For the past two days, since returning from a lovely trip to Chicago, I have been trying to figure out why there is so much outrage about the pie ad. I know, I know, there have been a million diaries about this already, but I actually think (hope) that I can say something that hasn't been said yet, and I'm also trying to address some of the issues behind it.
First, let me say that I am a woman....
I was raised by a father who made me feel that the only difference between me and a man was the way the tubing was arranged between our legs. I went for twelve years without seeing or talking to my real mother, and about ten of those years I was a major tomboy. I've had three stepmothers, two of whom I still look up to, and very strong females that I have always idolized in my father's side of the family. So the differences between men and women and the ways they are treated have always intrigued me.
I took a class called Gender Across Culture this spring. I was so fascinated by it, my husband even asked me if I was sure I didn't want to change my major from Anthropology to Women's Studies. Part of the homework was to keep a diary of all things related to gender that I saw or experienced during the semester. Six of the seven books (yeah, my professor went a little overboard) that we read were focused on women, but the seventh probably taught me the most; it was "The Male Body" by Susan Bordo, which I have to recommend to everyone interested in gender studies.
The gender diary was incredibly informative. It made me pay even more attention to the way people react to me because of being a woman. And, to mention ads for a minute, it made me realize that almost every single ad I ever saw was based on gender stereotypes of one sex or the other. But the most interesting part was asking my extremely progressive, not-macho-in-the-least husband about some of the things I wrote down.
For instance, we work together running a cardboard compacter. I had written in my diary that it seemed like he was always the one to run the compacter, as if pushing a button on a big machine was not something that a woman should (or could) do. But when I asked my husband about it, he just looked at me like I was nuts and said, "I just usually get to it first." The way the space is arranged, one of us stands on the side where the buttons are while the other stands on the other side while we throw in mounds of cardboard. We don't have the room to change positions. I realized then that it was me who had done the gender stereotyping, thinking that my husband would feel like I couldn't run a big machine because I'm female. For example, he was excited when I wanted to help build our nieces playhouse because he didn't want to do it, and he's perfectly happy with me being the ambitious, career-oriented one. So my assumption had been based not on my two and a half years of knowledge of him, but simply on the fact that he had a different instrument between his legs.
I've been guilty of that in other places as well. I once told someone here that he couldn't understand the issue of abortion because he was male. Just as with race, a history of oppression does not mean the oppressed should be allowed to stereotype back.
So in a sense, I am one of the people that Kos was referring to. But I didn't care. You know why? I don't care what he thinks.
That's right. I could care less if Kos thinks I'm a raving lunatic for seeing gender issues where he doesn't see them (though I am willing to bet that he sees a lot of them and simply doesn't comment on them because he is focused on other issues). It's just like I don't give a fuck if people point out any of my many flaws. I know they're there; I'm either striving to improve that aspect or willing to accept it for the time being, and plus, it isn't personal. It can't be personal. If my husband says I see too much sexism where there isn't any, I get insulted, but if a distant entity who just happens to run the site I'm posting on says something vague and vaguely insulting about people who point out sexism, I'm not going to worry about it.
Finally, I'm getting tired of people saying that Daily Kos is "losing smart, strong women" over this stupid pie fight. You aren't losing me. And I am smart and strong. If I had actually been offended over this whole thing, I would stick around just to fight it. Going down with a whimper is not what a strong woman does, and I am both surprised and saddened by the fact that so many wonderful women have chosen to take that route. The smart, strong women, whether they were offended by the ad or not, are the ones who are sticking around to fight, or merely taking a break to catch their breath, not the ones who threw tantrums that they couldn't get their way. If you want to be seen as strong, you have to stand up and fight back. And if you want to be seen as smart, you have to know when to fight and how to make your battles effective.