Photo by Flickr user BostonBill. Used under a Creative Commons license.
Via Bad Man’sTumbler post about a get-a-clue-NiceGuy™ rant I just (finally?) stumbled across Heartless Bitches International. I haven’t read enough of to endorse it out of hand but it looks pretty interesting.
From their intro page
Despite the statements of some of our more Bitter Heartless Bitches, Heartless Bitches International is NOT about Man-Hating. We don’t discriminate against stupidity, arrogance, irresponsibility, bloated egos, or immaturity on the basis of gender.
Has HBI got you all hot under the collar? Before you run off in a snit, ready to send email detailing the extent of your ire, look up the words “irony”, “satire” and “caricature” in the dictionary..
Which is a long way of getting around to a question that kept popping into my brain during my mostly-delightful, snow-induced hiatus:
You know that old “male bashing” line “If we can send one man to the moon, why can’t we send them all?” It’s usually associated with feminism but… I dunno… the more I think about it the more it seems like the kind of “Sex in the City” style anti-feminism that masks passive-aggressive resignation behind “perkiness.”
Submitted by 2597 (not verified) on Wed, 2008-12-31 14:26.
Oooh! Anyone who slams both Kenny G and Bon Jovi within the first few lines has got my full attention.
Do you remember the "BITCH Manifesto"? It's the one totally in-your-face radical feminist piece that my theory students seemed to really enjoy last term. They loved the attitude - and the fact that it didn't demonize men, only a specific kind of fluffy femininity.
That particular group liked me a lot, too, so maybe I'd better not pursue this line of thought too far. :-) Or does the use of smileys automatically disqualify one from bitchhood?
[I know. I was kind of put off at first (I really *hate* the word "bitch") and am completely uninspired by attempts to "redefine" derogatory words. (I think the effort is *way* better spent redefining... expanding really... words like "normal" and "grown up" so they better match reality.) But yeah, once I get past some of the trigger words there's some deep, cool fuck-you-and-your-kid-gloves stuff in there. So my take on using smileys? Fine if used as intended (to clarify that a preceding line was meant as dry humor) and not so great if used to indicate insecurity, passive/aggression, or (in women maybe?) resignation-disguising "perkiness." Thanks, Sungold. And by the way, Happy impending New Year. --fl]