Paradoxical

"This, then, is the terrible bargain we have regretfully struck: Men are allowed the easy comfort of their unexamined privilege, but my regard will always be shot through with a steely, anxious bolt of caution." --Melissa @ Shakesville

Dear S.O.,

Read this please.

Love,
MJ.

"I hope those men will hear me when I say, again, I do not hate you. I mistrust you. You can tell yourselves that's a problem with me, some inherent flaw, some evidence that I am fucked up and broken and weird; you can choose to believe that the women in your lives are nothing like me.

Or you can be vigilant, can make yourselves trustworthy. Every day.

Just in case they're more like me than you think." --Melissa @ Shakesville

Where to start?

jonquil summed it up rather nicely in a post that includes this on-point quote:

"a degree in neural networks cuts no ice when you're researching gendered behaviour in sexuality"

vanseedee contributed this hilarious post that shows just how strong the fail is:

They are doing serious research about subcortical circuits that are involved with romantic attraction, erotic arousal, emotional bonding, and sexual behavior.

Still with me? Wait for it.

The book will be called: "RULE 34: WHAT NETPORN TEACHES US ABOUT THE BRAIN".

I swear I'm not kidding and that's just the start.

And linkspam has been awesome at archiving all the lulz.

I took the survey after seeing a banner on my flist - and before seeing any of the objections.  Well, I tried to take the survey.  I answered the first couple of questions, thinking to myself, "What is wrong with me?  I'm finding it impossible to answer these questions, and we haven't even gotten to the actual fanfic stuff yet!"  The multiple choice answers to questions about my gender, ethnicity, location etc were so bad that I was longing for a "please explain" text box option so that I could let them have real answers.

And then when I got to the fanfic stuff... well.  I closed my browser in disgust.  The questions were unanswerable.

The worst part is that I blamed myself for my inability to pick from their answers.  It didn't occur to me that my difficulty in doing so wasn't because of anything on my part, but because their questions were so bad and their assumptions so limited.  Only after I saw a post by eruthros  "titled please don't take the fan fiction survey" did I realise that there were a whole lot of problems with the actual survey questions and questionners.

And (the majority of) fandom's awesome response to this travesty of a survey has been brilliant to see.

 I do things that people do.

I woke up late this morning, and didn't bother to make my bed.  I had toast and coffee for breakfast, and left the dishes on the bench.  I showered and brushed my teeth.  I got dressed in jeans and a sweater because it was cool.  I sat at my desk to check my email, blogs and web comics.  I played World of Warcraft.

And then I did something that girl gamers do.

I explained the difference between a male treating a female like a sexual object and a female having a sexual identity to several males who just seen another male kicked out of their guild for repeatedly making sexual comments to a 16-year-old female guild member, even after she asked him to stop.  We had a discussion about power and stereotypes and human rights.

Why is this something that girl gamers do?  Because prior to my intervention, the guys had been joking around about the incident, including making sexual comments about the girl involved (things like "I'd like a piece of that young ass too").  You know, because when you joke about something, you obviously don't mean it, and therefore it's okay to keep saying it.  That way nobody will be offended.  As long as you put a smiley face at the end.  :)

This attitude is something gamers are especially prone to, as they're already in the mental zone to "relax, have fun" - and so everything becomes a source of amusement.  What they don't realise is that their fun can infringe on another's, and that's when it stops being okay.  When a 16-year-old girl doesn't want to raid with her guild because she doesn't want to play with a guy who can't take no for an answer, she isn't having fun.  When the females in guild have to type instead of being able to speak on Vent because they don't want to have to deal with the sexual comments that would ensue, they aren't having fun (trust me, there's a big difference in fun level when ya can't talk to your fellow gamers).

"But," Dave tells me, "There are lots of girl gamers who act like sex objects!"

"How do you mean?" I ask, "What do they do exactly?"

"Well... they make sexual innuendos and jokes!  They talk on Vent in low, bedroom voices!  They post their pics on the guild forums, usually with cleavage shots!"

So, in other words, they act like men with boobs.  Therefore it's okay to treat them as a non-person there for your gratification only?

"Well... no?"

Slut: a woman who acts like men do.

Quote provided by Darkhawk:

"A man once asked me--it is true that it was at the end of a very good dinner, and the compliment conveyed may have been due to that circumstance--how I managed in my books to write such natural conversation between men when they were by themselves. Was I, by any chance, a member of a larged, mixed family with a lot of male friends? I replied that, on the contrary, I was an only child and had practically never seen or spoken to any men of my own age till I was about twenty-five. 'Well,' said the man, 'I shouldn't have expected a woman [meaning me] to have been able to make it so convincing.' I replied that I had coped with this difficult problem by making my men talk, as far as possible, like ordinary human beings. This aspect of the matter seemed to surprise the other speaker; he said no more, but took it away to chew it over. One of these days it may quite likely occur to him that women, as well as men, when left to themselves, talk very much like human beings also."

--Dorothy L. Sayers