This happened two weeks ago (which I think makes it what, 156 in blog years?), but I just saw it and so I’m reposting case anyone else missed the absolutely excruciating culture collision that was the Jezebel girls appearing on Daily Show co-creator and HuffPo blogger Lizz Winstead’s Drinking and Thinking.
Ho-ly shit. Watch the videos here and then get back to me.
Now, I don’t have much patience with Winstead’s insistence that the Jezebel writers are “role models for young women everywhere,” and as such have a responsibility to act in a manner that is….. Wow, I fell asleep while typing that sentence, and had a tiny dream about pancakes.
But damn, do things get ugly. The first clip isn’t too bad; their jokes aren’t great, but I can certainly understand the temptation to make them, particularly when Winstead starts getting all sanctimonious about birth control. (It would be rad if the 3rd wave could talk to the 2nd without sounding like a bratty teenager trying to provoke her mom, but whatever, I get it. Personal to my mom: I ASKED YOU NOT TO READ BLOGTOWN. PLEASE STOP. Why can’t you trust me enough to respect my privacy?)
But Tracie’s comments about how, you know, she’s like, just too smart to get raped, really… No editorializing on those is even necessary (and damn is it hard to listen to her talk. I get the whole Kathleen Hanna/VGI aesthetic, but the word “intelligentsia” is pretty operative). It’s basically the new-media equivalent of Britney Spears getting out of a car.
I’m turning in my feminist card. I don’t like any of you people any more. (Does this mean I can’t read Fine Lines anymore? But it’s Friday…)
I wasted way too much time at work this week reading the comments posted on Jezebel about this drama, and now it’s in Blogtown? More Abbygail!!
But really – Tracie should apologize for making a bad name for boozy feminists. It was disgraceful.
i like their honesty. and i don’t like how winstead is trying to shame them.
“too smart to get raped” was not a high moment in realism. but getting naked only with men who respect women as human beings (rather than as fuck things) is a smart thing to do and i bet it does reduce one’s chances of rape. that’s something i learned the hard way, and i think feminists would do well to teach it to young women.
apparently tracie was too drunk to defend that statement very well. and winstead has taken advantage of that…
yes, can i have the respectful rapist, please? i wasn’t aware rape includes that much choice…
while i agree that it IS a smart thing to only sleep with a guy who respects you, this point has nothing to do with rape in the slightest.
being smart about where you go late at night, or even in daylight, who you’re with, how much you drink, making sure you have a ride home with someone you trust, taking self-defence classes are all ways to reduce your risk of rape, but what it comes down to is simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. that is all. it’s not about “don’t wear short skirts or date a frat guy”.
i also was sad and mad about this whole interview – how smart is “pulling out always worked for me”? great job of educating women on an easy way to get stds and unwanted pregnancies. way to make it cool to not use condoms. ugh.
feminism 2.0? i want my money back.
re-visiting months later. liz, the way you interpreted my comment suggests you think all sex with men is rape. in a patriarchy, yeah probably kinda. but sometimes a woman wants sex, even if it’s impossible to disentangle what she wants from what the patriarchy wants her to “want”.
or maybe you just deliberately misunderstood me to make it sound like i was encouraging a respectful rapists instead of respectful sex partners. i was very obviously not saying feminists should encourage young women to get respectfully raped.
or maybe you are stupid. i was saying, if that is the case and i just need to repeat myself in a larger number of smaller words, that you should only get naked with a man who will stop when you say “no.” and in my experience, sadly, frat boys are indeed not men who listen. beware frat boys.