stone bender

amber-and-ice:

vagabondaesthetics:

ethiopienne:

vagabondaesthetics:

I was talking to one my homies and she was talking about how she no longer finds Dave Chappelle funny because she believes misogyny permeates through far too many of the sketches that involve women. I can’t really offer any sort of rebuttal to that because I haven’t watched the series in years and the only ones that come to mind pretty much exclude women except for the one when he is in the car dancing to some music and the woman with him titty pops out.

Then she started listening the stereotypes women get like they’re difficult, angry, nuts, and so on and so forth. Essentially, men don’t understand women as people. So, I sat on that for a couple a seconds. What I came up with is that it is to be expected. Men’s lives don’t intersect with women until a nigga wants to fuck. And I say nigga because and not because I’m black or to be crass, but put out the crassness of the conversation and the desired relationship with women. As young boys we are never encouraged, and often shunned if we do, to delve into the world that has been constructed as girl/women. You are not supposed to watch shows for girls, listen to music for girls, play with girls’ toys, read books for girls and pretty much anything that is marketed/divisible into boy and girl. None of the material we’re given as boys really even includes girls except in the tomboy role.

And the tomboy role is an interesting function. That is when girls are allowed, there are still hurdles and restricts considering she is still a girl, to interact with boys among boy society. There is always some pushback among the boy fraternity, but she will have interaction with boys on boy level. Far more than the inverse at least. While there are mountains of positive things to be said about girls being tomboys, from a male perspective this is problematic to me on some level because the interaction is only taking place in his territory (for the majority of the time at least).

Now for girls it is interesting to me because straight (OUT OF THE DUNGEONS OF RAP) of the womb they are pretty much forced to interact with the boy world in every facet of their life. Firstly, all things that they consume will pretty much be in lesser quantity than the boys. And even within the little that they get exclusively targeted to them there will pretty much always be substantial male influence/characters permeating throughout the entirety to it. Shit, there are times with stories that take place in an entire female border school/university and with just a single male character he dominates the narrative. So, with parse amount they do receive they still get healthy (err…) doses of boyhood. In addition to that they’re encouraged to play with boys and consume our media alongside us. Women’s lives are intertwined with both masculinity and femininity since they are toddlers. It would seem contradictory to say that men’s lives aren’t, but we have to keep in mind that men only meet women in childhood and adolescence on their ground. No budges.

Now we get to a nigga wants to fuck stage. Fucking clueless as all hell. This may feel like a tangent, but I believe it bares mentioning. Lets sit back and think how many men actually know what a period is. Right? Right? This is one of the most basic things that can happen to women, but it is not understand by men beyond bad stand-up, terrible stereotypes on TV, and signifying that now that particular woman is able to get pregnant. I think that is one of our greatest examples of our profound ignorance of women. A simple biological necessity in order to make sure that the planet continues to have your species is barely understood beyond the most tenuous grasps of the basics. Where was I again? Okay yes, a nigga wants to fuck and we’re clueless. We’ve had zero training or preparation for this. Shit we haven’t even learned that you’re fellow fucking human beings yet! Jesus, we’re fucked. Sort of. Well not sort of, it’s a no. Women kind of just accept our ignorance because of one of our favorite phrases “boys will be boys.”

I know a positive example of a woman that are usually in boys lives in the mother. I would say it’s a good point. I would, but I won’t. Why? Well because mothers are not women to their sons. Mothers to sons barely exist on the same plain as human beings. They are God damn heavenly perfect figures. Which is why men who love their mothers (live, breathe, and die for them) can still give zero fucks about the treatment of other women in the world including how he treats women. I believe that regardless of how much a girl may love her daddy, there will almost certainly be a certain point and time in relationship when she starts seeing his as both a man and father (or even just a men who happens to be her father).

I feel like now I should answer my question prompted in the title. I honestly can’t say when because I think a significant percentage (I am neither optimistic or pessimistic right now so I would say majority or major minority) simply do not. That’s not to say these men secretly hate the women they are married to, have kids with, and stay married with their entire lives. Nope. Still love. That’s all possible. That doesn’t necessarily mean that he recognizes their humanity. It doesn’t mean he has any grasp on the totality of women as people. It’s just, I don’t know. Feels like an extremely basic thing you know?

Then again I’m still working on myself with deconstruction within my mind and my views on women aren’t always awash in completely picture perfect views of women as people. Doesn’t matter whether I fucking loved the Powerpuff Girls growing up or that I had more female friends than male friends in schooling or that most of the characters I emphasize with in film are women or that I love or 15 million other things, they are still there regardless. It’s a long process that shouldn’t be a long process. I’m still ashamed of myself for it.

Bolded for emphasis.

I wanted this back on my dashboard/tumblr. I thought of a name to describe what I’m talking about “From cooties ‘til coochie.” It is our long period when both culturally and interpersonally boys are taught to not socialize with women until they are trying to date them. It starts with not wanting to be around girls because of cooties and it ends when the aim is to get some coochie. There’s this extremely large void where boys aren’t socialized with women. They’re supposed to avoid shows, movies, music, books, and just general activities that cater to and are aimed at girls/women. Even in school with who history focuses on and how the stereotypes about girls are in science and math it is very gendered in terms of content and expectations. It is also very gendered in a great many religious institutions in the US. Additionally with the divide of boy scouts and girl scouts, sports, and childhood groups like that. The only interactions with women that boys generally may receive from women are through a caretaker relationship. It may be moms, aunts, grannies, cousins, teachers, or just family member friends at church or what not. With the exception of caretakers, if you’re only interactions with women are predicated on the idea that they are dumb, icky, and that you should do everything in your power to not want to be anything like a woman it is not surprising there are so many levels of hatred directed towards women and singular expectations towards the few women that are liked.  

I wonder if anyone has studied this in relation to boys with significantly older sisters. Because that’s a different dynamic…family, but not a mother and not quite a caretaker. My brother is seven years younger than me, so he grew up around me and my friends and playing with us as friends in all our adolescent glory. He has zero qualms about all the pictures of him in dresses and make up having tea parties with me. He used to beg me and my friends to play Barbies with us because he wanted to be included in what the “cool big kids” were doing. Of his guy friends now, he’s the only one capable of having friendships, actual non-sex expecting friendships, with girls or even of carrying on casual conversations with them. All of his guy friends are older brothers. Of course he’s still internalized a bunch of shit because yay society and media, but there’s a noticeable enough difference in the way he interacts with women that random strangers comment on it.

(via littleclaypot)