The point of the “undead sexist cliche” label is that sexist and misogynist beliefs shamble on, refusing to die no matter how often they’re disproved. Case in point, the idea that being a dick to women — or a dick, period — makes you cool.
Until I started this post, I didn’t realize how much I’ve already blogged about this. For example, idea that if you’re a genius, you’re entitled to be a jackhole (and many geniuses and great men were jackholes to their wives). And geniuses certainly shouldn’t suffer for something as minor as rape.
I also wrote about an economist defending his colleagues talking sexist smack about women: “There’s still hope for mankind when many of the posts written by a bunch of over-educated young social scientists illustrate a throwing off of the shackles of political correctness and reflect mundane concerns that more normal human beings share: prestige, sex, money, landing a job, sex, professional misconduct, gossip, sex. …” Dude, I stand by what I said then: “Just because academics are told they shouldn’t be sexist pigs, that doesn’t make being a sexist pig an act of rebellion. Being a sexist pig is just … being a sexist pig.”
As Andi Zeisler put it during Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings, 1980s pop culture was all about the glories of being a sexist pig, “modeled, with varying degrees of malice, the notion that good, clean teen-boy fun isn’t just about objectifying women. It’s also about laughing at them and mortifying them in a sacrifice to the larger cause of male bonding and group identity … So many of us either knew that girl or were that girl, which makes me consider that perhaps Kavanaugh is telling the truth when he professes not to recall these alleged incidents. In the rarefied milieu of elite prep schools and Ivy League colleges that nurtured him, jokes like these wouldn’t have been shocking or even particularly remarkable. They were the unacknowledged collateral damage of male bonding, blithely enacted on young women who didn’t have the luxury to forget about it.”
As a regular movie watcher back then, I can say Zeisler is absolutely right about how spying on naked girls or putting them in their place was a common theme in pop culture. At Atomic Junk Shop, the late Greg Hatcher makes the same point (I’ve linked to his column before, I know). Writing now, it strikes me it’s simultaneously treated as good, clean fun and as edgy rebellion. Rape apologist Camille Paglia, for instance, once wrote that “feminism with its solemn Carrie Nation repressiveness cannot see what is for men the eroticism or fun element in rape, especially the wild, infectious delirium of gang rape.” Of course feminists do grasp that men find rape fun and erotic — they just don’t think that’s an excuse, or that rape is any less of a brutal crime because the rapist enjoys it.
As I wrote back in December, “there’s nothing edgy or daring about supporting patriarchy or defending rape — it’s evil, but it’s trite evil. The New York Times spent far more column inches discussing men’s fears of #metoo ruining their lives. than what it was like for women to face less harassment.” Our culture gives rapists a free pass and judges frequently do too. Feminists are not running the show; they are the insurgency rebelling against the system. Just consider that anti-feminist hacks such as Katie Roiphe can get articles in major media complaining that if feminists stamp out sexual harassment, office life will be drab and beige: “Maybe it’s better to live and work with colorful or inappropriate comments, with irreverence, wildness, incorrectness, ease. Is the anodyne drone typing away in her silent cubicle free from the risk of comment on her clothes, the terror of a joke, the unsettlement of an unwanted or even a wanted sexual advance, truly our ideal?”” A woman who won’t accept Mr. Creepy’s comments on her boobs is setting herself up for heartbreak! Why can’t she see Camille Paglia was right and enjoy the “wild, infectious delirium of guys ignoring her boundaries!
Recently we had bro-type leftwingers gushing about Graham Platner and how his adultery and edgy drunken behavior made him edgy and authentic — not one of those “smoothgroin” guys who never put a sexual foot wrong (even after the rape allegations, some pundits are outraged his authentic working-class campaign crashed and burned). Other leftwingers think Democrats appealing to the manosphere appeals to the working class which is the key to winning elections — never mind that lots of the working class are female. And that women are the bedrock of the Democratic vote; somehow consultant, centrists and left-wing bros never consider appealing to the female side of the electorate important.
Showing again the undead nature of this bullshit, a year ago, the NYT offered an explanation why Dems were losing young men: they avoid saying things like “retard” or “faggot” which means they’re not authentic! “If there’s one issue that unites the bro-casters — beyond the need to find three hours of content — it’s a disdain for wokeness.”
Being woke and not calling people slurs is, apparently not authentic, just like Platner wouldn’t have been authentic if he’d been a faithful husband. “Modern bro-caster culture emerged in part as a response to the enforced sensitivity of #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, which left many young men feeling vilified for their purported privilege.” Criticizing the bro-casters validates their stance as spokespeople for the oppressed! Erik Loomis, despite being liberal, grumbles that the right-wingers are indeed “cool and funny and hip” so maybe the way to beat them is not fuss about language and not worry about offending people (though he’s also argued that offending people who buy into traditional gender stereotypes is a mistake and we should meet them “where they’re at”).
In another post on Platner, I pointed out how very gendered this idea of authenticity is. A woman who ran wild like Platner wouldn’t have a shot at the senate; woman aren’t supposed to have wild sides. When women call out men for being rapists or rape apologists, that’s not seen as daring, edgy or challenging the status quo, even though they are. No, when they do it it’s “enforced sensitivity.” Nor do they get any plaudits for being willing to offend men by speaking out. Edginess, in this worldview, is something only men get to do. When women do it, it’s a variation on Margaret Atwood’s old line: women’s greatest fear is that men will kill or rape them, men’s greatest fear is that women will criticize them. And a large party of our society accepts that as normal.
For more on misogyny and how stupid it is, pick up a copy of Undead Sexist Cliches. Cover by Kemp Ward, all rights to image are mine.
