perennial location of nice guys everywhere.”

Although this hypothetical situation could work both ways, friendzone is almost always applied to a man who is rejected by a woman. Therefore, there is something inherently unequal, something inherently sexist about the term “friendzone”. But what and why?

From my experience, this is what friend zone is. A “nice guy” pursues a woman, but isn’t forward with his intentions from the get-go like, say, a “jerk”. The woman is pleased to see a man who is interested in her not as a sexual object but as a human being and wishes for things to stay that way. The man is not satisfied with seeing the woman as a human being because being “expected to support a girl” is a bad deal if she’s not putting out.

Before I delve into the sociological aspects of this, I just want to point out that ”friendzone” is no more pleasant for a woman than it is a man. First, that is to say unrequited love works both ways, but the person who doesn’t return affections is considered mean only when she’s a woman. And second, what option does the woman have in a traditional “friendzone” situation? Just stop talking to a close friend to avoid “leading him on”? In high school, I found out my best friend of 2 years liked me. Having to tell him I didn’t feel the same way and being immediately ex-communicated via Facebook status (“Thanks for wasting my time”) was one of the worst things that ever happened to me. Were our two years of friendship invalid because I didn’t want anything more? Was all our time together really wasted because there was no hypothetical pay off?

Guys who do this and claim to be “nice guys” are the worst misogynists because of their sense of entitlement toward a woman. They make investments in property and expect their dividends. They are fake friends. They are selfish. And they will jump at the chance to vilify you and victimize themselves when their attempts at manipulation don’t work. Clearly, “friendzone” is the remnant of a phenomenon that has plagued women since the beginning of time: women are not independent creatures. Our love lives exist only in the context of a man’s desire. When we make independent decisions, we are subject to a host of derogatory terms. “Slut” is how we vilify a woman for exercising her right to say “yes”. “Friendzone” is how we vilify a woman for exercising her right to say “no”.

I’ve seen that last line popping around, and it is wonderfully written.

Here is The Way It Works: A Primer by Brian Gefrich

• You are nice to people because people should be nice to each other.
• You are good to people because then everyone’s lives are a bit better.
• If you meet a person you are interested in romantically or sexually, you will already be treating them nicely as per the above.
• If they are in a position where they would be open to a relationship, you make your intentions clear. This is not done through the simple acts of kindness or friendship you would perform for anyone else, make use of the culturally-accepted forms (flowers, ask out on a date, just tell them straight-up, etc)
• If they say ‘no’ in any form, then that’s that, but you do not punish them by treating them as less than a person. Remember above, you are being nice to everyone.
• If they say ‘yes’ in any form, if it’s a relationship or sex once on a whim or anything in-between, you don’t then get to stop being nice to them. They are still a person.

If you use your kindness as a form of pre-payment for sex, you are treating the object of your desire as less than a person, you are demeaning them by thinking that their sexuality can be purchased, and you are prostituting your own humanity.

This may make you a misogynist, yes, but more than that it makes you really terrible at being a person.

yes good

(Source: jazztrousers)

beranyth:

shrimpwonder:

strawberreli:

sanityscraps:

niceguytools:

Okay, I am gonna go ahead and drop a truth bomb here. Gentlemen, hold onto your egos. Here it is:

Nobody ever gets rejected for being literally too nice.

Okay, that’s a bit of overstatement. Out of 100% of rejections, I’m sure there’s a slender 0.00001% who just genuinely don’t like nice people. These rejecters may have a fluffy white cat, an underground fortress filled with doomsday devices, and an obsession with hunting down and eliminating sexy secret agents - but then again, they may not. Whatever you’re into, and all that.

People, in general, don’t want to be asswipes - or at least not to your face. We are conditioned to be polite, because it greases the wheels of social interaction. We are taught that while we can express a ‘yes’ with directness and enthusiasm (“Sure, I’d love to.” / “That’d be great!”), a ‘no’ must be softened, prefaced and padded with apologies and explanations (“I’d love to meet up for lunch, but I have a dentist appointment that day.” / “I wish I could come up for coffee, but I have work in the morning, sorry.”). This is doubly true for women, who are heavily socially conditioned to avoid displays aggressiveness and forthrightness whenever possible - after all, that’s the sort of thing that gets us called ‘dyke bitches’ and ‘ballbusters’ and ‘ungrateful cunts’.*

So when someone rejects you and mentions how ‘nice’ you are in the process, odds are that they mean one of a number of things:

“You’re really nice, but…” - “I’m not into you. This may be because: I am not sexually attracted to you / I do not think we are romantically compatible / I don’t want to be in a relationship right now / [any other reason I am entirely within my rights to have for not wanting to date you]. Because I don’t want to be rude, I will soften and paraphrase my reasoning, and pad it with compliments so as not to hurt your feelings and risk you becoming angry.”

“…but you’re just too nice.” - “I think we get on well enough as friends, but you are too clingy / self-abasing / lacking in self-confidence / needy / your attention is smothering / you put me on a pedestal in a way that makes me uncomfortable / being in a relationship with you would be exhausting / etc. etc. However, because I don’t want to be rude and I don’t want you to become angry, I will avoid mentioning this directly, and instead turn it into a compliment in such a way that implies the fault is mine for not liking nice people.”

If people aren’t giving you a chance and are constantly friend-zoning you (p.s. THAT’S NOT A THING, and you should stop talking about it as though it is), you can be 99.99999% sure that it is never because you are literally too kind and decent to want to be in a relationship with. Trust me, the problem lies elsewhere.

*Slightly more in-depth breakdowns of this can be read here, and in the second half of this post - and these are just from what I happened to have open in my tabs. That’s how pervasive this is. Note that the first article is about how rapists can choose to deliberately misinterpret a lack of explicit consent - so you can also consider this a trigger warning - and the second is mostly about a different brouhaha and the phenomenon of mansplaining, but they’re still good basic examinations of the difficulties people, especially women, face in saying ‘no’ directly.

^ This commentary!

Amazing commentary. I was just having this discussion the other day with someone who was quoting the Chris Rock “friend-zone” skit, and I kind of went off on them about “nice-guy syndrome”.

All of this.

That was kind of the best commentary ever.

I’ve been posting a lot of talky posts, but this was so well-articulated that I absolutely must post it.  Besides the obvious irony of how “nice” someone is who tells people who don’t return their interest to fuck themselves, it is ridiculous how many people I’ve heard complaining about this who are really really rude and obnoxious even about other things.  Sorry, but I’m not buying it that your staggering levels of atomic-powered niceness is what’s scaring girls away when I can see how you really act.

I do have a fluffy white cat and really want an underground fortress, though…hmmm

(Source: ashlynblacquiere)

glamaphonic:

instrumentalsftw:

fuckyeahimmyownfanpage:

lmao

…………… i dont find this funny to be quite honest

Well, isn’t this just a perfect encapsulation of Nice Guy thinking.

One by one, left to right, top to bottom:

1) Yeah, the gall of that bitch wanting to be your close friend instead of offering you unlimited access to her vagina! No… wait. Go fuck yourself. (HAHA THAT’S RIGHT YOU ALREADY ARE!)

2) Because women aren’t allowed to recognize good qualities you may have while simultaneously not being interested in you themselves! Though, to be fair, I’m not sure what good qualities you could possibly have.

3) It’s cute that you think that women don’t get to decide how they feel about you. By cute, I mean: you are a terrible person.

4) And you are also not who she wants. Get over it.

5) Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck yoooooooooooooooooou. If her ex actually is abusive, how about instead of trying to get with her you report it to the authorities or otherwise attempt to genuinely help her instead of victim-blaming her because she refuses to fuck you. If her ex isn’t abusive and that’s just some shit you’re saying to make yourself feel better about how much of an asshole you are: again, I say, fuck you.

6) WOMEN RUIN LIVES BY HAVING AGENCY IN THEIR OWN ROMANTIC DECISIONS!!! Or maybe you’re just a whiny, entitled shitslice!

7) Man, I don’t even know where to… she FORCES you to love her? I think, considering the tenor of the rest of these HIGH-LARIOUS memes, you are a bit confused about who’s trying to force whom to do what.

8) Group outings are just a method of torture invented by evil wimmin who want to torment poor Nice Guys. Or maybe, you know, she considers you a friend and thought y’all might have fun with a bunch of other friends. More the fool her.

9) How. Dare. She. have her own feelings that are not what you want them to be. Do you seriously not get why she might not want you considering your total and complete not even lack of concern but ACTIVE DISMISSAL of her desires, needs, and emotions?

10) A guy LIKE you, not you. Probably because you’re an asshole.