"Poisonous tone and attitude." POISONOUS TONE AND ATTITUDE???!!!???

So, would you like to expand on that phrase, @vil? And perhaps read crushbug's comment above?

Because here is what I hear -- not that you are saying this, but it is what I hear:

Angry women are off-putting. Women with sarcastic voices are off-putting. Women who dare to be anything but sweet and compliant are off-putting.

Men are not "policed" this way. They are allowed a wide range of attitudes in the way they present information. Of course, they CAN be "poisonous" -- but I guarantee you no man's delivery this mild would be labelled "poisonous."

There is a "thing" called "vocal fry" that some women (and gay men) have that pitches their voices high (to be simplistic in its description.) There has been reams written about it. I assumed that most of the comments here were related to vocal fry.

Your comment here is not about vocal fry. Or if it is, wow. What words to use to describe it. Ouch.

So can you use different words to explain what you mean? If I am not understanding you?

As for "word counts not mattering" -- that is categorically not true.

I have been talking about this for forty years and have thought about it deeply, in a logical manner, trying to find the vocabulary to discuss it. I think I have succeeded, and it applies to black people, especially black men, as well as women, both black and white. Here it comes.

Words have values. Words with similar values are interchangeable with gender usage. Words that don't have similar values are sexist and racist. (Even if women do it to themselves, they are indeed engaging in internalized sexism.) If you can take a sentence with the word "girl" being used, and change the gender to male, would you ever -- in that specific situation -- use the word "boy"? If you would, go for it.

And here is where the "word count" matters. Because there are more women than there are men, and yet the word count proves that in the same situation, the word girl is used a lot more. Even if you take out the gymnasts, who are indeed less than 19.

I never say "never use the word girl." Because sometimes, in the same situation, you would indeed use the word "boy."

Let me give you an example.

Old Boys Network. Very powerful men, on the same social and power level, call themselves "boys." Leads to Boys Night Out -- same social and power level.

So can you say Girls Night Out without it being an infantilzation? Absolutely.

Can black people call themselves the n-word? Sure. Same social and power levels. A white person calling a black person the n-word? Nope, nope, nope, nope. Different social and power levels.

This will only make sense to older people, since it doesn't happen as much as it used to. Calling a black man "boy." A grown man. With a job and a family and dignity. Can a white person employing a black man call him "boy"? No. No they cannot.

When is a man over the age of 20 or so called a boy? Very very rarely. Young man, sure. But rarely "boy."

Yet when it comes to women, they are called girls until they die. And they do it to themselves, to make themselves smaller and less threatening.

So. Poisonous. Tell me what you meant, please? Keeping in mind the idea that "threatening" women need to stay in their place?

Not all cultures denigrate women's ability to do things. @radx told me that in Germany, this whole thing is a non-issue, since women are perceived as being strong.

So it depends on the culture, yeah? Yes, maybe men have always insulted each other ( that is an assumption, unless you have prehistoric records -- ha!) during competition by calling them weak.

Not all cultures call men weak by saying that they are like girls.

So we are back to this insults girls and can inhibit their social growth.

Because not only are you calling men weak, you are calling girls weak.

Does that make sense?

@bareboards2

One of the things that I dislike the most about the Sift are the numerous times that words and intentions are put into my mouth that are utterly absent in what I actually say.
I have repeatedly said "unconscious" sexism. And I have applied that phrase to both men and women.
But suddenly I am being painted as some hysteric who is lashing out at the big bad men who have hurt me so bad by their big bad sexism.

Because you have a history of doing just that. I can think of at least 2 other times when I've seen you, and called you out for, attacking other people and then trying to play the victim. I don't need to wait for the end of the song to say, "That's Yankee-Doodle Dandy"; I can name that tune in 7 notes.

This entire culture is sexist. Anyone who has spent more than five minutes looking around them will agree with that statement. [...] Spend one day -- one day -- listening to how often women are called girls. Substitute the word "woman" if she is more than 18 years old, and see how that shifts your internal landscape. Spend one day -- one day -- substituting the word "boy" every time you hear the word "man" and see if it doesn't squeege you out.

I agree that sexism permeates not only our culture, but probably human nature. It's the sort of thing that we all need to constantly work on, but probably not something that will ever completely go away.

I became aware of the belittling use of "girl" about 20 years ago as a teenage comic book geek. If you go back to the golden and silver age, you see it a lot, but it's present more recently too: Superman and Supergirl, Batman and Batgirl, Invisible Girl, Marvel Girl. A lot of them who are still published have been renamed (Invisible Girl is now Invisible Woman and Marvel Girl goes by her "real" name, Jean Grey).

But that doesn't mean "girl" is always belittling. Neither is "boy". Often, it's just casual. If I go hiking with my friend and his wife says, "Where are you boys headed today?", nobody cares. It's casual conversation with familiar people. If someone calls me a boy the first time we meet, I might find them a little arrogant or obnoxious.

You can call this trolling if you want to. I call it my little attempt at education.

If that's your goal then I might suggest you rethink your approach. You are putting people off with your approach. Unfortunately, you've got a reputation to overcome as well, so you will have to be extra careful with your words around here if you want to get them heard.

In the case of this video, I don't think it particularly matters if "girls" was used in a belittling manner by the speakers (consciously or subconsciously) because the subjects of the story deserve to be belittled for how they behaved. I don't care if they want to call them "dumb bitches", something I normally find very distasteful, because they earned that shit.

Find me a case of someone calling a respectable, responsible, mature woman a girl or a bitch and I've got your back.

One of the things that I dislike the most about the Sift are the numerous times that words and intentions are put into my mouth that are utterly absent in what I actually say.

I have repeatedly said "unconscious" sexism. And I have applied that phrase to both men and women.

But suddenly I am being painted as some hysteric who is lashing out at the big bad men who have hurt me so bad by their big bad sexism.

This entire culture is sexist. Anyone who has spent more than five minutes looking around them will agree with that statement.

If that feels like an assault to you, rather than a statement of fact, I would ask you to look inside and ask yourself why you are so defensive about a statement of fact.

I'll repeat what I said before -- do you really think you know absolutely everything about everything and have nothing to learn? Spend one day -- one day -- listening to how often women are called girls. Substitute the word "woman" if she is more than 18 years old, and see how that shifts your internal landscape. Spend one day -- one day -- substituting the word "boy" every time you hear the word "man" and see if it doesn't squeege you out.

You can call this trolling if you want to. I call it my little attempt at education.

I also know that it is pretty fruitless. Like I said before, I first started having this conversation FORTY YEARS AGO, and after some headway in early days, it is now worse than ever.

I am grateful for the strides women have made in the past sixty years. I am aware that, although there may be cultures where women have been heads of state (India, Pakistan) where America can't quite bring herself to do it -- still and all, American women have many more rights than those other cultures.

I am grateful that young women today are so blase about their own sense of equality that they blithely minimize themselves with their language. They don't know what it was like forty years ago -- there were authors and authoresses when I was growing up. Poets and Poetesses. Now there are authors and poets. That is so cool, I can't hardly stand it.


>> ^xxovercastxx:

Context matters.
Calling a grown woman "girl" at the workplace is probably out of line. Calling a few racist, drunk hipsters "girls" seems rather appropriate. If you are immature enough to shout racist remarks at strangers, you are immature enough to be justifiably called "girl". Is there such a thing as a mature hipster? I'm inclined to say no.
I voted for the video because I enjoyed it but your trolling makes me want to vote against. Worse still, you've made me agree with @Yogi.
As for knowing Sifters and their personalities, try this... As you read the responses attacking your statements, you're dismissing them as the opinions of sexist men (boys?), the products of a blatantly sexist world. You might also be thinking that if you've done or said anything wrong, it's because you're damaged from decades of sexism and thus your mistakes are our fault anyway.
How'd I do?

>> ^xxovercastxx:

Context matters.
Calling a grown woman "girl" at the workplace is probably out of line. Calling a few racist, drunk hipsters "girls" seems rather appropriate. If you are immature enough to shout racist remarks at strangers, you are immature enough to be justifiably called "girl". Is there such a thing as a mature hipster? I'm inclined to say no.
I voted for the video because I enjoyed it but your trolling makes me want to vote against. Worse still, you've made me agree with @Yogi.
As for knowing Sifters and their personalities, try this... As you read the responses attacking your statements, you're dismissing them as the opinions of sexist men (boys?), the products of a blatantly sexist world. You might also be thinking that if you've done or said anything wrong, it's because you're damaged from decades of sexism and thus your mistakes are our fault anyway.
How'd I do?


I'd upvote this twice if I could.

I'm guessing that 70 or 80% of my posts on the sift include the words "Context matters". For the record, my wife, who is an awesome, strong, independent woman who is one of the most senior people in her company, refers to herself and her friends as the "girls"*. @bareboards2, if you told her that she's "undercutting herself", she would laugh and tell you she does not need you to fight her battles for her. It's just a colloquialism.

In a totally different context, she will often refer to a young person who does something stupid as a "silly boy/girl". It's not sexist, it's meant as a remark on their maturity. The term perfectly describes these stupid women.

Even racism has context. Ask Reginald D Hunter. Calling someone a "drunk paddy bastard" is a racist slur against the Irish (not that anyone ever seems to care), but from the context here, it's clear it's meant affectionately.

Again, context.

* oh and me and my friends are "you and the boys/lads/muppets" depending on how much trouble I'm in.

Context matters.

Calling a grown woman "girl" at the workplace is probably out of line. Calling a few racist, drunk hipsters "girls" seems rather appropriate. If you are immature enough to shout racist remarks at strangers, you are immature enough to be justifiably called "girl". Is there such a thing as a mature hipster? I'm inclined to say no.

I voted for the video because I enjoyed it but your trolling makes me want to vote against. Worse still, you've made me agree with @Yogi.

As for knowing Sifters and their personalities, try this... As you read the responses attacking your statements, you're dismissing them as the opinions of sexist men (boys?), the products of a blatantly sexist world. You might also be thinking that if you've done or said anything wrong, it's because you're damaged from decades of sexism and thus your mistakes are our fault anyway.

How'd I do?

How about talented woman? (Sorry, couldn't resist -- I still mourn that grown women are called girls.)

Having said that, I must say that I rather liked the "cute" label. I know, I know, call me inconsistent. But when vid after vid after vid fawn over gorgeous women, with long and lingering camera shots over body parts, it gets pretty oppressive feeling if you are just ... normal. So this young woman who is healthy and talented and charming gets a label of "cute"? It was a relief.

And yeah, it sucks, too.

>> ^brycewi19:

You had to cheapen the performance by labeling her as a "cute girl".
How about "talented girl"?

Hmmm....

Now, is this actually a nasty troll against women?

Kind of. Sort of. Not really, but kinda sorta.

I shall write a little essay on the relative value of words, to explain.

I was in my late teens when the Feminist Movement of the seventies was getting going. This was a time of women reclaiming language.

Women were described as "Miss or Mrs". Men were "Mr", with no designation as to their marital status. Just "Mr". So women came up with "Ms". No indication of marital status. The word was chosen to have an equal "value" to Mr.

We were also struggling with being called "girl" rather than "woman."

I got into many conversations, trying to convince folks that calling a grown woman a "girl" is very insulting. I heard many different reasons why it is okay to call a woman that, and I eventually figured out a logical response to each of those reasons.

It came down to a simple test.

Say something about a woman, calling her a "girl". Now change the gender -- would you say the same thing about man and be able to use the word "boy"? Or does it sound completely insulting to call a man a boy in that situation?

Example:

"I'll have my girl get back to you on that" when meaning your 51-year-old support staff person. Would you say "I'll have my boy get back to you on that." Think you would do it? How about if your support staff person is a black man? Now try it. Really drawl out that "boy", Southern it up big time.

NO. FUCKING. WAY.

If you would not call a black man a "boy", you got no business calling a grown woman a "girl."

It's okay to use girl sometimes, just as it is okay to use boy. "Boys' Night Out." "Girls' Night Out." Equal value phrases. No problem with "girl" if you can substitute "boy" and not feel weird.

So here we have rottenseed's eloquence.

"tits cunts cocks balls"

Nicely balanced, two sexual characteristics for each gender. They aren't the same area of the body, but that is just a reflection of the realities of anatomy. Our stuff is top and bottom, men have their stuff in the same place.

The only thing that sits badly is the word "cunt." That word doesn't have a male equivalent in rottenseed's attempt to be balanced. A truly balanced word would have been something like vay jay jay, or even @Lann's cooter. Cooter is a sweet term.

The word "cunt" has been used too long and too often as a pejorative to dismiss an entire woman as being just a body part, to shame her, to silence her, to reduce her to irrelevance. It wasn't that long ago that you wouldn't even hear or see the word -- it was spelled down to C-Word, and everyone knew what horrible thing had been said. Can't say that is true with the words "cocks" and "balls."

So "cunt" doesn't have a matched value word on the male side of this triumph of eloquence.

Women are starting to reclaim the word "cunt" for themselves, just as Eve Ensler made it okay to say vagina. I know you younger folks might be surprised to know this, but it wasn't that long ago NO ONE EVER said vagina. Penis was okay, but the word vagina was whispered and suggested and disguised (Lann's cooter, for example, it was always referred to with cute nicknames.) That was the beauty of Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues. She set out to make vagina have the same "value" as penis, and she succeeded, brilliantly.

We haven't managed to reclaim "cunt" yet, but we are sneaking up on it.

So. To maintain the word value balance, just as I have been doing since 1970, I shall edit rottenseed's mature and eloquent tone poem to:

tits cooters cocks balls

TL DR: tits cooters cocks balls



>> ^rottenseed:

tits cunts cocks balls

Hasen't choggie always been true to Jon Stewart's old hatte, his hackneyd, coke-addled writers, and the punks that sift his sheit more than a baker sifts buckwheat??
For once I'd like to see dingbats play follow the leader, down voting a comment because they are insulted, insolent, or simply twits....er, I mean DUMBASSES!!! And look, it's all the friends and fanlies!!

oh, and an edit here.....laura told me that the hookers in Brazil are naturally beautiful, with no need for make-up, and I told her this:
I would have no idea what Brazilian call-girls walked with-I would assume it is as it is anywhere, the classier the more expensive-I insulted the profession using it to describe Jon Stewart though, I apologize to the hookers of Brazil....

"One of the few Democrats with balls"...being caressed by the supreme flake red-hoyden expatriate call girl??...yeah, Denny's having his, mid-post life causal excursion experience-let's all ride with him and drop a few coins in his holiness' hands.......

Rugil, I'm lost.
And Fdisk - if the over use of the word 'dude' means your gay, and that word is only used on guys, then one could calculate that calling girls 'dude' means you're just that much more gay, because you subliminally want them to be men. It's ok, though. May I suggest that you start your new journey through life here?

Is there a Call Girl Barbie yet? And for the sake of cautionary education they should also put out a Crack Whore Barbie. "Remember girlz, just say no to drugs! Unless they keep you thin, that is!"

Bill Clinton spent trillions of taxpayer dollars on call-girls, he's responsible for our debt

wonder if the ghost of Haus Cartwright is there.....and those call girls he dismembered....

It's also possible Lockheed just had better call girls for the Pentagon brass.

Either way, sweet ride. Probably the last one humans will fly.