Sluts ‘n’ skates.
Disco Ball bless Dawn Eden for existing. She has this complete inability to wrap her hateful arguments in politically correct dressing, even though god knows she tries to ape the usual wingnut rhetorical tricks (Affirmative action is anti-racist! Women belong in the home because they’ve been empowered to choose it!). Now she’s written a post about the woman who was nearly thrown off Southwest Airlines in a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t outfit, and her post is sort of the platonic ideal of the hatefulness underlying the modesty-and-chastity cheerleading movement. To start off with, Dawn supports a culture where rape is tolerated as an necessary evil to keep the bitches in line.
[Kyla Ebbert] was no doubt weaned on the V-Monologues brand of feminism — the brand that takes inspiration from diatribes like “My Short Skirt,” which participating coeds around the world shout in staccato blasts each year on “V-Day”:
My short skirt.
It is not an invitation
a provocation
an indication
that I want it
or give it
or that I hook.When I hear that, I think, sure, lady. And your cruciferous foliage, axillary buds, and shallow root system are not an indication that you are a Brussels sprout.
Well, she also assumes that feminism is the cause of Hooters restaurants and the sense that women have to dress in uncomfortable and skimpy clothing to be acceptable females, an odd assumption to say the least. And she has the usual wingnut obsession with the “Vagina Monologues”—increasingly I’m coming around to the idea that what’s so offensive about the play is basically what is interesting about it, which is that it’s a showcase for women’s voices. The idea of just giving women a place to express themselves as-is instead of running their words through a patriarchal approval filter is what causes so many vapors. That and vaginas are evil.
Anyway, back to her idea that you deserve to be treated like a rape object depending on what clothes you wear—make no mistake, we are talking rape object. The point of the poem is that the head atop the female body is what determines whether or not sex was consented to, not the length of the skirt on said body. You don’t get to say, “Her mouth said no, but her skirt said yes.” But Dawn’s so offended at this young woman showing off some spectacular legs and getting all the attention that she can’t help but fantasize about a crusading rapist coming in to save the day and show the slut. Which goes to show why rape is as hard to prosecute as police brutality—on a certain level, a lot of people see both rape and police brutality as necessary evils to keep the underclass in line.
In lieu of a knight in shining armor showing the sluts the score with his sword-penis, Dawn’ll take the humiliation of having people make a fuss about you daring to wear clothes that, if they were a uniform, you’d be mandated to wear.
That embarrassment is a gift, [Kyla Ebbert]. Instead of suing the airline, you should be paying it out of gratitude for showing you the truth of what you are doing every day — treating yourself as a walking commodity, and others as consumers.
Not rape, but she’ll take it. Just as long as the message gets across that your body is public property and others get to tell you what to wear, even if the standards shift by the minute. (Sometimes the slutty miniskirt is mandatory, sometimes it’s not.) The kicker is that after spending a lot of time establishing that she thinks that the rest of the world should be able to control your clothing choices through humiliation and the threat of rape, Dawn has the nerve to put a pseudo-feminist face on mandated modesty.
As a woman, I realize that I could be covered head-to-toe in a burkha and a man could still leer at me. I can’t prevent that. Some less-than-a-gentleman stared at me just the other day on the Metro when I was wearing an ensemble that would have made Phyllis Schlafly look like a trollop. But I can make an effort to show I am conscious that my body belongs to me — and no one else. That is true feminine power — not putting one’s body on display and then getting all humiliated and embarrassed when accused of crass commercialism.
Call me skeptical of the idea that you display your ownership of your body by letting random men who leer at you on the sidewalk choose your clothes for you. Or that putting on a short skirt means relinquishing control of your body to any man who has a hard-on and a hankering to make you suffer. The whole “my body belongs to me” crap the modesty movement puts out is such bullshit even they don’t believe it—we’re talking Dawn Eden here, the same woman who basically thinks you should wait for marriage to have sex so that your husband feels more confident that he has full possession of your body. It’s an attitude that assumes that women’s bodies are always commodities and the real debate is over making sure that the ones in your possession keep that new car/fresh hymen smell. It’s fascinating that even the most retrograde misogynists who push the idea that women’s bodies are commodities that lose value for the true owners (husbands) if “used” by other men have this need to slap a feminist-sounding excuse onto their assholery. I dare say it means that feminists have achieved that small victory at least, that they have to pretend to give a shit about women’s actual feelings, even if it’s just an empty display.
87 Responses to “The superior feminism of anti-feminism”
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I’m a wimp, I know. But I feel more sorry for Dawn than angry at her rhetoric …much in the same way I feel sorry for LaShawn Barber. It’s hard to watch someone fight with their inner demons in public.
But I can make an effort to show I am conscious that my body belongs to me — and no one else. That is true feminine power — not putting one’s body on display and then getting all humiliated and embarrassed when accused of crass commercialism.
In Dawn’s world, everything that’s “on display” is for sale–to the first bidder with no price negotiation. That’s why she tossed down a five dollar bill and walked off with the art museum’s prized Picasso.
And anything on display is automatically crass and commercial. This explains her sneering columns ever Christmas at the “crass commercialism” of those disgusting manger scenes in front of all the churches.
I’m trying to parse that last passage, which seems to mean something like “Sure, men will still think about assaulting you regardless of the clothes you wear, but if you wear the least revealing clothing you can, at least you won’t feel so guilty about leading them on.”
Now all she has to do is write another piece denouncing concealing clothing because we all know how hot it is to just see a woman’s eyes with everything else covered…
Affirmative action is anti-racist!
Or, racist? Coming from the wingnut?
Coincidentally, just last night Meteor Blades posted this quote on the Kos:
Well, that was her first mistake: going out in public.
I’m tired of the old chestnut that a skirt of any length is rape-bait.
While doing research on the subject for a project in college (ugh, and yeah, yuck) my partner and I discovered that that the clothes most often worn by rape victims were JEANS.
Which gives lie to the skirt myth and hints at the actual, horrific violence of the act.
And another point. The Hooter’s Waitress in question was taken off a flight from the Southwest Terminal in San Diego. At that same terminal, three times every Friday night, the Party Flight to Vegas takes off, full of people dressed wearing easily the same clothing or less. Southwest’s arguments are capricious at best.
I was unaware of a “No-Hoochie” policy on Southwest flights. Need I remind ANYBODY about these:
http://img.timeinc.net/time/2003/flight/images/1970s.jpg
I guess not, I took that from another progressive forum…
There were actually two young women that this happenned to, both on SWA, but different flights, IIRC. Neither of their outfits seemed at all provocative to me. I’d rather they do something about the guy sitting next to me that hasn’t showered in two days before flying.
Yes, of course they are; after all they’re nothing but play-doh and raw bacon, remember?
Women like that make me sick. Naturally men like that do too, but I suppose I find it more unbelievable coming from a woman–rather if I heard a black American arguing about the merits of pre-Civil War slavery. I can’t wish the things upon them that they so clearly wish upon other women; I just fervently hope they never have any daughters, nor any power over the lives of any other young females. They certainly are the acid test of the litany I am repeating right now through gritted teeth, “I believe in free speech!! No matter how repulsive what they’re saying is!”
So what Dawn’s really saying is that there is no possible way to stop men from ogling. The potato sack and the super-powered subliminal “my body belongs to me” efforts were useless. Given that, why not wear a short skirt?
“”new car/fresh hymen smell”"
For what it’s worth, I noticed that they have that in a spray at Auto Zone.
Right, dressing modestly gets you much more respect. That’s why women are respected as equals under the Taliban.
mass:
Eww. AutoZone always gives me the willies anyway, but now I’m going to think about this everytime I walk into a autoparts store.
“”new car/fresh hymen smell””
For what it’s worth, I noticed that they have that in a spray at Auto Zone.
Does it have just the slightest piquant hint of lover’s lane buttfuck?
Ha! The last time I flew Southwest, we had a completely mixed crew: 2 male attendants, 1 female attendant (old enough to have worn that uniform), a female copilot and male pilot.
I was giving the young guys crap about “where’s your hotpants”?
I think the stewardesses are “ok” because they’re being forced to wear the skimpy outfits. Wanting to wear the skimpy outfit for your own reasons is slutty, but as long as a (male) boss is forcing you to do it it’s alright. Im not sure which is creepier: the idea that women can’t want their own sexuality unless it’s disguised as male compulsion, or the idea that someone might be getting off thinking that these stewardesses are being forced to reveal themselves against their will.
Now she’s written a post about the woman who was nearly thrown off Southwest Airlines in a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t outfit
…the post linked to was interesting, but had nothing to do with the topic under discussion.
And the blog itself is great, thanks for the rec - but none of the recent posts had anything to do with the topic under discussion either.
What post did you mean to link to?
Ms. Kate: This is a little off-topic, but I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever been on a flight with a female pilot. The voice that says “Well, folks, we’re headed out over Lake Erie with a headwind of 80 knots” or whatever is always masculine, and I think I’ve probably flown a half-dozen times per year for 20 years.
When I saw a photo of the outfit I did not think it was any big deal but when I saw video footage of the young woman wearing it on a tv show i saw that 1 - the shirt appeared to be see through and 2 - the skirt was ridiculously low - i.e. just above the pubic area. I thought she looked trashy in it and I’m a woman who wears short skirts myself. If she were my daughter, I’d ask her to go to counseling to deal with whatever issues compel her to dress so overtly sexually in public. I’m all for lingerie and enjoying ones sexuality fully, but what’s appropriate in private is not appropriate in public. However, I’m not sure what I think would have been the proper reaction of the airline. On the one hand its a private company and is entitled to set standards to insure that its customers are all comfortable. On the other hand, there are not a lot of airlines to choose from on short haul flights so its not exactly an efficient market. And I would of course condemn any airline that, say, forbid minorities from flying out of concern for the comfort of white peope. I guess I’m in a quandary.
So Ms. Eden argues that women shouldn’t wear skimpy clothes because men have absolutely NO control over their own eyeballs and have NO CHOICE but to ogle women’s bodies?
Why not just have men wear blinders everywhere? Works for horses.
Yuri K. I was on a flight from Chicago to Toronto a month or so ago with a female pilot. I have had female pilots on Air Canada about half the time I think. I haven’t had any that I can recall in the continental US flights I’ve taken (the Vegas to Chicago leg of the trip was piloted by a man, as were the 5 or 6 other trips I’ve taken in the USA).
Did Dawn Eden really just compare women wearing short skirts to brussels sprouts? WTF? Mixing up what someone wears and biologically determined plant morphology is super-creepy, to say the least. And it really shows how this is all about revoking autonomy. Doesn’t matter what the woman says, the clothes she wears choose for her, according to patriarchal norms, of course. Blech. Not the kind of world I’d like to live in.
It would be nice if Ms. Marcotte would do readers the favor of linking to Ms. Eden’s actual post rather than doing a rotten job of paraphrasing her. I get hyperbole, but to be truly effective, it should have some grain of truth to it. After reading Ms. Eden’s article (http://www.dawneden.com/2007/09/runway-muddle.html), I don’t see the big freakout posted here as relevant even if I don’t have wholesale agreement with Ms. Eden’s point.
Shame.
Moderator’s note: Oops, I totally meant to. Don’t ascribe malicious intent when it was a simple mistake. Now you look like an asshole.
Your entire post is full of malicious intent. It wasn’t exactly a huge leap. You calling me an asshole is irony defined.
Oooo, the wonderful “I don’t agree with how bad you find this, as I find it slightly less bad, therefore everything you say is crap!” argument from ragamuffin.
You know, I do wish the trolls would come up with slightly more original swipes.
Oh, and btw, she didn’t call you an asshole, she said your behaviour made you look like one … but then, reading doesn’t seem to be your strong suit, eh?
Perhaps you should take up some remedial reading yourself as that wasn’t my argument at all.
I just find it ironic and rather funny that Ms. Marcotte spends 6 paragraphs practically foaming at the mouth and spewing vitriol at a strawman, yet thinks I’m the one being “assholish”
Flying still tends to be a good-ole-boys network, and expensive as fuck, so you’re not really going to see too many female pilots. However, since there’s such a pilot crunch right now, I think you’ll begin to see more and more.
This story makes me sad, because SW is one of the better airlines out there (for workers, at least). Full benefits, and no furloughing and lacking the stick up their ass that most airlines have. Plus, they were one of the first airlines to voluntarily go to a normal flight attendant uniform.
My favorite quote:
“Look, all I know is that if I don’t want to invite muggers, I don’t walk around flashing the contents of my wallet.”
Of course, I’ve never heard of muggers getting released because the courts decide that the victim was asking for it. It must be a different sort of crime. I must have the right to control the contents of my wallet whether I flash it around or not, but my control of my body is, for some reason, in contention. Mugging = mugger’s fault. Rape = my fault. And for some reason people like Dawn Eden don’t see this as a problem.
Eh? I thought her body belonged to her god, not to her.
And if a woman’s “body belongs to [her] — and no one else” then how does she square that with women who have sex or wear what they want?
Seriously, no joking, how does she manage that?
Talk about going off on a tangent. She’s not talking about rape. That’s inexcusable. She’s talking about other people objectifying you because of the way you present yourself. Generally speaking, people don’t go around inviting unwanted behavior (hence, the mugging analogy).
Now, while I disagree somewhat with Dawn as to how revealing this outfit was (though I have heard now that when she would sit down anyone across from her got an all but unavoidable crotch shot), the principle still holds. The comment that immediately followed what you quoted explained this without absolving men of leering and thinking with their other head:
Ooh, ooh, let’s be sure to change the subject to Amanda’s incivility, and away from D-wn Ed-n’s frakked-up views on how rape is the victim’s fault.
Strawman? Are you SERIOUS? Have you read the other material that comes out from Eden?! Hell, if anything, given that history, I would tend to think Amanda is actually being a tad nice.
Ooh, ooh, let’s be sure to make up a tangent about how Dawn blamed the victim for rape so we can avoid that fact that Amanda twists words and completely makes up crap to prop up her arguments!
seeker6079 -
It gets worse, if it is her body and her choice, how does she square that with her anti-choice forced-birth moronic position?
Probably by assuming the baby should have a choice in the matter as well.
Texas Reader:
Even if there is such a thing as morally acceptable public wear (and there shouldn’t be, given the vast degree of moral subjectivity involved), who gave the airline the authority to be the enforcer of that morality? Furthermore, how is indecency defined? Is it applied towards men or just women? Are customers given advance notice of the guidelines in question?
Then maybe, ragamuffin, next time you see a pregnant woman, you should go up and ask her fetus, or blastocist, depending on which is appropriate, if they have and articulable opinion.
Moron. And yes, I _am_ calling you such.
ragamuffin, you are being deliberately disingenuous.
The “money hanging out of the wallet so you shouldn’t be surprised that you get mugged” canard is an old, old, old standby of rape apologists. Dawn Eden could have picked any one of a number of established analogies, or come up with a new one. Instead she chose one which has an established and loathesome pedigree and unmistakable message; that phrase was guaranteed to evoke the rpe comparison even though she didn’t actually say it, leaving her plausible deniability for her statement.
By way of comparison and example: I can say “wearing white sheets” while discussing race and housing and you know immediately that I am talking about the KKK or overt white bigotry. It is exactly the same instant-recognition factor here.
Dawn has maybe yanked her latest post? (I am going to decide that it was because of my comment.)
She gleefully repeats anonymous gossip about Amanda and positively cackled over the vile things Ann Coulter had to say about the 9/11 widows. Lashon hara thy name is Dawn.
(And before someone sputters that Amanda is a pottymouth: Amanda may rip apart your argument like a grown-up, but she has not made trading in unsourced and irrelevant gossip and petty viciousness her calling card.)
Why does a woman need to prove that she knows that her body belongs to her? It belongs to her whether or not she walks around saying it all the time. It belongs to her even if she doesn’t believe that it does. Amanda’s right, Dawn doesn’t even try to dress up her misogyny.
She hasn’t yanked it. Ms. Marcotte linked to the wrong place.
The correct URL is here: http://www.dawneden.com/2007/09/runway-muddle.html
Amanda, go stand in a corner for a bit for being bad!
Woah! Those jeans reaally flatter your
Nope, her post is back up, just re-written. Pettiness intact.
And she deleted my — perfectly polite! — comment. Golly, is she shameless.
Well, for the historical record — all I did was mention lashon hara and remind Dawn that, as I understand it, there are certain lefty blogs that leave her alone precisely because they knew her in high school. Passing on gossip about something someone may or may not have done when they were a teenager is petty and pointless.
Ooh! Maybe I am banned?
This has been knocking around Fark for a while now. Generally the comments are what you would expect from Fark–variations on “If she doesn’t want to be treated like a whore, she shouldn’t dress like a whore.” Given the audience there, you can probably chalk this up to young men expressing hatred for the object of their desires (ie, attractive women) because they cannot have them (which is because they are shallow, spiteful, and hateful young men with a vicious sense of entitlement).
There were also plenty of women on those threads echoing the men, perhaps for a similar reason–jealousy, as in, hatred because they can’t look as good as that person, or because they are ashamed of their own sexuality.
I tried to explain to these mooks that, in general, women respond really well to guys who actually like women, as opposed to someone who thinks women should be coerced and manipulated into sex since that’s all they have to offer (and for which they should be ashamed). Well, that went over like a fart in church.
But it did finally dawn on me how this divide between what women choose and what they think they have available to them really works…Amanda tried to explain it to me once and I think I get it now: No feminist says women HAVE to flash the trash. If they want to dress sexy, that’s their choice. It may also be their choice to dress conservatively but nobody gets to tell them what they have to wear.
Likewise a woman can choose, say, to be a stay-at-home mom. But if she’s coerced into it, so she doesn’t even see her choices, that’s not empowerment–that’s the exact opposite, she’s not making a choice because in such a state she’s incapable of doing so.
So the next question I have is, do we just assume given the climate that women making certain choices are being coerced, or is there some way to suss out what’s really going on?
I was JUST on a Southwest Airlines flight to Vegas where, I swear, half the women on the flight were wearing MORE revealing clothing than the woman asked to cover up. At least (unlike many of my flight-mates) her shirt wasn’t cut down to the nipple line.
Hey, and the second comment to Dawn’s post also takes a page from the rape apologist’s book: She must be lying.
**Forgive me if I am about to double post . . . didn’t we used to get a message if we were going into moderation? I think maybe it was just eaten. If not, please delete!**
Nope, her post is back up, just re-written. Pettiness intact.
And she deleted my — perfectly polite! — comment. Golly, is she shameless.
Well, for the historical record — all I did was mention lashon hara and remind Dawn that, as I understand it, there are certain lefty blogs that leave her alone precisely because they knew her in high school. Passing on gossip about something someone may or may not have done when they were a teenager is petty and pointless.
Ooh! Maybe she’s banned me, too?!
Also re: rape apology (apologism?)
When referencing rape, it seems like we say “She made him do it.” But nobody says that by flashing cash around you somehow “make” someone steal it. So the analogy fails.
However, if you’re walking down Crime Alley, where there are hoodlums looking to target someone, it’s probably not a good idea to attract attention. So doesn’t this mean that women shouldn’t attract attention?
Well, no, because the analogy fails on another point: From what I’ve read, men typically don’t get overcome with lust and “have to have” some woman. They look for a woman they can exploit, because of the power trip. I think with most scenarios we deal with incapacitation (the passed-out girl at the frat party) or familiarity (leading to ease of manipulation).
So wait! Doesn’t that mean I can at least say, well, you’re the one who drank yourself under the table, toots. Should’ve known better!
Well…er…still, no. Because men have a track record of creating these situations. They slip something in her drink; they ply her with booze when she’s already had a couple; they use language and unbalanced social power to manipulate acquaintances.
So by now we are so far away from the analogy of “Rape Alley,” where unsuspecting and slightly tipsy young women in revealing clothing are jumped by lust-crazed sexual predators, that any such analogy is just completely, laughably inane. Unfortunately I doubt this will make any difference in the rate at which people trot out this old saw.
Oh rag, the poem is about how a short skirt isn’t asking for rape and Dawn disagrees completely. If someone says, “My skirt doesn’t mean that you can rape me,” and someone else says, “Yes it does,” there’s not much of a way around the accusation that the latter person is justifying rape.
No. Bunny videos are Amanda’s calling card.
Your entire post is full of malicious intent.
Depends on what you mean by “malicious”. If you mean just the direct maliciousness of calling out a horrible person for being horrible, so be it. But I’d frame my post in the larger sense of opposing the malicious misuse and rape of women that is justified by bleatings like Dawn’s.
So the next question I have is, do we just assume given the climate that women making certain choices are being coerced, or is there some way to suss out what’s really going on?
I wouldn’t necessarily say coercion so much as “rational reaction to a certain climate”. Ebbert lives in a world where trading on a certain trashy look is profitable for her, probably more so than other routes she could take. Having your choices limited on one end and the opportunity to flash your body for money on the other is not the world men live in, so they behave differently. Ebbert is behaving like a rational person in an oppressive environment. Punishing her for it is kicking someone who’s down.
Yes, Petey — if you post that rape is a good way of shutting up uppity women, you will get bunnied.
No one on this blog ever deletes comments that are polite and on-topic, or even impolite and on-topic. Truly, I don’t think that’s debatable.
Dawn tosses anyone who howsoever politely suggests that she’s in the wrong. She celebrates hateful, truly hateful, lies against widows, whilst eliminating any whiff of criticism of herself.
There were also plenty of women on those threads echoing the men, perhaps for a similar reason–jealousy, as in, hatred because they can’t look as good as that person, or because they are ashamed of their own sexuality.
Well, there is a lot “social training” that goes into women’s reactions, too (and men’s, I assume).
Pretty much from birth, women have been trained to believe that any random passer-by has a right to say what is and is not appropriate dress. Even when we choose to wear “inappropriate” or “borderline” clothing, we are still choosing to do so within the frame of “what will people think if I dress this way?”
And it’s not just “is this ‘too revealing’?”: it’s everything:
“Is it OK for me to wear flats to the office?”
“Is the heel on these shoes too high?”
“I can’t wear this: it’s out of style.”
“You can’t wear white shoes after Labor Day!”
“I can’t go out without at least some lipstick on.”
“Does my slip show beneath my skirt?”
“You need a thicker bra: I can see your nipples!”
There’s an underlying assumption that other people are judging us by our appearance, and more to the point, that they have that right and we have to respond to these judgements. Over the years, we even are trained to internalize and anticipate these judgements, so we can take action to counter them.
The stereotypical comment of a woman buying clothes is “Does it look OK?” or “Do I look fat in this?” Not “Is it comfortable?” or “Is it useful and practical for the places I intend to wear it?” or “Can I do everything that I need to do without restriction?” None of those matter: all that counts is the image we present to the world.
Because the world owns that image, and it is our job to maintain the image in a way the world approves of. What else is the fashion industry other than an appointed arbiter of superficial rules that women (to a much greater degree than men) must comply with in order to “be accepted” or “fit in”?
I’ve spent years arguing that it isn’t fair to make judgements about a woman’s sexuality based on how she dresses. It’s only been recently that I realized the trap of that argument: It assumes that it’s perfectly OK to judge a woman’s sexuality at all.
Amanda kinda hits upon one of my big pet peeves, the fact that we degrade rational behavior, without changing what in fact makes it rational. No doubt that type of look is profitable for her, and many other women who basically sell the image of their bodies to make more money/get ahead, why? Because a lot of the time it works.
It’s perfectly rational. Is it right? Hell no, IMO. But it works because we men tend to treat better looking women better. That’s the problem that needs fixing, not rational behavior in reaction to the problem.
Likewise a woman who chooses to be a stay-at-home mom, right? Some women are in a position to make that choice because it’s what they want to do, but for some others there aren’t a whole lot of other options. Right?Conservatives (myself among them, at one point) don’t see this because they are myopic about the imbalance in the playing field. Instead they just say “Well, a choice is a choice is a choice.” I believe the same issue exists when we talk about affirmative action.
Agreed, but now I wonder about selecting language. You referred to her look as “trashy” above. Sure, everyone has opinions, but there are always extra connotations…or are you just saying, “Well, I personally think she looks trashy, but I’m not going to bash her about it?” Seems like a thin line to tread.
Not lately. One time a few weeks ago she hit someone with Night of the Lepus. I think after that point Youtube was exhausted as a resource :I don’t remember seeing Night of the Lepus as a medium for bunnification, but if so Brava, Amanda!, I say.
Did they ever make a movie of Bunnicula? That would be awesome.
All those parents dressing up their young children to be cute and childlike and project innocence are really just crying out for pedophiles to assault their children.
It’s not like they don’t know there are pedophiles out there. It’s not like they aren’t aware of what turns them on. Why do these people have to actively encourge the pedophiles and entice them to molest and assault their children, unless they really want that to happen?
/idiotbabble
Look, Dawn is very smart. I take this quote:
“But I can make an effort to show I am conscious that my body belongs to me — and no one else.”
a bit further. If you can show your body is your own by covering up, then I can show my mind is my own by not talking to anybody or posting articles or….
damn, now you get to say what I think because I have injudiciously shown some of my thoughts.
“that new car/fresh hymen smell”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA… I laughed for about 5 minutes after reading that. It still makes me giggle.
What exactly does a fresh hymen smell like? Can it be bottled and sold in stores?
Dawn just said “your short skirt is so an indication that you hook”. That right there sums up her whole depraved and deranged attitude toards women. It’s also one of the most disgsting things I’ve heard all year.
since no one responded to jesurgislac so far:
If you are still reading, Jesurgislac, try reading that link again. Is there really no connection between potentially dangerous double standards for female sexuality and… um, potentially dangerous double standards for female sexuality?
What would Dawn Eden have to say about somebody walking around in a Wonder Woman costume?
What would Dawn Eden have to say about somebody walking around in a Wonder Woman costume?
That would depend whether they were wearing the Invisible Pants.
Likewise a woman who chooses to be a stay-at-home mom, right? Some women are in a position to make that choice because it’s what they want to do, but for some others there aren’t a whole lot of other options. Right?
Yep, and so is a woman who makes a shitload of money bashing feminists. Making money is rational. Doesn’t make it right. And the fact that women stay at home because they don’t have other options is tragic, and we should change it.
I’m not saying there’s some sort of nobility in dressing in drastically uncomfortable, oversexed clothes. Or becoming incredibly dependent on your husband so if he leaves you, you’re impoverished. I think it’s better if women rebel, of course. But because someone’s not rebelling is no reason to rape her or deny her a seat on a plane.
So Ms. Eden argues that women shouldn’t wear skimpy clothes because men have absolutely NO control over their own eyeballs and have NO CHOICE but to ogle women’s bodies?
That, and the danger that our eyes will pop out and leave us blind.
I mean, honestly, I look at
prettymoderately attractiveany woman wearing skimpy clothing as much as the next breathing straight male. But at least I own up to the fact that it’s my responsibility not to get caught, to be embarrassed if I get caught, and not to let it affect my treatment towards them.The old Japanese saying about nudity often being seen but not looked at springs to mind.
What exactly does a fresh hymen smell like?
Strawberries.
Damn PhoenicianRomans, your virgin asshole must be a whole butterscotch sundae.
I read a transcript of Ms. Ebbert’s interview on the Today show: apparently, the (male) flight attendent who asked her to either change or cover up said she needed to because “this is a family airline.” I wonder if that means they allow breast-feeding…
Even if we assume, for the moment, that sex is a commodity and a short skirt is advertising, that could never be used to justify rape.
When I walk down the street and see something in a store window, being advertised by being displayed, that doesn’t give me the right to indulge my lust for possession by breaking the window and seizing the item. Instead, I have to enter the store and negotiate with the owner according to the prevailing market standards. If the owner is not satisfied with what I am prepared to offer, I don’t get my thingie.
The idea you can just grab what you want if it’s on display is profoundly and utterly anti-capitalist. It’s a delicious irony.
Some less-than-a-gentleman stared at me just the other day on the Metro when I was wearing an ensemble that would have made Phyllis Schlafly look like a trollop.
Whatever, Eden. Maybe you, in your slutty-minded haze, thought you didn’t look like you wanted a good hard fuck, but that poor dear man obviously did, and it’s his opinion that counts. How dare you appear in public and tempt him with something he can’t have, and then put down his lack of gentlemanliness like you have a right. Nasty cockteasing slut.
The ‘money hanging out of your wallet’ analogy is ridiculous.
One hides one’s money because if it’s hidden nobody will know that you have any. This is not true of legs.
Damn PhoenicianRomans, your virgin asshole must be a whole butterscotch sundae.
I refuse to either confirm or deny your assumption or your conclusion…
the (male) flight attendent who asked her to either change or cover up said she needed to because “this is a family airline.”
Is this boy new to Southwest or something?
Because in her view, normal women aren’t supposed to want to have sex or to be sexual.
In her view, sex is something men want and women exchange for something that they want. Why would a woman “give it away”, when she can hold out for a better deal?
It should come as no surprise that the right is misogynistic. Given this view of sex, the only difference between a wife and a prostitute is their respective bargaining skills.
Likewise, if all women are either virgins or whores, why would anyone be surprised when so many of these men go for a third alternative a la Larry Craig?
Her outfit wasn’t slutty- its practical!
Oh, and as an aside, my Catholic University has invited Ms. Eden to do a speech on her book. Perhaps I shall dress in a way that would offend her and go.
I just noticed the follow-up post Dawn wrote with some bullshit gossip on it about me, about what I wore to the senior prom. It’s an odd piece of gossip; the only part of it that’s true is that I went to the senior prom.
What was being punished here was not the outfit, but the body inside the outfit. Ms. Ebbert has a look which fits the mainstream concept of highly sexual - blonde and buxom. The same misogynist which thinks it’s okay to threaten a woman over that outfit would deem anything she wore as slutty even if it didn’t provide a pretext to hassle her. If she wore a long skirt, she’d be a trashy babe trying to pass as modest.
If someone who didn’t fit the standard concept of overtly sexy wore the same thing, it would hardly be noticed except maybe, “that skirt does nothing for her.”
So I call bullshit on TexasReader or anyone saying “well it was racy”. Um no, look at the photos here - it wasn’t “see through”, it wasn’t outrageous, and certainly not for traveling from San Diego to Tuscon on a hot day. What is being judged, clearly is not the outfit but how Ebbert fills it out.
I’ve noticed good looking people of all genders look sexy no matter what they wear, and women in particular have their beauty noticed no matter what.
Plus taking pride in your body and showing it off, especially in normal clothes is not offensive or violating others rights. Young men, gay and straight, wear tight stuff to flatter their pecs and package all the time. I’ve yet to see one be hassled by any business for being to masculine, but I’ve witnessed all sorts of bullshit thrown at women for daring to look hot.
There are policies for inappropriate dress which apply to everyone - nudity, bathing suits, etc. - and these are the only ones which should apply. Having a firm bosom which fills out a shirt attractively is not violating community standards, it’s having a body.
Photo link for my previous comment:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/20638479/
Yes, I was wondering why someone as moral and saintly as Dawn (well, to hear herself describe it, at least) decided to attack you by repeating anonymous gossip about awkwardness in high school. Even if it were true — which you’ve rejected — it would be indefensible.
As I put it in a blog post yesterday, Dawn apparently is part of the “Mean Girls” school of spiritual growth.
Well, Dawn’s an awkward adult, so I can just imagine what an awkward adolescent she was. She’s spreading (false) gossip with the assurance that basically everyone in the world is a better person than she is and wouldn’t dig and spread gossip about her adolescence. It’s all very strange.
“And your cruciferous foliage, axillary buds, and shallow root system are not an indication that you are a Brussels sprout.”
Rather amusingly, it isn’t. . A member of the brassica family, yes, but not definitely a Brussels sprout. Now, if she specified bizarrely overdeveloped axillary buds, sure, but . . .
“That is true feminine power — not putting one’s body on display and then getting all humiliated and embarrassed when accused of crass commercialism.”
Here she’s correct, though, in that it’s feminine power, consisting of an accommodation, as an inferior and in need of protection, to patriarchal norms. True feminist or even female power is entirely different, but her phrasing here is entirely apt, whether by chance or because she understands her ideology well enough . . .
“Probably by assuming the baby should have a choice in the matter as well.”
I am sick to death of goddamn fetus ventriloquism! It’s beyond disgusting how some folks metaphorically yank out a embryo/fetus/etc., plop it on their knee, ram their hand inside it, and make what may or may not be recognizable as its mouth move, while they lugubriously intone some pathetic poem of plaint, and all the while one can see their spittle-dribbled lips working away . . .
oudemia: “Ooh! Maybe I am banned?
Hey, in the entire blogosphere, the only two folks who’ve ever banned me have been Dawn (temporarily) and (ID proponent) Dembski. Just saying.
“s (though I have heard now that when she would sit down anyone across from her got an all but unavoidable crotch shot)”
Hang on - I’m confused, here. She was on a plane, which has side-by-side seating on either side of an aisle. Anybody “across from her” would need to turn their head and peer rather intensely, no, or am I confused? Also, said unavoidable crotch shot would then only occur in the actuall process of sitting down - and probably, standing up - right? In that case, wouldn’t it make more sense to hope that she simply stay seated and then goes unnoticed during disembarking, rather then make a fuss and try to get her to stand up prior to take off, when all the poor people “across from her” being forced against their will to crane their necks in the direction of a fellow passenger’s crotch would have less to distract them?
Is this the same woman who appears to like to wear scarves tightly around her neck? One could be so crass as to construct a socially irresponsible narrative about such scarves signaling an inner desire to be strangled, and perhaps even signaling an open invitation to such. Not sayin’… just sayin’.
I have often been amused by the shifting antifeminist arguments of the rightwing. At least you have to give them credit for acknowledging the fact that they have to keep changing their line of attack since the old ones obviously aren’t working.
To cite just one example, remember when the terrible bad thing about feminism was that it was going to turn all the men into limp wristed fairies, satanically reversing God’s Plan for fragile whispery voiced child-women wedded to chest-beating apemen? Sure: all that consciousness raising and working for real money instead of a pat on the head and a dozen roses every Mother’s Day, was going to turn the woman of the house into Blubeard and her husband into a quivering mass of shriveled balls, naked chests and tinny-voiced quiche-makers.
That was then…..this is now.
If you have been out of touch with the right wing noise machine lately, they have completely turned this argument on its ear. Citing increases in domestic violence and killings of spouses and significant others, the Right now claims (guess what?) FEMINISM is turning men…..no, not into the gutless wimps they all feared would happen in the seventies, but into super macho “gorilla men” who have to be hyper-aggressive to counter the new aggressiveness of females.
So you see, bitches? You brought it on yourselves.
As I reminded Ms Eden in response to her stupid “wallet” analogy….
Even if she DID flash the contents, THE MUGGERS WOULD STILL BE GUILTY OF A CRIME!
re: lemur
It’s your choice, but may I suggest that you go with a uber skimpy outfit, /on top of which/ you wear one of those full body black cover thingie, which you could then take off when Dawn accuses you of being an Islamofacist?
…or, for fashion and politics, the original crewwomen uniform of Star Trek! It was so unfair that the women wears the outfit that has less mobility (fishnets runs easily), but at least it symbolized sexual revolution, even though it was a uniform (and at least in TOS, the show admits that sexism exist in the Federation). Oh yeah, the mini-skirt assemble is probably still more comfortable and conventional than those spandex jumpsuits of TNG.
Re OP: That woman is VILE.