farahmoans

“the chase” & respecting self-agency

Here are some excerpts from Phaedra Starling’s “Schrödinger’s Rapist: or a guy’s guide to approaching strange women without being maced” (via lostgrrrls). I chopped it up but you should definitely look at her full post (by clicking that link) sometime cuz it’s really good:

You want to say Hi to the cute girl on the subway. How will she react? Fortunately, I can tell you with some certainty, because she’s already sending messages to you. Looking out the window, reading a book, working on a computer, arms folded across chest, body away from you = do not disturb. So, y’know, don’t disturb her. Really. Even to say that you like her hair, shoes, or book. A compliment is not always a reason for women to smile and say thank you. You are a threat, remember? You are Schrödinger’s Rapist. Don’t assume that whatever you have to say will win her over with charm or flattery. Believe what she’s signaling, and back off.

On the other hand, if she is turned towards you, making eye contact, and she responds in a friendly and talkative manner when you speak to her, you are getting a green light. You can continue the conversation until you start getting signals to back off.

So if you speak to a woman who is otherwise occupied, you’re sending a subtle message. It is that your desire to interact trumps her right to be left alone. If you pursue a conversation when she’s tried to cut it off, you send a message. It is that your desire to speak trumps her right to be left alone. And each of those messages indicates that you believe your desires are a legitimate reason to override her rights.

For women, who are watching you very closely to determine how much of a threat you are, this is an important piece of data.

I don’t like assuming bad things about strangers because it seems like a poor way to live. I’m not yet certain what I think of the “Schrödinger’s Rapist” concept (how’s that for being an agreeable/noncommital feminist?!) but this quote is definitely getting at something important, and that is the issue of

RESPECTING SOCIAL SIGNALS.

First off, I want to clarify that even though the above example refers to male rapists, the separate issue of respecting social signals is gender neutral. I believe that it translates directly to respect for one’s personal agency, and I’ve seen both women AND men suffer from someone ignoring this agency.

Now, my female perspective:

Nothing makes me angrier than when a guy is hitting on me, and I am uncomfortable, and I am showing that I am uncomfortable, and he ignores my obvious discomfort.

Yes, some people lack social skills, and I don’t like to assume that they are doing the “bad thing” of consciously disregarding my discomfort. But even in the case of the socially stupid, there comes a point where I expect to be given a way out.

By “way out,” I simply mean the opportunity to not reciprocate the flirt’s advances. As I said, I try to give others the benefit of the doubt in social situations. I make great efforts to achieve a certain level of social sensitivity, and I understand that the majority of other people probably don’t analyze social interactions as much as I do. So, in order to treat bad flirts fairly (and note that this only applies when I am not enjoying the flirting), I use the following process for as long as necessary:

I want this person to leave me alone.
I am showing him that I am uncomfortable.
He is still bothering me. I assume that he is socially stupid.
I look for him giving me a “way out,” or an opportunity to end this uncomfortable situation.
I find no evidence for him giving me a “way out.”
I verbally express my lack of interest (ie. “no thanks” or “I have a boyfriend”)
Repeat steps 3-6.

Ideally, people would be aware enough to stop at step 2 and, ideally, I would be more confident in asserting step 6. Overall, though, this process seems pretty fair to me (tell me if you disagree!). Most importantly, it shows what I find disrespectful: the need for step 7.

After an explicit verbal denial, any further pressure shows a lack of respect for the flirtee’s personal agency.

As I think about this particular form of disrespect, one boy continually comes to mind. This boy (who I will refer to as “Cricket,” the name of my least-favorite dog) tried SO hard to have some sort of romance with me. I’m not sure if Cricket just wanted sex, or was going for some sort of intense Wuthering Heights-esque relationship, but he was unrelenting.

Now, I don’t like to recount the details of Cricket’s aggressive pursuit because it makes me feel conceited—even though his pursuit really was more stressful than flattering. I’ll just leave it at the fact that he forced me to repeat my 7th step more times than I can recall. And if you still call any of this a humblebrag, then we have very different conceptions of what is worth bragging about. In fact, I’d like to clear up why I disagree with this particular humblebrag accusation, since it occurs so often:

Unrequited affections are not brag-worthy. If anything, I think unrequited affections are proof of a misunderstanding. For example, X wants to kiss Y. But Y does not want to kiss X. Either Y does not understand X enough to see why they should make out (HIGHLY UNLIKELY), or X does not understand Y enough to see why they should never ever let their lips touch (MUCH MORE COMMON). After all, if Y is correct, then Y will never want to kiss X, and who in their right mind would want to kiss someone who will never enjoy the kiss?

The above assertions are all grounded on a view of love as a sort of mutual contract. I’m not completely sure how to articulate/defend this view yet, but I feel pretty confident in saying that romance, in its purest form, must be shared. Otherwise, it is not romance.

Y is either missing out on something great or is receiving affection that is meant for someone else (that is, the person X imagines Y to be). Nothing brag-worthy or even enjoyable here.

So this is why I have no patience for pushy flirts.

Back to Cricket. For several months, I couldn’t figure out why Cricket made me so angry. He never touched me or blatantly tried to manipulate me. In fact, he was surprisingly honest, too honest at times (which is perhaps the most reassuring vice of them all). He seemed to know what he wanted, and he pursued what he wanted. So why did I hate him?

I started to question myself. He seemed much more self-assured than me, so maybe he was right. Maybe that “women only want what they can’t have” stereotype was true, and I was only resisting because I was primed to pursue guys that were bad for my emotional health. Maybe my initial instincts were wrong and he was the correct X and I was the rare case of the mistaken Y and he was just too perfect for me to realize we were meant to be together.

Then I stopped reading Reddit posts about “the friend zone” and watching 90’s rom-coms about “the chase” and remembered that my instincts were more trustworthy than this guy’s confidence. He was making me miserable, for God’s sake.

EVEN IF Cricket had been right, he still should have respected my rejection. By disregarding my rejection, he was also disregarding my right to control who is involved in my romantic life. This is precisely why “the chase” is harmful: it requires a level of disrespect for self-agency.

If Cricket could confidently make advances in the face of my continual denial, then something was wrong with him. There comes a point when lack of discouragement is a red flag. It was only when I looked at Cricket’s pursuit from a distance, and noticed that my right to say “no” had never entered the equation, that I realized why I hate him:

I hate him because he is disrespectful—NOT because I’m a neurotic female who doesn’t know what’s good for her.

.

I really hope Cricket doesn’t read my blog.

(That goes for both the dog and the boy.)

Either way, here’s a pic of the dog:

…now you understand why I hate this Cricket, too.

No self-respecting woman should wish or work for the success of a party that ignores her sex.”
—Susan B. Anthony

“

—	Why is it that, after 140 years, this quote would be more relevant if “ignores” were replaced with “hates”?

What’s the male equivalent for “diva”?

The glorious Naomi Wolf on Madonna:

She has the egoless honesty of the serious artist that reads like ego, especially in women.

Some psych articles on how women are expected/desired to be:

So my dad is trying to be supportive of my feminism…

…which is really sweet. But the closest he’s come to feminist theory are his interactions with the dozens of strong black women that he works with at the City Of Atlanta water department.

So this is the sort of email forward that floods my inbox on a daily basis:

If only every parable had such a sassy ending.

ORIENTALISM & THE DUTY TO BEAUTY

Look at these charts! Here’s the source from OkTrends.

So out of all races of male senders, White men get the most responses from female recipients (rate of 29.2). So, overall, White men are the most desirable.

Now look:

So out of all races of female senders, Middle Eastern females get the most responses from male recipients (rate of 49.5). However, it is important to note that white men, overall, respond much less (rate of 40.5) than all other male races—probably due to their high desirability, as shown in the previous chart.

Now, look closer at that White male responding to female sender column. Anything stand out to you? The White men show a clear and strong preference for Middle Eastern women. I’m not just pointing this out to flatter myself, folks. I think this is a clear example of Orientalism.

Okay, I’ll be honest, I don’t really understand Orientalism. Edward Said wrote the famous book on it. I tried reading that book but couldn’t fully navigate it on my own. I tried doing a stand-up set about Orientalism but I just wasn’t prepared to fully tackle the concept on my own. It’s a weird phenomenon that I’m waiting for a course in.

However, in my limited research, I do know that Orientalism involves white, Western culture idealizing the Middle East in certain ways, particularly by projecting erotic qualities onto anything Middle Eastern. (Words like “exotic” and “fertile” are often products of Orientalism.) I know that such eroticism of the Middle East was used, in part, to justify Western imperialism. (Think about all those sexy beer commercials. Sex=value.) Because the lands were so valuable, it made sense that the West should try to claim them for their own. It would have been foolish for these powerful, white men to NOT seize ownership of such ideally beautiful, foreign lands.

You can see how feminist theory could easily fit into the political theories associated with Orientalism. I am not ready to argue that my encounters with white males hitting on me echo white imperialism; however, I am fully ready to claim that the attitude of Orientalism perpetuates negative effects of the notion of beauty.

As a half-Middle Eastern female, I cannot count the number of times I’ve been described as “exotic” in a way that made me feel anxious to capitalize on my physical appeal. Talking too much about a girl’s beauty will often lead her to place too much value in it…but talking about a girl’s exotic beauty? It’s like being reminded that I have not only an aesthetic power, but a rare aesthetic power. Couple that with the added notion of female competition, and it becomes very difficult to not feel pressured to exploit my “exotic” advantage.

Now here is where a lot of my friends would get mad at me for complaining. They would say “hey, people are saying you’re pretty, what’s the problem?” or “they’re just trying to give you a compliment.” These people don’t understand—too much physical praise scares me! I want to live in a society that challenges my intellect—not my beauty. Thank goodness that I am privileged enough to attend a great private school where I receive intellectual criticism/praise…but what about the girls and women who aren’t as lucky as I am? The females who are consistently confronted with the notion that their beauty is the only thing about them which is worth any value? How are they ever supposed to find the power in their thoughts?

Still think I’m being ungrateful to the guys giving me compliments? Here’s a little anecdote: I was recently at a stand-up comedy open mic, and I met some drunk guy after my set. We were having a decent conversation about comedy (which is more than I can say for most of my open mic experiences). Then he pointed out the following sticker on my jokes notebook:

I love this sticker. It’s weird and narcissistic and celestial and it makes me laugh whenever I see it. Yet this drunk guy was disappointed with it. He told me, “you know what, I’d really like to see you without your glasses on, like with your hair down, all wild and free and stuff.” At this point I was confused, so I asked him what he meant. He finally stopped rambling and just said “Well, look at yourself…you are undercutting your looks as much as possible.”

I was at a COMEDY OPEN MIC. As a COMIC. I was trying to TELL JOKES. To MAKE PEOPLE LAUGH. Yet this guy could not resist telling me to live up to my beauty potential.

Because even though I was at the bar to work on my comedic material, and had all the same things to worry about as the rest of the comics—like making people laugh and not hating myself when I didn’t make people laugh and writing more jokes and watching the other performers and being nice to people and remembering their names and all the other random shit that I should be doing at open mics—this guy wanted to remind me that even though I was at the bar as a comic, I was first and foremost at the bar as a woman.

My gender had overshadowed my passion for comedy.

(On a side note, if you want to instantly prove to me that you have absolutely no notion whatsoever of the internal conflicts imposed on women by patriarchal society, then be one of the comics who asks me “Do you really think female comics are disadvantaged?”)

Female comics are disadvantaged, exotic females are disadvantaged, intellectual females are disadvantaged, ALL females are disadvantaged in a society that obligates them to beauty.

You want to pursue your passion, ladies? Go right ahead, but don’t you dare forget that you have an obligation to look your best while you’re doing it. Because even though your passion in life is important, your gender duties are non-negotiable.

(That’s a quote by the patriarchy)

Just pretend it’s a real quote! Like historical fiction or something.

The bottom line is that the duty to beauty is toxic yet still prevalent.

At least Ryan Gosling understands how women are sexually censored

wellingtonyoungfeminists:

“You have to question a cinematic culture which preaches artistic expression, and yet would support a decision that is clearly a product of a patriarchy-dominant society, which tries to control how women are depicted on screen. The MPAA is okay supporting scenes that portray women in scenarios of sexual torture and violence for entertainment purposes, but they are trying to force us to look away from a scene that shows a woman in a sexual scenario, which is both complicit and complex. It’s misogynistic in nature to try and control a woman’s sexual presentation of self. I consider this an issue that is bigger than this film. … There is something very distorted about this reality that they’ve created, which is that it is OK to torture women on screen. Any kind of violence towards women in a sexual scenario is fine. But give a woman pleasure? No way. Not a chance. That’s pornography.”

— Ryan Gosling, in a letter protesting the NC-17 rating of ‘Blue Valentine’. The rating was based on one consensual sex scene, in which he performs cunnilingus on Michelle Williams. (via agarfields)

Studies are showing that boys want love, too »

Finally! A Disney toddler princess! »

Apparently Disney anticipates people getting pissed at them for creating a reverse-satire of Toddlers in Tiaras, so they stress that the movie/television series “will focus on learning.”

The general manager also adds the imperative that there will be “plenty of pretty dresses and sparkly shoes.”

Hopefully all that learning won’t make the 2-7 year old audience forget to ask their parents to buy them the pretty, sparkly products marketed under Sofia’s name.

Short Skirts Magically Turn Women Into Bitches »

Excellent article. Gets to one of the root causes of female in-fighting:

“Myth of male weakness” outsources men’s sexual self-control to women.

Read the whole thing!