Thursday, September 20, 2007

On a periodic feminist tirade

Okay, so I've been collecting little things here and there that have kind of been chapping my ass, and I'd love to get some opinions on them.

1. Why is it that Larry Craig nudges another guy with his foot in an airport bathroom and gets arrested for lewd conduct, but guys on the street can yell out, "Hey, baby, shake that thang on over here. Oh, baby, don't be so mean. I'd tap that one from both sides. Mm-mm," and I'm expected to take it as a compliment?

2. Why is it that when a woman is raped near campus at the University of Alabama, and campus police don't have any suspects or even a description of the suspect, they publicly warn women to be on the lookout for a rapist? What, exactly, does "a rapist" look like? Are we meant to beware suspicious, creepy-looking men hiding behind trees, or are we meant to paranoidly avoid all men as potential rapists? The woman was dragged off of her own front porch and raped in her own back yard; does this mean we're being warned not to sit on our front porches? I'm all for publicizing crime news so we know what's going on in our neighborhoods, but warning women to "be on the lookout" sounds an awful lot like making it our responsibility to remain twitchy and paranoid so we never get raped.

3. Why is it that men complain about expensive, complicated weddings? Have they met their brides beforehand? By the time you're getting married, don't you know your beloved well enough to know whether she's going to want a Princess Diana wedding or a Vegas elopement? If you don't want to deal with the hassle of an elaborate wedding, marry a girl who wants to get married on a beach with two witnesses and a rent-a-minister. Chances are, if you're all "Fresh air!" and she's all "Times Square!" you're going to end up with a fairly rocky marriage anyway, sitcom hilarity to the contrary notwithstanding.

4. What is the mental connection between big boobs and sexual promiscuity? Even assuming she did buy them herself, rather than growing them (which isn't something a woman can generally control), why would a guy (or a woman, for that matter) assume that just because a woman has large breasts, she's into indiscriminate sex? So many comments on the Southwest/Kyla Ebbert situation include words like "skank" and "slut," when the commenters had absolutely no way of knowing whether she was, in fact, promiscuous. Especially considering how much men like to look at 'em, why would a man expect a woman to duct tape 'em down to avoid the "slut" label? It seems self-defeating.

Men, thoughts? Women, anything I've left out?

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