Comments on: John Edwards, Again: The Monogamy Issue

By: other orange

other orange — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:09:44 +0000

…a haven for third-wave feminist discussion, not second-wave Stalinist nit-picking.

Ah, delightful. Because nothing says “Stalinist” like a bunch of women who wanted equal pay and access to reproductive health care.

By: urbanartiste

urbanartiste — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:09:26 +0000

I just wanted to add that pop culture and media figures do promote ageism against women. If anyone caught Bill Maher last year around the Spitzer affair he offensively came out and joked that these women were too old. I can’t find the youtube clip, but I am sure it is there. I am also not particularly a fan of any comedians interpreting old heavy set women. Some comedians like Edie Murphy interpret both men and women, but I find humorizing certain female characteristics plays into gender bias.

By: urbanartiste

urbanartiste — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:01:17 +0000

Finally, someone with enough courage to state the truth! Young women need to wake the – up and realize that someday they will be among the Red Hat Society, while geezers will be gawking and many a time getting younger women. I have nothing against the Red Hats and have accompanied a female relative on a few outings, but it depresses the hell out of me when I look around. I know more older single women with absolutely no prospects of a companion (forget about spouse). And these are the women that were cheated on and from the 1950s mentality that marriage is for life. Many of them are bitter as hell (and not about Obama.)

Granted women do outlive men, but I see more widows than widowers. Men seem to rebound really fast, meaning they will marry quickly.

By: Q Grrl

Q Grrl — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:28:15 +0000

“I wrote my stupid little comment thinking this was a haven for third-wave feminist discussion, not second-wave Stalinist nit-picking. ”

The third wave wouldn’t exist without the ground-breaking conciousness raising of the second wave. There is a long history to civilized discourse that buries women’s ability to define adequately and for themselves the linguistics of sex, sexuality, and womanhood. If women react strongly to your personal choice of words it is because of the word, not you. What you are facing is, at its root, a disagreement about meaning, not intent. If you are venturing into a context with which you are unfamiliar, it is an inherent risk as well as a lesson in subjectivity. What results from the discourse is not a dichotomy of rightness or wrongness, but a test of your willingness to learn.

By: La Lubu

La Lubu — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 13:14:16 +0000

Matthew, your privilege is showing. “Being shared” and this business of “letting” are triggering words of physical and sexual abuse for women. That’s standard issue language for abusers, and the fact that people you know use those terms without that intent does not universalize the experience. So, get down off your high horse.

By: Matthew Pridham

Matthew Pridham — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 08:35:04 +0000

Just a note: I meant “sharing” in the sense of someone who is in a committed (polyamorous) relationship “letting” someone they are involved with be involved with someone else. Regardless of gender. When I wrote “sharing or being shared”, the “sharing” bit refers to the women in question “letting” their lover be with someone else. Hence, sharing. Not “sharing” their own sexuality. “Being shared”, sure, has a tone of patriarchal ownership, but the women I am/have been involved with have all used that terminology interchangeably, though we all use, I suppose, a slightly ironic tone that doesn’t quite come across in cold print. I also suppose I should use handy “quotation marks” around every term which could be possibly taken the wrong way.

In so far as this has been honestly misunderstood, mea culpa, but I have the distinct feeling I was willfully misinterpreted. Notice, that in a comment several words long, and aside from a brief note from octo actually addressing my concern about her argument, those four words were all ya’ll latched onto. I completely agree with sara no h. that this is a word (sharing) which can be misunderstood if spoken/written in the wrong context and with no clarifying statement. If it had not been buried in plenty of other text clearly outlining my real stance, I would even feel abashed. As for not using it, I question this tactic. The word “pussy” is still employed largely by misogynists and troglodytes. Yet some folk around here don’t seem scared off by it. Is there, perhaps, a Committee For the Rehabilitation of Contested Terminology that my friends and I should submit “sharing” to, in order to avoid this sortof juvenile mud-slinging happening again?

Disregard my comments as you please, but when you engage in parsing such as this, you show no regard for civilized discourse. I wrote my stupid little comment thinking this was a haven for third-wave feminist discussion, not second-wave Stalinist nit-picking. Making out that I am pouting because “Sally” didn’t “share her pussy with me” makes me so livid my hands are shaking. Score your cruel little digs as you please, but you are not making any progress in any real struggles.

By: LC

LC — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 06:36:13 +0000

Zingerella, didn’t think you were. (Tone not always the easiest thing to convey on the internets.)

By: zingerella

zingerella — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 19:52:46 +0000

Indeed, LC. I didn’t mean to create a false monogamy/free-love commune dichotomy.

By: octogalore

octogalore — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:38:58 +0000

Thanks, Metonym, I will check into that. I don’t believe, though, that the fact that professionals have written about something invalidates hypothesizing about what it might look like if it became a standard in today’s society. After all, fancy title or not, all any of us can do at this point is hypothesize. I don’t think looking at the situation of the kind of people who choose, to use Hexy’s words, a non-standard relationship that is not accepted, tells us much about how it might affect us if it were in fact standard. If it were in fact standard, I think looking at people around us and their relationships tells us a helluva lot. And yeah, I do see a big difference between how men and women are treated socially as they age, and I don’t think I’m the only one seeing that big difference.

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