Sunday
Feb222009
The Lamentations of Our Women
I’ve recently been introduced to a concept called “intersectionality” which is when various racial, sexual, and cultural factors play a role in discriminating against someone. So, instead of deciding whether something is simply sexist or racist, it is possible to consider it as a more complicated intersection of sexism and racism.
The Washington Post recently apologized in advance for this cartoon and the accompanying article. Jesus motherfucking Christ.
Sun., Feb. 22, 2009
Reader Comments (8)
Gene Weingarten is a comedic writer.
Is this supposed to be something to find upsetting? It's comedy. The conversations are either fictional or the interviewee knows that the whole thing is a joke.
I'm female, and this was not offensive to me.
I'm not understanding the sexism here, unless you're speculating that the "scientists" who did the study purposely rigged the machinery to show more arousal in women than in men so that they could suggest that women are more easily and more variously aroused that the popular imagination supposes. Is that the point?
And... I expect I could search all day through this article with a magnifying glass and not find the slightest reference to race. Could you elaborate your theory of intersectionality by fleshing out your reaction to this cartoon & article?
Focusing on the cartoon, it bears a striking resemblance to a particular kind of image. Two things:
1.) Woman being carried off (and enjoying it).
2.) Woman being carried off by an ape (or ape-as-man).
Images like this have a history whether we want to be aware of it or not. Perhaps the resemblance is unintentional, I don't care. I see something like this, and the parallels are there. I'm not a particularly sensitive dude, but I look at this image and it is familiar.
It's not that you can't ever draw pictures of apes. It's that apes-as-people have a very peculiar way of popping up in pictures that depict black people attacking helpless women. Nothing is created in a vacuum, nothing is disconnected from history.
If you can read it without vomiting, this discussion over at Stormfront (where nuanced discussions of race are clearly the raison d'etre) cuts right to the heart of the matter.
As for the article, you can say it's satire, I won't argue, but its depiction of a "feminist scholar" doesn't sound like anybody I know, and I know a lot of feminist scholars. It sounds like what men in the 1920's thought feminists sounded like. Hilarious.
It's depicting an ape as an ape- the article says women were found to be aroused by apes.
I'm familiar with the study, my concern is with the cartoon and the article about the study. The study didn't say anything about women wanting to have sex with apes, just that scenes of apes having sex produced physical symptoms of arousal, an arousal which the women denied experiencing in their questionnaires. Whether that counts as being "aroused by apes" is for the philosophers.
The cartoon and the article interpret the study, and for me, they do so in two very predictable ways: "Women are liable to be 'carried away' by their passions," and "Bestial figures are a threat our monopoly on women."
I agree with you about the history of images. This is similar to the dynamic of "codeword" language. "I'm not advocating slavery, I'm advocating states' rights." One cannot separate the history from the now; being unaware of the history (or ignoring it) doesn't change the meaning or the intent.
Suggesting that we "get over" history is a common argument; most of the time it suggests that blacks "get over" slavery. That's good advice, but coming from people who are still fighting the civil war it's a bit disingenuous.
I'm not saying "get over" slavery- I'm saying that in context, the cartoon and article aren't racist. I doubt they were meant to be racist, either.
In addition to this thought, I must say that The Washington Post isn't all that conservative, and generally has very careful editors.
I just think that assuming this is sexism and racism is going a little overboard.
It is sexist, though. And that's nothing new for Weingarten, who is rarely funny, imo.