G is sick and tired of men objectifying women's reproductive organs, so she is fantasizing about decapitating and dismembering men in retaliation. Fair is fair, right? I am going to hazard a guess and say the man in her drawing is the father of the sleeping baby girl, who is obviously drugged in her little papoose, as Mom is sweating from the exertion of killing her baby-daddy, which high-impact activity would certainly wake up any normal child.
That, or the Artist's Block has backed things up so bad it is affecting G's thinking such that she thinks Amazons reproduce asexually and breaking into a sweat while dismembering guys doesn't require the kind of physical activity that would wake up a child. Who knows? Creative constipation has clearly taken its toll. Time for some corrective action:
Try that, G, and you can post about it tomorrow as another installment in the FMH Poop Chronicles, which are always a welcomed sight for the classy chicks at FMH, who just cannot get enough of boobie throw pillows and wang and cooter cheese cakes. Then maybe you can stop obsessing about your reproductive organs and make some real art. Purge the poo and use that as fertilizer for your Asherah worship (‘get my grove on’).
Sure, ladies, it is sad and wrong that men objectify your doo dads, but how is what you are doing any different? It isn't. G's post is just as sad and wrong as what she decries. How will anyone ever take FMH seriously when posts like this impeach its credibility?
Snarked by
Response to Jodi Stoddard
25 comments
Shorter Snarky: Wimmen being mean! Solution, Intrepid Fellow Travlers! Poop Jokes!
Nyuck nyuck, nyuck nyuck.
"wang and cooter cheesecake"
DAYUMM, that's snarking!
Within 24 hours we get sex positive feminism, this stupid post about breasts and wombs, and the one at ExMo2 about women going nekkid at Curves.
What the hell is the matter with these people?
Ah guys, assuming the dead dude is the daddy really goes a bit far--especially if she's modeling him on Artemesia Gentileschi as she says. That woman always painted herself slaying men with the face of her rapist.
You gotta admit, you want a little breast pillow. Look how silky! Look how sweet! I admit, if my students occasionally dropped one of those out of their bags rather than copies of *Maxim*, I'd be less annoyed: ah look, they wanna snuggle boob! Cuuuute.
Either that or I'd think they had a toy jellyfish ;)
BTW, I was losing faith in your freakishly broad 'nacle watching, when a snark didn't appear regarding the sex-positive feminism post. I see you are alive in the new year after all! (I hope it's warmer wherever you guys are than in SLC. Colder than a witches, well, jellyfish or something.)
Janet, m'dear, wouldn't you be a little creeped out if one of your students dropped her chesticle pillow out of her vulva bag, like the one you guys sidebarred lately?
Holy crap, what a world.
Grossest post ever.
anonymous--I'd probably not notice what the chesticle pillow was both becuase I can be slow on the uptake and they are wee bit more subtle than nekid boobs on girlie mags. But no, probably not. I'm actually not freaked by the *Maxims* either, just mildy annoyed when I suspect they've been looking at them during class. The editors of said mag, well....
SP--quite the couch, huh? I like me some Georgia O'Keefe, but that thing is ... something. New meaning to "vagina dentata" I'm afeared! G's little breast pillows, on the other hand, are really sorta cute.
Ok, something far creepier than the vagina couch: I just turned on the TV for the baby's alloted 15 minutes of children's programing and found Dr. Ruth Westheimer, going by "Dr. Ruth Wordheimer" offering linguistic help to enliven the "bored, no exciting anything" life of an animated puppet on a kid's program. On the BYU channel. After Dr. Ruth's advice the puppet writhed with excitement . . . on a couch.
Um, THAT's the grossest thing I've seen in a while. Making children's programing funny for adults is OK when it's like *Shrek*, but cartoon orgasms? I am *deeply* disturbed.
And glad Muffin was too busy playing with his child-sized hockey stick to care.
SP, could you change the last two comments so they have my name rather than DH's? Apparently my computer can be quite patriarchal in its assumptions :)
Thanks!
"Sure, ladies, it is sad and wrong that men objectify your doo dads, but how is what you are doing any different? It isn't. G's post is just as sad and wrong as what she decries. How will anyone ever take FMH seriously when posts like this impeach its credibility?"
I've been pondering this paragraph all day, since the question you pose in its first sentence essentially echoes G's own cognitive dissonance regarding her art. Also because you imply that such a topic cannot be "taken seriously."
If I'm allowed to get all serious rather than flip, here goes... It intrigues me that people would find the topic of breasts or reproductive organs as inherently non-serious. Is it because (boobs at least) mostly function in discourse outside the bedroom or doctor's office, as the punchline to a joke? It's the same for penises, though of course men take their viagra very seriously (and, I imagine, with great anticipation).
I can see how society's general debasement of (in particular female) bodies can color a person's view of all conversations regarding primary and secondary sexual characteristics. Really, I get it. And I don't even find all boob jokes misogynist, either. We can't take ourselves seriously all the time--ask me for my vast collection of blond jokes sometime.
But certainly the question G poses (how do we accept, come to terms with, even embrace portions of our bodies which have historically been co-opted in unhealthy ways without somehow replicating those unsavory methods?) is serious. Body image is serious, bodies are half our souls and women's general loathing for their corporeal selves can hardly be God's will.
So is what she does any different from what she decries? I can't settle for your simple assertion that it is not, even while I would agree that the *effect* of that sort of art often is. Sensationalism breeds similar outcomes regardless of artistic intent. Maybe it's like a Black person using the "N" word (a practice i don't get, and admit I may not get in part because of my melanin deficiency) or a gay person referencing themselves as "queer."
Don't know. But can't FMH or other venues talk about this stuff seriously without it being funny to most of the people on the sidelines?
Ok, serious discourse over. Time to put on my apron and make dinner. Yay.
Sorry Janet, I know you're all serious about defending FMhers, but this post was just ookey. OOKEY. And would we even be duscussing it all, or treating it like something to even BE discussed if a man was making pillows shaped like a penis? I think not.
The comments, I have to say, were also ookey, and one link was even filtered out by my porn filter. Sorry, if you are hosting discussions that link to things a computer thinks is porn, there's your first clue that the post is ookey.
anon, I did see some "girlfriend" pillows being marketed in China. They had no head--just a lap to lie in and arm pillows to wrap around the "boyfriend." I admit, it sort of seemed ookie to me. It wasn't even sexual--supposedly the guys who bought it just wanted a girl-shaped security pillow. But the lack of a head...weird. I thought it was ookie, but I don't find discussing it ookie.
I DO see how the drawing of the beheaded dude would really turn someone off. The boob pillow, not so much. (The link to the purses on our sidebar was just silly to me--they're so ridiculous!) Guess a lot of it is perspective, eh?
One more thing, regarding your comment about computers thinking something is porn. Funny story.
When my then-fiance moved off to med school, I used his computer account at BYU's chem dept. I was googling "female genital mutilation" for a presentation I'd been asked to give a sociology class and my computer screen went all red and started to beep, which is apparently what BYU computers do to intrepid students trying to pornsurf.
I was the only girl in a room full of men who very suddenly were very interested in staring at me. Heh.
(Slightly serious subtext: computers can't tell the difference between a pornographic conversation regarding sex parts and a potentially meaningful one. I'd have qualified what I assume your computer objected to as porn as well. It is ookie.)
Janet,
I think there is plenty of room for a serious discussion on objectifying reproductive organs and all of that. But, G's post was not encouraging a serious approach, not at all. Posting pictures of breasty pillows, lamenting her artist's block and then fantasizing about dismembering and decapitating men the same way men objectify and dismember women's reproductive organs is not the way to start a serious and intelligent discussion. Then in the second or third comment G posts a link to explicit wang and cooter cheesecakes. Seriously, Janet, how can anyone look at that and come to the conclusion that what is going to ensue is an intelligent discussion on why men objectify women and their doo dads? Its a non-starter.
Oh, and sorry, but I cannot change the "dave" to "janet", the admin tools built into blogger are extremely limited.
Anon & Janet,
As far as computers filtering pr0n, the vast majority of commercial filters rely on humans surfing the net and investigating and blocking content via massive exclude lists. We use CyberPatrol at home for the kid's computer, and that is how they do it. Most of these commercial filters block more than just pr0n, they block gambling, hacking, drugs, suicide, tobacco, alcohol, anarchy, etc. Anything your typical parent would recoil at having their kid run into on the Internet.
SP--I take your point. I wish the cheesecakes hadn't been linked (I may never eat cheesecake again, alas). The pillows can serve as a segue IMO, since I'd classify them art rather than comestibles for a trashy bachelorette party. As I said in a comment on the thread, however, the line between art and ick can be a hazy one, and certainly very subjective. I both get and respect that.
Thanks for the info on filters. I was actually wondering about getting one, since our computer has a nasty habit of randomly bombarding me with pornographic pop-ups which multiply like lagamorphs when I try to close them. They are evil, evil, evil. I assume the filters would rid me of them. And stop me from developing an online poker habit. Are they pricey? (Thought what those pop-ups cost me in sanity would no doubt be higher than whatever the filter's price tage would be!)
Leave it to Quimby to drag a low-brow conversation even lower.
A poster with the pseudonym "Manly Man" posted the following:
"Let me just say I’m a manly man who is afraid of Quimby’s uterus. I’m also afraid of that psycho chick who decapitated that man–her husband/lover/baby’s father perhaps."
(I'm guessing he's referring to Quimby's post from Jan 2007 where she says men are afraid of the reproductive power of women)
At any rate, FMH's domestic goddess answers back:
"Good to know someone is, Manly Man. I’m mensturating at the moment so you should be scared of my uterus, it’s very blood-thirsty."
TMI, baby, TMI.
eh, TMI maybe, but it was also dang funny and way better than getting all up-in-arms at the dude. Wit generally outpaces anger.
Then again, most women don't understand why men are so freaked out by menstruation. My husband said some guy at his medical school said "never trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die," which lent a bit of credence to the idea that men fear women's cycles. I mean, if some doctors are still that weirded out, other guys must be. We gals often find certain guy things, er, a tad freakish just 'cuz they're so different.
Sorry SP--I always colonize your blog when I catch a virus, am parked on the couch, and need some giggles. I shall try to be a bit more laconic. Unless Maggie shows up, that is ;)
Janet,
Most commercial internet filters run around $40/year unless you buy them bundled with your ISP, then they can run $10-20/year. If you get CyberPatrol they have a $60/2 years, so that saves you a little bit if you are willing to commit. Since we have been using it for awhile we have no problem committing.
Most pop-ups can be blocked if you are using FireFox by enabling the pop up blocker. If you are using IE6 on WinXP, then Service Pack 2 has a pop up blocker you can enable. Or, you can download and install the Google Toolbar, which has a built in pop up blocker. There are a lot of ways to do it free. But, these will only block pop ups, not bad sites.
And, when Quimby acts in a manner that is so intentionally provocative, why should anyone take her seriously? I certainly don't, and I cannot imagine why anyone else would.
As far as menstruating, first get people past blood in general, then get them past the period. Most people don't have a casual reaction to blood, it is something that is supposed to be inside, not outside.
SP--thanks for the tips! Excellent advice. I'll go for the free stuff until Muffin is old enough to stumble upon stuff I don't want him seeing.
I don't think Quimby was intending seriousness with that comment. It was a joke. Obviously she doesn't really want to hurt Manly Man, except maybe his feelings?
Good point about blood. Chronic illness has me so used to blood (and needles) I forget how the general populace feels about it. But yeah, blood freaks people out.
The substantive issues related to the post in question are being discussed at the snarkernacle instead of at FMH, and it is because it is impossible for this converation to happen there. Quimby would chime in with her "humor" and everybody else would join in shouting down any dissenting voices. If the dissenting voice happened to be male, he would get a good kick in the doodads on his way out the door. Any site that complains about the objectivization and exploitation of female body parts, then puts cooter handbags with pink, fur-lined openings which retail for $275.00 on the sidebar simply cannot be taken seriously. Women at FMH would undoubtedly object to the stereotype of women as hyper-emotional, shallow, bitchy, and facile, but the blog does more to reinforce that stereotype than displace it, Janet's heroic efforts notwithstanding. It deserves all the snarking it gets and then some.
anonymous,
Janet, Rebecca and ECS all deserve praise for trying, however vainly, to elevate the conversation there. Artemis occasionally can rise above it, but also frequently falls down. Alas, the serious feminists, male and female alike, resort to Z's D's.
Anon and SP--I do appreciate the compliments, because I try hard. But Manly Man *is* the one who brought Quimby's uterus into the conversation so I don't know that her responding in kind qualifies as out of line. (And anon, it's rather ironic to use a snark site to indict someone for being, you know, snarky.) Quimby *is* snarky, but as this site shows, snark has a place. So does venting about poo (my baby had his first gastrointestinal ailment a couple weeks ago--it helped to know I wasn't the first parent to deal with the combination of humor and ookieness, let me tell you!)
I totally get that people have different tastes and don't expect everyone to like me or my cohorts--some people think I'm too mild to be of any use, and find Quimby's witty, fire-inflected style far more useful. One thing I love about FMH is that we do have such a variety of styles--they won't all appeal to everyone. That's OK.
ZD is certainly more theoretical and academic, and I ADORE them. But they lack the grass roots approach which renders feminism approachable for everyone. That's fine too--I love that there's a more academically-minded site. But (and yeah, I am defending close friends here, obviously) Lisa deserves props for offering a portal for *everyone,* regardless of how much they know about feminism or for that matter Mormonism. She's a populist, and populism gets messy. I think a bit of mess is quite useful.
OK, I sound like the schoolmarm I used to be. I really do appreciate the feedback, but I also love my friends and think they offer contributions I don't. And I value that.
I LOVE ZD, but
Stephen, what was it? (She says, reciting the old *Nirvana* refrain "here I am, now entertain me.")
It competed with http://www.ldsblogs.org/
Just a surprise to wake up, notice that the link icon was missing from my blog. Then to realize the site was gone.
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