Fuck Yeah, Gender Studies!

xistentialtheory:

fuckyeahgenderstudies:

xistentialtheory:

fuckyeahgenderstudies:

(I spent ages figuring out that title….)

Trigger warning: violence; sexual assault.

There was something of bulge in news coverage last week concerning a story by Jo Walters at the Guardian, in which she explained why she brought up with her local bus company the issue of drivers calling her…

I didn’t know that using the word “love” or calling people “love” was such a terrible thing. I often call acquaintances and friends “Love” or “doll.” There are no sexual connotations to it, I just say it to friends (regardless of gender). I suppose I should stop, then.

Did you read my post? Or the Guardian article i referred to? That you should stop calling your friends ‘love’, that it’s ‘such a terrible thing’, is not what either suggests at all. I really think you’ve missed the point. That news story isn’t even about familiar terms of endearment, much less what i wrote.

You could harp on me less. Yeah, I read your post. Just because I chose to comment on one part of it, or one thing that popped into my mind, doesn’t mean I didn’t read or process the rest. Stop insulting people for just long enough to think before you go through with the insults, please.

You’re always insulting people unnecessarily. I love your blog, and sometimes the way you tell people off is totally warranted and awesome, but other times it’s just unnecessarily mean responses to simple questions or statements that meant and caused no harm.

I’m glad you more or less like the blog.
But I didn’t insult you and i wasn’t mean. I found your reply confusing and unrelated to the topics i or the news article wrote about since neither i nor the article suggested you/anyone should stop using nicknames for your friends and neither i not the article said using terms of endearment among friends was a terrible thing.

And when someone (especially someone in a position of power over me, as you are as a man) draws a conclusion from something i wrote that is a) unrelated and b) ridiculously and unreasonably extreme—for example, like your conclusion that i want you should stop calling your friends nicknames they apparently don’t mind—it suggests to me that they a) don’t take me seriously and b) wish to misrepresent me as someone ridiculous and unreasonable in order to discredit me.

This is true of anything but particularly so when it comes to marginalised groups discussing their hurt—especially, as in this case, when they have historically had to endure having their words dismissed as ‘hysterical’, ‘overreacting’, ‘unreasonable’, ‘extreme’, etc.