Wear your dress and high heels for whatever reason you damn well want.
Just because it made me laugh
In a piece for (obviously) Comment is Free, Jennifer Abel opines “You bet I want equality for women, but I despair to see academic feminists waste time defining such crimes as ‘benevolent sexism’”.
While i think some of her points are fair, this article still really pissed me off.
Quite an interesting article. It illustrates an issue within feminism that I think is a major setback for the movement as a whole, which is getting hung up on things like traditionalist practices by men. There’s a lack of understanding on the part of so-called progressive feminists that doesn’t allow them to realize that many people think that women are indeed, daintier than men. Spending energy on developing a term like “benevolent sexism” is a waste of time when I don’t truly believe that these men are being intentionally sexist; they are practicing the chivalrous acts that many have been conditioned by an older generation to use.
Queer Porn Star Accused of Pedophilia for Breastfeeding Baby
By Diane Anderson-Minshall
Weeks after queer porn star Madison Young had her baby, she created an art exhibit titled “Becoming MILF.” The concept, according to Jezebel.com, was to explore how Young now embodies a contradiction, the dichotomy to end all dichotomies — that of the Madonna and the whore. At the show’s opening, she served up self-made breast-milk shakes and displayed a baby quilt made of burp cloths and porn star panties. Turns out not every feminist porn star agrees. According to Salon.com, a series of sex worker Twitter wars ensued, the controversy tapping into “culture-wide mommy issues.”
Porn star Furry Girl (who is known for her, um, stage name–like features) criticized Young for publicly breast-feeding, tweeting that only “creeps and pedophiles” are interested in seeing a porn star breast-feed and insinuated that exposing her child to such an audience was abusive. Girl called Young a “a revolting person” and dubbed her defenders “baby fetishists” and “pedos.”
Of course Young (née Tina Butcher) is already a well-known feminist porn star, director, author, and the founder of Femina Potens, an ever-evolving, queer and trans nonprofit gallery and performance space in California that the San Francisco Chronicle calls “the most happening art space in the city; a revolution in art and sex.” She’s curated the gallery for years, mixing envelope-pushing women’s sexuality exhibitions and spoken word shows from lesbians like Annie Sprinkle with less kinky feminist projects from literati like Michelle Tea. Young’s shown up on such outlets as IFC and the History Channel and in MSNBC’s Brian Alexander’s book America Unzipped, which has a whole chapter on her art and work.
So what was this controversial display of pedophilia that Furry Girl imagines? According to Salon, Young posed for a black-and-white photograph dressed up like Marilyn Monroe while clutching her daughter to her bare breast, nonchalantly breast-fed on a video, and then announced that she would nurse live and in person at an upcoming event meant to promote “health awareness for our queer, kinky, and sex positive communities.”
At the event itself, Young discussed breast health, while other presenters talked about breast cancer, antiretroviral drugs, and safe sex. “It wasn’t a sex party; it was an adult sex-ed class hosted by sex workers,” writes Salon’s Tracy Clark-Florey.
Furry Girl, an actress in vegan porn, tweeted that context is at the root of her argument, though she no longer wants to comment on the debacle. Meanwhile, Young returned to social media in hopes of ending the Twitter mommy sex wars: “The only one sexualizing this image of me breastfeeding is you. Which makes me feel truly disgusted and violated.”
Black Iris, Georgia O’Keefe
Shut the fuck up. Seriously just shut the fuck up.
I got a question asking me why Lady Gaga offends me and this is exactly why.
She doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about and she needs to stop acting as if she’s the spokesperson of the queer population. I’m sorry but I honestly do not need the whole “Lady Gaga, your friendly straight neighbour” bullshit.All these fucking categories are social constructions and you can’t just fucking come out and be like “you were born this way” without being able to explain why it is so except for claiming it’s because “God makes no mistakes”. I don’t even fucking believe in God. You can’t just go around pretending you know shit while saying “I’m not a feminist. I hail men, I love men. I celebrate American male culture, and beer, and bars, and muscle cars.”
I honestly do not give a fuck whether or not Lady Gaga is a feminist and she does not have to be one. If you ask me I’d tell you I’m not a feminist either but it’s obvious that she doesn’t even know what the fuck feminism is. And I suppose that’s why she went grabbing Snooki’s boobs at the VMAs thinking it’s okay? Whether or not she was dressed as Jo Calderone doesn’t even fucking matter. It is never okay to just go up to a women and harass them like that. It’s just like you wouldn’t expect to see Jay-Z walking up to Kanye playing with his penis at the VMAs. And the fact that Lady Gaga was dressed as Jo Calderone that night further proves that she actually does love the man culture, which constitute the systematic oppression and objectification of women. Also, you wouldn’t expect Lady Gaga to do the same if she went as herself instead of Jo. Going up and grabbing Snooki boobs is just her way of saying “that’s what men do”.
I don’t know what makes Lady Gaga think that she needs to so constantly “show her support” for the queer community to help build up her positive image but in this entire Lady-Gaga-loves-the-gay act, I feel used. I feel very used by a celebrity who feeds directly into the culture of massive consumption to help her build up a desirable image. I don’t know why so many people are so excited about the song Born This Way when Lady Gaga herself has never actually fallen outside the norm. In the music video she was dancing her beauty myth ideal ass off in her lingerie. Adding horns or whatever on your forehead or your shoulders does not make you an outcast. I do not understand why so many people let Lagy Gaga tell them how they are “born this way” when not too long ago she was singing about getting shit drunk, not being able to even remember the name of the club and how music she wanted to ride a disco stick. Now all of a sudden she’s trying to tell me God made me this way and she knows how it feels like to be me. She even used culturally offensive terms like Chola and Orient in that fucking Born This Way song.
The way she’s promoting the idea of “born this way” just really make her a hypocrite. I don’t even think she’s being herself or that she is “born this way” as she claimed. The person we see right now, who has the biggest heart and loves everyone and loves God is the same girl who was the only one to swear at the waitress in a MTV show. Everyone else got the prize by being tolerant but her. She was cussing the waitress out and was she wearing alternative clothing or acting weird at all? NO. Before she became Lady Gaga she was a girl with a fake tan in her swimsuit posing on top of cars. Even when she first came out as Lady Gaga she was not half as “weird” as or as outspoken as she is right now. She was more like a glam female version of David Bowie and at most boldly stylish within all the female celebrities at the time when she came out but was never paper-eating.
I just can’t be convinced by her and think that she needs to educate herself before making statements regarding sensitive cultural issues. It’s a celebrity’s responsibility, especially for someone like her. She knows very well how many people, especially teenagers look up to her and she really needs to be responsible with the things she says.
This is the end of my rant.
kirian gliese is a fucking god for writing this.
Thank you.
While I do agree with most of the points made about Lady Gaga herself, 99% of this wouldn’t be an issue if we didn’t exalt celebrities to they extent that we do. Just because someone is on t.v. does not make their opinion more valid than yours. If we cut out this celebrity worship bullshit, we wouldn’t feel the need to skirt our own responsibilities in forming our own fucking opinions about things. Quite honestly, I’m not sure I want to hear the opinion or viewpoints from someone who bases their perception of anything solely off of what Lady Gaga says, period.
Note: This is not a slight to the author of the original rant. You totally hit the nail on the head, thank you.
