Irony

Being in a small, southern town, I sometimes am a bit behind when it comes to learning of the scandalous news stories. I read the NY Times when I can, I read several blogs . . . some feminist, others for pure fun. I've seen the site Jezebel . . . but was off put by the sordid sex details.

So, today, I see in a blog I read that there has been quite the uproar over two of the Jezebel writers who made a drunken appearance on Lizz Winstead's show "Thinking and Drinking."

I've always liked Lizz Winstead . . . she is smart and funny and I'm willing to believe her version of the events. You can see her reaction to the show and clips from the show here.

The women ramble on about the issue of rape. I think they went off the rails by over personalizing rather than speaking about the issue. One woman, who is a self proclaimed "slut" says that she has never been raped. But, I suspect that she is really declaring that she has never had an experience that she felt terrified her sufficiently to define it as rape. I found her statement that she may have never been raped because she's "smart" particularly offensive. The other woman talks of her own rape experiences . . . she is obviously saddened by the stories, but then trivializes them by saying that she didn't want the hassle of reporting the rapist and she had important things like drinking to do.

This became the topic of conversation in our office. I believe the consensus was that as women who make their livelihood from writing about feminist issues, they do, indeed, have a responsibility to choose their words more carefully. The two dangers I see in their attitudes are a) that a victim viewing this will feel even more shamed by their cavalier attitudes and be even less inclined to seek comfort and support and b) they give fuel to the people who think that rape is exaggerated and that women are just whining when it's really not so bad.

We also came to the conclusion that we don't embrace the brand of feminism that seems to say "if you can't fix it, join it." I have seen young women behave in ways that can only be described as mimicking what they imagine to be men's behavior. They shut down their own sense of boundaries, and seem to believe that being a "slut" is an expression of their feminism. I'm all for people choosing the lifestyle they believe fulfills them as people . . . but too often I see the young women continue to be unhappy with their relationships and themselves. Living a sexually "open" lifestyle takes work and a very highly developed sense of boundaries. Acting as if you should be sexually available to anyone without regard for your own wants, needs, and feelings isn't choosing a lifestyle . . . it's giving up.

But, back to the Jezebel women . . . one of the young women who was in the audience wrote about the performance and her disappointment in her "feminist heroes" in her personal blog. One of the Jezebel women left a comment on her blog, and the young woman backed down in her criticism. Their excuse for their socially irresponsible behavior? They were drunk.