Quickies
Skepchick Quickies 11.14
- Faith-based presenter tells high schoolers: “Dateable girls know how to shut up!” – From Elyse. And here are the “rules” the douchebag has for dating, from Moniqa.
- Navigating the world of magazine sex tips – “From my research I learned that during sex women were expected to be a mixture of performing monkeys and acrobats; either way, sex was a circus.” From Cat.
- New life found on plastic waste gives rise to the ‘plastisphere’ – From Criticaldragon1177.
- NFL player quits because, you know, Noam Chomsky – From miserlyoldman.
It’s like Dan Cardomom, but not intentionally satirical. To wit:
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You women should be really grateful! Finally (FINALLY!) a man has spoken up and told you how to act!
You’ve probably been waiting for guidance like this for a while.
3. Be happy – remember, it is your obligation to please men around you by always smiling. You know what a downer your sadness is to men! Don’t let your feelings come before a man’s right to feel good while near you.
7. Act confident – when you’re being ignored, use pretended confidence to make you feel like this is okay. This isn’t real confidence though, just “looks like I’m confident” superficiality.
9. Let him lead – I know you’re supposed to be confident, but be useless whenever it seems appropriate so you can be rescued.
10. Need him – That’s right. You *need* a man. Didn’t you read Twilight? Now, how are you going to “need a man” and “act confident”? That takes us back to ….
6. Be mystified – Yeah, just shut up. You’re probably confused right now by all these contradictions. Just shut up and know that if anything goes wrong in a relationship, it was your fault because you didn’t understand these rules. (This is kind of our fault too, since we numbered them and we knew you ladies would have trouble with numbers!)
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Ugh.
A contradictory set of rules to make you feel bad about yourself. How typically religious. If you want to see how patriarchy hurts men, just look at the rules for boys. Okay, it isn’t as vile as what girls are told, but still … yech.
I’m still going through some of the links, but someone quotes Chomsky in the article about Chomsky:
“The way the system is set up, there is virtually nothing people can do anyway, without a degree of organization that’s far beyond anything that exists now, to influence the real world. They might as well live in a fantasy world, and that’s in fact what they do. I’m sure they are using their common sense and intellectual skills, but in an area which has no meaning and probably thrives because it has no meaning, as a displacement from the serious problems which one cannot influence and affect because the power happens to lie elsewhere.”
this is my life (or at least parts of it)
The Amazon reviews for Lookadoo’s dating book are enlightening.
http://www.amazon.com/Dateable-Are-You-They/dp/0800759117
“Unless you want your children to inadvertently learn misogynistic principles and promote rape culture do not buy this book or even look at it! It uses fear tactics and gross generalizations to give kids an inaccurate view of dating. Instead of empowering them to make smart decisions this book belittles all teens by saying that all boys are heartless sex driven monsters and all girls are fragile over-emotional princesses. Terrible, terrible,terrible book! If I believed in banning books this would be at the top of my list.”
Oh geeze, I’m reading the “on the back cover part from amazon.”
“You might be talking too much”
Seriously? This is your advice for the average teen girl? Why not just go all the way and say “shut up and get back in the kitchen?”
If I ever see this book I am going to run out of the room.
I’m thinking it might be time to give Dateable the Bic For Her treatment.
WTH is up with that Dateable cover art? Is it supposed to be a teen girl holding her daddy’s GINORMOUS hand or what? I am so confused.
Wow! Datable girl from the 50’s, the 1850’s that is.
Serious question – what should ‘the rules’ read?